Just Give Me The Fluffy Pink Jesus

Every now and then, circumstances seem to push me to "hurry up and put that thought down in writing." Over the past week, a combination of David, TJ and Jesus triple-teamed me, so here we are.

Everyone knows Jesus, but who are David and TJ?

The American

David is a friend of mine from college who has been living in Turkey for nearly twenty years. Now, Turkey is not the most dangerous nation in the world, but in my generation there is an immortalized quote from that 70s movie Airplane: "Joey, have you ever been in a... in a Turkish prison?"

No, Joey has not been to a Turkish prison. And the humor, of course, involves the fact that that nobody else wants to, either.

But my friend David has been in Turkish prisons (note the plural). The Turkish government (Turkish and international laws be damned) doesn't like what David is doing in Turkey. Which is?

Oh, just faithfully living as a servant of Jesus Christ in Turkey.

That's a crime? Yes, Joey. Well, No. But the government wants it to be.

(Internet links go stale eventually: Here's a portion of the article...)

U.S. Evangelist in Turkey Detained, Ordered To Be Deported

Turkish authorities have detained a U.S. evangelist and ordered him held for 30 days without charge ahead of deportation, sources said.

Declaring David Byle “a danger to public order,” authorities in Turkey took him into custody on April 6 after asking him to report to the immigration office in Istanbul regarding his application for a residency permit.

The Turk

So David is a very unwelcome American living in Turkey. TJ the Turk? I met him through circumstances only God could arrange. That story for another day.

Suffice it to say that David, TJ and I got together several times while I was visiting David in Turkey in 2002. TJ "escaped" his homeland not too long after that, however, and he has no desire to ever live in Turkey again.

One other thing to know: TJ grew up in a Muslim home but abandoned that faith system a long time ago. He very much loves Jesus, but does not call himself a Christian. (And since so many Christians today are voting for Donald Trump, who can blame him? But we digress.)

So let's get to the point of our story.

Over the years, TJ has continually lamented the fact that David is still living in Turkey. TJ is of the firm opinion that a father of five has no business throwing himself under a Turkish bus.

And since TJ is not a Christian, that's an understandable opinion. What I keep trying to explain to TJ, however, is that David puts Jesus first in his life, and for that love he is willing to risk everything.

Sharing Jesus in Turkey is exactly what David loves to do. (Yes, people do sometimes get killed for that sort of thing in Turkey.)

TJ just can't get his mind around that idea.

...And let's face it. Many professed Christians share TJ's perspective.

It's one thing to profess affection for Jesus. Another to claim to follow him. But it's an act of lunacy to put oneself in physical danger for Jesus. That, my friends, is taking this religious thing a step too far.

With all that as backdrop, a brick hit me in the head a few days ago as I read a commentary on the gospel of Mark. For the first time I realized that this debate between TJ and David is an echo of another much older one that, come to find out, is pretty similar.

The Jew

Mark 3:20-21
Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

So I've read that passage many times before, but here's the difference. I always figured his family really did think Jesus had lost his mind. On this pass, thanks to a commentary, I read those words differently.

The NIV Bible Background Commentary explains...

Because false teachers were sometimes thought to be inspired by demons and the official penalty for misleading God's people this way was death (Deut 13:5; 18:20), Jesus' family had reason to want to reach him before the legal experts did.

Is there any indication from Mark that this is what they were worried about? Let's read the next verse.

Mark 3:22
And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

Does TJ really think David is insane? No! He just thinks that David is behaving irresponsibly, throwing his life away under a Turkish bus.

Did Jesus's family really think he was insane? No! But I bet they did think he was throwing his life away under a Jerusalem bus.

TJ is a wonderful person, and he really cares about David. He just doesn't want David to get hurt. Jesus' family had similar concerns.

So what's the right response? Read on.

Mark 3:31-35
Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.

Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

The right response is this: Radical faith requires radical actions. Even if people think you're behaving irresponsibly.

Fluffy faith likes a fluffy Jesus. But Jesus wasn't fluffy. Jesus was radical.

More from that commentary:

"Thinking of one's coreligionists as brothers and sisters was common; Respecting older persons as mothers or fathers was also widespread. But allowing ties in the religious community to take precedence over family ties was unheard-of in Judaism..."

Doesn't that sound exactly like Christianity in the West today? Brothers, sisters... lovey-dovey and a fluffy pink Jesus. But nobody should risk their lives or the lives of loved ones for any of this stuff! Family first!

But Jesus doesn't see it that way. He begs to differ. Will we hear his voice?

The commentary continues:

"Jesus is not rejecting his earthly family althogether but stating his priories, because they want to declare him mentally incompetent to rescue him from the dangers he is sure to face from religious authorities if he continues on his present path.

So the question is this: Which Jesus do we want? Fluffy Pink? Or Radical? The path we take will likely make it clear how we decided on that question.

I cracked open Facebook this morning and saw this post.

"Yeah," I thought to myself, "I should write that blog."

With that very thought rattling in my head, I then went upstairs, where I heard my wife praying a child out the door to school. "And thank you Jesus, for bringing David home to his family."

OK, maybe get it down today?

So here I am, wrapping up the story of Jesus' choice. Of David's choice.

What, my friends, will we choose?

Stuff I Should Have Learned In Middle School

Remember that popular book titled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? I was reminded of that book yesterday.

It began with my little worrier who is now in Middle School. She wanted a ride to school early so that she could hurry and procure some study materials that she needed for an exam that would happen later that day.

Yeah. That ain't happening.

First of all, she's got straight A's. For seconders, she's in seventh grade. There's no class in seventh grade that puts us in a make-or-break situation, let alone a single test. (And the circumstances that led to this urgency were not due to her negligence, either, BTW...)

That having been said, it's admirable to want to do your best, and her attention to such things will yield dividends for decades. I wish one of the other siblings would acquire a bit more of this passion for excellence in schoolwork! But we digress.

One of my main jobs as this child's parent is not to push her to study harder but rather to encourage her to not worry. She worries. Way too much.

I've said to her the very things I am writing here.

"No, honey, I'm not going to take you to school early in the car. The bus will be fine, and I won't give you any grief at all if the exam goes poorly. Don't worry about it. The only thing I'm concerned about right now is that you do your best and develop good study habits."

A lot of good that does. She frets. Worries. And stews.

It does concern me a bit, that she's such a perfectionist. But by the same token, I admit I do find it a bit amusing. "The stuff she thinks is so important!" I'll think to myself. Then I'll shake my head, knowing that in three years she'll never remember any of these things that had her brain in fight-or-flight mode today.

And then it all came back to me after I went to bed.

Several minutes after I went to bed.

Like, thirty minutes after I went to bed. Or maybe it was forty.

Normally I fall asleep a lot faster. But lately I've had a thumb injury that has plagued my thoughts at night. The surgery to fix it is expensive. Recovery is expected to be limited.

Oh. And my oldest is heading off to college. An expensive one.

And work? For the first time in a long time, it has been a bit dicey.

So, No. I've not been sleeping very well, of late.

You can see it coming, can't you? Yeah. All of a sudden, lying there in bed last night, I had to smile. Here I am, stewing in my worries.

And you just know what God's thinking...

“Child, you are as silly as your daughter. Do you think I will give you grief over things beyond your control that don't go perfectly? Do you?"

"And did I hear you telling her that you're only interested in her doing her best? Developing good study habits? My son! What do you think I'm hoping to see you gain out of what you are experiencing right now??"

Yeah. I think, now that you mention it, God has been clear on that topic:

Matthew 6:25-34 excerpted
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ... Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“You of little faith... Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Yes, Lord, I hear your voice again. Thank you. I remember my job now.

Help me to sleep well tonight, will you please?

Easter Is For Losers

This past Easter was not that happy chocolate-strewn joyfest it usually is. For openers, our youngest was down with the flu for most of the week preceding Easter, and that same virus proceeded in our home from host to host, not satisfied merely to take out only one of us. Before it was over, almost all of us had received our share of the misery.

All part of the pallor of this glorious resurrection week.

But all of this was just backdrop to the greater shadow hanging over my Easter week. In a recent blog, I touched on a Christmas-gift injury: a ruptured thumb tendon. Well, that should have been healed by March, but as one doctor put it recently, "Congratulations! You won the lottery!"

Hardy-har-har. He was referring to the fact that I re-ruptured it in mid-March. Re-ruptures that many weeks after surgery place me among the unlucky 1% that the other 99% do not envy.

So on Easter Sunday, I was awaiting a doctor's appointment on Tuesday to get a second opinion on whether and how we might try to restore some functionality to my right thumb. But here's the strange thing....

All these bodily ailments made Easter all the more special.

Yes, strange to say, this miserable Easter Sunday stands above the rest. This Easter I celebrated what we're supposed to be celebrating all along:

A final victory that is yet to come. A victory for losers.

I've come to appreciate the practice of giving something up Lent. Doing so doesn't make me holy, but it does remind me of loss and helps me to await the arrival of Easter with greater vigilance. But these lenten denials are just 2D imitations of 3D suffering, because after Easter has passed we joyfully resume consumption of that which we had temporarily denied ourselves.

My thumb injury, however, didn't go away on Easter morning, and it served as a poignant reminder that Easter is for permanent losers. The significance of Easter will grow for us in an intimate way when we face death as a more present reality.

This is not to play down the blessings we experience here on Earth as disciples of Christ. They are real. But the great victory Christ has won for us is over death. And, for now, we're alive.

Yes, my thumb injury introduced me to permanent loss and to hints of my mortality. But in the grand scheme of things, it's a minor setback.

It's been a different story, however, for a dear friend of mine. I received news yesterday that his wife had drowned in a tragic accident. On an Easter vacation.

A husband bereaved. Three children, the youngest still just a toddler, now without a mother. Can anyone understand the darkness he faces? Not me.

But Jesus does. Jesus faced death. Met it. And overcame it. For us.

For my friend I pray in the midst of this all-consuming darkness that a glimmer of light will shine, giving him Easter's hope for a day yet to come.

He will see his wife again. His children will see their mother again.

1 Corinthians 15:54
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

Now more than ever, I am keenly aware of that first word: When.

God's Gold: Do We Know What It Looks Like?

Matthew 25:14-30

“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

“‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

OK, so that's a pretty well-known parable, to be sure. But I was reminded again as I read it that Jesus talks "money" an awful lot.

Now it's a well known fact that many of Jesus' parables involve money and business, but of course we "know better" than to misunderstand that, right? Jesus isn't really fixated on finance.

...Right?

Well, Jesus isn't. That's for sure. And when we talk starkly about bags of money, we're less likely to confuse the point. True.

But I think when we're all honest about it, We do get this parable wrong. What do I mean? Well, let's talk about how we use our time and talents.

Not to toot my horn, because I'm not a spring chicken either, but I've been tutoring a child on Monday afternoons over the past few years. I do so with my high-school son. Why? Because, I'll confess, I hope to introduce his life to those who are needy and plant seeds of concern.

But to get to the point, there is something nearly all the other tutors have in common. They're women. Women of all ages. And one (very elderly) man.

Why only women? I'll tell you why: because men misread that parable. We men too often think that we must invest our talents and abilities well. There's no big return on investment (money-wise) when we tutor. So we men don't show up. We're too busy working on important things.

This may seem unfair to the men who work downtown during the afternoons, but many of the women we see at tutoring are college students. Wheaton College is co-ed. Nuff said.

So we (men, in particular) seem to be taking those bags of gold a wee bit too literally. And I think Jesus knew we would. Why? He took steps to clarify his point. Look at the next parable he tells.

Matthew 25:31-46

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

After I finished reading that next parable, I was struck by an ironic twist, and it is this: people who were busy caring for the poor? That, financially speaking, was a waste of time. Spend time with prisoners and the sick? Great way to reduce your income. Inviting the stranger in? Hospitality sucks your resources in time and money. All the stuff these people were doing? It wasn't making them richer. It was making them poorer.

And God called it a great investment.

So with this latter parable in mind, let us return to the former parable and ask the question: What exactly does God's gold look like?

In light of the 2nd parable, the answer is easy. God's gold is people. And there is no better way to turn a fast buck (we speak here in God's language, mind you) with people than to help the poor and sick. To visit the prisoner.

Because when people suffer, God's gold is suffering.

One final thought to add to the pile. My commentary added clarity to the bad steward's words. Returning God's gold back to him, the man said, "See, here is what belongs to you." In Jewish financial transactions, these words imply that "I'm am no longer responsible for this."

Wow. The man had never wanted the gold in the first place. Didn't want it. Didn't use it well. Returned it with evident relief. Free of the burden.

Unwanted. A burden. A hindrance. Isn't that how the wealthy sometimes treat the poor? I think it is. Once again, politics creeps in. A whole wing of politics is devoted to keeping the poor away. Away from our faces. Away from our money. Away from our country. Away from needed healthcare.

These are sobering words. God has left us with gold. He's waiting to see what we'll do with it. And here is what we've done. We've buried it. In the ghetto. In the prisons. And we wish God's gold would go away.

But there will be a day of reckoning, my friends, and if our attitudes about God's gold don't change, things will not go well for us. Is it too late to learn to recognize and love God's gold? To invest in it? Make it prosper?

Speaking for myself, I hope not.

Peace Amidst Devastation: Peeling Onions (III of III)

In my last reflection I shared what I had recently learned about Aramaic references to a healthy or a diseased eye: how such terms can actually be statements about one's generosity. Or stinginess. Thanks to some helpful commentaries, a few scales fell from my eyes as I saw Jesus' words in a new light.

Here in this final reflection on "Peeling Onions" I turn back a few pages to Psalm 46, a Psalm best known for this little gem. (The onion's first layer.)

Psalm 46:10a - Be still, and know that I am God

This verse is a familiar one for Christians. It adorns the walls of Christian bookstores and (in needlepoint) the halls of many Christian homes.

It's not hard to see why. Though the word "Peace" is not to be found in it, it reeks of peace all the same. In so many words, it encourages us to relax and trust God, knowing that he's in control.

For those whose lives seem to be spinning out of control, this is an intoxicating promise. And a good one. One we do well to dwell upon.

But that's just the first layer of the onion. The astute reader will notice (!) that it is not even the whole part of a verse, and that the verse itself is, of course, part of a larger Psalm.

What does the rest of Psalm 46 look like?

Psalm 46
1 God is our refuge and strength,
   an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
   and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
   and the mountains quake with their surging.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
   the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
   God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
   he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

7 The Lord Almighty is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the Lord has done,
   the desolations he has brought on the earth.

9 He makes wars cease
   to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
   he burns the shields with fire.
10 ‘Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.’

11 The Lord Almighty is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our fortress.

To my great shame, I have a confession to make here. I've been memorizing this Psalm, and yet somehow I was nearly done memorizing it before I began to actually confront all of what it said. Sad. Be that as it may, I suddenly heard the word.

Come and see what the Lord has done,
   the desolations he has brought on the earth.

Desolations? Ouch. The next layer of our onion has peeled.

What happened to that warm-fuzzy poster quote material?? God... bringing desolations on the earth. What sort of desolations?

Well, Psalm 46 indicates that our God brings desolations through natural disasters as well as through war. Ouch.

If you were looking for a God who wears pink slippers and sits on a throne dispensing benevolent glances... maybe this God is not for you. The God of Psalm 46 is quite active. And more than a little scary.

That thought rankled within me for several weeks. We Christians quote the peaceful verse quite a bit. In fact, my wife and I use a calming song (for a Sunday School class we teach) whose main and only lyric is this:

Be still, and know that I am God.

We sing that through three times. And since the kids like it, sometimes we go for another round. But imagine the kids singing this:

Come, come and see... desolation of sea.
Mountains fall down... whenever he speaks!

Psalm 46 is not, end-to-end, a song of tranquility. It depicts God in the midst of a world wracked by at least as much upheaval as our own lives evidence. Probably a great deal more.

Christians often take Muslims to task for quoting little sound-bites from the Qur'an that seem peaceful enough–until you read the rest of the Qur'an and discover the wider context. We Christians are playing a bit of the same game when we quote Psalm 46:10 out of context.

But, as I say, I've memorized this Psalm and will continue to recite it until April. (At which point I turn 47 years of age, and I'll start in on Psalm 47!)

To my shame (again) it wasn't until I had recited Psalm 46 for several more weeks that the third layer of the onion began to peel away for me.

Yes, Psalm 46 paints a pretty turbulent and violent scene. But after one internalizes the craziness of all that is happening around the writer, peace returns to the scene. Not peace of the sort we use to calm children before bedtime. No. Peace of the sort that is useful to people whose lives have been turned upside down. The kind of peace a refugee from Syria could use.

Peace in the midst of a raging storm.

One thing in particular struck me one day as I reviewed Psalm 46 again. God is active in war, true. But what is he doing? Shattering the tools of war. Call me stupid, but I didn't really internalize that rather obvious fact until quite late in the game. God is bringing desolations, yes. But it appears he may be taking a turbulent world down a path that leads to a war-free world.

He makes wars cease
   to the ends of the earth.

Syrian refugees already know that the earth is not peaceful. That's not news to them, and they don't have the luxury of needlepoint assurances to the contrary adorning the halls of homes they had to abandon two years ago.

What Syrian refugees need to know is that, in the midst of this upheaval, God is still present. God is bringing good. God will, one day, make wars cease. What they need to know is this:

The Lord Almighty is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our fortress.

People don't build fortresses for giggles and grins. They build them because the world is a dangerous place. But fortresses are hard to build. And when you're done, is the one you built up to the task?

Contrast that with the thought of God himself being your fortress. God is not the sort of fortress that comes up short on strength, resiliance and durability. If God himself is our fortress, we can, even in a turbulent world, return to some rather peaceful and comforting words:

'Be still, and know that I am God.
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.’

These words are not a needlepoint-stitched ticket to a blissful, idyllic existence. But they do promise us a future. One we can long for and anticipate. One where wars have ceased and where God is exalted. Let us seek that peace, and (even while it is not yet with us) remember that God will yet one day bring it about.

P.S. It was not my goal at the outset, but I find that all three of the threads in this reflection series invites a segue into politics. I accept the invitation. It is a fact that the Republican party is known for its belicosity. Democratic candidates find themselves trying to keep up, so as to not appear wimpy, but it is Republican candidates who lead the charge. What I find ironic is that the God of the Bible "makes wars to cease." Republican candidates will of course give lip service to this notion, but their chosen route to that destination is a dead (and bloody) end: more guns and a larger national defense budget. I suspect that it will be people with a Republican mindset who find themselves to be the very obstacles that God tramples on when he finally causes wars to cease. That's food for thought. (And probably an encouraging one for the Syrian refugees that Republicans love to hate.)

Giving Sight To The Blind: Peeling Onions (II of III)

Matthew 6:19-24

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

It took a a beautiful Wheaton College chapel message to get my lazy fingers into gear on these "Peeling Onions" reflections, but it was this passage from Matthew that inspired the title.

I recently began a slow walk through the New Testament. (Someone yells out, "How slow?") So slow that... well, put it this way. I just finished a slow run through the Old Testament, and that job took five years! But we digress.

So here we are on Matthew 6, and I read the above verses...

And I'm just about to move on... And I'm struck by a thought.

That's odd!

That... what?

Well, Jesus is talking about the dangers of money. And then he started talking about eyes... And then he started talking about money again!

I cannot claim to have read Leviticus more than twice in my life, but I've read the Sermon on the Mount dozens of times.

And yet. I had never noticed that oddity before. Why is a discussion about eyes sandwiched between two warnings about money?

I looked more closely at the verses again.

And I discovered a footnote I had never really noticed before.

"The Greek for healthy here implies generous."

Huh. OK... and what about the unhealthy eyes? Another footnote!

"The Greek for unhealthy here implies stingy."

OOOOOOooooh. So let's read that passage again.

The eye is the lamp of the body. If you see the world through generous eyes, your whole body will be full of light. But if you view the world with stingy eyes, your whole body will be full of darkness!

Wow. I've been reading that passage for decades. Never had a clue. But now I see that it's really a single passage about money. Always was. It just took me forty years to notice.

Thus the title of this blog: Peeling Onions. The Bible, God's gift to us, is the most beautiful document in the world. But! We have to read it slowly if we want to gain all that it has to give. We must move slowly if God is to peel away our misunderstandings and give us new layers of insight.

And now it's time (as with a TV commercial pitch) for the... "But wait!"

Yes. There's more. The Bible is even better than a multi-purpose Ginsu 2.

My encounter with Matthew 6? That happened in November of last year.

Yessir. I'm moving along at a good clip. Today I'm on Matthew 20!

One clarification is in order before we skip forward 15 chapters. The actual Greek behind that passage in Matthew 6 is singular. As in, Jesus spoke about a healthy EYE and an unhealthy EYE.

I mention that because we're going to find that EYE again.

(Keep your eyes open!)

Matthew 20:1-15
For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

Didn't see it? I didn't either. But it's there.

I wouldn't have known were it not for the commentary that pointed this out. But there it is. The EYE. The onion yields another layer. In Matthew 6, Jesus warns against seeing the world through a stingy eye. In Matthew 20, he bring his point home with a story.

Maybe we should be taking this one seriously?

My prior blog touched on politics, and it seems a return trip is in order. Before we hit the road, however, I'll note that I absolutely despise even the notion of being affiliated with any one party. I ask each and every candidate the same two questions:

1) Are you competent for the job?
2) How do your priorities align with those of Christ Jesus?

With that as backdrop, let's proceed. Well, it goes without saying that the Republican Party claims to represent Christians. And does so stridently.

So let's ask the question. Of the Republican candidates now vying to win the primaries... How many are viewing the world through a healthy eye?

Well, I guess we'd need to know how God sees the world to answer that.

In Matthew 20, we see that God wants to employee the underdogs. The under-employed... and pay these particular souls more than they deserve.

That, friends, is what Jesus says viewing the world generously looks like.

I'm not aware of any Republican candidates espousing this point of view.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Now it must be said that I've given Republicans most of my attention over these past two blogs. True enough, and there is a reason why. Jesus said it for me over 2,000 years ago.

John 9:41
Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.’

The Republican party courts and expects the "Evangelical" vote. I put quotes around the word because it no longer means what it used to mean. Republicans still get that vote, but that simply goes to show that both Republicans and Evangelicals share a common problem: a diseased eye whose condition has worsened to the point of spiritual blindness.

...If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

Those are strong words for the Republican party. And for "Evangelicals", whatever that word means anymore.

But it's also a strong reminder for me. Do I have a healthy eye? I'm not a Democrat, much less a fan of the welfare state, and yet Jesus' story rivets me. At least in spiritual terms, God's grace is extravagant–so much so as to appear exactly that way. So I, too, am in the spotlight. And feeling uncomfortable. How much of my life is marked by grace like this?

To be continued...

What Trump Did Not Know: Peeling Onions (I of III)

Some works of art simply beg to be stolen and then shared with a wider public. Great masterpieces should not languish in a basement, as it were.

The same goes for good stories like the one I am sharing here.

Stealing, in this case, is a rather simple affair. A bit of cutting, pasting, and transcribing audio to words? Easy. Done. All taken from this YouTube clip.

Disseminating this gem of a story to a wider audience is the harder task. I have no "bully pulpit" with this blog. The nations do not gather at my URL.

And yet I feel compelled to give it vent. Share it all the same. A beautiful song, sung into the void is still beautiful. In this case, I'm repeating someone else's song. It hasn't been heard much, and the clip may go away. And many people don't have 30 minutes to spare. So I sing, into the void, a shorter version of it.

The song begins with this prologue. The set up of the story.

Anna O'Connor, the speaker's daughter, died four years ago. She died young. Of cancer. But the combination of her stunning beauty and her rare form of cancer seem to have brought her to the attention of "the beautiful people", as they call them.

One in particular, billionaire Teddy Forstmann, seems to have been the catalyst. As I review the Wikipedia article on this billionaire, I can see why. He, too, was stricken with cancer. He died a few months before Anna did.

But before he died, Teddy took Anna to many exotic places (I'm guessing they were all cancer charity events), and Anna found herself in the company of a host of famous individuals. I won't recite them all here, but only note the few that are key to this abridged telling of O'Connor's story.

First, a picture of Anna, taken by Gilles Bensimon, former International Creative Director of Elle Magazine. He took one look at Anna and decided a shoot was in order. It's not hard to see why.

For sheer, simple beauty, Anna is Marilyn Monroe's match.

Moving on, we pick up the story where Dr. O'Connor notes with glee, "Here's Anna with the next president of the United States..."

O'Connor stammers on, "... Is that allowed? Can I say that? Oh, I'm sorry, that must be the wrong slide. Here's Anna with the next president..."

O'Connor then adds a bit of astute political commentary: "I'm sorry this is so depressing! Am I right? Oh my gosh... what happened there?"

(The immortalized words of Buck Dharma in the I Could Have Used A Little More Cowbell SNL skit come to my mind: "He speaks for all of us!")

But here's the portion of O'Connor's story that I'm getting us to.

When Trump met Anna, he blurted out, "Wow, this one's beautiful."

But as O'Connor notes about Trump, "There was something he just... didn't know. So I suppose that will surprise some of you..."

[Crescendoing laughter, as the audience picks up on this dig...]

O'Connor continues, "Although on the surface, she appeared beautiful. I'm her father, I think I can say that. But not far below, she was a real mess. Her beauty, we might say, was only skin deep. So we'll call these scans...

This is where the onion peeling begins in seriousness. Anna O'Connor. Marilyn Monroe. To Trump? The situation is a draw. Both are beautiful women, and for his sexual purposes, both equally delightful.

What Trump cannot understand is that both women were, beneath the skin, rotting. But this is no tie race. No.

Here is where Anna pulls away from iconic Marilyn in this race of beauty.

No slam on Marilyn, here. I obviously didn't know her. But her life was a mess.

Anna, on the other hand, had only rotting flesh beneath her beautiful skin.

How ironic. It turns out that Trump was, in the final analysis, right.

Very, very right.

The onion, friends, has another layer to peel. On the surface? Beautiful. Below the skin, not so much. But peel one more layer and we find that Trump's analysis is (accidentally) spot on.

"Wow, this one's beautiful."

Why? As O'Connor shares, and the 30 minutes are well spent listening, Anna wanted to let God have his way in her life, and it didn't have to be according to her own terms.

That is not the picture of a girl's dream life. That's a young woman dying.

Why the smile? Well, she knew what Jesus knew. And what was that?

Confused yet? Watch the YouTube clip. But in this shorter MTV version? Jesus knew he would soon die. And it wouldn't be fair.

Jesus was able to do something beautiful because he trusted the Father with "the bad news" and embraced what God could do with such materials.

It was Jesus' faithful walk to the cross that changed the world.

But the offer is extended not only to Jesus. We too can do beautiful things with our suffering. Even now, four years later, I'm moved by Anna, a woman who also embraced her via dolorosa with an inner grace that far exceeded her natural beauty.

What an appropriate picture to lead me into the season of Lent.

Thank you, Dr. O'Connor. Thank you, Jesus.

I cannot end this reflection any better than with O'Connor's own words regarding his daughter Anna: "So we might say that just below the skin, it was a real mess, but deeper still there was a real beauty."

To be continued...