Going for The Big Kill

The link below is a now-infamous TV confrontation. It took place on Fox News between an interviewer and a Muslim professor with degrees in religion who wrote a book about Jesus. He argues that Jesus was not the son of God; he argues that Jesus was a political revolutionary, and only that.

The interviewer went for the Big Kill. She wanted to ask a question that would make Dr. Aslan implode with his supposed inability to respond. It didn’t happen. It wasn’t going to.

Simply put, she lacked the tools she needed to do what she wanted to do. She couldn't equal this man's knowledge of history or the Greek language. So she kept focusing the interview on his Muslim faith as if that disqualified his opinion. (It doesn't.) And she seemed to assert that there is some scholarly consensus about the historical Jesus. (There isn't.)


1. Ego versus humility.

She should have remembered that a debate doesn't begin when the camera turns on; nor does it end when the camera shuts off. Any TV interview contributes to an on-going debate. Instead of imagining that at the end of her segment she, like a gladiator, was going to hold up the bloody head of her adversary, she should have shown some curiosity, probed his beliefs. She should have trusted that truth will emerge over time.

She should have tried to contribute to the debate, instead of trying to end it.

Her approach wasn’t humble, and it wasn’t effective.


2. Comparison with cross-examination.

Many lawyers will tell you that you don’t win your case in cross-examination. In real courtrooms, there are few Perry Mason moments. Instead of winning your case in cross-examination, you win it in argument. (I’d say you win it in jury selection – but that’s another blog post.) In cross-examination, instead of making a Big Kill, you score small points, which add up. And you reveal their importance when you argue to the jury at the close of evidence, before jury deliberation begins.

This interviewer wasn’t going to make an argument to a "jury" at the end of her show. But what Dr. Aslan said would enter the stream of public discussion, to rise or fall. His ideas would not rise or fall at that moment, on that show. His ideas would rise or fall as they were probed and tested as time goes by.


3. A little piece of that ongoing discussion.

Badly handled as the interview was, there were things that pricked my interest.

I'm no Greek scholar. Dr. Aslan asserts that he is. But I'm really really accustomed to people claiming that the standard definition of a word is wrong, and that the "real" definition supports their conclusion. That's what Dr. Aslan does here, in part, to support his argument that Jesus was some kind of political firebrand, not the son of God.

That kind of argument is standard stuff. It’s standard stuff especially if you’re dealing with language as used thousands of years ago. The more ancient the usage, the harder it is to prove someone’s interpretation is wrong.

Maybe he's right. But I have no reason to doubt the usual, time-tested definitions that he quarrels with. I suspect that his arguments are plausible. But often there is a gap between plausible and right.


4. Don’t care.

I believe that the man is wrong about Jesus Christ. I won't read his book to see if I can out-argue him. I'm sure that I can't. I don’t care.

Maybe that seems like capitulation. It’s not. It’s lack of interest.

Many many years ago, that debate occupied me. But I decided that as I circled myself in my mind, that circling kept me from moving forward. So I made a decision and started a journey.


5. What matters more.

And on that journey, I have benefitted from people who could parse Greek, or biblical Hebrew, or Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke. I’m grateful for their help.

But the people who have helped me more are the people who have prayed for me -- the ones I know about, and the ones I don’t.

The people who have helped me more are the good and true people who make the same journey that I am making. I am refreshed in their company and encouraged by their examples.

Biblical scholarship definitely it has it’s place, purpose, and value. I’ve benefitted from it myself. But I once decided that I would rather learn about Jesus from a great man or a great woman than a great scholar. That remains true today.

__________________________
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwWbPpFZ31s

Eden Deferred

As a young lawyer, I learned quickly that I wouldn’t always win when I was in front of a judge. So I learned to think this way: "If you can’t get what you want, figure out what you can get." And that’s good advice for life, too, I think.

In almost sixty years, I never got a wife. That gives me a sense that I've missed out. I've missed the company. Friends are delighting in grandchildren; it's a joy that I don't have.

But I’ve stepped off planes in Central America to feel embraced by the sweet air. I’ve gaped at great art from Madrid to Mexico City.

I can laugh at my own thoughts. I'm happy when I behold a good, new idea.

I have good health. I’m not a champion, but I feel like a champion when I do my laps in the pool. Or I can jog for a fair amount of time, and I can drink the scenery while I sweat from jogging.

I drink hope. I’ve had despair, so I’m grateful for hope.

I have a church that I cherish. It’s small. In the eyes of the world, small is bad, big is good. Small suggests failure, big suggests success. In what seems to be defiance of the laws of space and geometry, people push to squeeze into big. But in my small church, I’m easily accommodated.

Maybe I shouldn’t say small. Intimate is a better word. Personal is a good word, too.

People there are asking the same questions that I ask, and the pastors there help me find my way to God

My life has its troubles. I have my anxious times. I have my weakness, my worries, my angers, my disappointments, my humiliations.

I have my moments when I get blunt with God: God, I need a wife! This has been an issue in my prayers. The other day I complained to God about judges who always favor the government, no matter the law or the facts. That probably refreshed God, because he was probably glad to hear me, for a change, complain about something other than not being married.

A good marriage is a good thing. A partner with like interests and inclinations can make life better. And I’m not a man who is embarrassed by need. Nor is the Bible. From Psalm 19:

     In the deep [God] set a pavilion for the sun;
        It comes forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber;
        It rejoices like a champion to run its course.
        [Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.]

Imagine what happened in the bridegroom’s chamber that gave the bridegroom such energy.

Too true.

It’s also true that not everyone has a lot of money. Not everyone finds joy in a good book. Not everyone makes friends easily. Not everybody has children and grandchildren. Not everyone bursts from the bridegroom’s chamber. All of these can be good things. None are essential.

I have reason for contentment. When I miss contentment, I have reason for hope. It’s not a hope for freedom from longing or from the discontentments and the frustrations of the world. Really, nobody escapes those.

But sometimes, on a clear day, I look up and see the loveliness and largeness and majesty of the clouds. In such a moment, I may have a sense of the high and timeless. I may have a sense that one day I may know a joy that will make trivial all former longings and discontentments and frustrations.

The journey to that joy may go through marriage. A wife is a good thing, and I’m glad for my friends and relations who have partners, and who cultivate their marriages like a new Eden.

But I may not know that Eden. And, it’s a false choice, but if I had to choose between a wife and hope, hope is better. Hope itself is reason to be glad.

I've come to this blog post after a few hours away. I feel I need to add something.

It's true that sometimes the journey to joy goes through marriage. It's also true that sometimes it goes through sorrow. I would like find it by way of marriage. I don't wish to go to it through sorrow. But I might. I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but tomorrow I will.

Some people have known deep sorrow. To them, complaining about not being married would seem shallow. I hope for such people that Jesus welcomes them on the other side of sorrow.

And I regret that I complain when my life doesn't seem happy enough. But I do.

Lord, thank you for the joy that I have had. Thank you for the blessings of my life. I pray that I may live in gratitude and hope. I pray that I may learn to crave that others may have joy, instead of craving for myself the joy I want but don't have. In Jesus's name, Amen.

Hunger, Heaven, and Hell

It's possible to worship God when you are afraid. But in fretfulness, I find it hard to pray. My dread can suffocate my prayer. I’m not proud of that. This humbles me before those who have a steel-hard spiritual strength that I lack. It forces me to reckon my own sin in one of its shapes, fear. Judge me or don't. Your call.

It’s possible to worship God when you are hungry. I have worshiped in hunger and thirst. But in those times I had chosen to be hungry and thirsty. It may be that hunger creates in the poor such dread that, like me in fretfulness, they find it hard to pray. And hunger alone might come between creator and creature. To be hungry is to be in danger of losing sight of God. Judge the hungry or don’t. Your call.

I don't have children. So my ability to worship while my daughter groans in her sleep for lack of food is entirely hypothetical. So I cannot judge the man with a hungry daughter who cannot lift his eyes to God.

This is a beautiful prayer, the beauty of which I would not wish on anyone:

     My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
        Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
     O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
        and by night, but find no rest. [Psalm 22:1-2 (NRSV).]


1. Helping the rich, hurting the poor.

That prayer might soon be the anthem of many hearts among America’s poor. An element of the House of Representatives has killed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps).

But they gave billions of dollars to Big Agribusiness – $195 billion over 10 years.


2. Hurt has its reasons.

Many if not most of these members of Congress confess Christ. So I am enjoined from hating them. But if I could ask them a question, it would be this: Congressmen, how do you beautify helping the rich and hurting the poor? What is the biblical lipstick you put on your legislative pig? Is it Matthew 13:12?

For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. [NRSV]

I would say, Jesus did not mean that men and women of power in our time should add to corporations’ fleets of jets at the same time that they put discount bakery-remainders above the grasp of a poor family. Jesus was talking about understanding.

I would urge them, Get that; that is a prayer my for you: get understanding. Your authority is greater than mine, but I will seek it, too.

3. Hearing from heaven and hell.
I am unlikely ever to be among members of Congress, such that we could share what we know about God. But in my place and time, I might share my ideas with Christian men and women who might share such ideas back at me.

And when two or three are gathered in his name, Jesus is there. I hope he brings Lazarus, from his parable, who was poor, who had sores that dogs licked, who did not get even crumbs from the rich man’s table, who’s door he starved at. Lazarus suffered in his lifetime, but now he gets every good thing in heaven. And maybe Lazarus will pray his own gospel story into the hearts and minds of we who speak together about hunger. Lazarus stands for the poor and desperate in Jesus’s Palestinian days and in our present time.

But if Jesus does not bring Lazarus, maybe he will bring up from hell the other character in that parable – the rich man, who did not love Lazarus, who did not help him, who suffers now, who suffers unbearable thirst, who will suffer forever. Maybe, from the rich man’s mouth, in which lack of spittle makes his mucous congeal into tiny, sharp pebbles, he will rasp a warning not to enjoy our prosperity as if God had prospered us only for ourselves. Not that Jesus wants the rich to have less; he wants the poor to have more. He wants them not to be hungry.


4. Where Jesus will be.

After food stamps are cut off, if that is the final outcome, Jesus will be in America. Jesus will be among the poor, just as he was among the poor of Israel two-thousand years ago. In that time, he did not enter a palace until it was time to die.

And for every man, woman, and child who suffers, Jesus will know their suffering as if it were his own. It will be his own. When we afflict the poor, we afflict Christ. Isn't that revealed in the nature of a brother, a father, who loves perfectly?


5.  Prayer.

Jesus, pray Lazarus into our hearts. Amen.

Lonely

Many years ago, I knew a woman who was married a long time, and she was faithful to her husband until the day that she died, almost.

She longed for more than what she had. Then she thought that she had found what she longed for. It was a man her age who had similar interests. She was a teacher; he was a principal. She liked to golf. So did he.

And he would call her on the phone and read psalms to her. He would ask her what she thought that one psalm or another meant. And he would praise the beauty of the psalms.

They had an affair. It lasted a short time. Then he left her and started up with a PTA president.

In the short time that this woman had an affair with this man, she became deeply attached to him. He walked away, but her attachment to him stayed. She even stalked him. In addition to the attachment, another bi-product of the affair was her unbearable shame. She tried to take her life.

It had been her practice to pray every day. After the affair, when she went to pray, all she could say to God was "I’m sorry."

Within two-or-three years, she was dead. She did not reach the age of retirement before she died. On her deathbed, she confessed to loneliness.

Predators who clothe themselves in godly-seeming garments will always find it easy to take down women and men who long for God but don’t know how to find him, or don’t know that he is what they long for.

The rich find it easy to take down men or women who long for riches. (It is apparently an old saying that if you marry for money, you end up paying for it.)

Or someone might long for a highly-clever person. (I suspect that Russell Brand’s easy wit is what makes him to many women irresistible.) Or a beautiful person. Or a learned person. Or brave. Or famous. The ors could add up.

Statistics on marriage and divorce are kept by the Centers for Disease Control. I mention that without particular comment. The Centers for Disease Control tell us that every year, 6.8 people get married for every thousand persons in America; and 3.6 persons get divorced.

If I understand those statistics, more than half of all American marriages end up in family court. But a broad statistic like that says little. The first line of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I've never been married, so I can't say. Nor can I judge any marriage that fails. I know for a fact that if I had married when I was younger, I would not have stayed married. That’s true no matter who I might have married. I was just too selfish.

That said, I believe the ability to live with longing and a willingness for that longing to be unsatisfied while we live is a gift from above. So is patience to channel our longing in a virtuous direction where we don’t necessarily get what we want, but we are at least somewhat satisfied with what we get.

When we burn for something, but we resist it for righteousness’s sake, maybe the smoke from that burning is a fragrance pleasing to God.

To this woman, this love affair drew her like a crackling bonfire on a winter’s night. While it lasted, it was a joy to her. It was less important to her lover. To him, discarding it was like flinging away a cigarette while reaching for another.

Let me say one last thing about the woman of this story. Please remember that she said that all she could pray after the affair was "I’m sorry."

I heard that from her in the time of her dying. Years after, I remembered that she had said that, and I thought of Jesus’s story in Luke 18, about the Pharisee and the tax collector. Both were in the temple. The Pharisee thanked God that he himself was so virtuous, not like other men, and, in particular, not like this tax collector. But the tax collector stood far off. He could not look up. In shame, he cried to God, "Have mercy on me, a sinner!" Jesus said that one of those men was justified before God, but not the other.

And these are words from Psalm 51:"The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." (NRSV.)

I regret that I did not at the time think of this story, and this psalm, to share with this woman.

But I hope that, one day, she will hear them from the lips of an angel.

The Right Question

This was the morning of studying small children. I saw them in Trader Joe’s; I saw them in Von’s; I saw them in a parking lot. They were with their parents.

And they were adorable. So cute. So happy. So protected.

One little girl was with her sister and her father. Father and daughter were talking, and the only part of the conversation that I heard was this:

Little girl: "I’m not a sidekick. She’s a sidekick." (Pointing to her sister.)

Father: "Not sidekick. Psychic." (All adults grin.)

1. Theology lurking.

There’s theology lurking here somewhere.

Some of my friends who are not believers hold a theological magic lamp. Its genii  banishes any notion of the existence of God. That magic lamp is evil in the world. If God exists and God is good, why does that evil exist?

I am mortal and limited in my understanding, like they are. So ultimately they should take up an issue this big with God. If they don’t wish to go to God with their accusation, then they might find someone who has really, really suffered, and who believes. And they should ask that person, "Why"?

But here is a limited answer from a limited man:

You are asking the wrong question.


2. Why is there good in the world?

Because the better question is this: if power is irresistible, and if power corrupts, and if some folk have an almost supernatural ability to accumulate power, why is there good in the world?

Why can these lovely children be fed and protected and loved by prosperous, safe parents?


3. The difference a question makes.

I heard of a scholar, a theologian, who studied God and evil. He spent years peering into grotesque events. After years of investigation, he ceased to believe.

I can’t judge him, but maybe that was bound to happen.

Maybe Paul had his reasons when he said in Philippians 4:4-9 (NRSV):

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Maybe Paul had his reasons when he said in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NRSV):
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
In a world where circumstances and powers and principalities conspire to steal away confidence in God, this habit of thanksgiving shelters faith.

Not that our thinking can add or subtract from God. He is not Tinkerbell.

But Hamlet is a theological play, and that theological play says this in act 2, scene 2: "[T]here is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Thinking affects belief. It affects how we know the world to be; that affects our ability to see what is within the cloud that surrounds God.


4. Easier for some than others.

It’s easier for me to give this answer, sitting in my office munching crusty french bread and sipping cold water, than it is for a woman sitting at the sterile bedside of her infant who’s lungs are failing. Or a holocaust survivor. Or a man without food for himself and his family. I cannot judge these people if they cannot believe, or if they cannot give thanks.

And maybe it’s easier for me to say what I say than it was for Paul himself. Or maybe not. But Paul did say these things, and in his life he was blinded, shipwrecked, beaten, whipped, stoned and left for dead, starved, exposed in harsh weather, and imprisoned. Yet he believed.

Thank you, Lord, for Paul. He inspires me.


5. What to do.

But the fact is that it’s easier to believe when your mind is not seized with suffering, as some people’s minds are.

So it’s right, first, to pray, as Jesus said, that we not come into a time of trial.(Mark 4:38 (NRSV).) He said this to his disciples in Gethsemane, as he knew he was about to be arrested, tortured, and crucified. Cruel circumstances have made the hopefulness of better people than me whither. Although for others, it has increased their faith.

Second, it is our missionary duty to help those who suffer. This theology regards the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) as a sacrament.

And we need to remember to be grateful to God in good times. We should remember to be grateful to see adorable, happy, safe, well-fed children. If we can’t do that, we have no hope when trouble comes.