circus maximus

 

In the summer of 64 CE, a great fire broke out in the cramped streets surrounding the Circus Maximus. The Circus Maximus was the largest venue in Rome for public games — the Colosseum was yet to be built — home to chariot racing, athletics, gladiator fights, and beast hunts (where artificial forests were created and wild beasts imported, the most popular being the ferocious lion). The great fire would destroy three-quarters of Rome.

The rumour rapidly spread that the fire had been set at the command of the emperor Nero — a populist, despised by the ruling class but popular with those who had no political voice — to clear ground to build a big, beautiful Golden Palace. That Nero was away from Rome, at his private villa, when the fire occurred, along with the speed with which he had his new palace constructed, only added fuel to the flames. Needing to deflect the heat, Nero pinned the blame on the city’s Christians. Perhaps a thousand were put to death, including Paul, who had come to Rome some two years earlier having claimed the right to defend himself against false claims of inciting an insurrection before no lesser court than the imperial tribunal.

Knowing that he would soon meet his death, Paul writes two letters to Timothy. It is possible that the great fire had already occurred by the time he wrote a second, and final, time — we cannot know for sure, but in any case, the imagery of the Circus Maximus is clearly on Paul’s mind, from the libation that marked the opening ceremony of an athletic games, to the gladiatorial fight, the athletic discipline of the foot race, the victor’s wreath, and the triumph of the bestiarius (hunter) over the lion.

(Very boldly, if this timescale is correct — and we know that Paul believes his death will be imminent, and we know that it was part of the scapegoating of Christians following the great fire — Paul has already told Timothy to ‘fan into flame’ the gift of God that is within him through the laying on of Paul’s hands, 2 Timothy 1.6.)

Reflections:

We are called to pour out our lives as a sign and symbol of the peace treaty between God and humanity that is established in and by Jesus.

Faith is something we wrestle with, not the absence of struggle. Some days we experience relationships, some days despair.

We are acceptable to God not on the basis of our own merit, but on the merit of Jesus.

We still get scared and run away, just as Paul’s supporters did, just as Jesus’ apprentices had done. But — as Paul prayed that it would not be held against them, and as Jesus restored Peter after Peter had denied knowing him — we can experience forgiveness, and redemption, the transformation of bad circumstances for the greater or common good.

Death is not a tragedy, but an adventure, a new journey (and in some sense, a journey home).

2 Timothy 4.6-8, 16-18

‘As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

‘At my first defence no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.’

 

analysis

 

On Sundays at the moment, we are reading extracts from letters from St Paul, writing at the end of his life, to Timothy, whom he has mentored over more than a decade. Paul is in prison in Rome, awaiting trial, and will eventually be executed (according to tradition, on the same day as St Peter) as part of the Neronian persecution of the Christian community in Rome, whom Nero made scapegoats responsible for starting the great fire that devastated Rome in 64 CE. He does not know when he will be executed but is aware that it will be soon; and the two letters he writes to Timothy express what he most wants Timothy to hold onto.

Paul writes, ‘As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.’

(2 Timothy 4.6)

A libation is a drink offering made to a god or gods, probably the most common daily form of offering. One might pour water into a bowl or onto the ground as a libation on waking, and libations were made before every meal. Whenever wine was drunk, first a libation would be poured from a jug into a small bowl, before the rest of the wine in the jug was consumed. There are frescos depicting libations being made at weddings, and in the Roman tradition a libation was also made at funerals: indeed, if you had no one to take care of your funeral arrangements, and so the state took on that responsibility, the libation may have been the only part of funeral observances to be fulfilled — an interesting observation given that Paul feels abandoned by those who should have supported him.

But where a libation is described in the middle voice (a voice that combines aspects of both the active and passive voices, to describe something you do that changes you in the doing) — as can be read here (though my English translation opts for the passive voice) — a libation refers to a formal and binding peace treaty. Specifically, it related to a peace treaty contracted between city states at the opening of an Olympic, Corinthian, or other athletic games. Paul underlines this meaning by claiming to have struggled the beautiful struggle and run the foot race — direct allusions to events the athletes competed in — and that he now awaits being presented with the wreath crown worn by athletes who won their events.

Paul’s life has been lived (at least, since his conversion) as a peace treaty between the God of the Jewish people and the Gentile nations: as a declaration that all who confess that Jesus is Lord — regardless of their ethnicity — will be welcomed by the God of his own ancestors.

Who or what are you pouring your life into? And how are you being changed in the process?

Paul goes on to speak of his impending departure. The word for departure is analysis, that is, the loosening of ropes holding a ship to the dock, or the loosening of elements (of e.g. a life) so as to understand how they work together.

Jo and I have spent the last week in Rome, celebrating our wedding anniversary. We flew home yesterday. We boarded the plane, and then we waited. We knew that our departure would be taking place soon, but we did not know exactly when it would be. There was a shortage of ground crew to load cases into the hold, and then to uncouple the sky bridge from the cabin doors. We could not depart until this ‘analysis’ had been completed. We missed our take-off slot, and, in the end, we took off forty-five minutes after our departure had been scheduled. Nonetheless, it was only a matter of fairly imminent time.

Paul writes of his departure time, or, the final analysis of his life. And the final analysis is that he has lived — and would soon die — trusting not in his own merit, but on the work of Jesus, whom, he believed, God had appointed as judge over the nations of the Greco-Roman world. Whether Paul was right or not is a different matter, but of this he was convinced — and many others with him.

And so for Paul death is not a tragic end, but a new chapter, a glorious transformation of what has been into something more than the world can offer.

Death comes to us all, or rather, we come to death. What would the final analysis of your life be? What has already been loosened — those things we no longer need to hold tightly to, for fear of the voyage ahead — and what is (perhaps entirely appropriately) ‘keeping us here’ for now? How might we make the most of the time we have left before our own departure?

2 Timothy 4.6-8, 16-18

‘As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

‘At my first defence no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.’

 

mast year

 

Every several years, certain fruit or nut trees produce a harvest that is exceptional in both quantity and quality. These are known as mast years. 2025 appears to be a mast year for acorns, and apples.

No one knows exactly why this happens. There are various theories, and it may be that the phenomenon is the result of several factors combining. Climate may be a factor. Another theory sees mast years as a mechanism for survival: producing seeds is costly, and many are eaten by animals — for example, wild pigs like to eat acorns — so there is advantage in reserving energy for bumper crops every so often, which are more abundant than the prey can consume.

I believe that the physical and spiritual are entwined, and that the physical can be an expression of the spiritual. We are seeing an unusual number of people exploring Christian faith for the first time or the first time in a long time, and this seems to be replicated across the UK and across other western contexts that have not been especially open to such things for some time. It interests me that this coincides with a mast year.

Why would we see a mast year in people coming to faith? Perhaps climate plays a factor. Perhaps a materialistic worldview is increasingly ‘dry’ for more and more people, experiencing a new awareness of thirst for spiritual things. Undoubtedly, successive generations are needed for a particular faith, or other worldview, to survive, and Jesus’ parable of a sower sowing seed points out the many reasons why converts might give up. Mast years might be a good way of ensuring the faith is passed from generation to generation. Certainly, large numbers new-to-the-faith at the same time is exciting, yes, but also demands a lot of energy. It is not necessarily sustainable. Mast years with quieter years between them might be a more viable pattern, over the long term.

Anyway, all this to say, 2025 might just be a mast year, in the physical sense and the spiritual sense. I am praying that we would not only see an increase in people coming to faith, but that they would be a cohort of exceptional quality, not just quantity. That this year’s seeds might, in time, grow into what the ancient Jewish prophet Isaiah called oaks of righteousness, keystone species in the ecology of their community, providing a viable habitat for many others.