Furnaces, Bones

Evil learns.

When the Nazis started to mass-murder the Jews, they made soldiers or police battalions line the Jews along trenches and fire bullets into the back of the heads of these men, women, and children. The trenches took the corpses.

But there wasn’t enough land for all of the trenches for all of the corpses that the Nazis wanted to make.

And when a soldier fired a bullet into the back of a head, blood and brain and bits of skull blew back on him. That added to the demoralization of the killers.

The Nazis learned to have their servants fire the bullets into the spines in the back of the necks of their victims. This made less blowback.

But this method, too, was superseded. The Nazis made gas chambers. And trenches were superseded by the furnaces that sent the ashes of Jews into the skies over Dachau and Auschwitz and other death capitals.

      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. Nick-of-time stories.
 
Nick-of-time stories are popular – all is lost, but the hero bursts in at the last moment to make things right. Some are in the Bible.

The Egyptian army is bearing down on the Israelites. God parts the Red Sea to save his fleeing people.

God is about to rain firey hell on Sodom, where Lot lives. Angels in the form of men urge him to go. But he tarries. Finally, they literally take him by the hand to lead him out of the city. Then the destruction comes.

The Assyrian army surrounds Jerusalem. The Assyrian general taunts the people listening to him from the city walls. He says their God sent him to crush them. He tells them to come out to him, lest, holed up in their city without supplies, they eat their own dung and drink their own piss. In the night, and angel of God kills 185,000 in the the Assyrian camp. The Assyrians withdraw. At home, the Assyria king is assassinated by his sons.

Jesus is sleeping in a boat and his disciples are with him. A storm sweeps upon them, but Jesus keeps sleeping. When the boat is about to go down, they awaken Jesus. He rebukes the storm, and the sea becomes calm. (Then he rebukes his disciples.)

2. After-the-nick-of-time stories.
But the Bible also has stories where the last moment goes by, and there is no rescue, but things turn out well anyway.

In the book of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are Jewish officials in the court of King Nebuchadnezzer of Babylon. The order goes out that all must worship the king’s golden image when they hear the music of the"horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble" (NRSV). Shadrach, Mesach, and Abednego refuse to worship the image.

So they are condemned to die in a blazing furnace. Men throwing them into the furnace themselves die from the fire. No rescue comes at the last moment.

Rescue comes after these men are thrown into the furnace. Looking into the furnace, people see Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walking around, and even their clothes are not singed. And there is a fourth man with them.

The children of Israel saw themselves in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Both pieces of the split kingdoms of Israel and Judah had been conquered; the people had been taken far away from their homeland. But, after this annihilation of their kingdoms, they were restored to their homeland by a benevolent king, and they began again as a united country.

Israel in that time was exactly the vision of the prophet Ezekiel in the valley of the dry bones. Skeletons reassembled themselves, sinews connected the bones, flesh and skin and hair grew over the skeletons, and the bodies stood up.

The after-the-last moment theme continues in the New Testament. Martha and Mary and Lazarus are friends of Jesus. Lazarus becomes sick, and Martha and Mary send a message to Jesus and plead with him to come so that Lazarus will not die. Jesus tarries. Lazarus dies. Martha and Mary are devastated.

Grieving Martha acknowledges to Jesus that she trusts that Lazarus will rise in resurrection of the dead on the last day. But Jesus immediately calls Lazarus forth from his tomb and restores him to his sisters.

The Gospels themselves are after-the-last-moment narratives. The resurrected Jesus appears, unrecognized, to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They tell him about their hope that Jesus would redeem Israel, but he had been crucified. Jesus opens their eyes, and they recognize him, alive and with them.

3. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the furnaces of Dachau.

I am uncertain that I have any right to write about the Holocaust. But whatever its other effects, the Holocaust led to the restoration of Israel in Palestine. After the Holocaust, the Jewish state became a 20^th Century expression of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the furnace. The skeletal survivors of the death camps made the scattered skeletons in Ezekiel’s vision live again in a resurrected Israel.

The prophet Ezekiel had a wife whom he delighted in. God told him that she would die, and she did. So when he saw the bones in the valley reassemble and rise, I suppose that Ezekiel must have thought about more than his helpless nation.

I think about the millions of victims of the Holocaust. I might be unorthodox, or I might not be. But God is God. On the last day, I would rather be a Jewish victim than a Christian predator. I want to believe that the fourth man who was in the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego was with the Holocaust victims in their hour of death.

4. Dream.

I slept between beginning and ending this essay. I dreamed that my mom was young, happy, and alive. It was a good dream, until I remembered that I had gone to her funeral. Then I was frightened, because I thought that I had lost my mind.

5. Prayer.

Lord, I am not the first to say: I believe. Please help my unbelief. Amen.

Shit Going On

A helpless man on his back foams from his mouth. Another man’s legs make repetitive hopping motions. He too is on his back. A young boy’s arms spasm as if he’s frantically kneading dough. But his hands reach nothing, and he’s not controlling them. A little boy’s body is still, and it will be so forever.

These are victims of sarin nerve gas attacks, shown in videos from Damascus, Syria .

These adults and children are mourned. But now they are also sad exhibits in the debate about what America should or should not do in Syria. And inevitably they will become exhibits in an argument against God: "If God is all powerful and all loving . . .."

1. The book of Job.

In the biblical book of Job, after one tragedy after another crushes Job, after Job’s righteous friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar try to argue him into accepting reponsibility, after Job complains to God, Job has a vision. It’s a terrifying, amazing, mysterious, and beautiful vision, and afterward Job knows that God is in the right.

To crudely summarize that vision: There’s shit going on that you don’t know.

2. The book of Revelation.

The book of Revelation is similar. It’s written to Christian communities that were suffering and wondering why, if they were in the right and God is all-powerful.

And John writes of stars being swept from heaven and of angels pouring bowls full of plagues that poison first the oceans and then the other waters of the earth. He writes of four living creatures, each with six wings and eyes all around and inside, who sing God’s praises.

And John writes of war in heaven and the great dragon thrown down to earth, where he goes to war against the saints. And John writes of a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, crowned with twelve stars, whom the dragon tries to sweep away by spewing a flood of water from his mouth, but the ground opens and swallows the flood.

Yeah, to summarize again: There’s shit going on that you don’t know.

3. There’s shit going on.

And there’s shit going on in our lives, too.

It’s a different scale than what’s described in Job and Revelation, but it’s still shit. Jobs lost; loved ones who suffer; loved ones who die; painful, lingering illnesses; hunger; injustice; children of caring, careful parents in prison for life. People who wake up in Damascus, dress their children, eat breakfast, and die before noon.

4. More to the story.

The book of Job doesn’t end with Job putting his hand over his mouth and saying that God is in the right. It ends with Job restored to wealth, long life, and children.

The book of Revelation doesn’t end with plagues, dragons, firey destruction, or war and flight. After those come a new heaven, a new earth, and a new Jerusalem – peace and joy for the righteous.

So, to summarize: There’s shit going on you don’t know, but everything will be alright.

So be patient.

5. Patience ain’t easy.

But patience isn’t easy. In the sixth chapter of Revelation, martyrs under God’s alter are impatient to know when they will be avenged. They’re told to rest, because the slaughter of the saints is not finished.

And it isn’t easy for us. It isn’t easy when you lose your job, and you lose hope of finding a new one.

It isn’t easy when you succumb to foolishness and sin, and you bear your shame in front of your family.

It isn’t easy when you body or mind starts to fail, and what you once could do easily you can’t do, and you know that you’ll never do it again.

It isn’t easy when your foes are strong, and they have seemingly infinite resources to oppose you, to win not by right but by might.

6. Let’s not speak piously about faith.

And let’s not blame the victim. Let’s not intone piously about only having faith. If we do, we condescend to great ones who wrote great words. For example:

Psalm 22 starts with this wretched lament:

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

Some psalms start like a dirge, but they end hopefully. Like Psalm 6. But not Psalm 88.

1 O Lord, God of my salvation,
    when, at night, I cry out in your presence,
2 let my prayer come before you;
    incline your ear to my cry.
　
3 For my soul is full of troubles,
    and my life draws near to Sheol.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
   I am like those who have no help,
5 like those forsaken among the dead,
    like the slain that lie in the grave,
    like those whom you remember no more,
    for they are cut off from your hand.
6 You have put me in the depths of the Pit,
    in the regions dark and deep.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
     and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah

　
8 You have caused my companions to shun me;
    you have made me a thing of horror to them.
    I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
9 my eye grows dim through sorrow.
    Every day I call on you, O Lord;
    I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you work wonders for the dead?
     Do the shades rise up to praise you?
          Selah
11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
     or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness,
     or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?
　
13 But I, O Lord, cry out to you;
     in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O Lord, why do you cast me off?
     Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Wretched and close to death from my youth up,
      I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.
16 Your wrath has swept over me;
     your dread assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long;
     from all sides they close in on me.
18 You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me;
     my companions are in darkness.[NRSV]

7. "I know that my Redeemer lives!"

Horror and hope is a subject that the Bible speaks about with great beauty, so I find myself quoting long passages of it, which is not my habit. But who spoke more eloquently or powerfully than Job? Here he speaks to his righteous friends, who blame him for the misfortunes that have torn him like wild dogs.

2 "How long will you torment me,
    and break me in pieces with words?
3 These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
    are you not ashamed to wrong me?
4 And even if it is true that I have erred,
    my error remains with me.
5 If indeed you magnify yourselves against me,
    and make my humiliation an argument against me,
6 know then that God has put me in the wrong,
    and closed his net around me.
7 Even when I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I am not answered;
    I call aloud, but there is no justice.
8 He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass,
    and he has set darkness upon my paths.
9 He has stripped my glory from me,
    and taken the crown from my head.
10 He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
     he has uprooted my hope like a tree.
11 He has kindled his wrath against me,
     and counts me as his adversary.
12 His troops come on together;
     they have thrown up siegeworks against me,
     and encamp around my tent.
 13 "He has put my family far from me,
     and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
14 My relatives and my close friends have failed me;
15 the guests in my house have forgotten me;
     my serving girls count me as a stranger;
     I have become an alien in their eyes.
16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
     I must myself plead with him.
17 My breath is repulsive to my wife;
     I am loathsome to my own family.
18 Even young children despise me;
     when I rise, they talk against me.
19 All my intimate friends abhor me,
     and those whom I loved have turned against me.
20 My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh,
     and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21 Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
     for the hand of God has touched me!
22 Why do you, like God, pursue me,
     never satisfied with my flesh?
23 "O that my words were written down!
     O that they were inscribed in a book!
24 O that with an iron pen and with lead
     they were engraved on a rock forever!
25 For I know that my Redeemer lives,
     and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
     then in my flesh I shall see God,
27 whom I shall see on my side,
     and my eyes shall behold, and not another. [NRSV.]

8. The last word.

The prayer of John at the beginning of the book of Revelation is the last word of history. It is also the last word of this essay.

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, who made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. [Revelation 1:5-6 (NRSV).]

Sleepless

I couldn’t sleep and I tried to get help. Narcotics had side effects that I hated. Marijuana, a blessing for many who are seriously ill, was for me a childish thing that I needed to put away.

So I learned that the Word is true: God gives sleep. (Psalm 127:2.)

1. Watches of the night.

I learned the truth of that when I learned that God also gives wakefulness. I would wake up in the night. I would wake, by my watch, exactly on the hour – 5:00 a.m., 4:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m, and so forth. Coincidences exist, but I considered this coincidence to be too marvelous.

And I felt that God was waking me to worship. But at 3:00 a.m., I had other ideas. Instead of getting up and kneeling next to my bed, usually I would pray in my recumbent position. Soon I would be asleep again.

God was patient. In the meantime, I shared my nighttime wakefulness with a Bible-study group I attend. I shared my wonder about whether God was calling me to rise and pray. (I had convinced myself that this was an open question.) The leader of the group said that she believed that I already knew the answer to that question, and she was right. She suggested that I rise, pray, and go back to sleep. That became my habit, more or less. ("More or less" because I am made of clay; I try to be honest about that.)

This would happen for a while.

2. Peace.

But though God wants us to be awake, he also wants us to rest. I might be right or wrong, but sometimes when I wake at night, I believe that it is only my old enemy insomnia come to visit. I slip its grip without chemical help now.

I tend to pray. Usually, prayer gives me rest. But when it doesn’t, then at least I’ve prayed; I’ve communicated with my Lord, and I haven’t fretted about not sleeping.

3. Night prayers.

 Prayer at night for me is different from prayer in the morning or during the day. My mind is at least a little foggy. So rote prayers are a blessing in those times.

So I might say the Lord’s Prayer. ("Our Father, who art in heaven . . ..") I might say it slowly, focusing on each word as if each word were a bead to be rubbed between the fingers. Or I might say or sing (in my mind) a familiar hymn.

Lately, I’ve tried to memorize prayers that I find in the Bible. The book of Revelation has prayers said in heaven. I’ve memorized two, so that I might repeat them in unoccupied moments during the day, or in the night when I can’t sleep. One is this:

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. [Revelation 1:5-6 (NRSV).] Another:
Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered
   To receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing! [Revelation 5:12 (NRSV)(this is really a hymn).] Everyone is different. I’m reading from the journal of the amazing Frank Laubach. To him, as I understand him, the best prayer is prayer that asks God to direct your prayers, accompanied by a listening ear to hear that direction. I’ve done that, and I find that I pray more imaginatively, more freely, when I do. But I also find my efforts at rote prayers suitable, as exercises in praise, as praise is done in heaven, using words shaped by holy persons or heavenly beings.

4. What’s your experience?

Maybe other people are doing this, and they can add their own helpful experience to what I’ve written. Maybe this will be a blessing to people who find themselves awake at nighttime and tired in daytime.

5. Prayer.
"Sweet is the sleep of laborers . . .." Lord, teach us to us make good use of our time. In those cracks or chasms of time between busy-ness and hurry, and in sleepless times at night, let us be laborers in prayer, serving you with our thoughts and our words when we are not serving you with our actions. Amen.

Hookers, Whiskey

The story is well known. A kid can’t wait for his pop to die, so he asks for his inheritance right away. His pop gives it to him. He goes to a far country. He knows the name of every hooker in town. He has a high degree of expertise in different intoxicating drinks. He scatters his fortune appeasing his appetites. This is the beginning of the story of the prodigal son ( Luke 15).

Suddenly he’s starving. He takes the only job he can get. It’s a terrible job. (Let’s assume that a man who’s famous for passing out in brothels has few job options.) He doesn’t even eat as well as the pigs he’s hired to feed. The man he works for treats his pigs better than he treats his hired hands.

1. A morality tale.

We know this story well, so as we read it the ending seems invetable. But when we hear it for the first time, we reach this point in the story, and it might seem that the story should end here.

Then, this would be a story of cause-and-effect, just deserts, crime-and-punishment, comeuppance-writ-large, bad things happening to bad people. It would be the story of a piggish son who dishonored his father and then starved among real pigs. After all, isn’t it written: "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you"? (Exodus 20:12 (NRSV).)

So at this point, we might be ready to say, "Great story!" But the story goes on.

2. Surprise: grace!

Now grace enters in.

The kid comes to his senses and remembers that his father is not like the lickpenny that had hired him to keep his pigs. He begins the long journey home. His father sees him from far away, runs to welcome him, shoves the ring of authority onto his food-deprived finger, kills the fatted calf, and throws a party.

The story could end here, too. Then, it would be a story of sin and repentance and forgiveness, a story of love covering a multitude of sins. Once again, we might be ready to say, "Great story!" But the story goes on.

3. Surprise: no grace!

The happy ending gets upended.

At the moment that the loving father gets one son back, he loses another. His elder son is resentful. He won’t join the party. The elder son thinks: his brother has sinned and spent, but he, the elder son, has been responsible. He himself has been faithful, and he has worked hard. He is the good son, but the father makes a party for the wastrel. He hates that his father honors the bad over the good. It isn’t supposed to be that way.

If you didn’t know the story, who could know that the good, hardworking, self-sacrificing, up-till-now not-complaining son would spoil the happy ending? After all, isn’t it written, "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you"? Who honored his father more than the elder son did?

But there was something lurking under the good works of the elder son that dragged his heart down. While he was busy doing good, he craved recognition and reward. And when time came to celebrate the return of the prodigal son, that craving for recognition and reward bound the elder son’s willingness to join the music and dancing.

Cain repents; Abel resents.

4. Exposed!

The father is dismayed; God is not surprised. After all, "[T]he Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7 (NTSV).)

Probably even the elder son did not know his craving within. Or he did not recognize it as something that suppressed love.

Even as he judged his younger brother during his brother’s wastrel-years, he did not know the likeness between them. They both valued what the father could give them more than they valued their father. The younger son craved the high life with his father’s money. The elder son craved recognition, and, yes, from time to time, a feast for himself and his friends. Apart from the gall of the younger brother, the difference between them was a difference only of degree.

The prodigal son’s return potentially was a blessing to the older son, but the older son did not know that. The return of the prodigal brought to the surface the inward sin of the elder son, which otherwise would have been un-covered, un-acknowledged, and un-known while he toiled in his father’s fields. The return of the prodigal gave the elder son the potential for an epiphany – sudden, spiritual insight about himself.

So it’s not only a story of a bad son’s comeuppance. And it’s not only a story of sin and repentance and forgiveness. At this point, it’s also a story of reversal: the bad son becomes good, and the good son becomes – something like bad. But the story is not done; it goes on.

5. Loose end.

At the last, the father appeals to his elder son, the son who suddenly is lost to him.
[T]he father said to him, "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found. [Luke 15:31 (NRSV).] Finally, we look for the real ending: what will the elder son do? Will he shrug and join the party, or will he bolt away from the music, fuming that his brother is "dead" to him?

We don’t know. The story goes no further.

6. The preachy part of this essay.

 Maybe the story goes no further because the story of the elder son is our story, and our stories are not fully written.

I might feel spiritual. I might feel right with God. But it’s worth trying to rid myself of any careless assumption that I have nothing under the surface of my spirituality, or under my (*blush*) goodness, such as it is, that God knows about, but I don’t. I am not free to assume that there is no – to me – unknown disease of the spirit that could stunt my ability to "grow into salvation". (1 Peter 2:2.)

Maybe we who pray should pray for all of the elder sons of the world. In praying for them, we might be praying for ourselves.

7. Prayer.

God, let me be humble. Free me from the self-centered desire to rise above others in riches, in honor, in recognition, in rank, in spirituality, even in love and in holiness. Let me pray from the heart that I might live among giants, that they might help me be a giant like they are. Amen.

What's Up With Husband and Wives and Working and Eating?

Paul writes about husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:21-33. A lot of people hate the part about wives. It seems to encourage subjugation of women.

But the hated passage might be lighter than often thought. The reason is simple.

The part about wives is for wives. It's not for husbands to confront wives  with. It's for wives to consider and, as they see fit, to apply. And the part about husbands is for husbands.

But you be the judge.

1. The passage.

This passage launches with the husband and wife's mutual duties. Then it briefly counsels wives. The greatest and last part of this passage counsels (mostly) husbands:
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband. [NRSV.]
2. The shifting audience of the passage.
     
I'm not married, but this seems right for a husband: to live and breath part 1 (mutual duty) and part 3 (husband’s duties). These would apply to husbands.

Part 2, the wife’s duties, is not the husband's business.  It doesn't apply to him. Unless a husband has a special ministry of judging others, it serves him no purpose. The part in the prior sentence about the "special ministry of judging others" was meant ironically.

The wife’s duty is to examine part 2, to interpret it, to decide if it applies to her, and, as she sees fit, to adopt it as her practice. A wise woman doesn't need anyone else's theological pathfinding skills to find her way in this. Though like all of us, she's free to reach out.

3. The guiding principle.

The principle is simple: the Bible is written for all people at all times, but not all parts pertain to every person. And a part might pertain to a person at one time, but not at another. For the student of the Word, discernment and the Holy Spirit are the indispensable helpers.

And, subject to the  Holy Spirit, the narrower principle is this: the Bible wasn't written as a tool to hector people with. It wasn't written to help the husband to control his wife, or for a wife to control her husband. It was written to bring both under the control of God. Husband and wife need to reflect on how God wants them to treat their spouse.

Since the husband controls what he does, he needs to seek God to know his duty to his wife. Since the wife controls what she does, she needs to seek God to know her duty to her husband. And this seeking doesn't end in an answer. It's a conversation. The conversation involves, but is not limited to, the life story of the husband and the wife, the Holy Spirit, prayer, and many parts of the Bible. It neither begin nor ends in Ephesians.

4. The guiding principle in another context: rich and poor.

And it’s a principle that makes sense in other contexts, too.

For example, Proverbs is full of instructions and warnings to the lazy.
The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing. [Proverbs 20:4 (KJV).] Or: How long will you lie there, O lazybones?
   When will you rise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
   a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
   and want, like an armed warrior. [Proverbs 6:9-11 (NRSV).] Or: The lazy person buries a [fork] in the dish,
and will not even bring it back to the mouth. [Proverbs 19:24 (NRSV)(Where I write "fork", the original wording is "hand".)]
But the Bible is also full of admonitions to the rich and powerful about the poor. For example: You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in their lawsuits. [Exodus 23:6 (NRSV).] Or: You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God. [Leviticus 19:10 (NRSV).] Or: 'I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ [Matthew 25:43-45.]
I don’t think that the proverbs were written to excuse the rich or the powerful when they overlook the poor. I don’t think that the passages from Exodus, Leviticus, or Matthew were written for the poor to use to hector the rich and the powerful. I think the proverbs are God’s special word for the poor or the lazy; I think the other passages are God’s special word to persons of means about their duty to the poor.

5. A contradiction to the principle?

Having said that, here’s this. Some would say it goes against my point.

Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. [2 Thessalonians 3:10.]

 6. Maybe not.

But let me say three things.

First, context matters. And that context shows (arguably) that Paul is addressing those who are "unwilling to work".
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. [2 Thessalonians 3:10-12.] Second, in another context, Paul says things opposite to and similar to the 2^nd Thessalonians passage about working and eating: Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. [Galatians 6:2 (NRSV).] And: For all must carry their own loads. [Galatians 6:5 (NRSV).] These seems paradoxical and contradictory. Unless, three verses apart, Paul addresses different people.

7.   But maybe.

But third, I accept that you plausibly could reject explanations 1 and 2.

Yet the larger idea is that scripture is written for all people at all times, and for particular people at particular times. Maybe in Thessalonians 3:10, God addresses me, and people like me, and he says, "Make your neat principles. I am God. And I burst out of neat principles."

Amen.

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.