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...
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
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.
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