This Sunday, I am honored to be teaching in the congregation served by my former student and current colleague in ministry, Jay Freyer: Beulah Presbyterian Church.  So all day long, “Beulah” has been on my mind, and I’ve been humming and singing old gospel hymns from my youth:

O Beulah Land, sweet Beulah Land,
As on thy highest mount I stand,
I look away across the sea,
Where mansions are prepared for me,
And view the shining glory shore,
My Heav’n, my home forevermore!

I’m living on the mountain, underneath a cloudless sky;
I’m drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry;
O yes! I’m feasting on the manna from a bountiful supply,
For I am dwelling in Beulah Land.

So, what is Beulah Land?  Where does this name come from?  In the King James version, Isaiah 62:4 reads,

Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken;
neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate:
but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah,
and thy land Beulah:
for the Lord delighteth in thee,
and thy land shall be married.

This passage comes from a section of the book (Isaiah 56–66) often called Third Isaiah, dating from soon after the return from Babylonian exile.  By 587 BCE, the armies of Babylon had taken out all of Judah’s fortified cities, including Jerusalem.  They deported large chunks of the populace, including the king, and destroyed the temple.  So even after Babylon itself had fallen and the exiles came back, they found Judah devastated.

But the LORD promises to be with these returnees. Indeed, as often happens to brides on their wedding day, the LORD declares that Judah will be given a new name:

You shall no more be termed Forsaken [Hebrew Azuba],
    and your land shall no more be termed Desolate [Hebrew Shemamah],
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her [Hebrew Hephzibah]
    and your land Married [Hebrew Beulah],
for the LORD delights in you,
    and your land shall be married (Isa 62:4, NRSVue).

If Judah, now named Hephzibah and Beulah, is the bride, who is the groom?  The very next verse declares,

For as a young man marries a young woman,
    so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
    so shall your God rejoice over you (Isa 62:5 NRSVue).

God will be to restored Judah, not as a king to his vassals, or a mistress to her slaves, but as a husband to a wife! The day of Judah’s restoration will be Judah’s wedding day!

In this metaphor, as my last blog discussed, God’s people are understood to be married to their LORD.  No wonder “Beulah”–married–became shorthand in Christian hymnody for the blessedness of the Christian life, and the promise of God’s eternity.  Indeed, the traditional United Methodist marriage service opens with these words:

Dearly beloved,
we are gathered together here in the sight of God,
and in the presence of these witnesses,
to join together this man and this woman 
in holy matrimony,
which is an honorable estate, instituted of God,
and signifying unto us
the mystical union that exists between Christ and his Church;
which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified
with his presence in Cana of Galilee.

A wedding, it seems, is not just about this particular couple! The gathered congregation is reminded of their marriage, too: of the “mystical union that exists between Christ and his church.”

It is no accident that, in Hebrew, the words for city, land, and world are all feminine in gender. Indeed, although nouns in English lack gender, we too speak of “Mother Nature,” of our native language as our “mother tongue,” and of our high school or college as our “alma mater” (Latin for “bountiful mother”).

Back of this grammatical pattern is the ancient image of a city or a nation as a woman, the mother of its inhabitants.  It is an easy step from that image to the notion of the city or nation as the bride of its god—as in Isaiah 62.

But of course, as all husbands and wives surely know, the wedding is not the marriage!  After all, the LORD and Judah had been “married” before.  The prophet Jeremiah wrote,

Go and proclaim to the people of Jerusalem,
The LORD proclaims:
I remember your first love,
    your devotion as a young bride,
    how you followed me in the wilderness,
    in an unplanted land.
 Israel was devoted to the LORD,
    the early produce of the harvest.
Whoever ate from it became guilty;
    disaster overtook them,
        declares the LORD (Jer 2:2-3 CEB)

Indeed, the prophets treat this idea negatively most of the time, using unfaithfulness to marriage vows as a metaphor for false worship–idolatry becomes adultery (for example, Hosea 2:2–14; Jeremiah 3:1–10; Ezekiel 16:8-22).

A good marriage doesn’t just happen. It takes work for any marriage to work: attention to the other’s interests, needs, and concerns.  But, without love, no amount of work will be enough, and with love, the work often does not feel like work at all!

God calls us Hephzibah and Beulah, friends. We are God’s delight, cherished and beloved.  When we forget that, Jesus, as at the wedding in Cana, stands to ready to remind us—to once more turn the tepid, bland, insipid water of our religion into the rich red wine of true devotion.

AFTERWORD:

Beulah Presbyterian Church has quite a distinguished history!  From their web site:

In 2014, Beulah Presbyterian Church in Churchill marked its 230th anniversary of being a place of Christian worship. It has a long history, deeply intertwined with the early settlement of English-speaking people in the area. Worship has continued there since a gathering of soldiers led by British Brig. Gen. John Forbes who defeated the French at Fort Duquesne in 1758.

The Presbytery officially recognized the church in 1784 and the church– originally called Bullock Pens for the soldiers’ cattle yard there, later called Pitt Township Presbyterian Church — was named Beulah in 1804.

After meeting in two earlier log structures (one a simple cabin, the second a cross-shaped building), worshippers built the first brick church in 1837, and that building still stands at Beulah Road and McCrady Road.

The cemetery holds the graves of veterans from Gen. Forbes’ troops, as well as men who fought in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I and World War II. Grave markers for men, women and children carry names now found on area streets and landmarks: Johnston, McCrea, Lindberg, MacFarlane, Kelly.

Early members of the church, believed to be one of the first Christian churches west of the Alleghenies, later founded other Presbyterian churches in the region: East Liberty (1828), Crossroads (1836), Hebron (1849), Wilkinsburg (1866), Turtle Creek (1878), Forest Hills (1904).

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 is an extraordinarily odd love poem!  Indeed, until the last two lines, we may well think that he is insulting rather than praising his (unnamed) mistress.  With those final lines declaring his love, and his beloved’s rarity, Shakespeare’s point becomes clear.  He is lampooning the hackneyed conventions of romantic poetry in his day, declaring them incapable of expressing true love, rather than idealized infatuation.  Metaphors, taken literally, become nonsense: hence, “false compare.”

Rather like Sonnet 130, the Song of Songs (often called the Song of Solomon) seems to us a very odd love song–but in this case, it is the metaphors themselves that are obscure.  For example: in our time, and in our Western culture, it seems very strange to compare a woman’s eyes to doves, or her hair to a flock of goats (Song 4:1)!  Yet make no mistake:  the Song of Songs is intensely erotic love poetry–just the erotic poetry of a different time and culture than ours.  But even so, its passion and intimacy come through across the years.

Certainly, the Song is a very dear text to me personally, and to my beloved wife Wendy.  At our wedding, our old friend Mike McKay read Song 2:10-13 from the RSV, which is still a favorite passage:

My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
    and come away;
for lo, the winter is past,
    the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
    the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
    is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
    and the vines are in blossom;
    they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
    and come away.

Inside my wedding ring, Wendy had engraved Song of Songs 5:16: “This is my beloved and this is my friend.”

As we might expect, its frank content makes the Song controversial even now (another old friend, my seminary roommate Matt Blanzy, proposed that the Song was included in the Bible so that the book would sell!).  Indeed, when the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures was coming together in the first century, many questioned whether the Song should be included.  Did this book indeed “defile the hands”–that is, is it a sacred text, not to be touched or handled casually?  But Rabbi Akiba said,  “Let no one in Israel claim that the Song of Songs does not defile the hands!”

For the whole world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the writings are holy but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies (Mishnah Yadayim 3.5).

The reason for this very high view of the Song was the way that this poetry was read–not as a celebration of human love, but as an allegory for divine love:

The loving relationship of Songs of Songs was reinterpreted as a metaphor for the ardent love between God and Israel, on display most dramatically during the holiday that recalls the Exodus from Egypt. Some Jews also read Song of Songs every Friday night, as a kind of renewal of the vows between God and Israel. As Rabbi Akiva passionately argued, it has become a permanent part of the Jewish canon.

Similarly, early Christians read the Song as an allegory for the love between Christ and his bride, the church (see Ephesians 5:22-33; Revelation 19:6-9; 21:9-27).  Accordingly, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote 82 sermons on the Song!

Without doubt, this is a potent image, capturing something of the intensity and passion of our worship and devotion to the Lord, and of the deep, committed love of Jesus for us, love which led him to the cross.  Note, though, that in the Song, the relationship between the Lover and the Beloved is not only mutual, but equal.  This is clearly not true to our relationship with the Divine, where the initiative and authority are all God’s.  However, we also must not conclude from the marriage metaphor that God is male.

Nor should we misread Scripture and claim for human husbands something like Divine authority over human wives!  While some readers have understood Ephesians 5:22-33 to stipulate the proper roles of husband and wife (“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands. . . Husbands, love your wives,” Eph 5:22, 25 KJV), the author of Ephesians, following prophetic precedent (for example, Hosea 2:16-18; Jeremiah 2:1-2), is using marriage as a metaphor for the relationship between the community of faith and its Lord. This writer’s citation of Genesis 2:24 (see Ephesians 5:31) is explicitly metaphorical, as the old NRSV made quite evident: “This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church” (compare Eph 5:32 NRSVue).

Shakespeare’s poetic critique of “false compare” should remind all of us, but particularly theologians and students of Scripture, not to confuse a metaphor with the reality to which it points.  We are compelled to metaphor, for God is God, and not an object in the world.  But whatever image of God we have in our heads, God is not that. 

Our language is limited, particularly when we strive to speak of God. Can we pay close attention to what we say, understanding the power of words to wound and to heal? Can we strive in our talk about God to be faithful to the God revealed to us in Christ Jesus, who calls us, not to dominate one another, but to lives of love and service?

Sunday is Father’s Day.  As a father myself, I appreciate the recognition, and also the tolerance this day represents—because, let’s face it, us Dads aren’t the easiest folks to get along with. In particular we (and, I freely confess, I specifically) are notorious for telling bad–I mean, REALLY bad–jokes, which we are convinced are hysterically funny. There are entire web sites devoted to Dad jokes—including my personal favorite, “Pittsburgh Dad.”

Christian author Frederick Buechner called the parables of Jesus “jokes about God.”

I believe that the comedy of them is not just a device for making the truth that they contain go down easy but that the truth that they contain can itself be thought of as comic (Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale [San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977], 66).

This observation is particularly apt for the Gospel for this Sunday, which includes Jesus’ famous parable of the mustard seed:

“What’s a good image for God’s kingdom? What parable can I use to explain it?  Consider a mustard seed. When scattered on the ground, it’s the smallest of all the seeds on the earth; but when it’s planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all vegetable plants. It produces such large branches that the birds in the sky are able to nest in its shade.”

To understand this parable, we need to know a few things about mustard—apart from its famously and familiarly small seeds!  First, the mustard plant was a weed in Palestine: it as though Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is like a dandelion,” or “a thistle,” or “multifloral rose.”

Second, while mustard can get pretty big (just over two feet high), in no way is it “the greatest of all shrubs,” nor does it put “forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade” (Mark 4:32 NRSVue).

Jesus’ audience would have included many peasants: field workers and sharecroppers.  Already, they would have been startled by Jesus’ picture of agriculture: “It’s as though someone scatters seed on the ground, then sleeps and wakes night and day. The seed sprouts and grows, but the farmer doesn’t know how” (Mark 4:26-27)—saying nothing about the hard work of cultivating, tending, and harvesting crops!  Jesus’ audience knew all about weeding, and about mustard, and so would have known that Jesus was talking nonsense!  So, what’s going on here?

Jesus is telling a joke!  And as Frederick Buechner wrote regarding tragedy and comedy, “The tragic is inevitable. The comic is unforeseeable” (Telling the Truth, 57).  It is that surprise that makes us laugh. The truth of God’s grace is astonishing, unexpected—comical!

When Jesus says “a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade,” he is alluding to the Old Testament lesson for this Sunday, from Ezekiel 17: 22–24. There, the prophet describes restored Israel after the exile growing from “a tender shoot” to “a mighty cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it and find shelter in the shade of its boughs” (17:23).

Ezekiel speaks of this as a miraculous surprise:

All the trees of the field shall know
    that I am the Lord.
I bring low the high tree;
    I make high the low tree;
I dry up the green tree
    and make the dry tree flourish.
I the Lord have spoken;
    I will accomplish it (Ezek 17:24 NRSVue)

Bible scholar Ronald Hals refers to Ezekiel’s portrayal of God as the “Great Reverser” (Ezekiel, Forms of Old Testament Literature 19 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989], 117).

The theme of the Great Reverse is familiar to any reader of Scripture. It figures prominently in the Magnificat, or the Song of Mary (Luke 1:46–55):

He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.
    He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
        and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things
    and sent the rich away empty-handed (Luke 1:51-53).

Further, dramatic and unexpected reversal is a common theme in parables of Jesus such as the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), or the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)

Both Jesus and Ezekiel emphasize that God’s grace is not restricted to the best and the brightest. Blessedly, unexpectedly, God welcomes the lost and the least. Even you. Even me. And in God’s kingdom, we exiles find not only a home, but a place where we can become more than we ever dreamed that we could be.

God invites us to participate in the transformation of the world—beginning with our own transformation into God’s own children. In the kingdom of God the Great Reverser, even weeds like us can grow up into mighty cedars, “and put forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in our shade”!

AFTERWORD:

A happy Father’s Day to my own father, Bernard Tuell.

And thanks to my sons Sean, Anthony, and Mark, my daughter-in-law Alexis, and my beloved Wendy, who have made me a happy father!

Want to hear a good ghost story?  You can’t beat Ezekiel 37:1-14, the Hebrew Bible reading for Pentecost Sunday.  If you have never heard this one before, you are likely to wonder, “What is this doing in the Bible?”  It is a scene out of a horror movie, or a Stephen King novel.

First, the prophet is taken in a vision by the hand of the Lord to a valley: an abandoned battlefield, filled with dry, dusty, disjointed bones.

God asks Ezekiel, “Human one, can these bones live again?” (37:3).  The obvious answer is no—there is no life, and no possibility of life, in this place!  The bodies strewn across the valley are not only dead, they are long dead (37:2).  But since his call, Ezekiel has seen (see 1—3) and done (see 4—5; 12:1-20; 24:15-27; as well as 37:15-28) some very odd things in the Lord’s service.  So he answers, simply “Lord God, only you know” (37:3).

Now, God commands the prophet, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, Dry bones, hear the Lord’s word!” (37:4).  As Ezekiel delivers God’s promise of life to the dead bones, he hears “a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone” (37:7, NRSV).  He watches as, in accordance with the word he had proclaimed (37:5), the bones are joined by tendons and covered over with flesh.  Now, instead of a valley full of dry bones, the prophet is standing in a valley filled with corpses.

Again God speaks: “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, human one! Say to the breath, The Lord God proclaims: Come from the four winds, breath! Breathe into these dead bodies and let them live” (37:9).

Hebrew writers love puns.  A pun on the different meanings of the Hebrew word ruakh (“breath” in the 37:8-9) runs through this story.  First, this word can mean “breath:” so, to say that there was no ruakh in the bodies (37:8) simply means that they were not breathing.  Related to this meaning is the use of ruakh for “wind” (37:9).  In keeping with the invisible force of the wind and the life-giving power of the breath is a third meaning. Ruakh can be rendered as “spirit”—that is, the empowering, enlivening agency of people, and of God (more on that one shortly).   So, as Ezekiel prophesied to the wind (ruakh), breath (ruakh) entered the bodies, and “they came to life and stood on their feet, an extraordinarily large company” (37:10)–not, please note, this

but this:

What does this vision mean?  In 37:11-14, God explains.  The dry bones are Ezekiel’s community, the house of Israel: exiled, and in despair.  They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished. We are completely finished.” (37:11)–and they are right!  Jerusalem is destroyed, the king is in chains, the temple is gone, and the people are scattered, in hiding or in exile.

But, deliverance is promised–a resurrection for dead Israel.  The Lord declares, “I will put my breath [there’s that third meaning of ruakh–God’s spirit, God’s very life]  in you, and you will live. I will plant you on your fertile land, and you will know that I am the Lord. I’ve spoken, and I will do it. This is what the Lord says” (37:14).  Hope for the future, Ezekiel was convinced, would come from God and God alone, through the gift of God’s life-giving Spirit.

Another ghost story will also be told in churches around the world this Sunday.  Jesus had promised his followers, “Look, I’m sending to you what my Father promised, but you are to stay in the city until you have been furnished with heavenly power” (Lk 24:49).  So they had remained in Jerusalem; as our story begins, they have been there, waiting and praying, ever since Jesus’ resurrection.  It is now Pentecost, the Jewish festival held 50 days after Passover.

Suddenly, the room where they are praying is filled with wind and flame, and each person gathered in that room is filled with an overpowering urge to speak!  They pour out into the street, praising God, and discover to their astonishment and delight that everyone in that crowd, Pentecost pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem from across the Roman world, understands perfectly what they are saying: “we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages!” (Acts 2:11).

Ezekiel’s ghost story reminds us of our beginning–of how God created we humans from the ground, breathing life into us .

Luke’s ghost story, in Acts 2, also takes us back to Genesis–this time, to the tower of Babel.

Too often, preachers and teachers of Scripture (including me!) have described what happened on Pentecost as undoing the curse of Babel, as though cultural, racial, and linguistic diversity were problems to overcome.  But that is not at all what Luke says!  This passage does not say that, filled with the Spirit, the people all started speaking the same language—that all cultural and ethnic distinctiveness was denied or undone. The Spirit does not return them to “one language and the same words” (Genesis 11:1). Instead, each group hears God’s praise in its own language.

In Ezekiel’s vision, God’s Spirit undoes the exile, bringing those who had thought themselves as good as dead back home.  On Pentecost, God’s Spirit undoes fear, mistrust, and division, enabling the church born on that day to experience unity in diversity.

Perhaps, like Ezekiel’s community, we have experienced abandonment and despair.  Certainly, the real curse of Babel– our fear and mistrust of difference–has stricken deeply into our community, even into our families, bringing division and confusion.  The solution, for us as for them, is God’s Spirit: the Holy Ghost!

That may be hard for us to hear.  Ghosts are scary, after all.  Why should we exchange the visible and tangible, the solid and certain, for the invisible, mysterious, unpredictable world of God’s spirit?  Quite simply, because we must.  We need God’s spirit because we do not have the answers we seek, and we cannot find them.  We need the gift of God’s spirit to empower and enliven us, to renew and reunite us.

My teacher W. Sibley Towner (may light perpetual shine upon him!) put it this way: “We need all the energy and effort we can muster to concentrate on the whisperings of the only ghost that matters, whose name is Holy.  This spirit who proceeds from God doesn’t rock in chairs or frighten dogs, but plants winsome words in the human heart that yield great fruit if the heart is supple and ready.”

So may it be for you and yours this day.  God bless you–and Happy Pentecost!

AFTERWORD:

The image at the head of this blog, “Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Bones,” is an anonymous and undated wood carving from St. Nicholas Church, Deptford Green, United Kingdom.  I found this image at Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55163 [retrieved May 13, 2024]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St._Nicholas%27_Church,_Deptford_Green,_SE8_-_carved_panel_representing_Ezekiel_in_the_Valley_of_the_Dry_Bones_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1501992.jpg.

The photographs above of unburied bones and corpses come from the battlefields of the American Civil War: the first from Cold Harbor, in Virginia, the second from Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania.

I hate to make decisions! Ask anyone in my family, and they’ll tell you about daily scenes like this:

“Hey Dad!  What do you want for dinner?”

“Ummmm. . .”

“Steve, what would you like to do tonight?”

“I don’t know, honey.  What would you like to do?”

In our house, I am famous for presenting endless lists of options: “Okay, we could do A, B, or C, although if we do C, we’d need to decide between x and y. . .”

You get the picture.  Wendy is a saint.

Usually, my indecisiveness, while irritating, doesn’t matter that much: world peace doesn’t depend on whether we get takeout from Chipotle or Five Guys.  However, some decisions do matter.  Sometimes, a choice must be made, and a stand must be taken.  How do we do that?

In our New Testament, 1 John is all about Christian decision-making: discerning the truth among competing claims; listening for the Word within the words.  From its very first chapter, 1 John engages us with matters of discernment, beginning with how we can know whether or not we are true followers of Christ. Significantly, it is not through our confident conviction in our own righteousness:

If we claim, “We don’t have any sin,” we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from everything we’ve done wrong (1 Jn 1:8-9).

When I was a young believer, persuaded that I had failed at following Jesus and that there was therefore no hope for me, those verses were my lifeline!

Another question for discernment is the nature of the church: What is the true mark of the Christian community? For 1 John, the answer is a single word: LOVE!

“This is the message that you heard from the beginning: love each other” (1 Jn 3:11)

“Little children, let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth” (1 Jn 3:18).

My favorite Bible passage is 1 John 4:7-8, a text which I believe to be the Golden Text of Scripture.  If you are looking for a succinct statement of what the Bible is all about, it is hard to beat this:

Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God.  The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 5:1-5 sums up the connection between love for one another and love for God:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born from God. Whoever loves someone who is a parent loves the child born to the parent.  This is how we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep God’s commandments.  This is the love of God: we keep God’s commandments. God’s commandments are not difficult,  because everyone who is born from God defeats the world. And this is the victory that has defeated the world: our faith.  Who defeats the world? Isn’t it the one who believes that Jesus is God’s Son?

Just as the proof of love for God is love for one another, so also love for God and obedience to God’s commandments means love for one another: the two are tightly and inseparably intertwined.

How are we to evaluate Christian preaching and testimony? Once more, 1 John answers with a single word: JESUS!  Does this testimony, this sermon, this soundbite proclaim Jesus?

This is how you know if a spirit comes from God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come as a human is from God,  and every spirit that doesn’t confess Jesus is not from God (1 Jn 4:2-3).

Here, it  seems, 1 John is drawing on the testimony of the Gospel of John, specifically on its Prologue:

In the beginning was the Word
    and the Word was with God
    and the Word was God. . . .

The Word became flesh
    and made his home among us.
We have seen his glory,
    glory like that of a father’s only son,
        full of grace and truth (John 1:1, 14).

In similarly mystical, poetic language, 1 John 5:6-9 relates God’s testimony regarding the Son:

This is the one who came by water and blood: Jesus Christ. Not by water only but by water and blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.  The three are testifying— the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and the three are united in agreement.  If we receive human testimony, God’s testimony is greater, because this is what God testified: he has testified about his Son.

In Deuteronomy, a court case requires two or three witnesses (Deut 17:6, 19:15).  Just so, 1 John says, there are three witnesses that confirm Jesus as God’s son: the Spirit, the water, and the blood.  Once again, it seems likely that the author of 1 John is drawing here on the Fourth Gospel.  In John 3:5-6, Jesus tells Nicodemus

I assure you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom.  Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.

So being “born of water” seems to refer to the waters of the womb, and to natural, physical birth.   The reference to the blood seems to be a reference back to 1 John 1:7:

But if we live in the light in the same way as he is in the light, we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin.

So, while the water witnesses to Jesus’ birth, the blood witnesses to his death on the cross.  The true testimony about Jesus, as we saw in 1 Jn 4:2-3, is a testimony to his humanity. The witness of the Spirit assumes Jesus’ divinity as Son of God, but apart from the incarnation, that truth is neither accessible nor relevant to us.

This is all very complicated and messy.  God calls us, in each circumstance, to do the loving thing–but what does that mean?  God’s testimony about Jesus is likewise messy, tied up inextricably with his, and our, humanity.  Isn’t there a shortcut to discernment–something that just tells us straightforwardly what to do and say and believe?

Some would claim that there is: the Bible as the Word of God is our infallible guide and rulebook. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told Fox News’ Sean Hannity:

I am a Bible-believing Christian. Someone asked me today in the media, they said, ‘People are curious, what does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, “Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it.”  That’s my worldview.

I am sure, friends, that Mr. Johnson was sincere.  But as it happens, the Scripture text we have been unpacking provides a ready critique of that claim.  In the King James Bible of 1611, 1 John 5:6-8 reads as follows:

This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.  For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.  And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

The explicit reference to the Trinity in the KJV (boldfaced in the paragraph above) does not appear in the NRSVue, the CEB, the NIV, or indeed in any modern English translation of 1 John.  That is not because of some conspiracy among Bible translators who do not believe in the Trinity!  Rather, that verse is not found in the oldest and best texts of this book; in fact, it does not appear in any Greek text of 1 John before the 14th century!

So, why does the KJV include it? King James’ 1611 translators were strongly influenced by Erasmus’ 1516 Textus receptus (“the received [and therefore presumably authoritative] text” of the Greek NT), and by the Latin Vulgate, where this verse does appear–but only in late (fourth century) Latin texts.  Simply put, this neat Trinitarian confession does not belong to 1 John, but rather reflects later Christian reflection on that text.  Modern translators are right to exclude it.

So, why am I telling you this?  It certainly is not to persuade you that the Bible is unreliable, or that it isn’t the Word of God!  Certainly, there was no deception involved on the part of the King James translators, or of Erasmus.  Most likely, a Christian scribe copying the Latin text of 1 John, prompted by the mention of three witnesses in 1 Jn 5:6-9, added a note in the margin referencing the Trinity, and a later scribe included that note in the text itself–prompting still later scribes to add this to their Greek texts too, as Erasmus did.

Still, the point is that we do not have a single, pristine, “original” text of any biblical book, New Testament or Old–so responsible Bible scholars encounter this sort of problem all the time.  Bible translators do not begin with how best and most faithfully to render the biblical languages into clear and understandable English. The prior question is which ancient version of a text to translate!  Addressing that question requires expert knowledge–and even experts may disagree.

In short, friends, the Bible is no short cut, setting us free from our task of interpretation and discernment.  The Bible, too, is messy and complicated. So being honest about how we read Scripture requires us to think hard and to pray hard on what exactly we do mean when we say that the Bible is word of God for people of God.

What if, instead of a rule book compelling our obedience, or a list of propositions requiring our assent, the Bible is an invitation into relationship with God, calling for our commitment?  What if the Bible is a love letter from God–an invitation to open conversations, rather than an authoritative stopper that closes them?  Then we will need to be guided in our reading as in our living by the principle of God’s love and by the example of Jesus, as we carefully and prayerfully listen for the Word among the words.

Most of the time, we can comfortably live as though we are at the center of the universe.  This month’s eclipse was a vivid reminder that we are not:  that the universe is far larger, stranger, and more wonderful than our day-to-day experience may lead us to believe.

A solar eclipse happens whenever the moon passes between the earth and the sun, so that the moon’s shadow falls on the earth. Eclipses are not unusual–one happens somewhere on the earth’s surface every 18 months. But before August 21, 2017, the last one visible in North America was in June 8, 1918.  Wendy and I were in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 2017 for that eclipse.  We learned then that the next eclipse visible here in the continental U.S. would be April 8, 2024, and immediately made plans to go.  So, two weeks ago, Wendy, Anthony, and I were at a motel in Sandusky, Ohio in the center of the zone of totality–and it did not disappoint!

We watched through our viewers as the moon advanced across the sun’s disk, from a wee bite off the lower right edge until the moon’s disk entirely covered the sun.  The sunlight faded until the world became twilit.  All  around us, the horizon looked like a sunrise.

The photo at the head of this blog is not ours: it comes from the New York Times, and was taken by professional photographer @meghandhaliwal.  Our own photos do not capture such detail, and are not nearly equal to our memories:

During the four and a half minutes of totality, when we could look up with unprotected eyes, the sun was a dark black circle–like a hole in the sky.  The corona was as bright as I remembered, a ring of brilliant white fire.  We could see a single bright star in the sky: the planet Venus.  At the bottom of the sun’s dark disk was a bright pinkish spot that we later learned was a prominence: a solar flare!

Eclipses are minor miracles.  The earth is just far enough away from our sun, and our moon is just large enough and just far enough away from us, that the moon and the sun have about the same apparent size in the sky.  This means that, from our perspective, the moon can entirely block the sun’s disk: a total eclipse.

Ancient people of course also experienced eclipses, and so it should be no surprise that these awesome events are described in Scripture.  The King James Version of Revelation 6:12 reads,

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood. . .

The “moon became as blood”  describes another, more commonly observed event, when the moon passes into the shadow of the earth: a lunar eclipse.

Although ancient people did not know what caused lunar and solar eclipses, they certainly knew that these events never happened in conjunction.  So the sun becoming “black as sackcloth” and the moon becoming “as blood” could only mean an undoing of the fundamental laws of creation.  John in Revelation draws on a stock of images of the coming day of the LORD, particularly Joel 2:30-31 (3:3-4 in Hebrew):

I will give signs in the heavens and on the earth—blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood before the great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.

This image is also found in the Gospel pronouncements concerning the end:

FOREWORD: Today I am reposting my very first Easter blog, posted on Holy Saturday, March 30, 2013, in thankfulness for God’s love and faithfulness through these years!  Christ is risen, friends–he is risen indeed!  Hallelujah!

It is Holy Saturday—a day of waiting and expectancy, poised between the anguish of Good Friday and the exultant, full-throated joy of Easter.  As part of my Lenten discipline, I have been learning to pray the Rosary.  On Friday, then, I was meditating on the Sorrowful Mysteries of Jesus’ suffering and death—a meditation driven home powerfully and poignantly by the readings and music of Good Friday worship.

The meditations set for Saturdays are the Joyful Mysteries—Gabriel announcing Jesus’ birth to Mary, her visit to Elizabeth, the birth of Jesus, his presentation at the temple as a baby, and Mary and Joseph finding Jesus, now a young boy, in the temple asking questions (see Luke 1:26—2:52).  As I was praying, it suddenly hit me: the womb and the tomb and Jesus coming forth, from each, to new life!

When you go to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, you discover that the spot traditionally recognized as Jesus’ birthplace is in a cave.

The limestone hills of the region are honeycombed with caves, which were used in Jesus’ day for storage, as stables, and as homes, so it may well be that this is indeed the spot.  Startling to think on that today, reflecting on the broken, abused body of Jesus, taken from the cross and laid in another cave: the rock-hewn tomb of Joseph of Arimathea (Luke 23:50-56).

The womb and tomb connections were driven home particularly by a song that has been in my head since Wednesday.  In chapel that day, remembering Jesus’ tomb, we gathered around the baptismal font and heard, beautifully played and sung, this contemporary setting of an old hymn (I have given the original words below).  The line “Standing at this tomb of water” has stayed with me, and meditating on the waters of Mary’s womb has given them a new resonance.  Water of life, water of death; beginning and ending and beginning again.

The power of this image, its depth and richness, are that it is not just a story about long ago and far away.  Jesus defeated death, not just for himself, but for us all.  His triumph over sin, death, hell, and the grave is our triumph, too!  Remember this, friends, when this day of waiting is over, and Easter morning dawns.  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  And so are we.

“Baptism Hymn”

Hast thou said, exalted Jesus,

Take thy cross and follow Me?

Shall the word with terror seize us?

Shall we from the burden flee?

Lord, I’ll take it, Lord, I’ll take it,

And rejoicing, follow Thee.

Sweet the sign that thus reminds me,

Savior, of Thy love to me;

Sweeter still the love that binds me

In its deathless bond to Thee.

Oh, what pleasure, oh, what pleasure,

Buried with my Lord to be!

While this liquid tomb surveying,

Can I run from mercy’s wave?

Shall I shun its brink, betraying

Feelings worthy of a slave?

No! I’ll enter, No! I’ll enter;

Jesus enter’d Jordan’s wave.

Should it rend some fond connection,

Should I suffer shame or loss,

Yet the fragrant, blest reflection:

I have been where Jesus was,

Will revive me, will revive me,

When I faint beneath the cross.

Then baptized in love and glory,

Lamb of God, Thy praise I’ll sing,

Loudly with the immortal story

All the harps of heaven shall ring.

Saints and seraphs, Saints and seraphs

Love and worship then will bring!

John Eustace Giles (1805-1875)

This week, as Christian pastors and laity alike turn in their devotions to reflection on Jesus’ betrayal, trial, torture, and death, it seems appropriate to turn to the witness of the apostle Paul, our first-century peer.

Like us, Paul never met the earthly Jesus–he was, after all, from Tarsus, in what we know today as Turkey, and not from Palestine.  Indeed, unlike the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Paul spends no time recounting the events of Jesus’ life, and even the words of Jesus appear only a few times in his letters (1 Thes 4:15, see Mark 13:26-27 [the second coming]; 1 Cor 7:10, see Matt 19:4-6 [divorce]; 1 Cor 9:14, see Matt 10:9 [wages for ministers]; 1 Cor 11:23-25, see Luke 22:17-20 [Eucharist]).  Paul can go so far as to say,

So then, from this point on we won’t recognize people by human standards [Greek kata sarka; mechanistically, “according to the flesh”]. Even though we used to know Christ by human standards, that isn’t how we know him now (2 Cor 5:16).

And yet–Paul everywhere insists on the title “apostle” (from the Greek apostello)–that is, one sent out by Jesus (23 times in his certainly authentic letters: for example, Rom 1:1; 1 Cor 1:1; 2 Cor 1:1; Gal 1:1; 1 Thess 2:7).  The opening of Galatians is particularly interesting:

From Paul, an apostle who is not sent from human authority or commissioned through human agency, but sent through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.

So–when and how did Jesus send him?  In 1 Corinthians 15:1-7, Paul rehearses the tradition regarding Jesus’ resurrection appearances, some of which we also find in our four gospels (appearances to Peter, who, as usual, Paul addresses as Cephas,  the Aramaic form of his name, and to the Twelve) and some otherwise unknown to us (a mass appearance to five hundred, and an appearance to Jesus’ brother James, leader of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem).  Then, Paul says,

last of all he appeared to me, as if I were born at the wrong time. I’m the least important of the apostles. I don’t deserve to be called an apostle, because I harassed God’s church. I am what I am by God’s grace, and God’s grace hasn’t been for nothing. In fact, I have worked harder than all the others—that is, it wasn’t me but the grace of God that is with me (1 Cor 15:8-10).

Paul regards his encounter with Christ on the Damascus road (Acts 9:1-31; see Paul’s own brief account in Gal 1:11-24) as a resurrection appearance, and his experience as no less real than the experiences of those, like Cephas and James, who had known Jesus in Galilee.  Like them, Paul says, he is a witness to the resurrection:

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen Jesus our Lord? (1 Cor 9:1).

Yet the heart of Paul’s gospel is not the resurrection of Jesus, but his death.  Paul must speak, always and everywhere, of the cross.  As he tells the fractious congregation at Corinth,

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I didn’t come preaching God’s secrets to you like I was an expert in speech or wisdom.  I had made up my mind not to think about anything while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and to preach him as crucified (1 Cor 2:1-2).

Paul freely acknowledges that this is absurd on its face:

Jews ask for signs, and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, which is a scandal to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those who are called—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom. This is because the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength (1 Cor 1:22-25).

Rather than through the signs and demonstrations of power that Jewish messianism expected, or through the reasoned, careful arguments of Greek philosophy, God has shown Godself in Jesus on the cross: a crucified, naked, dying man.  The wisdom of God and the power of God alike are manifest, paradoxically, in the weakness and foolishness of the cross.  So the person of faith is neither convinced by argument nor swayed by signs, but instead experiences God’s salvation through participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

As church historian Diana Butler Bass observes, this same emphasis underlies the language of Christianity’s creeds.  After all, the Latin verb credo, from which we our word “creed” comes, means not (as it is usually translated) “I believe,” but rather “I set my heart upon.” That difference is “a shift from information about to experience of.” 

Therefore, Paul speaks of our being “in Christ,” as though Christ were a country (2 Cor 5:17), or being “clothed with Christ,” as though Christ were an overcoat (Gal 3:27)!  So too when Paul says that the church is the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12-31), it is no mere word picture.  For Paul, we are quite literally joined to Christ, and so to one another.

This means that the death of Jesus on the cross is not just about Jesus (2 Cor 5:14).  As Paul describes his own experience of faith,

 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in my body, I live by faith, indeed, by the faithfulness of God’s Son, who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal 2:20).

For Paul, the cross is not a doctrine, but an experience.  That identity with Christ is enacted through baptism:

[D]on’t you know that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  Therefore, we were buried together with him through baptism into his death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too can walk in newness of life.  If we were united together in a death like his, we will also be united together in a resurrection like his (Rom 6:3-5).

Good Friday, friends, is not a memorial.  It is an invitation to the death of our former selves, and rebirth as the people God created us to be.  Indeed, Paul says that the cross of Christ marks the end of an old world, and the beginning of a new one:

So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!  All of these new things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ (2 Cor 5:17-18).

As citizens of that new world, we have a responsibility to those who remain in bondage to the old one, for God has given us “the ministry of reconciliation”:

God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18-19).

May this Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday) mark, not only the celebration of Christ’s victory over death, but our own death and rebirth with him.  May we all be, like our brother Paul, “crucified with Christ.”

In our American date format, today is 3/14, which is also, as it happens, pi to the first two digits–making March 14 Pi Day!  To refresh from high school geography, pi is the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter–so, if you know the radius of a circle, you can use pi to calculate its circumference (2πr) or its area (πr squared: prompting the very bad pun, “No, pie are round; cornbread are square”).  That ratio is, approximately, 3.14159–although mathematicians have now calculated its value out 62.8 trillion places with no repetition (here are the first million digits), making pi an irrational number.  

Mathematicians have used the Greek letter π to represent this value since 1706, when Welsh mathematician William Jones had the idea, although its use was popularized by the Swiss polymath Leonhard Euler.  However, ancient people already knew that this value was just a bit larger than three:

The ancient Babylonians calculated the area of a circle by taking 3 times the square of its radius, which gave a value of pi = 3. One Babylonian tablet (ca. 1900–1680 BC) indicates a value of 3.125 for π, which is a closer approximation.

The Rhind Papyrus (ca.1650 BC) gives us insight into the mathematics of ancient Egypt. The Egyptians calculated the area of a circle by a formula that gave the approximate value of 3.1605 for π.

The first calculation of π was done by Archimedes of Syracuse (287–212 BC), one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world. Archimedes approximated the area of a circle by using the Pythagorean Theorem to find the areas of two regular polygons: the polygon inscribed within the circle and the polygon within which the circle was circumscribed. Since the actual area of the circle lies between the areas of the inscribed and circumscribed polygons, the areas of the polygons gave upper and lower bounds for the area of the circle. Archimedes knew that he had not found the value of π but only an approximation within those limits. In this way, Archimedes showed that π is between 3 1/7 and 3 10/71.

So, why is the Bible Guy going on and on about pi?  As it happens, this ratio does pop up in the Bible–in the dimensions and volume given for the bronze sea. 

The sea (2 Chr 4:2-5//1 Kgs 7:23-26) was a huge bronze basin of fresh water, placed in the temple forecourt to the south of the altar (2 Chr 4:10). It was supported on the backs of twelve bronze oxen, arranged so that three faced in each direction–symbolizing, perhaps, the twelve tribes of Israel.  The NRSVue follows the KJV in calling this basin the “molten” sea (the Hebrew is mutsaq)– meaning that the sea was cast out of molten bronze, as opposed to being beaten with hammers out of a thin bronze sheet, which was the way bronze bowls and vessels were usually made (CEB has “a tank of cast metal”).  The sheer size of the sea makes it unlikely that it was cast in one piece, however.

Chronicles and Kings give the same figures for the height, diameter, and circumference of the bronze sea: fifteen feet across, seven and a half feet high, and forty-five feet around.  Given the dimensions of this circular vessel, the Israelites (like the Babylonians) put the value of pi at 3. However, the volume of the sea in Chronicles is three thousand baths, or 15,000 gallons: a thousand baths, or 5,000 gallons, more than that given in 1 Kings. While some scholars have proposed that the difference can be accounted for by different shapes imagined for the sea (a hemisphere in Kings, a cylinder in Chronicles), it is more likely either that Chronicles is exaggerating (as it is prone to doing!), or that the Chronicler’s standard measure of volume is different from that presumed by his source.

Certainly this was the case for the standard measure of length, the cubit.  In Chronicles, the dimensions of the temple are given “in cubits of the old standard” (2 Chr 3:3, NRSVue). Evidently, the length of the cubit in the Chronicler’s time was not the same as it had been in Solomon’s. A likely explanation is that the Persians had imposed a new standard, different from Israel’s traditional units of measurement (for another indication of a longer, Persian-period cubit, see Ezek 40:5 and 43:13). For his readers to visualize Solomon’s temple properly, the Chronicler needs to remind them that Solomon used the old cubit, not the new Persian standard.

Chronicles goes on to describe briefly the ten smaller basins which accompanied the monumental sea (2 Chr 4:6//1 Kgs 7:38-39; the detailed description of the wheeled stands for the basins in 1 Kgs 7:27-37 does not appear in Chronicles). The purpose of both the basins and the sea, we are told, is for ritual cleansing: the smaller basins are for washing the sacrifices, while the sea is for the ablutions of the priests. However, as the lip of the basin would have been around ten feet off the ground, that seems unlikely.  In the Talmud, the rabbis get around this problem by providing the sea with spigots, fashioned by the priestly craftsman Ben Kattin (see for example b. Yoma 25b)!  

The bronze sea was far too big for any practical use.  Much more likely is a symbolic function, indicated already by the name given to this huge bronze cauldron: the sea. In the ancient Near East, the sea was regarded as a symbol of the primordial chaos that ruled before the gods imposed order on the world. The authority of the creator god over the waters of chaos was emphasized in myth and poetry, and symbolized concretely by placing a large vessel of fresh water in the temple precincts. In Babylon, this vessel was called the apsu, or the waters of the abyss. As the waters of chaos beneath the earth were also considered the source of the earth’s fruitfulness, these temple vessels further symbolized the god’s control over fertility.

The LORD’s victory and supremacy over the waters of the sea is acclaimed throughout the Hebrew Bible, especially in the Psalms (see, for example, Psalms 24 and 46).  Most likely, then, the sea represented the LORD’s victory over the waters of chaos, and–because of that victory–the LORD’s control over the life-giving waters of fertility.

AFTERWORD:

I would be seriously remiss if I did not also mention that Sunday is St. Patrick’s Day.  For Patrick’s legend, I commend you to my blog post on the saint.  

“St. Patrick’s Breastplate” is a classic expression of Celtic spirituality (perhaps best known from this familiar hymn), and a full-throated celebration of the Triune God.  Here is the prayer in full, translated into English verse by Cecil Frances Alexander in 1889:

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In the predictions of prophets,
In the preaching of apostles,
In the faith of confessors,
In the innocence of holy virgins,
In the deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through
The strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The speed of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of the earth,
The firmness of rock.

I arise today, through
God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptation of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and near.

I summon today
All these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel and merciless power
that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul;
Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

Beannachtai Na Feile Padraig Oraibh, friends–May the blessing of St. Patrick’s Day be upon you!

When I was a young Christian, I remember covering my high school notebook with Jesus People slogans: “One Way,” “Jesus Saves,” “PTL” (Praise the Lord), “In case of Rapture, this notebook will be abandoned.”  One of those sayings has came back to me powerfully this week: “If you were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

For Iranian Christians seeking asylum in Europe, that has become a very real question.  A recent Religious News Service article describes what Christians in Iran face:

The Islamic Republic forbids anyone born Muslim from converting to another religion, with violations punishable by arrest and even death. There are about 1.25 million Christians in Iran and those born Christian are allowed to practice their beliefs in the shadows, but converts face increasing persecution, including mass arrests last summer. In addition to government pressure, converts are often exiled from families or forced into Islamic marriages, according to Open Doors International, a watchdog monitoring global Christian persecution.

But, in order to be given asylum, converts who have fled to Europe from Iran must first prove in court that they are indeed Christians.  According to a 2021 study published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, religious conversions to Christianity are the “most frequent reason for asylum claims by Iranians” in Germany and the United Kingdom:

The U.K.’s grant rate for Iranian asylum-seekers is 80%. In comparison, data from the German government shows that just 22.3% of Iranian asylum claims in 2019 were successful in first decisions, dropping to 19.9% on appeal. The study, based on 36 asylum appeal hearings in Germany, found that judges largely expect applicants to show church attendance is not motivated by a desire to form social bonds. As a result, joining an Iranian-only congregation with Farsi liturgy could be held against applicants — even though many do not know English. 

In the United Kingdom, the increasing number of asylum-seekers claiming to be Christian converts has generated a Conservative backlash.  After an Afghan refugee granted asylum as a Christian convert attacked 12 people with acid, right-wing provocateur Nigel Farage blamed the Church of England: “How many hundreds or thousands of people who come from Muslim countries, who now claim they are Christian and have been allowed to stay?  We must be mad.”

“The things that one does to articulate a genuine Christian faith are very difficult objectively to prove. So much of the question of faith is about our relationship between us and God and that can’t be verified in one sense in court.” . . . There are, however, certain behaviors that strongly indicate authenticity, Wallace stresses. Commitment to regular worship, to serving others, to being kind and sacrificially generous is a “good demonstration of someone’s commitment.”  

Worship, service, kindness, generosity: according to Rev. Wallace, these are evidence of an authentic faith.  Jesus would agree, friends!  In the Sermon on the Mount, he urges,

You are the light of the world. A city on top of a hill can’t be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they put it on top of a lampstand, and it shines on all who are in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:14-16).

Faith not only can be, but must be, evidenced by “the good things you do”–by deeds of love and service.  Indeed, Jesus offers kindness as the guiding principle for our conduct: “Therefore, you should treat people in the same way that you want people to treat you; this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

This makes me wonder: confronted by the challenge Iranian converts now face in European courts, how would American Christians fare? Would our service, kindness, and generosity serve as a “good demonstration” of our faith?

Sadly, when most people think of the church in America today, kindness and service are not what come to mind: as a survey conducted by the Barna Group demonstrates:

Note that among non-Christians surveyed, 44% said that churches in their area were known, not for their confession of Christ, their kindness, or their generosity, but “for the things they are against.”  Little wonder that non-Christians characterized churches they knew as “Judgmental” (51%) and “Irrelevant to me” (59%).

Evangelical pastor and author Brian Zahnd is concerned that much of American Christianity today is characterized, not by service or kindness, but by fear and anger–even hatred.  Challenging his fellow pastors and leaders, Zahnd says,

You are forming your people in anger and hate. You are helping to intensify their capacity to hate other people. You are giving them permission to carry around this permanent rage (in Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2023), 293)

Sadly, a major target of that hatred has been people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.  Nonbinary teen Nex Benedict of Owasso, Oklahoma died last week after being beaten by bullies in a high school bathroom.  Investigations (including one by the U.S. Department of Education) are ongoing, but many have expressed concern that actions by the Oklahoma legislature (prohibiting children from receiving gender-affirming medical care,  prohibiting the use of nonbinary gender markers on birth certificates, prohibiting transgender girls and women from playing on female sports teams, and preventing transgender children from using school bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity) contributed to the hostility and bullying Nex and other transgender youth have endured

In a Public Forum in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, State Senator Tom Woods was asked to respond to these concerns.  He said

We are a Republican state, a supermajority, in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma. We are a religious state, and we are going to fight it to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma because we are a Christian state. We are a moral state.

Later, challenged by his peers (including Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat), Sen. Woods issued a statement (not an apology):

Firstly, I want to say that a child losing their life is horrible. They were a victim of bullying and that is never okay. It is always a tragedy when someone loses their life. I said that Friday and I mean that still today. I hope anyone struggling in a similar position gets the help they need as soon as possible.

I also want to say that I stand behind what I believe in. The groups and individuals who push gender reassignment on children in our schools, and anyone else who is trying to normalize behavior that shouldn’t be tolerated, is unacceptable in my mind.

If we were put on trial for following Jesus, would there be enough evidence to convict us?  Or would the evidence instead prove that our faith was a facade, a flimsy cover for our hatred, fear, and the quest for power over others?