Saturday, December 31, 2016
The Christian Church Is The Only Army That...
If you've been in church circles long enough, you know how this line ends.
The phrase came up yesterday in a conversation I had with a friend. He'd recently been shown the door, professionally speaking, and is now out of work. He had been working for a Christian non-profit organization, but the circumstances surrounding his departure were quite ugly. Being a close friend, I might fairly be deemed biased, but anyone with eyes to see knows where the real problem lies.
This friend is the just the most recent in a very long line of difficult departures. The entire leadership has moved on over the past five years. The CEO has been ensconced in his role for decades, but no one who works directly for the man ever lasts anywhere like as long.
The Christian Church is the only army that shoots its wounded.
Yeah, that was the phrase that came to my friend's mind, but as soon as the words left his lips I blurted out, "True, but I've got it one better for you!"
The Christian Church is the only army that allows the wounded to shoot the healthy.
Yes, that is much closer to the mark. My friend is spiritually healthy, as were many of his former colleagues. But they're all gone. It's the sick-puppy CEO who continues to resolutely steer the ship. He'll ride it right to the bottom if the board lets him. So far there's no sign that they won't.
My friend and I have both been here before. On the last pass we were in it together, part of a group of healthy families who were collectively ejected from a dying church we had hoped would revive. It did not. The dynamic is tiresomely predictable. In almost every church situation where I have found myself needing to do so, I find after inspection that the entire group of people tasked with a leader's oversight are themselves hand-picked by that same sick puppy. Be it a vestry or a board of directors, the results are usually the same when conflicts arise. The overseers fall in line behind the sick puppy. The organization (if indeed it survives at all) emerges from the storm a very much weakened vessel.
But I think something else needs to be said: We have been too hard on the church in all of this. Waaaaaaaay too hard. I've seen the exact same sick dynamics in the working world. I don't think there's anything particularly unique to the church in all of this. This stuff is what happens when humans are involved.
All those platitudes about shooting the wounded? They are well suited to describe precisely some churches and some organizations. The church I now attend does not shoot its wounded. Our pastor is a good man. As for the board? I submit that churches with healthy elders don't generally have to deal with sick-puppy pastors—because they don't hire them. That has been the case with our church, so kudos to our elders as well.
And yet. And yet we have these phrases about shooting the wounded. Why? Because we believe we were supposed to "do it better". But while our failures are a cause for sorrow both for God and mankind, it is only we humans who are surprised by our failures. God is not. Jesus clearly had no illusions that his followers were going to achieve perfection. Two scripture passages come to mind.
John 2:23-25
Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.
Takeaway? Jesus can be trusted. The rest of us? Not so much. Myself included. In Jesus' absence we must appoint leaders. But along with Jesus we should not trust them blindly, as too many vestries and boards have done. My friend is now out of work and a Christian organization has lost a good manager. Because of a sick-puppy CEO and a blind board.*
A final thought. I have essentially equated church dysfunction with secular dysfunction, but it must be noted that Jesus himself was not as generous.
Luke 16:8b
"For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light."
Maybe we really are the only army that...
-------------------------
* Actually, one board member was not blind. She resigned in protest. God bless her for her principled stand, but her action makes the indictment of the remaining board members that much the more severe. They didn't even listen to their own peer. Sick-puppy CEO was given more credence. My friend was tarred as the sick one. Shocker? No. Business as normal. Jesus help us, your church. We weren't supposed to be a poorly managed business.
Monday, December 12, 2016
The First Documented Fool For Christ
It took me a while to find it, but Yes. I have blogged on this woman before. After that ink had dried, I didn't anticipate having more to say about this delightful soul, but here we are again.
John 4:28-30
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
These verses follow on the heels of a conversation Jesus initiated with a Samaritan woman at a well. He met her there at mid-day. She came alone to draw water at the hottest (worst) time of the day. Why? Because she was the town slut. Respectable women came together during the more temperate morning hours. Jesus isn't a local, so he shouldn't know anything about her history. Except that he does.
John 4:16-18
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
In the prior blog I focused on the reversal of gender roles. With Jesus' invitation, she ably performed work appropriate to a (male?) minister. And she did it while the other twelve disciples (yes, the men) went about a woman's work. All they ever brought back from that village was groceries. She went to the same village and returned to Jesus with people. (This passage is good fodder for the argument that missions work is best done by locals!)
At any rate, I concluded then that this woman was the first documented ordained female minister of Christ. No mean feat. However, it dawned on me today that this woman has yet another title to claim. She's also the first documented "Fool For Christ".
“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did."
Didn't we just say that this woman was the town slut? Didn't Jesus point out how many husbands (let alone lovers) she'd gone through? If we were to tally a list of all the things she had done, it would not be family friendly material! I don't think this point needs further explanation.
A digression with a purpose: they say Middle School is the hardest phase in childhood. We called it Junior High in my day, but both phrases mean the same thing in Latin: Hell. In those days, when I had news of interest I sometimes hoped that sharing it would improve my situation. It did not. Being the bearer of interesting news never changed my status. The news was valued, but the medium (read, me) was not.
That, friends, is how I've always met this story, emotionally speaking. When the woman at the well went back to town, in my mind's eye I could well envision her delivering the interesting news—and also how it was received. Would it change how people viewed her? Nah. They'd be curious to meet the prophet, but you can almost see the woman falling out of the camera's frame of reference as the men hurry out to the well.
But I see more clearly today how that telling of the story misses the mark. On two counts.
For starters, when I was a lonely child hoping to improve my social status, the news I shared never involved me, much less my own poor reputation. The whole point was to draw attention away from everything that exposed me as a loser. But this woman? She dove headlong into the worst parts of her life. "He told me everything I ever did." This woman was not acting like my Junior High self.
Furthermore, the villagers for their part were not behaving like my classmates of old, either. They didn't respond to the woman as my fellow classmates did to me. The news I shared back then never bought me respect or friendship. It never worked that way. But these villagers? Before it was over they clearly saw this woman in a new and different light.
John 4:42
They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
That is peer-to-peer communication of the sort I doubt this woman had heard in a while. To put it another way, notice that the news has been repeated back to the medium. That only happens when the medium has value. In this case, the medium is the village slut. Or was. Yes, in the presence of Jesus all the folks in that town became equals—mortals in need of a savior. Co-recipients of a priceless treasure.
Is this woman the first documented Fool For Christ? Yes, I think she is, but I now find myself moving past the initial humor in that assertion. There's heavy material here. The more I compare her actions to my puerile efforts to gain friend in an equally tight and small village called Junior High, I am struck in a sobering way by the parallels and contrasts.
Try to bring news so as to improve your reputation? Good luck with that. Let me know how that works out for you.
Throw your reputation to the wind in order to bring no-strings-attached good news? Now you've got people's attention—and among the wiser ones you'll have gained respect as well.
This is yet another ironic case of seeking the Kingdom first, only to discover in hindsight that other good things we wanted—and failed to acquire on our own—come with the package. The irony is not that it happens that way. Jesus said that it would. The irony is that we don't follow Jesus' advice more often.
Hats off to the woman who forgot herself while heaping honors upon Jesus. She's a hard act to follow. But we really should try.
When I reach eternity, dear woman, please do me a favor and find me out. I'd like to shake your hand. And maybe you could introduce me to Jesus, too? I'd like that.
Monday, November 21, 2016
On The Sabbath, Can It Wait?
A short thought, and quickly to the point.
Luke 23:56a
Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes...
This is from the end of the book of Luke. The "They" in this verse is the women who had just seen Jesus crucified. Now it was time to prepare the body.
In many areas of life we find that there is the fast way of getting things done and there is the more elaborate method. And often the results reflect the effort. There are fast-food meals and then there are Thanksgiving feasts, which can take a whole day to prepare. The former are forgettable, and the latter can be quite memorable. But the more delightful meals come at a cost of time and effort. That's a reality my wife can wearily attest to, and even now she has put in some serious shopping time in for our upcoming Thanksgiving feast on Thursday.
So it was with these women preparing for the burial of the dead. There were things to be done. For Jesus. There were no doubt some shortcuts that could be taken, but these women would have wanted to go the extra mile for Jesus just as my wife is going the extra mile to make a wonderful meal this coming Thursday.
But of course it makes little sense to compare a Thanksgiving meal with Jesus' burial. The importance of the latter is infinitely greater. How could we possibly do justice to all that these women were feeling? To how much effort they'd be willing to put forth in order to give Jesus a good burial? The evidence from Luke's account is clear enough. These women were fanatical about Jesus. That there's just about nothing that they would not have done to make his burial the best burial they could possibly give.
And yet Luke ends this verse with a very pointed statement:
Luke 23:56b
...But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
Now I said I would keep this short, and I will. Not much really needs to be said. I simply have three questions. Questions we should all be asking ourselves.
#1 Do I honor the Sabbath as carefully as these women did?
No.
#2 When I don't, am I working on something more important than giving Jesus a good burial?
No.
#3 When I don't, are my circumstances more urgent than the need to perfume Jesus before his body began to stink?
No.
I guess I have room to grow, here. How about you?
Friday, November 11, 2016
Evangelicals For Trump
I guess it was six years ago that I abandoned the title Evangelical. Time flies.
I guess there isn't much I wish to say here except that I'm glad I began those divorce proceedings six years ago. Dealing with the fact that Evangelicals helped put Trump into office is painful enough. The pain would be worse, however, if I didn't have so many years of space between myself and that label.
Evangelicals For Trump is a true headline. Thank God I don't have to own it personally.
Monday, October 24, 2016
The Risk That Comes With Rights
Luke 17:11-19
Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
As I read this passage the other day, I found myself reflecting on the question that Jesus himself felt needed to be asked: Why is it that only the despised Samaritan has returned to give him thanks? Why, indeed?!?
It's a question I want to return to, but let's first digress for a moment to consider another question: Why were nine (I presume?) Jews hanging out with a despised Samaritan in the first place? Why, indeed?!?
The answer to that second question is pretty clear: shared suffering forges solidarity among people who wouldn't otherwise be mingling. Suffering is the ice-breaker in the party of life.
We've all seen this happen in small ways. A snowed-in airport, a long line at that terminal counter. As the minutes stretch into hours, the ordinary barriers break down. Conversations begin. But when the weather breaks and the delayed planes finally arrive? The passengers resume their solitary journeys.
Our story here follows a similar trajectory that differs only in scale and significance. We have not indifferent travelers but rather bitter enemies. Not delayed planes but rather a shared life-threatening and socially alienating illness. The alliance is dissolved not by the arrival of planes but rather by the arrival of miraculous healing.
The final distinction between the plane analogy and our ten lepers reaches into the heart of the question that Jesus asked. The folks at the airport amicably part ways in order to reach different (but neutral) destinations. Our lepers, however, have parted ways on a plane tinged with moral significance. Our story ends with nine Jews heading to Jerusalem. And one Samaritan heading to Jesus. (I'm going to assume the other nine lepers were Jews, but I grant this is an assumption.)
When reading this passage in the past, I have focused simply on the lack of gratitude that the nine Jews displayed. Here I ask a disquieting question: Is it possible that the Samaritan was different from his peers not because he was, out of the gate, a more grateful person? Is it possible that his better choice was driven at least in part by (relative to his fellow travelers) a poorer set of next-move options?
Here's why I ask that question. The nine Jews (once free and clear of leprosy) had something that the Samaritan did not have. Status. Privilege. When they went to the temple, they were going to a place where they were welcome. They were, after all, Jews. The Samaritan, by way of contrast, was (needless to say) not a Jew. What does that tell us about his ordinary options? Perhaps it is good to return to another passage for a reminder.
John 4:19-20
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
This passage is from a conversation Jesus had with a Samaritan woman at a well. It should be noted that she blurts out this locale-of-worship observation immediately after she perceives that Jesus is a Jewish spiritual leader. In other words, the question of where one worships was very much a hot-button topic between Jews and Samaritans.
Does that reality inform our thoughts when we revisit the options facing our ten lepers? I think so! Prior to the healing, none of them was welcome in Jerusalem, let alone the temple. After the healing? Nine of them were welcome. That, we must acknowledge, tips the balance more than a bit. It's probably not such a wonder that it is the Samaritan who suddenly decided to return to thank Jesus. He wasn't welcome at the temple anyway, but he knew he was welcome with Jesus.
In suggesting this I am not seeking to detract from what our Samaritan did! He made the right choice! No, my preoccupation here lies with the disquieting suspicion that I, like nine Jews so many years ago, have too often found myself in hot pursuit of things that in and of themselves are not bad—but which are nevertheless a poor trade for time at the feet of Jesus.
It must be said, before proceeding, that the nine who proceeded on to the temple were following Jesus' explicit instructions. And yet! Jesus is disappointed that nine lepers followed his instructions. Jesus saw the Samaritan's choice as the better one. And notice that Jesus didn't remind the Samaritan of his to-do list item. It's not even clear if the Samaritan ever returned to the temple at all!
In short, I am wondering how often my rights and privileges can be a hindrance to something that is even better still. Can anything beat falling down in a grateful heap at feet of Jesus? No. But if I'm not careful, my choices may suggest otherwise. In fact, they often do.
Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
As I read this passage the other day, I found myself reflecting on the question that Jesus himself felt needed to be asked: Why is it that only the despised Samaritan has returned to give him thanks? Why, indeed?!?
It's a question I want to return to, but let's first digress for a moment to consider another question: Why were nine (I presume?) Jews hanging out with a despised Samaritan in the first place? Why, indeed?!?
The answer to that second question is pretty clear: shared suffering forges solidarity among people who wouldn't otherwise be mingling. Suffering is the ice-breaker in the party of life.
We've all seen this happen in small ways. A snowed-in airport, a long line at that terminal counter. As the minutes stretch into hours, the ordinary barriers break down. Conversations begin. But when the weather breaks and the delayed planes finally arrive? The passengers resume their solitary journeys.
Our story here follows a similar trajectory that differs only in scale and significance. We have not indifferent travelers but rather bitter enemies. Not delayed planes but rather a shared life-threatening and socially alienating illness. The alliance is dissolved not by the arrival of planes but rather by the arrival of miraculous healing.
The final distinction between the plane analogy and our ten lepers reaches into the heart of the question that Jesus asked. The folks at the airport amicably part ways in order to reach different (but neutral) destinations. Our lepers, however, have parted ways on a plane tinged with moral significance. Our story ends with nine Jews heading to Jerusalem. And one Samaritan heading to Jesus. (I'm going to assume the other nine lepers were Jews, but I grant this is an assumption.)
When reading this passage in the past, I have focused simply on the lack of gratitude that the nine Jews displayed. Here I ask a disquieting question: Is it possible that the Samaritan was different from his peers not because he was, out of the gate, a more grateful person? Is it possible that his better choice was driven at least in part by (relative to his fellow travelers) a poorer set of next-move options?
Here's why I ask that question. The nine Jews (once free and clear of leprosy) had something that the Samaritan did not have. Status. Privilege. When they went to the temple, they were going to a place where they were welcome. They were, after all, Jews. The Samaritan, by way of contrast, was (needless to say) not a Jew. What does that tell us about his ordinary options? Perhaps it is good to return to another passage for a reminder.
John 4:19-20
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
This passage is from a conversation Jesus had with a Samaritan woman at a well. It should be noted that she blurts out this locale-of-worship observation immediately after she perceives that Jesus is a Jewish spiritual leader. In other words, the question of where one worships was very much a hot-button topic between Jews and Samaritans.
Does that reality inform our thoughts when we revisit the options facing our ten lepers? I think so! Prior to the healing, none of them was welcome in Jerusalem, let alone the temple. After the healing? Nine of them were welcome. That, we must acknowledge, tips the balance more than a bit. It's probably not such a wonder that it is the Samaritan who suddenly decided to return to thank Jesus. He wasn't welcome at the temple anyway, but he knew he was welcome with Jesus.
In suggesting this I am not seeking to detract from what our Samaritan did! He made the right choice! No, my preoccupation here lies with the disquieting suspicion that I, like nine Jews so many years ago, have too often found myself in hot pursuit of things that in and of themselves are not bad—but which are nevertheless a poor trade for time at the feet of Jesus.
It must be said, before proceeding, that the nine who proceeded on to the temple were following Jesus' explicit instructions. And yet! Jesus is disappointed that nine lepers followed his instructions. Jesus saw the Samaritan's choice as the better one. And notice that Jesus didn't remind the Samaritan of his to-do list item. It's not even clear if the Samaritan ever returned to the temple at all!
In short, I am wondering how often my rights and privileges can be a hindrance to something that is even better still. Can anything beat falling down in a grateful heap at feet of Jesus? No. But if I'm not careful, my choices may suggest otherwise. In fact, they often do.
Monday, October 17, 2016
A Special Kind of Manure (II of II)
I thought I had covered the topic here, but our story continues...
Luke 17:1-3
Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.
“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.
This story is familiar enough to most of us, but something about it jumped out at me during our church service yesterday morning. Here's why. In my last post I shared what I had discovered after researching Jesus' cryptic words about salt in Luke 14. But there were a few nuances that I left out. "Oh, well," I thought to myself, "the post was already too long, so I'll just let that go."
But here I was in church, and the selected text for the sermon was from Luke 17. I'm not there yet in my own reading, but the two passages aren't far apart. What's more, the thoughts our pastor shared were strongly reminiscent of the thought that I had left out of my prior post on salt.
So what did I leave out? This.
When applied properly, salt will kill surface weeds while allowing more deeply rooted plants and grass to thrive.
That phrase (from this same article I quoted in my last post) kept rattling around in my head over the past few days because it hints at a role that goes beyond fertilization. If salt clears weeds, it's also a disinfectant for soil. It roots out bad stuff. That's why I sat up and took note when my pastor, working with this passage in Luke 17, began to say the very same thing with different words.
For starters, the pastor drew our attention to this: "So watch yourselves" is not an instruction to be taken individually.
Whops! I didn't know that!
Jesus meant for these words to be understood as instructions for a group to apply collective. As in, we need to (together!) watch ourselves. I need to watch not only myself, but also my neighbor! The next sentence works well with this new understanding. If during my vigilant watching I see that my neighbor has sinned against me...
Yes, this all made sense. What's more it resonates deeply with the notion that we as a church are to be (in a fuller sense) salt in the earth. That's the notion I had left out of the prior post. Yes, as manure we do help bring forth life, but it's more than that. As a disinfectant in the manure, we also keep the soil free and clear of weeds.
And just as I was sitting there, reflecting on the proximity of these two passages from Luke (coincidence?) and on how the pastor's comments applied so tightly to this notion of the church being salt in the earth, he suddenly and emphatically asserted something that yanked me back into the sanctuary where I sat.
"If we as a church are going to be light and salt, we need to..."
In light of the thoughts running through my mind, his choice of words was so shocking that I actually lost how he finished the sentence! Be that as it may... there it was. Salt had inserted itself directly into this sermon on Luke 17.
And so I resolved myself to do this last insight justice and get it down as an additional reflection. Perhaps these two posts together will prove worth their salt.
Luke 17:1-3
Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.
“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.
This story is familiar enough to most of us, but something about it jumped out at me during our church service yesterday morning. Here's why. In my last post I shared what I had discovered after researching Jesus' cryptic words about salt in Luke 14. But there were a few nuances that I left out. "Oh, well," I thought to myself, "the post was already too long, so I'll just let that go."
But here I was in church, and the selected text for the sermon was from Luke 17. I'm not there yet in my own reading, but the two passages aren't far apart. What's more, the thoughts our pastor shared were strongly reminiscent of the thought that I had left out of my prior post on salt.
So what did I leave out? This.
When applied properly, salt will kill surface weeds while allowing more deeply rooted plants and grass to thrive.
That phrase (from this same article I quoted in my last post) kept rattling around in my head over the past few days because it hints at a role that goes beyond fertilization. If salt clears weeds, it's also a disinfectant for soil. It roots out bad stuff. That's why I sat up and took note when my pastor, working with this passage in Luke 17, began to say the very same thing with different words.
For starters, the pastor drew our attention to this: "So watch yourselves" is not an instruction to be taken individually.
Whops! I didn't know that!
Jesus meant for these words to be understood as instructions for a group to apply collective. As in, we need to (together!) watch ourselves. I need to watch not only myself, but also my neighbor! The next sentence works well with this new understanding. If during my vigilant watching I see that my neighbor has sinned against me...
Yes, this all made sense. What's more it resonates deeply with the notion that we as a church are to be (in a fuller sense) salt in the earth. That's the notion I had left out of the prior post. Yes, as manure we do help bring forth life, but it's more than that. As a disinfectant in the manure, we also keep the soil free and clear of weeds.
And just as I was sitting there, reflecting on the proximity of these two passages from Luke (coincidence?) and on how the pastor's comments applied so tightly to this notion of the church being salt in the earth, he suddenly and emphatically asserted something that yanked me back into the sanctuary where I sat.
"If we as a church are going to be light and salt, we need to..."
In light of the thoughts running through my mind, his choice of words was so shocking that I actually lost how he finished the sentence! Be that as it may... there it was. Salt had inserted itself directly into this sermon on Luke 17.
And so I resolved myself to do this last insight justice and get it down as an additional reflection. Perhaps these two posts together will prove worth their salt.
Friday, October 14, 2016
Out of the Compost Pile and into the Ground (I of II)
Luke 14:25-35
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
This story is familiar enough to most of us, but something stuck out and left me puzzled. Stated as a question, it goes like this: "What was that again about the manure pile?"
I have a water softener in my house, and it uses vast quantities of salt. When I clean the retaining tank out on my driveway, the place where the salty gook flows to quickly becomes an agricultural wasteland. No shock, right? Salt is well-known as a great way to ruin farmland. So... come again about that manure pile? Why on Earth (this turns out to be a pun) would I put salt in a manure pile?
Well? Shoot. You tell me! If it's a pile with no intended use, why would I bother salting it? And if it's going to be used as fertilizer, why again would I throw salt into it? That would make it useless as fertilizer!
Thus began the investigation. My first discovery was that googling things like Jesus salt of the earth is not going to give you any satisfactory answers. I find that gap a bit puzzling, seeing it doesn't require a rocket scientist to ask this question. But let's digress for a moment and look at the ordinary explanations you'll find. They start and end with comments like this: "Salt is also important as a preservative and a seasoning." Even my NIV Bible says that. ONLY that. On and on. Here's a screenshot of the kind of stuff you'll see near the top a google search...
So this repeated mantra regarding preservatives and seasoning is all great—so far as it goes—but it says absolutely nothing about Luke's manure pile.
Why?
I think the short answer to that question is that everyone is working primarily with Matthew's version of the same text. Here's how it reads:
Matthew 5:13
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
We talk seasonings and preservatives because these interpretations still suit modern sensibilities, and Matthew's text conforms to the interpretations we understand. Salt. Taste. Surely Matthew is talking about table salt, right? Of course! And so from this text we arrive at these sorts of images and expressions...
Those of us who were exposed to Christian books in the eighties might even remember a pretty popular book titled Out of the Saltshaker and into the World. It was a good book, but where salt is concerned it only reinforced the prevailing understanding as captured in the above image and text.
But is table salt the whole story? Not even Matthew can be reconciled (only) to that interpretation, because we don't throw table salt gone bad out onto the roads and pathways where people walk. What do we do with that part of the verse? Enter the preservative angle. The notion that salt can be used to keep food from going bad is still with us, even if the practice disappeared with the advent of the refrigerator. (The phrase "salted pork" hasn't left the English language just yet!) Several of the disciples were fishermen, so perhaps Jesus was imagining a scene from a local fish market?
And that is where our creativity comes to rest. We presume that Jesus is saying that we are, by extension of the analogy, a source of preservation and/or seasoning for our culture and the world around. That's the understanding I grew up with, and that's what you'll find on Google if you don't refine your search.
End of story? No! Luke doesn't make this reading of the text very easy to arrive at. Luke mentions manure and soil. That ain't fish and salted chips. What on Earth is Luke talking about? Let's not settle for those other answers. Let's keep digging. (Ya gotta love these earthy puns...) Here's what me and Google found out together on the deeper dive...
Jesus calls us to be the manure of the Earth.
(Ironically, the above article came out just a few weeks ago! No planning on my part with that. I was just reading the gospel of Luke...)
Yes, that's right. We're not a dainty enhancement to the dinner table. We are not a preservative for dinner meats. No, my friends. We're an additive to manure. The details behind that realization are kind of boring—the stuff only a farmer could love—but here's a paragraph from that link that sums it up well enough for our purposes:
An old article in the journal Biblical Archaeology, “Salt, Soil, Savior,” stands the test of time. Eugene P. Deatrick, former head of the soils department at West Virginia University, argued that in Matthew 5:13, Mark 9:50, and Luke 14:34–35, Jesus was speaking not primarily of salt’s household use but of its agricultural use. According to Deatrick, several kinds of salt are found in Palestine that are different from the kind we’re familiar with. There is rock salt, salt evaporated from Dead Sea water, salt pits (Zeph. 2:9), and more. Additionally, Deatrick writes that “agricultural literature abounds in references to the use of salt as a fertilizer.” In quoting another source, he noted that “the value of salt in small quantities appears to have been known in ancient times—Cato, Virgil (and others) record its power of improving herbage of pastures.”
Let's digest that thought one more time. Jesus didn't say we are a good table spice nor even a good preservative. He said we are good fertilizer, a valuable addition to the manure pile. And once we've made our peace with that aromatic conclusion, the phrase "salt of the Earth" makes even more sense than it did before. It becomes plain English instead of poetic license. (And oh-by-the-way it also reads fine with Matthew's rendition. The fertilizer that isn't useful? It gets spread around underfoot and walked on by farm workers. So much for table salt and fresh fish.)
Does the fertilizer imagery change our takeaway from this passage? Absolutely! Jesus wasn't really talking about food, but about life, and as God's fertilizer we are now not merely agents of preservation and improvement of life. No, it's more than that. We're God's agents to bring forth new life where there was no life before. That should be a great encouragement for all of us because life doesn't always feel very much like a banquet. Frequently it feels more like a desert. It's comforting to me to remember that some soil brings forth life only after the arrival of manure.
Becky Pippert should have titled her book Out of the Manure Pile and into the Ground. It doesn't sound as catchy (and the book-cover artwork would prove problematic!) but that would have been a lot more accurate. And let's face it. In light of what Jesus said in the verses that precede Luke 14:34-35, why should we be surprised? If we're carrying crosses, turning our back on family allegiances, and counting the cost... did we really expect to be on display in a beautiful glass saltshaker, sitting on a clean table?
So here's to the faithful work of manure, my friends. Fertilize the ground where you're laid.
1 Corinthians 3:7 (with a bit of poetic license of my own)
So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters [nor even the one who fertilizes] is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
Postscript: I hadn't planned on a follow-up to this reflection, but as it turns out, I have something more to say on this topic!
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
This story is familiar enough to most of us, but something stuck out and left me puzzled. Stated as a question, it goes like this: "What was that again about the manure pile?"
I have a water softener in my house, and it uses vast quantities of salt. When I clean the retaining tank out on my driveway, the place where the salty gook flows to quickly becomes an agricultural wasteland. No shock, right? Salt is well-known as a great way to ruin farmland. So... come again about that manure pile? Why on Earth (this turns out to be a pun) would I put salt in a manure pile?
Well? Shoot. You tell me! If it's a pile with no intended use, why would I bother salting it? And if it's going to be used as fertilizer, why again would I throw salt into it? That would make it useless as fertilizer!
Thus began the investigation. My first discovery was that googling things like Jesus salt of the earth is not going to give you any satisfactory answers. I find that gap a bit puzzling, seeing it doesn't require a rocket scientist to ask this question. But let's digress for a moment and look at the ordinary explanations you'll find. They start and end with comments like this: "Salt is also important as a preservative and a seasoning." Even my NIV Bible says that. ONLY that. On and on. Here's a screenshot of the kind of stuff you'll see near the top a google search...
So this repeated mantra regarding preservatives and seasoning is all great—so far as it goes—but it says absolutely nothing about Luke's manure pile.
Why?
I think the short answer to that question is that everyone is working primarily with Matthew's version of the same text. Here's how it reads:
Matthew 5:13
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
We talk seasonings and preservatives because these interpretations still suit modern sensibilities, and Matthew's text conforms to the interpretations we understand. Salt. Taste. Surely Matthew is talking about table salt, right? Of course! And so from this text we arrive at these sorts of images and expressions...
Those of us who were exposed to Christian books in the eighties might even remember a pretty popular book titled Out of the Saltshaker and into the World. It was a good book, but where salt is concerned it only reinforced the prevailing understanding as captured in the above image and text.
But is table salt the whole story? Not even Matthew can be reconciled (only) to that interpretation, because we don't throw table salt gone bad out onto the roads and pathways where people walk. What do we do with that part of the verse? Enter the preservative angle. The notion that salt can be used to keep food from going bad is still with us, even if the practice disappeared with the advent of the refrigerator. (The phrase "salted pork" hasn't left the English language just yet!) Several of the disciples were fishermen, so perhaps Jesus was imagining a scene from a local fish market?
And that is where our creativity comes to rest. We presume that Jesus is saying that we are, by extension of the analogy, a source of preservation and/or seasoning for our culture and the world around. That's the understanding I grew up with, and that's what you'll find on Google if you don't refine your search.
End of story? No! Luke doesn't make this reading of the text very easy to arrive at. Luke mentions manure and soil. That ain't fish and salted chips. What on Earth is Luke talking about? Let's not settle for those other answers. Let's keep digging. (Ya gotta love these earthy puns...) Here's what me and Google found out together on the deeper dive...
Jesus calls us to be the manure of the Earth.
(Ironically, the above article came out just a few weeks ago! No planning on my part with that. I was just reading the gospel of Luke...)
Yes, that's right. We're not a dainty enhancement to the dinner table. We are not a preservative for dinner meats. No, my friends. We're an additive to manure. The details behind that realization are kind of boring—the stuff only a farmer could love—but here's a paragraph from that link that sums it up well enough for our purposes:
An old article in the journal Biblical Archaeology, “Salt, Soil, Savior,” stands the test of time. Eugene P. Deatrick, former head of the soils department at West Virginia University, argued that in Matthew 5:13, Mark 9:50, and Luke 14:34–35, Jesus was speaking not primarily of salt’s household use but of its agricultural use. According to Deatrick, several kinds of salt are found in Palestine that are different from the kind we’re familiar with. There is rock salt, salt evaporated from Dead Sea water, salt pits (Zeph. 2:9), and more. Additionally, Deatrick writes that “agricultural literature abounds in references to the use of salt as a fertilizer.” In quoting another source, he noted that “the value of salt in small quantities appears to have been known in ancient times—Cato, Virgil (and others) record its power of improving herbage of pastures.”
Let's digest that thought one more time. Jesus didn't say we are a good table spice nor even a good preservative. He said we are good fertilizer, a valuable addition to the manure pile. And once we've made our peace with that aromatic conclusion, the phrase "salt of the Earth" makes even more sense than it did before. It becomes plain English instead of poetic license. (And oh-by-the-way it also reads fine with Matthew's rendition. The fertilizer that isn't useful? It gets spread around underfoot and walked on by farm workers. So much for table salt and fresh fish.)
Does the fertilizer imagery change our takeaway from this passage? Absolutely! Jesus wasn't really talking about food, but about life, and as God's fertilizer we are now not merely agents of preservation and improvement of life. No, it's more than that. We're God's agents to bring forth new life where there was no life before. That should be a great encouragement for all of us because life doesn't always feel very much like a banquet. Frequently it feels more like a desert. It's comforting to me to remember that some soil brings forth life only after the arrival of manure.
Becky Pippert should have titled her book Out of the Manure Pile and into the Ground. It doesn't sound as catchy (and the book-cover artwork would prove problematic!) but that would have been a lot more accurate. And let's face it. In light of what Jesus said in the verses that precede Luke 14:34-35, why should we be surprised? If we're carrying crosses, turning our back on family allegiances, and counting the cost... did we really expect to be on display in a beautiful glass saltshaker, sitting on a clean table?
So here's to the faithful work of manure, my friends. Fertilize the ground where you're laid.
1 Corinthians 3:7 (with a bit of poetic license of my own)
So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters [nor even the one who fertilizes] is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
Postscript: I hadn't planned on a follow-up to this reflection, but as it turns out, I have something more to say on this topic!
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Imperatives That Are Not
Luke 10:38-41
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
This story is familiar enough to most of us, but something stuck out and made me chuckle a bit as I read this passage the other day. Luke treats Martha pretty generously! He doesn't suggest that Martha was engaged in pointless distractions. To the contrary, Luke writes is that she was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. They weren't optional. Until they were. They were necessary preparations by Luke's telling, but then Luke informs us that Jesus himself said they were not.
So which one is it?
Well the safe bet is to trust Jesus on this one, but it's fun to note that Luke has it going both ways. And after we're done smiling, the harder work begins. What things in our lives are imperatives? Which things do we think must be done? And have we asked Jesus about those things? Some imperatives are, it turns out, not. I really mean that.
2,000 years later, we still see this tension where hospitality is concerned. Being male, I'm pretty comfortable inviting the world into my home "as it is" and to relax amidst a bit of clutter. Not Imperative. My wife, however, is perfectly normal in wanting to get our home cleaned up before guests come. Imperative. It's clearly something that's wired into men and women quite differently, generally speaking. Martha, in this story, is perfectly normal. And Jesus is, too, if we'll let him be male. Mary is the exceptional woman acting like a man. Notch a victory for the boys because Jesus sides with Mary, who focuses on the company more than on the state of the house.
But before we close the books on this one and leave Martha feeling more than a little misunderstood, let's come back at this passage from a completely different angle. What if, let us ask ourselves... What if Martha and Mary had both sat at the feet of Jesus? What if? Here's where the boys might need to start fidgeting. A lot. Why? Two reasons. Both are liberating to women, and one (if not both) might be cause for great alarm among men.
For starters, it's important to understand that the sight of Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus would have been quite shocking to the average Jew of that day. Sitting there as she did was tantamount to declaring, "I am a disciple of Jesus." Mary was rather bold to bail on her household duties, but doubly bold to sit alongside the other disciples as a rabbi-in-training. Women simply were not permitted to become rabbis. No exceptions.
But Jesus takes the prohibited and makes it possible. Once again the rules are upended. Jesus approves of Mary's behavior so much so that he chides Martha for trying to drag Mary back to her other matronly responsibilities. This might trouble other Christian men (especially those less inclined to allow women behind the pulpit) but this is not troubling stuff for me. It's wonderful. I love that Jesus set women free to become true ministers of the word alongside their male counterparts. Others, such as Junias, would follow in Mary's footsteps. Awesome.
But before I rest on my liberating laurels, let's move to the second way Jesus liberates Mary here. (Gentlemen, you may want to sit down or, failing that, find something to hold onto tightly.) Let us return once again to that question we asked earlier. What if Martha and Mary had both sat at the feet of Jesus? What if?
Well, per Luke, these were things that really did have to be done. So I'm assuming Martha wasn't dusting the mantelpiece for a third time. No, the general assumption seems to be that Martha was preparing the meal. And it would be a big one, too. Thirteen men and two women, at a bare minimum. Probably more.
So... if Mary and Martha are both sitting at the feet of Jesus, you just know what's gonna happen. Thirteen men are going to look up at about the dinner hour, and they'll be expecting food. It'd better be good, and it'd better be soon. And this is where I have to speculate, because we're in alternative universes now. But I'm going to go out on limb and throw out some wild assertions.
1) Jesus wouldn't have expected Mary and Martha to miraculously crush three hours of preparation into three minutes.
2) Jesus wouldn't have himself done a true miracle that produced the same result. No "Feeding of the fifteen" miracle here, boys...
3) Jesus wouldn't have expected Mary and Martha to "get started", either. (And would the disciples have been able to patiently wait, regardless?)
4) Jesus would have enlisted twenty-four hands to help make a simpler meal happen faster.
Yes, I'm suggesting that Jesus might just have been radical enough to not only liberate a woman *from* the cooking but also to liberate (if that's the word) men to help out with the cooking. And on that note, I'd better head to the kitchen and make myself useful.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
This story is familiar enough to most of us, but something stuck out and made me chuckle a bit as I read this passage the other day. Luke treats Martha pretty generously! He doesn't suggest that Martha was engaged in pointless distractions. To the contrary, Luke writes is that she was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. They weren't optional. Until they were. They were necessary preparations by Luke's telling, but then Luke informs us that Jesus himself said they were not.
So which one is it?
Well the safe bet is to trust Jesus on this one, but it's fun to note that Luke has it going both ways. And after we're done smiling, the harder work begins. What things in our lives are imperatives? Which things do we think must be done? And have we asked Jesus about those things? Some imperatives are, it turns out, not. I really mean that.
2,000 years later, we still see this tension where hospitality is concerned. Being male, I'm pretty comfortable inviting the world into my home "as it is" and to relax amidst a bit of clutter. Not Imperative. My wife, however, is perfectly normal in wanting to get our home cleaned up before guests come. Imperative. It's clearly something that's wired into men and women quite differently, generally speaking. Martha, in this story, is perfectly normal. And Jesus is, too, if we'll let him be male. Mary is the exceptional woman acting like a man. Notch a victory for the boys because Jesus sides with Mary, who focuses on the company more than on the state of the house.
But before we close the books on this one and leave Martha feeling more than a little misunderstood, let's come back at this passage from a completely different angle. What if, let us ask ourselves... What if Martha and Mary had both sat at the feet of Jesus? What if? Here's where the boys might need to start fidgeting. A lot. Why? Two reasons. Both are liberating to women, and one (if not both) might be cause for great alarm among men.
For starters, it's important to understand that the sight of Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus would have been quite shocking to the average Jew of that day. Sitting there as she did was tantamount to declaring, "I am a disciple of Jesus." Mary was rather bold to bail on her household duties, but doubly bold to sit alongside the other disciples as a rabbi-in-training. Women simply were not permitted to become rabbis. No exceptions.
But Jesus takes the prohibited and makes it possible. Once again the rules are upended. Jesus approves of Mary's behavior so much so that he chides Martha for trying to drag Mary back to her other matronly responsibilities. This might trouble other Christian men (especially those less inclined to allow women behind the pulpit) but this is not troubling stuff for me. It's wonderful. I love that Jesus set women free to become true ministers of the word alongside their male counterparts. Others, such as Junias, would follow in Mary's footsteps. Awesome.
But before I rest on my liberating laurels, let's move to the second way Jesus liberates Mary here. (Gentlemen, you may want to sit down or, failing that, find something to hold onto tightly.) Let us return once again to that question we asked earlier. What if Martha and Mary had both sat at the feet of Jesus? What if?
Well, per Luke, these were things that really did have to be done. So I'm assuming Martha wasn't dusting the mantelpiece for a third time. No, the general assumption seems to be that Martha was preparing the meal. And it would be a big one, too. Thirteen men and two women, at a bare minimum. Probably more.
So... if Mary and Martha are both sitting at the feet of Jesus, you just know what's gonna happen. Thirteen men are going to look up at about the dinner hour, and they'll be expecting food. It'd better be good, and it'd better be soon. And this is where I have to speculate, because we're in alternative universes now. But I'm going to go out on limb and throw out some wild assertions.
1) Jesus wouldn't have expected Mary and Martha to miraculously crush three hours of preparation into three minutes.
2) Jesus wouldn't have himself done a true miracle that produced the same result. No "Feeding of the fifteen" miracle here, boys...
3) Jesus wouldn't have expected Mary and Martha to "get started", either. (And would the disciples have been able to patiently wait, regardless?)
4) Jesus would have enlisted twenty-four hands to help make a simpler meal happen faster.
Yes, I'm suggesting that Jesus might just have been radical enough to not only liberate a woman *from* the cooking but also to liberate (if that's the word) men to help out with the cooking. And on that note, I'd better head to the kitchen and make myself useful.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
A Good Samaritan To The Bad Samaritans
Luke 9:51-56
As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village.
There are so very many places one could go with these verses. The first thing that struck me was the irony that the Samaritans treated Jesus poorly because they knew he was heading to Jerusalem. Let that sink in for a moment. Jerusalem. Where Jesus would in the not-too-distant future be crucified. As verse 51 clearly implies, Jesus is not heading for a pleasure cruise, and he knows it.
So Jesus was getting abuse from both directions. How did he respond? He certainly wasn't interested in doling out fiery judgement, as James and John proposed. But note also that Jesus didn't follow Pilgrim's advice, either. Yours truly has a need for approval matched only by an equally voracious desire to be understood. Yours truly would surely have wanted to explain. "The people in Jerusalem are going to kill me. You're attacking your enemy's enemy! I love you a lot more than those folks in Jerusalem do." But Jesus didn't explain anything. He just quietly moved on.
Considering what Jesus had just recently said to his disciples, maybe this shouldn't surprise us.
Luke 9:23-24
Jesus ... said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.
People carrying around crosses don't get to explain or justify. They get to die. They absorb insults and spittle. And move on. That doesn't sit well with this Pilgrim. Perhaps I have some adjusting to do?
Moving on, but not without a brief tangent. Back in Luke 7 Jesus does some mind-boggling stuff. Heals from a distance. Raises the dead. And yet, amazingly, John the Baptist is dissatisfied. Enough so that he sends a message to Jesus essentially asking Jesus, "Did I blow the bugle for the wrong guy?" If the red carpet beneath Jesus' feet wasn't yanked, it was certainly tugged. So how does Jesus respond? With a compliment. He calls John the Baptist the greatest among men. Just when John falls down, Jesus lifts him up. Why do I mention that now? Because Jesus does the same thing here.
At a distance of 2,000 years we outsiders tend to vastly underestimate the level of animosity between Samaritans and Jews. James and John may seem to be overreacting in our minds, but that just goes to show how far removed we are from that conflict. My commentary noted that "Samaritans and Jews had detested one another's holy sites. Samaritans later tried to defile Jerusalem's temple. They were also known to heckle pilgrims to Jerusalem, a practice that occasionally led to violence." Reading these words, I suddenly found myself wondering when the parable of the Good Samaritan shows up in Luke. Oh. Chapter 10. All I had to do was turn one page.
Let that sink in. Jesus had just walked out of Samaria and a situation so charged with animosity that two of his disciples literally wanted to blow up a town. And here we are, one chapter later, hearing the parable that forever changed the meaning of the word Samaritan. To our ears today, Samaritan means only one thing. A Samaritan is a wonderful person. A godly man. The truly good person who upstages pious blow-hard religious fakes.
Jesus had every right to be angry with his cousin John, but he responded with undeserved grace. So here with Samaria. Jesus could have used Samaria as the centerpiece of a story about poor hospitality. Instead he did the opposite. He forever lifted Samaria up. He changed their identify forever.
In my last blog I asked rhetorically, Do I really have to love my enemies? The answer, of course, is Yes. Which enemies? The ones that I don't want to love today, obviously. This Pilgrim was not thinking about the Samaritans yesterday when writing those words, and yet here it is in front of me. Who were Jesus' enemies in chapter 9? The Samaritans. What did Jesus do in chapter 10? Love them.
If we want to see what loving enemies looks like in practice, We need only look to Jesus. Jesus, who while travelling on the road was rejected by unkind Samaritans—and whose response was to make a Samaritan the centerpiece of his story about kindness to strangers on the road.
Hebrews 1:1-2a
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son...
As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village.
There are so very many places one could go with these verses. The first thing that struck me was the irony that the Samaritans treated Jesus poorly because they knew he was heading to Jerusalem. Let that sink in for a moment. Jerusalem. Where Jesus would in the not-too-distant future be crucified. As verse 51 clearly implies, Jesus is not heading for a pleasure cruise, and he knows it.
So Jesus was getting abuse from both directions. How did he respond? He certainly wasn't interested in doling out fiery judgement, as James and John proposed. But note also that Jesus didn't follow Pilgrim's advice, either. Yours truly has a need for approval matched only by an equally voracious desire to be understood. Yours truly would surely have wanted to explain. "The people in Jerusalem are going to kill me. You're attacking your enemy's enemy! I love you a lot more than those folks in Jerusalem do." But Jesus didn't explain anything. He just quietly moved on.
Considering what Jesus had just recently said to his disciples, maybe this shouldn't surprise us.
Luke 9:23-24
Jesus ... said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.
People carrying around crosses don't get to explain or justify. They get to die. They absorb insults and spittle. And move on. That doesn't sit well with this Pilgrim. Perhaps I have some adjusting to do?
Moving on, but not without a brief tangent. Back in Luke 7 Jesus does some mind-boggling stuff. Heals from a distance. Raises the dead. And yet, amazingly, John the Baptist is dissatisfied. Enough so that he sends a message to Jesus essentially asking Jesus, "Did I blow the bugle for the wrong guy?" If the red carpet beneath Jesus' feet wasn't yanked, it was certainly tugged. So how does Jesus respond? With a compliment. He calls John the Baptist the greatest among men. Just when John falls down, Jesus lifts him up. Why do I mention that now? Because Jesus does the same thing here.
At a distance of 2,000 years we outsiders tend to vastly underestimate the level of animosity between Samaritans and Jews. James and John may seem to be overreacting in our minds, but that just goes to show how far removed we are from that conflict. My commentary noted that "Samaritans and Jews had detested one another's holy sites. Samaritans later tried to defile Jerusalem's temple. They were also known to heckle pilgrims to Jerusalem, a practice that occasionally led to violence." Reading these words, I suddenly found myself wondering when the parable of the Good Samaritan shows up in Luke. Oh. Chapter 10. All I had to do was turn one page.
Let that sink in. Jesus had just walked out of Samaria and a situation so charged with animosity that two of his disciples literally wanted to blow up a town. And here we are, one chapter later, hearing the parable that forever changed the meaning of the word Samaritan. To our ears today, Samaritan means only one thing. A Samaritan is a wonderful person. A godly man. The truly good person who upstages pious blow-hard religious fakes.
Jesus had every right to be angry with his cousin John, but he responded with undeserved grace. So here with Samaria. Jesus could have used Samaria as the centerpiece of a story about poor hospitality. Instead he did the opposite. He forever lifted Samaria up. He changed their identify forever.
In my last blog I asked rhetorically, Do I really have to love my enemies? The answer, of course, is Yes. Which enemies? The ones that I don't want to love today, obviously. This Pilgrim was not thinking about the Samaritans yesterday when writing those words, and yet here it is in front of me. Who were Jesus' enemies in chapter 9? The Samaritans. What did Jesus do in chapter 10? Love them.
If we want to see what loving enemies looks like in practice, We need only look to Jesus. Jesus, who while travelling on the road was rejected by unkind Samaritans—and whose response was to make a Samaritan the centerpiece of his story about kindness to strangers on the road.
Hebrews 1:1-2a
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son...
Monday, September 12, 2016
Questions We're Afraid To Ask Jesus
Luke 9:44-45
“Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.” But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.
As I reflected on these verses this morning, I found myself wondering why the disciples were afraid to ask Jesus to clarify himself.
At first, I remembered those feelings when you're in class and feeling a bit dense. You don't want to admit in front of other students that you don't get it. But this explanation fell short for me, because it appears that all of the disciples were in the dark. When everyone is confused, usually someone will screw up the courage to ask the question on everyone's lips.
And then the thought struck me. "Maybe they were afraid to ask because they didn't really want to know the answer." A wave of understanding began to roll over me, and I began to commiserate with the disciples in a new way. Jesus has said many things that I don't want him to clarify, either.
A Pharisee once made the mistake of asking Jesus a clarifying question. "And who is my neighbor?" Ouch. Ouch precisely because that Pharisee had not really wanted to know the answer. He was just looking for an easy out. By the time Jesus was done, the easy out was nowhere in sight and the Pharisee was answering an uncomfortable question he clearly wished Jesus had left unasked.
So Yes, asking Jesus clarifying questions is dangerous business indeed. I am reminded of these words:
Mark 12:34b
And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
But here's the funny thing—that verse from Mark? It concludes a passage recounting how Jesus had responded to a series of questions. Most were asked by his enemies, but the last question came from a teacher of the law who clearly respected Jesus. Jesus clearly liked the teacher's question. The teacher in turn clearly liked Jesus' answer. Jesus responded to that appreciation with the assertion that the man was not far from the Kingdom of God.
This leads me to the uncomfortable hypothesis that it is those most like Jesus and those who most want to be like Jesus that are least afraid to ask Jesus clarifying questions. Because they are already on the road to becoming the person who would like the answer that Jesus will give.
Returning to our disciples in that passage in Luke, it's worth noting that Jesus had been perfectly candid with his disciples on this topic. Quite recently.
Luke 9:21-24
Jesus ... said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.
Yeah, that's not exactly vague or misleading information. Jesus explained to his disciples that he was going to die, and that his followers (if they intended to follow) would need to pick up crosses and follow him to his own execution. Who can blame the disciples for not wanting any more information about that? After all, they themselves were Jesus' most intimate followers. But who they were following? And where he was leading? Those are questions they very much didn't want clarified.
The disciples did believe that they were following the Messiah. That much Peter had just explained in the prior verse. But what kind of a Messiah? Well, there our accounts diverge a wee bit. Jesus had one answer. The disciples had another. And it's clear that the disciples didn't want to bridge the gap in understanding. Right after Jesus reminded his disciples that of his impending doom, look at how the disciples responded! They respond (as we have noted already) first with confusion, and then with silence. And then?
Luke 9:46
An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.
Ah, ignorance is bliss. Let's gloss over what Jesus just said and get back to the important question. When Jesus whups on the Romans, which of us will be his favorite commanding general?
But enough on the disciples. They got their answers. Much later, but they got them. And in the end, they earned their well-deserved prizes. Those disciples did go on to carry crosses. Most of them died as martyrs, just as Jesus had said they would. No, now is not the time to fault the disciples. Now is the time to ask myself two very uncomfortable question.
What questions have I myself been holding back from Jesus. And why?
Sad fact is, I know which questions I'm avoiding. And I know that I'm avoiding them precisely because I'm pretty sure I already know the answers. Let's look have a look at one.
Do I really have to love my enemies? Jesus answered that one already. Factually speaking, I know the answer. The problem is that I don't like the answer. And here I should learn a lesson from that Pharisee. One dodge I should not attempt is this: "And who is my enemy?" Thanks to that foot-in-mouth Pharisee, I already know. My enemy might be my neighbor. And he's certainly that very person in my mind. The one I don't want to love today.
There are, of course, many other questions like the above example. Questions that we as followers of Jesus don't really want to see clarified a whole lot. Some are general. Do I need to do anything about hungry children in Africa? Some are specific to today. Do I need to give time to this individual whom I find annoying?
The questions that most trouble us will vary from person to person, but they seem always to center around crosses we'd rather not bear. Those questions that confound us most are the ones we most want to remain confounding. We struggle with them not because they are so difficult to answer. We struggle with them because the answers are so difficult.
“Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.” But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.
As I reflected on these verses this morning, I found myself wondering why the disciples were afraid to ask Jesus to clarify himself.
At first, I remembered those feelings when you're in class and feeling a bit dense. You don't want to admit in front of other students that you don't get it. But this explanation fell short for me, because it appears that all of the disciples were in the dark. When everyone is confused, usually someone will screw up the courage to ask the question on everyone's lips.
And then the thought struck me. "Maybe they were afraid to ask because they didn't really want to know the answer." A wave of understanding began to roll over me, and I began to commiserate with the disciples in a new way. Jesus has said many things that I don't want him to clarify, either.
A Pharisee once made the mistake of asking Jesus a clarifying question. "And who is my neighbor?" Ouch. Ouch precisely because that Pharisee had not really wanted to know the answer. He was just looking for an easy out. By the time Jesus was done, the easy out was nowhere in sight and the Pharisee was answering an uncomfortable question he clearly wished Jesus had left unasked.
So Yes, asking Jesus clarifying questions is dangerous business indeed. I am reminded of these words:
Mark 12:34b
And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
But here's the funny thing—that verse from Mark? It concludes a passage recounting how Jesus had responded to a series of questions. Most were asked by his enemies, but the last question came from a teacher of the law who clearly respected Jesus. Jesus clearly liked the teacher's question. The teacher in turn clearly liked Jesus' answer. Jesus responded to that appreciation with the assertion that the man was not far from the Kingdom of God.
This leads me to the uncomfortable hypothesis that it is those most like Jesus and those who most want to be like Jesus that are least afraid to ask Jesus clarifying questions. Because they are already on the road to becoming the person who would like the answer that Jesus will give.
Returning to our disciples in that passage in Luke, it's worth noting that Jesus had been perfectly candid with his disciples on this topic. Quite recently.
Luke 9:21-24
Jesus ... said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.
Yeah, that's not exactly vague or misleading information. Jesus explained to his disciples that he was going to die, and that his followers (if they intended to follow) would need to pick up crosses and follow him to his own execution. Who can blame the disciples for not wanting any more information about that? After all, they themselves were Jesus' most intimate followers. But who they were following? And where he was leading? Those are questions they very much didn't want clarified.
The disciples did believe that they were following the Messiah. That much Peter had just explained in the prior verse. But what kind of a Messiah? Well, there our accounts diverge a wee bit. Jesus had one answer. The disciples had another. And it's clear that the disciples didn't want to bridge the gap in understanding. Right after Jesus reminded his disciples that of his impending doom, look at how the disciples responded! They respond (as we have noted already) first with confusion, and then with silence. And then?
Luke 9:46
An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.
Ah, ignorance is bliss. Let's gloss over what Jesus just said and get back to the important question. When Jesus whups on the Romans, which of us will be his favorite commanding general?
But enough on the disciples. They got their answers. Much later, but they got them. And in the end, they earned their well-deserved prizes. Those disciples did go on to carry crosses. Most of them died as martyrs, just as Jesus had said they would. No, now is not the time to fault the disciples. Now is the time to ask myself two very uncomfortable question.
What questions have I myself been holding back from Jesus. And why?
Sad fact is, I know which questions I'm avoiding. And I know that I'm avoiding them precisely because I'm pretty sure I already know the answers. Let's look have a look at one.
Do I really have to love my enemies? Jesus answered that one already. Factually speaking, I know the answer. The problem is that I don't like the answer. And here I should learn a lesson from that Pharisee. One dodge I should not attempt is this: "And who is my enemy?" Thanks to that foot-in-mouth Pharisee, I already know. My enemy might be my neighbor. And he's certainly that very person in my mind. The one I don't want to love today.
There are, of course, many other questions like the above example. Questions that we as followers of Jesus don't really want to see clarified a whole lot. Some are general. Do I need to do anything about hungry children in Africa? Some are specific to today. Do I need to give time to this individual whom I find annoying?
The questions that most trouble us will vary from person to person, but they seem always to center around crosses we'd rather not bear. Those questions that confound us most are the ones we most want to remain confounding. We struggle with them not because they are so difficult to answer. We struggle with them because the answers are so difficult.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Where Is Your Faith, Indeed?
Luke 8:25
“Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples.
This verse struck me today as I read it. Usually (OK, always) I have read this to be an exasperated Jesus asking why the disciples had so little faith in him. Why they didn't believe in a Jesus powerful enough to save them from the (literal) storm that was about to sink their boat.
And to be fair... that seems to be pretty much the situation, in a nutshell. But another thought struck me this morning, and it doesn't disagree with this first interpretation so much as throw another slant on it. Simply put, Jesus never asked the disciples why they didn't have any faith. He didn't ask them if they had any faith. He asked them where it was.
As I said, this line of thinking isn't going to radically change how I read that exchange. But it's a good rabbit hole to peek down. The disciples did have faith. They had a fair bit of it. There were a number of seasoned fishermen in that boat with Jesus! The problem is, their faith was limited to what they themselves could do. And fishermen don't change the weather.
But Jesus can.
Jesus asked them where their faith was because he was also in the boat. That fact, when taken into account, substantially expands the list of options. We're back to another version of the loaves and fishes food equation. So we must always ask ourselves whether God factors in our calculations of the possible.
Sadly, I'm usually muddling my way through. Doing the best that I can with my limited resources. What's worse, I live as if that's all anyone can do.
I have two hands, but one of them is no longer healthy. I'm amused by the "almighty strength" that the left now has when compared to the right. But before the injury, the right was stronger than the left. I have rather limited faith in my right hand now, but I still have full faith in my left hand. But that's faith in a hilariously limited hand. What about the hand of God almighty actively at work in my life? What can that hand do?
Where is my faith? And where should it be?
“Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples.
This verse struck me today as I read it. Usually (OK, always) I have read this to be an exasperated Jesus asking why the disciples had so little faith in him. Why they didn't believe in a Jesus powerful enough to save them from the (literal) storm that was about to sink their boat.
And to be fair... that seems to be pretty much the situation, in a nutshell. But another thought struck me this morning, and it doesn't disagree with this first interpretation so much as throw another slant on it. Simply put, Jesus never asked the disciples why they didn't have any faith. He didn't ask them if they had any faith. He asked them where it was.
As I said, this line of thinking isn't going to radically change how I read that exchange. But it's a good rabbit hole to peek down. The disciples did have faith. They had a fair bit of it. There were a number of seasoned fishermen in that boat with Jesus! The problem is, their faith was limited to what they themselves could do. And fishermen don't change the weather.
But Jesus can.
Jesus asked them where their faith was because he was also in the boat. That fact, when taken into account, substantially expands the list of options. We're back to another version of the loaves and fishes food equation. So we must always ask ourselves whether God factors in our calculations of the possible.
Sadly, I'm usually muddling my way through. Doing the best that I can with my limited resources. What's worse, I live as if that's all anyone can do.
I have two hands, but one of them is no longer healthy. I'm amused by the "almighty strength" that the left now has when compared to the right. But before the injury, the right was stronger than the left. I have rather limited faith in my right hand now, but I still have full faith in my left hand. But that's faith in a hilariously limited hand. What about the hand of God almighty actively at work in my life? What can that hand do?
Where is my faith? And where should it be?
Thursday, July 21, 2016
When Full Is Empty And Empty Is Full (III of III)
In prior posts I reflected on the unsettling reality that God brings trials our way, and that they can last decades. So where do we go from here? How does this turn into good news? Easy answers. I don't know and I'm not sure.
Joking aside, I'm serious, too. I don't know where we go, because I'm like Naomi, not Jesus. I don't know how this turns into good news, because I'm like Naomi, not Jesus.
Naomi, like us, is human. She has to plod through her trials, and so do we. We don't have the luxury of seeing the great ending that might be several decades in the coming. Jesus, on the other hand, is God. He knows in advance that the blind man will regain his sight because Jesus himself is about to heal him.
But before we gripe that Jesus has an unfair advantage, let's stop and reflect upon his unenviable situation. Yes, he possesses divine knowledge and power, but that's no blessing if your stated mission is to die on a cross without putting up a fight.
Let that thought sink in for a minute. Jesus saw his own trials coming, and he had the dubious pleasure of walking toward them all at a steady, resolute pace. There is certainly some truth to the old saying that ignorance is bliss. My recent hand injury came blissfully quickly. A shard of glass passed by so fast that the job was done before I even felt the pain. I cannot tell you how often I've relived that moment since then. And in my mind's eye? I avoid that trial. I avert the disaster. I do things differently at that kitchen sink. Trial escaped.
Jesus, in contrast, saw his death coming decades in advance–the most painful form of death known to the Roman world. And he made sure it happened. Who of us can even begin to imagine what force of will is required to do that? And though that was surely the hardest trial Jesus faced, it was not the only one.
Here's another. It's a safe bet that Jesus outlived his father, since there is no mention of him beyond Jesus' early childhood. What does that mean? It means that Jesus was around when is earthly father died, and I'd hazard a guess he knew when and how it was coming long before the moment arrived. He neither prevented his father's death nor reversed it. He walked alongside that casket, but he never reached into it.
Again, We have no capacity to imagine what Jesus went through. To let your earthly father die when you know you can restore him to full health? No one else on earth has face that trial. No one except Jesus. Omniscience and omnipotence wrapped inside a human frame with a limited mission is certainly not always all that it's cracked up to be.
So we grant that we are human and that Jesus is God. Fine. Next move? How does this help us? Here I can only turn to the book of Ruth and say, "I may not know how my story turns out, but it sure is encouraging to see how things turn out for Naomi." Let's recall what Naomi had to say in her darkest hour:
Ruth 1:12
Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons...
Yes, we know what Naomi does not: there is a baby boy in Naomi's future. But in loving memory of dear old Naomi, let's savor this dish slowly. Hold off on the good news. What else did Naomi say in her darkest hour?
Ruth 1:20-21
“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”
Naomi has despaired of life itself. She has thrown in the towel. But the irony is that she has gotten her life's story completely wrong.
Naomi remembers the past imperfectly, to state the matter rather charitably
I went away full... What?? Naomi did NOT go away full. She and her husband went away hungry. Empty! It was a terrible famine that forced them to moved to Moab. It's almost humorous to see how Naomi is remembering the past with rose-tinted glasses, but we're all guilty of the same habits. A major campaign claim in this year's presidential election is that today is awful, yesterday was great, and that tomorrow (if I am elected) will be great once again. And people are eating it up.
Naomi sees the present imperfectly, to state the matter rather charitably
By "full" and "empty" Naomi probably speaks of having left Israel with a husband and two sons and having returned without them. Fair enough. But even by this understanding Naomi has NOT returned empty. She has returned with priceless cargo–with Ruth, someone she never would have known had not God sent her on an unwelcome journey so many years ago.
Naomi sees the future imperfectly, to state the matter rather charitably
Let's have a hearty, long and loving laugh, because Naomi died celebrating only the first fruits of a harvest with no end in sight even today, 3,000 years later.
Ruth 4:14-15
The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”
Let those words sink in. What are they celebrating? They are celebrating the fact that Naomi has a grandson named Obed. That's it. That's all. Naomi probably didn't live to see her great-grandson David play with his first slingshot, let alone ascend to the throne.
The author of Ruth sees the future imperfectly, to state the matter rather charitably
The irony unfolds in waves, my friends. Ruth's author lovingly ends his narrative by unfolding the genealogy of Obed down to David in the belief that the punchline has been delivered. But the true punchline is another thousand years in the coming.
Matthew 1:5
...Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth...
The woman who thought she'd die alone without an heir is still celebrated all over the world. She will be forever remembered as a beloved ancestor of the Christ child himself. Jesus himself is part of Naomi's story. Or should we say that Naomi was part of His story? And this is the point these rambling reflections lead me to.
We see the past, present and future imperfectly, to state the matter rather charitably
We, today, are part of God's story. Hardships past, present and future are part of that good story. Hard to imagine? Naomi understands. But now it's Naomi, with the benefit of a better perspective, who is laughing at us. The question before us is this: Can we, in faith, laugh along with her?
Omniscience and omnipotence are morsels best left on God's plate. Let us feast instead on faith, trusting in the one who lays the table. May these crazy, crazy thoughts be an encouragement to all of us as we face our trials. Even the ones that last for decades and tempt us to despair of life.
Hang in there, friends. The story is still unfolding. The punchline has not yet arrived.
Joking aside, I'm serious, too. I don't know where we go, because I'm like Naomi, not Jesus. I don't know how this turns into good news, because I'm like Naomi, not Jesus.
Naomi, like us, is human. She has to plod through her trials, and so do we. We don't have the luxury of seeing the great ending that might be several decades in the coming. Jesus, on the other hand, is God. He knows in advance that the blind man will regain his sight because Jesus himself is about to heal him.
But before we gripe that Jesus has an unfair advantage, let's stop and reflect upon his unenviable situation. Yes, he possesses divine knowledge and power, but that's no blessing if your stated mission is to die on a cross without putting up a fight.
Let that thought sink in for a minute. Jesus saw his own trials coming, and he had the dubious pleasure of walking toward them all at a steady, resolute pace. There is certainly some truth to the old saying that ignorance is bliss. My recent hand injury came blissfully quickly. A shard of glass passed by so fast that the job was done before I even felt the pain. I cannot tell you how often I've relived that moment since then. And in my mind's eye? I avoid that trial. I avert the disaster. I do things differently at that kitchen sink. Trial escaped.
Jesus, in contrast, saw his death coming decades in advance–the most painful form of death known to the Roman world. And he made sure it happened. Who of us can even begin to imagine what force of will is required to do that? And though that was surely the hardest trial Jesus faced, it was not the only one.
Here's another. It's a safe bet that Jesus outlived his father, since there is no mention of him beyond Jesus' early childhood. What does that mean? It means that Jesus was around when is earthly father died, and I'd hazard a guess he knew when and how it was coming long before the moment arrived. He neither prevented his father's death nor reversed it. He walked alongside that casket, but he never reached into it.
Again, We have no capacity to imagine what Jesus went through. To let your earthly father die when you know you can restore him to full health? No one else on earth has face that trial. No one except Jesus. Omniscience and omnipotence wrapped inside a human frame with a limited mission is certainly not always all that it's cracked up to be.
So we grant that we are human and that Jesus is God. Fine. Next move? How does this help us? Here I can only turn to the book of Ruth and say, "I may not know how my story turns out, but it sure is encouraging to see how things turn out for Naomi." Let's recall what Naomi had to say in her darkest hour:
Ruth 1:12
Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons...
Yes, we know what Naomi does not: there is a baby boy in Naomi's future. But in loving memory of dear old Naomi, let's savor this dish slowly. Hold off on the good news. What else did Naomi say in her darkest hour?
Ruth 1:20-21
“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”
Naomi has despaired of life itself. She has thrown in the towel. But the irony is that she has gotten her life's story completely wrong.
Naomi remembers the past imperfectly, to state the matter rather charitably
I went away full... What?? Naomi did NOT go away full. She and her husband went away hungry. Empty! It was a terrible famine that forced them to moved to Moab. It's almost humorous to see how Naomi is remembering the past with rose-tinted glasses, but we're all guilty of the same habits. A major campaign claim in this year's presidential election is that today is awful, yesterday was great, and that tomorrow (if I am elected) will be great once again. And people are eating it up.
Naomi sees the present imperfectly, to state the matter rather charitably
By "full" and "empty" Naomi probably speaks of having left Israel with a husband and two sons and having returned without them. Fair enough. But even by this understanding Naomi has NOT returned empty. She has returned with priceless cargo–with Ruth, someone she never would have known had not God sent her on an unwelcome journey so many years ago.
Naomi sees the future imperfectly, to state the matter rather charitably
Let's have a hearty, long and loving laugh, because Naomi died celebrating only the first fruits of a harvest with no end in sight even today, 3,000 years later.
Ruth 4:14-15
The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”
Let those words sink in. What are they celebrating? They are celebrating the fact that Naomi has a grandson named Obed. That's it. That's all. Naomi probably didn't live to see her great-grandson David play with his first slingshot, let alone ascend to the throne.
The author of Ruth sees the future imperfectly, to state the matter rather charitably
The irony unfolds in waves, my friends. Ruth's author lovingly ends his narrative by unfolding the genealogy of Obed down to David in the belief that the punchline has been delivered. But the true punchline is another thousand years in the coming.
Matthew 1:5
...Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth...
The woman who thought she'd die alone without an heir is still celebrated all over the world. She will be forever remembered as a beloved ancestor of the Christ child himself. Jesus himself is part of Naomi's story. Or should we say that Naomi was part of His story? And this is the point these rambling reflections lead me to.
We see the past, present and future imperfectly, to state the matter rather charitably
We, today, are part of God's story. Hardships past, present and future are part of that good story. Hard to imagine? Naomi understands. But now it's Naomi, with the benefit of a better perspective, who is laughing at us. The question before us is this: Can we, in faith, laugh along with her?
Omniscience and omnipotence are morsels best left on God's plate. Let us feast instead on faith, trusting in the one who lays the table. May these crazy, crazy thoughts be an encouragement to all of us as we face our trials. Even the ones that last for decades and tempt us to despair of life.
Hang in there, friends. The story is still unfolding. The punchline has not yet arrived.
Friday, July 15, 2016
Going Under The Knife... For A Few Decades (II of III)
In my prior blog, I noted a recent disaster in my own life (a debilitating hand injury) and then revisited the book of Ruth, where Naomi faces her own life's disasters. We ended with a question. Is Naomi right? Is it indeed the hand of God himself that is against her? Well... I've already suggested that this is a rather inescapable conclusion, given how Jesus responded to a similar question.
John 9:3
‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
I've reflected a bit on this verse already, but to those observations I'd like to add a few more. First off, note that where Naomi is depressed, Jesus is optimistic. He speaks words of hope, and the reason why is clear. Jesus sees past the present situation. He knows what's coming, and it's good. What's more, Jesus' optimism is infectious. The blind man catches it.
John 9:6-7
After saying this, he spat on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. ‘Go,’ he told him, ‘wash in the Pool of Siloam’ (this word means ‘Sent’). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
The passage doesn't directly speak of optimism, but, speaking from personal experience, I think that this blind man had plenty. Injuries breed efficiency. I sincerely doubt this blind man did extra laps around town for kicks. "Trip to the pool? Yeah, I'll swing by there on the way home." But No! He heads to the pool to wash his eyes. Immediately. That's optimism. Optimism rewarded, too! He comes back seeing.
The story does end on a high note, but a dark mystery hangs over it: Why would God have set all this up the way he did in the first place? From the fuller passage we know that the blind man is legally of age. I suppose that means he is at least 13 yrs old, but given how forcefully he debated with the Pharisees, I'd guess that the man is at least twenty years old. He's been blind for decades.
Let that sink in. Decades. For decades he lived in darkness. If we ran across a parent who kept a child imprisoned for twenty years so as to display the works of God in the child by eventually setting them free? We'd call that sick. And we'd be right. But mysteriously, that seems to be what God stands in the docket for in this story. What's worse, stories like these are a dime a dozen.
Take Naomi, for instance. Why did she and her husband first move to Moab? Famine drove them. Given the reputation Moab had with Israelites, I'd guess they were pretty desperate. And of course it gets worse from there. The husband dies. The two sons die. And if you stitch together a time frame for all these events, it would appear that Naomi has herself been living in another form of darkness for several decades.
The problem of evil is not a recent discovery and I have no shocking new solution to it, but I do find it odd that we cope with this problem in some arenas much better than we do in others. Examples? How about this... No pain, no gain. We wear these words on exercise t-shirts, and they apply to academic endeavors just as well. Or how about this one... Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved. Yes, we understand that those who studiously avoid all pain in life never really live.
So when we speak of exercise, education, and even of love... we get it. Pain is the route to gain. How strange, then, that we fear the trials that beset our souls and are frankly terrified at the thought that God himself might be engineering them. But that is indeed what he does. My wife read to us from the book of Deuteronomy tonight after dinner. I wasn't asking for them, but these words found me all the same.
Deuteronomy 8:2
Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.
For this crime we have a written confession. Can we acknowledge what God himself acknowledges? That his trials can span decades? Four of them?
She's sixteen now, but I still remember her crying as an infant. Tears streaming from eyes shot through with blood. Strabismus surgery for her eyes was a good thing, but we didn't ask her for permission. To the extent an infant could vote, it's a sure thing she would have declined surgery. Infants avoid all pain. But we ignored her wishes. We gave her what she needed.
I do believe that God does put us under the knife. Without asking our leave. Our vote gently ignored. God sometimes lets us thrash and suffer. For decades at a whack. Can that really be good? In faith I will say Yes, but it's a fact that I am a spiritual infant. I always avoid those trials whenever I can.
And when I can't? Well, that's why I love the book of Ruth.
To be continued...
John 9:3
‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
I've reflected a bit on this verse already, but to those observations I'd like to add a few more. First off, note that where Naomi is depressed, Jesus is optimistic. He speaks words of hope, and the reason why is clear. Jesus sees past the present situation. He knows what's coming, and it's good. What's more, Jesus' optimism is infectious. The blind man catches it.
John 9:6-7
After saying this, he spat on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. ‘Go,’ he told him, ‘wash in the Pool of Siloam’ (this word means ‘Sent’). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
The passage doesn't directly speak of optimism, but, speaking from personal experience, I think that this blind man had plenty. Injuries breed efficiency. I sincerely doubt this blind man did extra laps around town for kicks. "Trip to the pool? Yeah, I'll swing by there on the way home." But No! He heads to the pool to wash his eyes. Immediately. That's optimism. Optimism rewarded, too! He comes back seeing.
The story does end on a high note, but a dark mystery hangs over it: Why would God have set all this up the way he did in the first place? From the fuller passage we know that the blind man is legally of age. I suppose that means he is at least 13 yrs old, but given how forcefully he debated with the Pharisees, I'd guess that the man is at least twenty years old. He's been blind for decades.
Let that sink in. Decades. For decades he lived in darkness. If we ran across a parent who kept a child imprisoned for twenty years so as to display the works of God in the child by eventually setting them free? We'd call that sick. And we'd be right. But mysteriously, that seems to be what God stands in the docket for in this story. What's worse, stories like these are a dime a dozen.
Take Naomi, for instance. Why did she and her husband first move to Moab? Famine drove them. Given the reputation Moab had with Israelites, I'd guess they were pretty desperate. And of course it gets worse from there. The husband dies. The two sons die. And if you stitch together a time frame for all these events, it would appear that Naomi has herself been living in another form of darkness for several decades.
The problem of evil is not a recent discovery and I have no shocking new solution to it, but I do find it odd that we cope with this problem in some arenas much better than we do in others. Examples? How about this... No pain, no gain. We wear these words on exercise t-shirts, and they apply to academic endeavors just as well. Or how about this one... Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved. Yes, we understand that those who studiously avoid all pain in life never really live.
So when we speak of exercise, education, and even of love... we get it. Pain is the route to gain. How strange, then, that we fear the trials that beset our souls and are frankly terrified at the thought that God himself might be engineering them. But that is indeed what he does. My wife read to us from the book of Deuteronomy tonight after dinner. I wasn't asking for them, but these words found me all the same.
Deuteronomy 8:2
Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.
For this crime we have a written confession. Can we acknowledge what God himself acknowledges? That his trials can span decades? Four of them?
She's sixteen now, but I still remember her crying as an infant. Tears streaming from eyes shot through with blood. Strabismus surgery for her eyes was a good thing, but we didn't ask her for permission. To the extent an infant could vote, it's a sure thing she would have declined surgery. Infants avoid all pain. But we ignored her wishes. We gave her what she needed.
I do believe that God does put us under the knife. Without asking our leave. Our vote gently ignored. God sometimes lets us thrash and suffer. For decades at a whack. Can that really be good? In faith I will say Yes, but it's a fact that I am a spiritual infant. I always avoid those trials whenever I can.
And when I can't? Well, that's why I love the book of Ruth.
To be continued...
Friday, July 8, 2016
The Enemy Who Is Your Friend (I of III)
Compared to more recent blogging topics, this blog will be a breath of fresh air–but neither easy nor fun in any ordinary sense.
Recent months have not been easy. I was visited late last year by a thumb injury that by all appearances ensures that I will spend the rest of my life with one good left hand aided clumsily by another ham-fisted... well... ham-fist. I was once right-handed.
Events like these force difficult questions. Questions not unlike those posed by Jesus' immediate disciples.
John 9:2
His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’
We like to think we've come a long way in understanding the mind of God. In those darkened days of primitive ignorance, it was widely assumed that if you were rich, it was because God loved you. And if you were sick? Diseased? A sure-fire indicator that you had sinned pretty badly.
Thus the confusion! If the guy was born blind, he hadn't had a chance yet to sin! So... did his parents screw up? We know someone earned this misery. But who? Jesus set them straight.
John 9:3
‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
Yes, we all know that now, though these words shocked the disciples. What?? Nobody sinned??
Chuckle, chuckle. We know better, today. It was just a medical condition. And God wants it to be healed.
But let's be honest. We're no more enlightened than Jesus' disciples. All we have managed to do is exchange one half-truth for another. The disciples erred in thinking that only people God loves are blessed with health and material possessions. And us? We err in thinking that God loves people too much to take such things away from them.
Jesus sets us straight, too, if we have ears to hear what he actually said. "This happened". "So that". "The works of God might be displayed".
Let that sink in for a bit.
Jesus didn't say, "It was a random accident, but I'm gonna fix it." Jesus didn't say, "Things go wrong because of the fall, but God didn't do it." No. Jesus said it happened. So that. God's works might be displayed.
That's not a popular thought. And if you doubt me, try telling your friends this one: "I believe that God has orchestrated events so that my better hand will be maimed for the rest of my life."
A few of my closer friends nod and agree. But many do not. Some seem even to take offense at the notion.
So to those who are not ready to swallow words like these, let me ask. If God didn't do it, who else do we suppose made the man blind, for the purposes of God's glory? Who else had sovereign control over the events in that man's mother's womb?
All this came home to me again when I recently listened in my car to the book of Ruth. Ruth is one of my favorite books, bar none. So I've read it many times. On this last pass, I was struck again by Naomi's words.
Ruth 1:13b
No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!’
Naomi has been visited by unspeakable sorrows. She has outlived her husband and both of her sons. Her words touch all of us who have ears to hear: those troubled by sorrows as well as those free of major disappointments. But are her words true? Is Naomi blaming God for things he didn't do? Or is Naomi right in her finger-pointing? In short... Is God himself behind Naomi's problems?
To be continued...
Recent months have not been easy. I was visited late last year by a thumb injury that by all appearances ensures that I will spend the rest of my life with one good left hand aided clumsily by another ham-fisted... well... ham-fist. I was once right-handed.
Events like these force difficult questions. Questions not unlike those posed by Jesus' immediate disciples.
John 9:2
His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’
We like to think we've come a long way in understanding the mind of God. In those darkened days of primitive ignorance, it was widely assumed that if you were rich, it was because God loved you. And if you were sick? Diseased? A sure-fire indicator that you had sinned pretty badly.
Thus the confusion! If the guy was born blind, he hadn't had a chance yet to sin! So... did his parents screw up? We know someone earned this misery. But who? Jesus set them straight.
John 9:3
‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
Yes, we all know that now, though these words shocked the disciples. What?? Nobody sinned??
Chuckle, chuckle. We know better, today. It was just a medical condition. And God wants it to be healed.
But let's be honest. We're no more enlightened than Jesus' disciples. All we have managed to do is exchange one half-truth for another. The disciples erred in thinking that only people God loves are blessed with health and material possessions. And us? We err in thinking that God loves people too much to take such things away from them.
Jesus sets us straight, too, if we have ears to hear what he actually said. "This happened". "So that". "The works of God might be displayed".
Let that sink in for a bit.
Jesus didn't say, "It was a random accident, but I'm gonna fix it." Jesus didn't say, "Things go wrong because of the fall, but God didn't do it." No. Jesus said it happened. So that. God's works might be displayed.
That's not a popular thought. And if you doubt me, try telling your friends this one: "I believe that God has orchestrated events so that my better hand will be maimed for the rest of my life."
A few of my closer friends nod and agree. But many do not. Some seem even to take offense at the notion.
So to those who are not ready to swallow words like these, let me ask. If God didn't do it, who else do we suppose made the man blind, for the purposes of God's glory? Who else had sovereign control over the events in that man's mother's womb?
All this came home to me again when I recently listened in my car to the book of Ruth. Ruth is one of my favorite books, bar none. So I've read it many times. On this last pass, I was struck again by Naomi's words.
Ruth 1:13b
No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!’
Naomi has been visited by unspeakable sorrows. She has outlived her husband and both of her sons. Her words touch all of us who have ears to hear: those troubled by sorrows as well as those free of major disappointments. But are her words true? Is Naomi blaming God for things he didn't do? Or is Naomi right in her finger-pointing? In short... Is God himself behind Naomi's problems?
To be continued...
But Not All Evangelicals Are Whores (V of V)
The world is a surreal place, these days.
In prior posts I gave a number of Evangelical Whores their due.
But there are heroes, too. Let's recognize a few.
A roaring thank-you to a local pastor, Skye Jethani. (He's not exactly world-famous, but he is known to people all over the world. So why do I call him local? Because he lives nearby and attends my own church.) Here's a great video link where Jethani explains why followers of Christ should not vote out of fear, but rather out of more Christian motives like love and self-sacrifice. Try to imagine voting for Trump or Hillary while operating under those principles.
Second, a roaring thank-you to a slightly more visible Russell Moore.
1) He stood against Trump (and even got some ire from Trump via personal tweet!).
2) He stood against all those aforementioned "Evangelical" whores bowing the knee to Trump.
3) At a SBC convention, he stood up to a xenophobe. Responding to the question "How in the world can [you] support rights for Muslims?" Moore responded, "Sometimes we have really hard decisions to make... this isn't one of those things. What it means to be a baptist is to support soul freedom for everybody."
(BTW, totally secular media such as Samantha Bee took note of Russell's unpopular stand. She exclaimed in response, "Now that is a shining city on a hill.")
Finally, a roaring thank-you to John Pavolvitz. I lifted thoughts from a blog of his when writing my jeremiads, and it brought my attention to other good blogs he has written. This man is after the heart of Jesus. That means he's not going to be popular with "Evangelical Leaders". (A strike in his favor, surely.) "Evangelicals" will take issue with his stand against guns, but they'll especially hate him for his thank-you note to Obama, penned in June.
For these three True Evangelical Leaders I am thankful, though it must be said that they'll have to come up with a new affiliation. The word Evangelical is about as useful as the surname Hitler became after 1940. Sometimes a word acquires more baggage than can ever be truly shed.
But again, to these men and to other men, women and children like them... Thank you. The world takes note when followers of Christ act like the one they follow: Jesus Christ.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Fear Turns Us Into Whores (IV of V)
The world is a surreal place, these days.
We continue here this "short" blog series. I had planned for a shorter list of blogs, but Mr. Eric Metaxas forced my hand when I found out that he too was present at that pagan ceremony where 1,000+ "Evaenglical Leaders" fornicated with Donald Trump. Here are Metaxas' own words.
"Not only can we vote for Trump, we must vote for Trump, because with all of his foibles, peccadilloes, and metaphorical warts, he is nonetheless the last best hope of keeping America from sliding into oblivion, the tank, the abyss, the dustbin of history, if you will. If you want to know how bad things are in America, and how far we have gone, read the previous sentence aloud over and over."
Well, Mr. Metaxas, I did read your statement several times. And your words became more clear with each reading. You're afraid. And your fear has turned you into a whore. A very frightened one, too. The below is more or less a cut-and-paste of some comments I threw onto Facebook earlier today.
So I just found out that Eric Metaxas wants us to vote for Trump.
Yeah, Metaxas wrote that book on Bonhoeffer. I own a copy.
For shame, Mr. Metaxas. Bonhoeffer stood up to Hitler and died as a martyr for Christ. He was safe in the USA but willingly went back to Germany to stand in the gap. Despite being a pastor and a pacifist to boot, Bonhoeffer risked his life in a plot to kill Hitler, and Hitler himself personally ordered Bonhoeffer's death. Then there's you, Mr. Metaxas. You're so afraid of Hillary that you'll vote in worse, and you want us to join you in your folly. Coward.
But why should I explain this? Let your hero be your judge.
"From this it would appear that folly is... a special form of the operation of historical circumstances upon men, a psychological by-product of definite external factors. On closer inspection it would seem that any violent revolution, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly in a large part of mankind. Indeed, it would seem to be almost a law of psychology and sociology. The power of one needs the folly of the other."
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-45)
Did your eyes gloss over, Mr. Metaxas? Skye Jethani explains it in simpler words.
"But when people are afraid, they don't care about facts. They will grasp onto anyone promising to keep them safe, even if their ideas lack both evidence and common sense. We don't make good, rational decisions when we are afraid. Simply put, fear makes us *dumb*."
(Yes, Mr. Metaxas, he's explaining why people like you are latching onto Trump.)
One of the saddest facts about all of this is that both Donald Trump and the watching media understand "Evaenglical Leaders" better than they themselves do. Let's wrap this up with a few basic observations courtesy of the secular media. (Did we really need THEM to point this out??)
5. Trump Equated Christianity With Worldly Power, and His Listeners Agreed
Donald Trump is no dummy. He knows his audience better than they know themselves. Evangelicals are acutely aware of their waning cultural influence and shrinking share of the population. These religious leaders care about their principles, yes. But they care about something else even more: power. While not every evangelical leader is enthusiastic about Trump, many are starting to express warm feelings toward the candidate. Expect the cascade to continue.
In eight sentences Mr. Trump mentioned some variation of power six times, to a group of individuals who have professed their love and loyalty to Jesus, who in his most famous sermon declared, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “Blessed are the meek,” who said, “My strength is made perfect in weakness,” and who was humiliated and crucified by the powerful.
Stay tuned...
Monday, July 4, 2016
Other Evangelical Whores (III of V)
The world is a surreal place, these days.
Once again I wince at my own chosen title for this blog.
And then I remember what these so-called church leaders have done.
So this blog continues on the heels of several other blog posts devoted to what our so-called "Evangelical church leaders" have been up to. Let's review the case from the perspective of Ezekiel. He referred to Samaria and Israel as adulterous sisters. Why? My study Bible explains.
Ezekiel 23:5
“Oholah engaged in prostitution while she was still mine; and she lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians..."
Footnote for that same verse
"Prostitution here represents political alliances with pagan powers... the graphic language of the chapter underscores God's and Ezekiel's disgust with Israel for playing the worldly game of international politics rather than relying on the Lord for her security."
So that's what Ezekiel calls "whoring". Now tell me if the 1,000+ "Evangelical Leaders" are engaged in something different? Or the same thing?
First, they go to meet with Trump. Not the other way around. And why did they go? What do they want from Trump? Let's see...
James Dobson
"I am delighted to be here with the Gospel greats... Mr. Trump, we would like you to start your comments by answering that question: What will your administration do to help promote all of our freedoms — all of the Bill of Rights, and what it has meant to be an American — and protect us? Or do we have to fight another Revolutionary War to preserve them?"
Tony Perkins (president of the Family Research Council): "This is my question for you, Mr. Trump. What policies, if any, of the Obama administration will you reverse? And what steps will you take to restore our military and the rights of our men and women in uniform to practice their religious freedom?"
Kelly Shackelford (president and CEO of First Liberty Institute law firm):
...probably the key issue right now in religious liberty is the attempt to use gay rights to trump religious freedom...
Is it just me? Or are they looking to someone other than God for their reassurances? Ezekiel, my friends, called that whoring. Should we do otherwise?
Others present deserve recognition for their share of this whore-fest, including Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee. But sadly I must also give final credit to Franklin Graham, who presided over the event with a prayer.
Franklin Graham (president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association): (excerpted) Thank you... ...And as we look at who is to be the next president of the United States, many people are looking at qualities. And I’d like to take just a moment to look at the Bible.
Some of the individuals are our patriarchs: Abraham — great man of faith. But he lied. Moses led his people out of bondage, but he disobeyed God. David committed adultery and then he committed murder. The Apostles turned their back on the Lord Jesus Christ in his greatest hour of need, they turned their backs and they ran. Peter denied him three times. All of this to say, there is none of us is perfect...
So I would just like to open up with a word of prayer.... ...And, Father, we pray this election that you will give a man to be the president of this country who will honor life, who will respect our Constitution, who will respect the authority of the office... And, Father, we ask now that you would bless this meeting and this time together, as Mr. Trump is able to answer questions. And, Father, we pray that each one here today will leave this room with a new appreciation of this man and this family ... Amen.
I would like to introduce now a very good friend of mine. Jerry Falwell Jr., who doesn’t need an introduction.
Trat's true, Mr. Franklin. Falwell, Jr. does not need introduction. He's now widely recognized as the first "Evangelical leader" to bless Trump, and he spouted the same festering bovine scatology that you, Mr. Franklin repeated here: The ever-so-clear insinuation that Trump can be our Christian man-of-the-hour since, after all, other great leaders like Abraham and David weren't spotless either.
Really????
But let's end with something a bit more insightful. A comment from an outside reporter.
Todd Stearns
Just got back from Trump's "conversation" with Evangelicals. No mention of Jesus.
To be continued...
Saturday, July 2, 2016
"Evangelicals" Whoring after Power (II of V)
The world is a surreal place, these days.
I've never titled a blog with such loaded terms, but let's be frank. Sometimes strong words are necessary. And sometimes things that need to be said also need to be said when children are not around to hear them.
The prophet Ezekiel used profoundly not-so-family-friendly language from time to time. In lurid terms, Ezekiel graphically described how Israel and Judah had whored after pagan nations and gods. Next to Ezekiel, who felt obliged to describe specific acts worthy of a whore, this blog post qualifies as squeaky clean.
Ezekiel had two basic targets, which kept the task manageable. If I were smart, I'd address the whores in my days as a single entity, but I yearn to give each of the 1,000+ "Evangelical leaders" who recently met with Trump their rightful recognition.
Not for the first time do I find myself wincing as I use such strong words.
And then I remember how these people are behaving: People who claim to serve Jesus Christ and to represent His church and (key) who really do have influence over many godly and gentle (and naive) Christian souls.
In my first blog post on this topic, I gave James Dobson most of the attention. Dobson has since back-tracked from his assurances that Donald Trump gave his heart to Jesus. Now Dobson is not so sure. Do I respond with laughter? Tears? Neither. Dobson's opinions don't merit the energy for either. Let's move on.
A digression. It must be said, others are saying the exact same things I am saying, and they have a bigger audience anyway. I'm just writing my echoing take on matters for personal reasons. I do it as a combination of personal therapy and so that my personal (and public) journal is on record as to exactly who I think Trump is and the state of depravity the American church must have reached for so many church-goers to be voting for him.
I imagine this journal being accessible to my children one day, and God help me if in the year 2016 I didn't speak out against the whore of Babylon and the whoring "Evangelical leaders" who whored after him.
And the other writers are just as blunt. Here's another blogger's post, and I feel that one comment in particular bears repeating.
One of the most startling ironies, is that these are the same self-professed “defenders of the faith”, who for the last eight years have ruthlessly persecuted a President who has not only repeatedly professed personal spirituality, but whose conduct, marriage, and family are everything they claim they’re for. This was never good enough for them to support or pray for him—or even call him a Christian. Yet Donald Trump, in all his philandering, materialistic, racist, bigoted, misogynist glory is somehow worthy of reverence because somewhere deep down (in a way that only these leaders see), he loves Jesus. If you believe that I have some swamp land in Alabama for you.
I am tempted to respond to those good words, but I dare not get too far off topic. Let's move on to the next whore I'd like to give his due.
Ralph Reed attended the meeting that Donald Trump called. You know, the one where "church" leaders seeking power and significance meet with a politician and work out a plan of action designed to deliver
a) power and/or significance to the whores in the church, and
b) millions of votes to the whore seeking election.
Yes, that one. Ralph Reed attended that meeting. So Ralph went in to be with the Donald, and at the podium Ralph had this to say:
As I sat there this morning—we just spent time with Dr. Carson and the next president of the United States, Donald Trump—I thought about two Bible verses. And I’m going to paraphrase just a bit. One is, “For such a time as this,” and the other one is this one, a commandment from our Savior, when he said, “Call unto me, and I will do great and mighty things that you do not know.”
I am guessing Ralph didn't recall that Esther (whose father-figure said to her that she had perhaps been called to power "for a time such as this") is a book that celebrates Esther's standing up against an evil man in power who hated underclass foreigners. After all, Donald Trump is an evil man in power who hates underclass foreigners. Or did Ralph slip into the wrong convention hall? Was Esther just down to the hall and to the right?
I'm guessing none of the other whores in the room caught a whiff of that irony, either. If they did have a nose for that, they wouldn't have been there with Trump in the first place.
So I stop wincing when I use the word whore to describe somebody who:
a) wants power
b) doesn't have a clue what the Bible is about, but who nevertheless
c) claims to speak for masses of Christians, and
d) misquotes the Bible atrociously in order to
e) advocate for the advancement of another evil man in order to
f) amass more "power" for pet church ambitions that are secondary (at best) to the church's true calling
But it takes one whore to like another, so this is a marriage made in Hell. Donald, after all, is the one who said "Nobody reads the Bible more than me" and yet refers to a passage as "Two Corinthians" like a first-week student of a new language. Ralph and Donald were made for each other.
But why stop there? Ralph's second Bible reference is at least as problematic as his first. He mis-attributes a passage from Jeremiah to Jesus. No matter. Both names start with J, right? That's good enough for a whore, if not perhaps what we'd expect from a Christian leader.
Jokes aside, it's no coincidence that Ralph attributed Jeremiah's words to Jesus. Jesus promised rest to those who came to him, but Jeremiah's words hint at power and powerful actions. Jeremiah's words were appropriate to the moment. That's not the problem.
The problem arises when Ralph quotes Jeremiah and think's he's quoting Jesus. Most importantly, given that those at the meeting were drawn to it by the scent of power, Ralph's reference to Jesus doing powerful things says nothing about God's heart but an awful lot about what's on Ralph's mind. A Freudian slip? Ohhhh, yeah.
That's about as much time as I want to burn on Ralph Reed. 998 other whores deserve their due, and I am afraid most won't get as much coverage.
But let us take a moment to reflect on the state of the American church, that men like these have approached the pagan temple of Trump. They have every right to do so. But to do so as proclaimed followers of Christ? Leaders of the church? That demands a response. In this blog series I intend to give at least a few of these whores their due.
Stay tuned...
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Watching the Not-So-Mighty Fall (I of V)
The world is a surreal place, these days.
Seriously. Where to begin?
Let's start with this. About ten years ago I got a real schooling on just how much of the Kool-Aid otherwise sensible people can drink. Somewhere between 2006 and 2009 I got front-row seats to watch...
a) A senior pastor (seriously) suggest bridging a $200,000 budget gap with change jars on the television. ("Every time you turn it on, empty your pockets into the jar!") Yeah. Average church attendance? 50-75 souls. Including the babies.
b) An "upstanding Christian man" forge my mortgage documents and submit different ones to TICOR.
c) Another man call a home remodeling project "done and ready for sale" when, upon closer examination, I discovered that the sinks were not yet installed.
Somewhere in the process, my naiveté got brutally stripped away.
Layer by layer.
Oh, each person had their excuses.
The senior pastor literally stripped me (illegally) of my position on the church vestry and slated me for counselling. Apparently my refusal to believe that his budget plans would work constituted obstructionism and lack of faith.
The mortgage broker sat at the table with his boss and with me. Staring at the divergent documents. "I can't explain how that happened!" he exclaimed with amazement.
The home-improvement wannabe explained, "I was going to finish painting the walls before I pushed the sink unit into place."
For me, the consequences varied.
I fled the church with my family. The pastor, so far as I know, continues to rule his roost.
The mortgage broker cracked a few hours after the meeting and confessed. He's lucky he didn't go to jail.
The unfinished condo buried me financially for about four years.
Where am I going with this?
These experiences helped prepare me for the surreal world we now live in.
And how.
Imagine this headline...
But wait. You don't have to imagine. It's real.
I find it easier now to take in surreality on the global scale because I have digested in my own life the same meal in smaller portions. I understand better now how people tell such amazing lies. It's easy. The key to it is this: They lie first and foremost to themselves. And then to the world.
"I need Pilgrim out of the way in order to run this church effectively."
"I didn't steal anything, so forging mortgage documents is OK."
"I can say the project is finished now because I plan to finish it soon."
But back to Dr. Dobson. What's going on in his head? I can almost hear it. A series of thoughts coming in rapid succession.
"I cannot bear the thought of Hillary in office."
"I want a Republican to win the Presidential election."
"How can I endorse Trump, though?"
"Well, he tells me he believes as I do..."
At this point it gets difficult. Like trying to think like a hamster. I cannot pull of the mental gymnastics required to make Trump a good selection in the mind of the man who founded Focus On The Family.
Seriously, Dr. Dobson?
Thankfully, I learned years ago to be careful with my trust -- and that with people that I do know. For those I don't know I am even more cautious.
That's good. Otherwise I'd have been shattered, watching Dobson and 1,000+ other "Evangelical leaders" go to meet with Donald Trump. Apparently the meeting went well, by their reckoning. That headline is an outcome of that meeting.
How did so many good and wise church leaders get fooled?
Well, the answer is easy to arrive at, once you realize that none of the people who attended were godly or wise. Not while attending that meeting, at any rate.
Why do I say that? Simple. It's like a math problem that can be solved only one way. A cross-word puzzle with only one solution. We have to assume they weren't godly or wise. Now return to the question and it's easy to answer.
How did so many church leaders find themselves attending that meeting and/or endorsing Trump? In a few words? Idolatrous love of power. A commitment to the Republican party that clearly supersedes matters of faith. A hatred for Hillary. Sheer spiritual folly.
Those ingredients, in varying proportions, are what's in the Kool-Aid these folk have been drinking.
As I write this blog post, it sounds smug. Self-congratulatory.
For what?
For falling for a pastor/church combo that in hindsight was wretchedly screwed up? Part of the problem was that the pastor was a former senior VP from a massive multi-billion-dollar IT behemoth. I was fooled, in part, by his prior successes in business. Does that remind you of anything?
What else? Do I pat myself on the back for losing a huge pile of family savings on a loan to someone clearly unfit for the task? Good job, Pilgrim?
As for Dobson, should I be proud that I recognize what Dobson does not? That Trump is a boorish, racist, misogynistic and depraved narcissist? No. At least a hundred million people worldwide know that. It just so happens that Dobson is not one of them. Dobson and a thousand other "Christian" leaders.
But at some point one must point out that the emperor has no clothes. Any fool would know that Trump has none -- well, any fool who learned as I did (at that church) that having amassed piles of cash is not tantamount to being an awesome and good person, let alone a good pastor or presidential candidate.
No. This blog is not devoted to self-congratulation but rather to pointing out the surreal. That tons of big-name "Christian" leaders are so morally stunted, it would be a kindness to call them emperors without clothes. The prophet Ezekiel would have described them and their actions in more graphic terms.
I'll say it again. This blog is devoted to digesting the fact that James Dobson, Franklin Graham and a number of other big-name Christians met with Donald Trump and managed to not insult him by pointing out that he's a degenerate soul about to be weighed on the balance and found wanting. It's something Donald needs to be told, however lovingly.
It would be different if Trump went to meet any one of them individually. I'd allow Trump into my home, if he asked. That's Christian love and charity in action. (And audacious hope that Trump can still change for the better.)
But that's not what Trump did. He wants the "Evanglical vote" and so he needs the "Evangelical endorsement". In order to get that endorsement, he called for a meeting with the leaders of the voting block he wants to secure. They should have smelled the rot of his intentions — it reeks from coast to coast. Godly leaders would have stayed home.
But they didn't. These so-called "Christian leaders" responded to Trump's whistle like lemmings cross-bred with homing pigeons. Didn't they realize that even showing up was going to send a message? That Trump was a candidate who reasonable Christians leaders might endorse? But show up they did.
Even attending was huge mistake, but for many of them that wasn't enough. As can be seen from Dobson's assertion, many atttendees jumped into bed with Trump. Ezekiel would have said the same thing in more graphic terms.
So No, I'm not patting myself on the back for spotting the scam.
I'm just trying to figure out...
a) why "Christian leaders" are drinking sewer-flavored Kool-Aid, and
(more importantly)
b) why anyone else would want to drink it with them.
Stay tuned...
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
What Superheroes Cannot Do (III of III)
So to follow up on the last blog post and finish this set of reflections on superheroes, a final thought on Kryptonite.
As Koodaigirl noted, Kryptonite is great stuff insofar as it forces us to rely on God, instead of ourselves. Add to that one more thing: it also creates space for us to enter into community with others stricken by their own versions of Kryptonite.
Examples are too numerous for me to fully recount. Here are a few.
Sunday Soccer. Ruined. I am not permitted to play for a few more weeks. So I sit under the tree and watch others play. Two little girls wander over regularly to join our local game in the park. I meet their dad, who comes to watch. First week I learn of several bad finger injuries from rock-climbing accidents. A bum wrist. And too much back pain to play. Second week he shares the story that led him to where he is now: a single father raising two girls, only one of which is his own. I never would have gotten to know him so quickly if I had not been thrown into his orbit. The orbit that involves sitting under a tree, not hot-dogging on the field. We talk injuries. We talk life.
My next-door neighbor. Stricken by some MS-ish disease a few years ago. Never had a heart-to-heart with her on it. Never felt welcome to pursue such matters. Hung out with a few neighbors a week ago on their back patio. Got into a quiet conversation with her. "Do you sleep well?" I asked. She doesn't. But our eyes and hearts connected. We both have pains that interrupt our fitful slumbers. She gave me a phrase for our state of affairs: "The new normal". I've been using it a lot, lately.
Now is a good time to mention that when sleep went downhill... when typing began to hurt... when things don't get better... I thought of Koodaigirl. And understood better what she's known for decades. I had heard the words before. Knew she faced challenges. But now am facing similar ones with her. A deeper connection, even thousands of miles apart.
Daughter's soccer game. Watching with other parents on the sidelines. Questions about my cast. Another parent joins the conversation. He's struggling, too. Rotator cuff surgery. Not healing well. Vertigo after the nerve block wore off, on top of all that. He's a truck driver. Vertigo and driving probably don't mix well. But he and I shared a common bond before parting. Shared suffering. Heartfelt words of encouragement shared before we part ways.
At work. A co-worker asks how the hand is doing. Well... not so great. I describe the numb fingers. The ones that don't bend. Then he shows me his war wounds. A finger once cut off and re-attached. "Even touching a piece of paper is like a lightning strike," he says. Another bent up -- basketball injury. The man has tattoos all over his body and hair below his shoulders, but many tattoos are Bible verses, and his wife is at home awaiting death from cancer. I whisper to him as we pass in the hall, "But the good thing is, one day we're going to get new bodies!" To which he replies, "You got that right!"
On and on they come. Mostly the past few months have served not merely to make me jealous of those still blessed with perfect health (a regular occurrence, I confess!) but also to make me aware of the tide of fellow souls around me who are suffering with even greater burdens. I now enter into their stories with greater interest and compassion.
Kryptonite makes us mortals. And that's very useful if the goal is to love and share life with other mortals. To draw a rather crude parallel, God the Son had to down a bit of Kryptonite in order to be born as Jesus. Will we not share his cup?
Returning to the title of this reflection, here's one thing superheroes don't do well: Whisper. Kryptonite reduces us to gasping whispers, and it is at that level of quiet that we begin to hear the gasping whispers of others around us. They were whispering all along, but strong ears don't hear quiet whispers. Weak ears are better suited to that task.
God gives us Kryptonite so that we can hear other people's whispers. Hear, Yes. But also to whisper back. By God's grace, to whisper back words of that same Grace. And Love. Hope. Hope that does not require all things to be made well now. Or soon. No. Hope in a kingdom yet to come.
Revelation 21:5
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
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