At their annual conference this month, the United Methodist Church in Liberia upheld their ban on divorced persons being elected to the office of bishop.  According to an article on the webpage of  the United Methodist News Service, in separate meetings prior to the general session vote,

On April 14, clergy delegates voted 90-1 to uphold the provision. In a six-page page report, the conference board of ordained ministry outlined five counts dubbed “Reminders of the Conference Major Decisions (1985).” Those included the rule on divorced clergy: “No divorced clergy are allowed to be nominated as a candidate for the office of bishop of our conference.”

Lay delegates voted 116-0 to lift the ban. The delegates called on the conference to uphold ¶¶ 4, 403, and ¶ 604 of the 2012 Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church. 

Still, in the annual conference session, which was interrupted on one afternoon by people protesting the ban, “delegates voted 433 to 24 to affirm the rule barring divorced clergy persons from the episcopal office. Six delegates abstained from the voting process.”

Why would the Liberians, controversy notwithstanding, vote in the end to uphold a standard for bishops contrary to the UM Book of Discipline? The Rev. Paye Cooper Mondolo, superintendent of the Weala district, argued

The decision to bar divorced clergy persons from being nominated for the position of bishop will bring moral credibility to the episcopal office of our church and guide the conduct of those who want to be bishop in the future. 

What the UM News article did not say, but was almost certainly in the minds of those voting to uphold the ban on divorced bishops, is that their ban is in keeping with Scripture.  In the King James Version, 1 Timothy 3:2 reads, “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach” (so too the NRSV).  Likewise, Titus 1:7-9 reads:

If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.  For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers (KJV; again, compare NRSV).

Granted, the proper translation of the Greek word episkopos (rendered “bishop” in the passages above) is unclear; note that the NIV reads “overseer” (the literal translation of the Greek word), and the CEB has “supervisor” in these passages.  Even less clear is the association between these officials of the early church and the office of bishop as understood within United Methodism.

But many New Testament passages reject divorce, not only for bishops, but for everyone.  Jesus said, “Any man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and a man who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery” (Luke 16:18; compare Matt 5:31-32).  In Mark 10:1-12//Matthew 19:3-9, this teaching is placed in a context: Jesus is approached by the Pharisees, and asked to weigh in on the ongoing rabbinic debate concerning divorce.  In Matthew (19:9 and 5:31-32), divorce is allowed in cases of adultery (reflecting the teaching of some rabbis), though remarriage is still problematic.   The gospel of Mark adds, “if a wife divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11-12). This differs from the Old Testament and traditional Jewish position, where only men could initiate divorce (see Deuteronomy 24:1-4), and places Jesus’ teaching in the context of Roman law, which permitted a woman to initiate a divorce. Likewise Paul (see 1 Cor 7:10-16), who cites Jesus’ teaching on divorce (one of the few places where the words of Jesus are cited in Paul’s letters), recognizes that in the Roman world a wife could legally divorce her husband.  But for Paul, as for Jesus, marriage is intended to be permanent, and divorce and remarriage are forbidden.

In short, if we read the Bible as a rulebook, then the Liberia Conference is of course correct, and the Discipline is wrong: their stance on divorced bishops ought to become our stance.  The questions is, is this the way that we in fact read–or ought to read–the Bible?

 This leads us to another current case in United Methodism.  Jaci Pfeiffer and Kelly Bardier, who had been employed by the Aloma UMC daycare center in Winter Park, FL, were fired last month, “despite being lauded as gifted and beloved employees.”  The reason for their firing was that they are a lesbian couple.  The Florida Conference has issued a statement that “termination based solely on sexual orientation would violate a person’s civil rights.”  But the daycare center that fired Ms. Pfeiffer and Ms. Bardier can scarcely be faulted for being confused.  While the Discipline does support “Equal Rights Regardless of Sexual Orientation” (¶ 162 J, p. 126), it also states that, “The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching” (¶ 161F, p. 111).  How can a church be faulted for letting someone go whose practices are “incompatible with Christian teaching”?

Here, friends, is my quandary.  The only reasonable response to the Liberia Conference’s action, I propose, is either to amend the Discipline in accordance with the biblical practice of our Liberian sisters and brothers, or to acknowledge in all honesty that we do not read the Bible’s statements on the marital status of bishops, or on divorce and remarriage, as binding rules: in short, that we do not read the Bible as a rulebook.  That should also prompt us to reconsider why it is that we do read other texts on human sexuality as binding rules (in the case of Ms. Pfeiffer and Ms. Bardier, Romans 1:26, the only passage in Scripture mentioning lesbians).  Indeed, what about the host of other biblical rules, on a host of other matters, that we choose to ignore?  As I wrote in an earlier blog:

All of us, without exception, are selective in our application of Scripture.  If we worship on Sunday and do yard work on Saturday, we violate Sabbath law.  If we enjoy ham and crab cakes, we violate dietary law.  If we accept or charge interest, we violate the economic principles of the Scriptures.  Should we Christians say that that is all Old Testament stuff, and that we live by the New Testament, we are even more caught in a bind!  The Gospels advocate a lifestyle of radical renunciation of the world–how many of us are prepared to “go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor” (Matt 19:21)?  Jesus explicitly condemns divorce and re-marriage. But how many of us truly believe that all divorced and remarried people are living in sin?

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?  This way of reading Scripture is complicated: but then, if we are honest, so is the attempt to justify reading some passages legalistically, but not others.  If we are reluctant to adopt the rules of the Liberian church on divorce, perhaps we should also rethink whether all lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered persons–unless they commit to living silent and celibate lives–must be found guilty of practices “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

This stone stands on the land of Daoud Nassar, a Palestinian Christian living in the West Bank, southwest of Bethlehem–land that has been in his family since 1916, and has been cultivated by them throughout that time.   For years, Daoud Nassar and his family have hosted Tent of Nations, a work camp dedicated to fostering peace and understanding among the world’s communities.  But since 1991, the Nassar family has been in a battle in Israeli state courts, resisting attempts by Israel’s government to seize their land.  The stone declares the purpose of Tent of Nations, and the commitment of the Nassar family to nonviolent resistance, in Hebrew, Arabic, English, and German: “We refuse to be enemies.”

Standing in stark contrast to this is the cynical game of adversarial politics, where those who disagree with me or differ from me are made into my enemies.  These posters from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s successful re-election campaign read, “This is us or them.  Only Likkud [Netanyahu’s party].  Only Netanyahu.” During the campaign, Netanyahu warned against Arab Israelis turning out to vote “in droves”–a remark for which he has apologized since the election.

Similarly, in this country, we seem prepared to believe nearly anything of those with whom we disagree. In February of last year, Fox News personality Brit Hume tweeted to his followers, “There are now people seriously arguing for abortion AFTER BIRTH.”  He referenced an article, then already two years old in the online journal Slate, by William Saletan.   In that article, Saletan took to task an argument for infanticide in some cases, which had been published in a medical journal.  Despite the fact that this was not a policy proposal, that it has been supported by no one, and that the article cited refuted the hypothetical arguments advanced, Hume’s tweet was picked up elsewhere, and grew.  In November of last year, an article in the online magazine Political Ears was headlined, “DEMOCRATS WANT TO LEGALIZE ‘POST BIRTH ABORTION’ UP TO AGE 4.”

Saletan sadly comments on this entire charade (the emphasis in the following quote is mine):

Why do we do this? Why do we hype stories like this one, assuming the worst, failing to check the details or even read the article? Because we love to be outraged, and our outrage is useful.     . . . If you think this disease is confined to the right, you’re kidding yourself. Every day, I see it on the left. I see it at Slate. I see it among people who think they’re enlightened and critically astute. 

Outrage against the enemy is the theme of Obadiah: the shortest book in the Old Testament, tucked among other short books in the Book of the Twelve.  The twenty-one verses that make up this book are entirely given over to the condemnation of an enemy of Israel, namely Edom:

Look now, I will make you of little importance among the nations;
        you will be totally despised.
Your proud heart has tricked you—
        you who live in the cracks of the rock,
        whose dwelling is high above.
    You who say in your heart,
        “Who will bring me down to the ground?”
Though you soar like the eagle,
        though your nest is set among the stars,
        I will bring you down from there,
says the LORD (Obad 2-4)

Why does Obadiah show such hostility toward  Edom?  After all, Edom was only a minor kingdom, located south of Judah.  Indeed, some texts regard Edom positively: Deuteronomy 23:7-8 permits Edomites who have lived among the people of Israel for three generations to be included in the worshipping congregation, and even Obadiah recognizes Edom as a place of ancient wisdom (Obad 8).

According to ancient tradition, the people of Edom were the descendants of Isaac’s eldest son Esau (see Gen 36:1–43), who is also called Edom (see Gen 25:25, 30; note that in Hebrew, ‘edom means “red”–referring perhaps to the red sandstone cliffs of this region).  The Israelites were descended from Esau’s twin brother Jacob, who is also called Israel (Gen 32:22–32).  In Genesis, the hostility between Edom and Israel begins in the womb (Gen 25:22-23; see Obad 10; Mal 1:2-3; Rom 9:10-15) and continues through the brothers’ early lives.

When Jacob by trickery steals the deathbed blessing their father had intended for Esau, Isaac pronounces over his eldest son the only “blessing” he has left to give:

You will live by your sword;
        you will serve your brother.
But when you grow restless,
        you will tear away his harness
        from your neck (Gen 27:40).

Although Genesis 33:1-17 describes the reconciliation of the two brothers, other biblical texts describe continued hostility between the rival kingdoms, culminating in Edom’s participation in the sacking of Jerusalem after Babylon’s conquest (for example, Ps 137:7; Lam 4:21–22).  Obadiah cries out against Edom’s betrayal:

 You stood nearby,
        strangers carried off his wealth,
    and foreigners entered his gates
        and cast lots for Jerusalem;
    you too were like one of them.
But you should have taken no pleasure over your brother
        on the day of his misery;
    you shouldn’t have rejoiced over the people of Judah
        on the day of their devastation;
    you shouldn’t have bragged
        on their day of hardship.
You shouldn’t have entered the gate of my people
        on the day of their defeat;
    you shouldn’t have even looked on his suffering
        on the day of his disaster;
    you shouldn’t have stolen his possessions
        on the day of his distress.
You shouldn’t have waited on the roads
        to destroy his escapees;
    you shouldn’t have handed over his survivors
        on the day of defeat (Obad 10-14).

In the end, however, Obadiah is not about vengeance over Edom.  Edom becomes, in the final form of this little book, a symbol for every enemy, every oppressor:

The day of the Lord is near
        against all the nations.
    As you have done, so it will be done to you;
        your actions will make you suffer! (Obad 15).

The end of the book is not vengeance, but justice–and possibly, reconciliation.  In the day to come, this prophet declares, all the nations will become one:

The deliverers will go up to Mount Zion
        to rule Mount Esau,
        and the kingdom will be the LORD’s (Obad 21).

Under the rulership of the LORD, all our divisions cease; all our hostilities are stilled.   While the language of adversarial politics seeks to enlist God on our side–whatever that side might be–Obadiah reminds us that the real question is whether we are on God’s side.

Abraham Lincoln expressed this well in his second inaugural address.  Looking back in sadness to the beginning of the Civil War, he wryly observed:

Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.

In the early church, when sisters and brothers met one another in the holy season of Easter, they would not just say “Hello.”  Instead, they would greet one another with a hearty and enthusiastic Christe anesti–“Christ is risen!”–to which the only possible response is Allthos anesti–“He is risen indeed!”  On this boisterous, rollicking, joy-filled day, it is surely appropriate to do a bit of shouting!

In celebration of this holiest of holy days, John of Damascus wrote this glorious hymn in the sixth century.  This hymn, in John Mason Neale‘s translation, is commonly sung today to a tune by Arthur S. Sullivan.  Have a joyous Easter, sisters and brothers: Christe anesti!

Come, you faithful, raise the strain
of triumphant gladness!
God has brought forth Israel
into joy from sadness,
loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke
Jacob’s sons and daughters;
led them with unmoistened foot
through the Red Sea waters.

’Tis the spring of souls today:
Christ has burst his prison,
and from three days’ sleep in death
as a sun has risen.
All the winter of our sins,
long and dark, is flying
from the Light to whom we give
laud and praise undying.

Neither could the gates of death,
nor the tomb’s dark portal,
nor the watchers, nor the seal,
hold you as a mortal:
but today, among your own,
you appear, bestowing
your deep peace, which ever more
passes human knowing.

Alleluia! Now we cry
to our Lord immortal,
who, triumphant, burst the bars
of the tomb’s dark portal;
Alleluia! With the Son,
God the Father praising;
Alleluia! Yet a gain
to the Spirit raising.

When Christians reflect on the cross, we tend to forget, or perhaps even to ignore, an obvious truth: Jesus was a political prisoner, executed by the Roman state on the charge of insurrection.  Rome didn’t crucify thieves, or bandits, or rapists, or even murderers.  It crucified slaves, and those who rebelled against Roman authority.  The words posted above Jesus’ head on the cross were not a title, but an accusation, the accusation that brought him to the cross: “Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews.”

This past Friday, in a Spirit-filled service of worship at the Lived Theology Conference of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s Metro-Urban Institute, this truth was brought home to me through one of the most powerful messages on the cross of Christ that it has been my privilege to hear.

The preacher was the Rev. Dr. Allan Boesak, holder of the Desmond Tutu Chair of Peace, Global Justice and Reconciliation Studies at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Dr. Boesak was a key figure in the struggle to overcome apartheid in South Africa, and has continued to be a world leader in the battle for human rights.

His text was not any of the accounts of Jesus’ passion from the gospels, or reflections on the cross from Paul or any other New Testament writer.  It came instead from the left-hand side of the Bible: an extremely disturbing story found in 2 Samuel 21:1-14. I confess that when I heard this text read, I at first thought that the young seminarian doing the reading had made a mistake–surely Dr. Boesak did not intend to preach on this horrific text!  But he did.

In this passage, David hands over seven young men, sons and grandsons of Saul, to the Gibeonites–who execute these seven men and publicly display their broken bodies.  Indeed, the NRSV says, “they impaled them on the mountain before the LORD. The seven of them perished together” (2 Sam 21:9).

Dr. Boesak first called into question the assumption raised in the text that David had acted in obedience to God’s will, expressed when David “inquired of the LORD” (2 Sam 21:9, NRSV).  That word, he reminded us, would have come through priests and court prophets close to the palace–men no doubt sensitive to David’s lingering fear of a rebellion against his authority by Saul’s surviving sons and grandsons.  The surrender of these seven young men to the vengeance of the Gibeonites, Dr. Boesak proposed, was no act of obedience.  It was a politically sanctioned killing, an act of state-sponsored terror not unlike the Roman practice of crucifixion: a mode of torture that also left the victim hanging, exposed to the elements.  The bodies of crucifixion victims were usually left unburied, to be eaten by wild animals (Marcus Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999], p. 89).

Confirming that David’s horrific act was not the will of God, this text does not say that God responded to the prayers of his people, or lifted the famine which had prompted David to inquire of the LORD in the first place, once the young men had been killed.  Instead, “God responded to prayers for the land” (2 Sam 21:14, CEB) only after David responded to the protest against that killing raised by Rizpah, wife of Saul and mother to two of the murdered young men.  Although she never speaks a word in this passage, Dr. Boesak calls Rizpah a prophet in the shadow of the cross.

What did Rizpah do?

Aiah’s daughter Rizpah took funeral clothing and spread it out by herself on a rock. She stayed there from the beginning of the harvest until the rains poured down on the bodies from the sky, and she wouldn’t let any birds of prey land on the bodies during the day or let wild animals come at nighttime (2 Sam 21:10).

Day after day, night after night, Rizpah stayed by the seven slaughtered men.  She could not take them down and honor them with burial, but she sat in funeral clothes, mourning them, and driving away the wild animals and carrion birds so that they could not mutilate the bodies.  Though only two of these had been her sons, Rizpah mourned for and honored them all, thinking, as Dr. Boesak said, Every child on a cross is my child.  No one came to stand by her and help her–she was alone in her grief, and in her defiance of the king’s word.  Some may have pitied her, even sympathized with her–but Sympathy is not solidarity.

Yet Rizpah prevailed.  At last, shamed and moved by Rizpah’s faithfulness, David not only took down and buried those seven bodies, but also sought out the still-unburied bones of their ancestor Saul–and of Saul’s son and David’s beloved friend Jonathan.  He honored them all with proper mourning and burial rites.  Then–and only then–“Once everything the king had commanded was done, God responded to prayers for the land” (2 Sam 21:14).

Rizpah brought healing to her land, because she spoke truth to power from the shadow of the cross.  Speaking from his own bitter and painful experience, Dr. Boesak said that this is the only way that we can speak truth to power: We cannot speak truth to power if our heart is in the palace.  As Jesus himself said,

All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.  All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me will find them Matt 16:24-25).

It was his own identification with the least and the outcast, and his opposition to the powers that be, that brought Jesus to his cross.  But just as Rizpah stayed in the shadow of the cross, so the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee stayed in the shadow of his cross (Luke 23:49).

They stayed with Jesus until he died, and witnessed his hurried burial (Luke 23:55) in a borrowed tomb. As soon as they were able, “Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, the women went to the tomb, bringing the fragrant spices they had prepared” (Luke 24:1)–and so they became the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection!

This Holy Week, as we remember Jesus’ suffering and death for us, may we too resolve to stand with our Lord in the shadow of the cross, opposing as Jesus did every oppressor, standing as he did in solidarity with every oppressed sister or brother.  Then we too may witness the glorious light of Christ’s resurrection, and share in the joy of his kingdom that has no end.

March 17 is the feast of Saint Pádraig–better known as Patrick, patron saint of Ireland.  The saint was likely born in the late fourth century; according to Saint Fiacc’s “Hymn of Saint Patrick,” he was the son of a Briton named Calpurnius.  Patrick was just sixteen when he was kidnapped from the family estate, along with many others, by Irish raiders.  He would be a slave in Ireland for six years.

Once he was free, Patrick studied for the priesthood under Saint Germanus of Auxerre, in the southern part of Gaul.  Saint Germanus took his pupil to Britain to save that country from Pelagianism: together they travelled through Britain convincing people to turn to God from heresy, and throwing out false priests (some say that this is the source of the legend that Patrick drove the “snakes” out of Ireland!).

Despite his experience of hardship and abuse as a slave, Patrick longed to return to Ireland.  He told his teacher that he had often heard the voice of the Irish children calling to him, “Come, Holy Patrick, and make us saved.” But Patrick had to wait until he was sixty years old before Pope Celestine at last consecrated him as Bishop to Ireland.  At the moment of Patrick’s consecration, legend says, the Pope also heard the voices of the Irish children!

That year, Easter coincided with the “feast of Tara,” or Beltane–still celebrated today by kindling bonfires. No fire was supposed to be lit that night until the Druid’s fire had been kindled.  But Saint Patrick lit the Easter fire first.  Laoghaire, high king of Ireland, warned that if that fire were not stamped out, it would never afterward be extinguished in Erin.

King Laoghaire invited the Bishop and his companions to his castle at Tara the next day–after posting soldiers along the road, to assassinate them!  But, according to The Tripartite Life, on his way from Slane to Tara that Easter Sunday, Patrick was reciting his Breastplate prayer (a masterpiece of Celtic spirituality, which has, not at all surprisingly, been set to music many, many times; the links in this blog will take you to a few of these).  As the saint prayed,

A cloak of darkness went over them so that not a man of them appeared. Howbeit, the enemy who were waiting to ambush them, saw eight deer going past them…. That was Saint Patrick with his eight…

Therefore, “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” is also called the “Deer’s Cry.”

As the legend of the Deer’s Cry demonstrates, Celtic spirituality is linked closely to nature.  St. Patrick’s teaching embraced God’s presence manifest in God’s creation.  Even the tradition that Patrick used the shamrock to teach the Trinity connects God’s revelation to the natural world.  This is particularly evident, however, in the Breastplate prayer:

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven:

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendor of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

In the Book of the Twelve, God’s presence manifest through the natural world is presumed in the book of Haggai.  Haggai’s prophecy began “in the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month on the first day of the month” (Hag 1:1)–that is, August 29, 520 BC, about seventeen years after the fall of Babylon, and the end of the Babylonian exile.  Together with his fellow prophet Zechariah, Haggai called for the community in Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, which had been in ruins since the Babylonians destroyed the city in 587 BC.

Haggai 1:3-11  joins fertility and abundance to God’s presence, enshrined and celebrated in the right temple with the right liturgy.  Patrick celebrates this theme positively, through a joyful nature spirituality wherein a simple herb expresses the mystery of God’s nature, the vibrancy and constancy of wind and water and stone and tree witness to God’s presence and power, and the line between the human world and the animal world, between people and deer, can blur and vanish.

But in Haggai, this theme is expressed negatively. The failure of the community to rebuild God’s temple has meant disaster–not only for the human community, but also for the land itself.  Just as for Patrick the presence of God, honored and celebrated in true worship, brings life and blessing to the land, for Haggai the absence of God’s temple has brought death, infertility, and drought:

Therefore, the skies above you have withheld the dew,
        and the earth has withheld its produce because of you.
I have called for drought on the earth,
        on the mountains, on the grain,
        on the wine, on the olive oil,
        on that which comes forth from the fertile ground,
        on humanity, on beasts,
        and upon everything that handles produce (Hag 1:10-11).

Haggai challenges his community,

Is it time for you to dwell in your own paneled houses
            while this house lies in ruins?
So now, this is what the Lord of heavenly forces says:
    Take your ways to heart.
    You have sown much, but it has brought little.
    You eat, but there’s not enough to satisfy.
    You drink, but not enough to get drunk.
    There is clothing, but not enough to keep warm.
    Anyone earning wages puts those wages into a bag with holes (Hag 1:4-6).

As Stephen Cook observes, Haggai makes a clear connection between the temple lying “in ruins” (1:4; Hebrew khareb) and the “drought [Hebrew khoreb] on the earth” (1:11; see Stephen Cook, “Haggai,” “Zechariah,” and “Malachi” in The New Interpreter’s Bible One-Volume Commentary  [ed. Beverly Roberts Gaventa and David Petersen; Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2010], 529–539.).

For Haggai, since God’s presence in the temple was the source of life and fertility in all the land, the refusal of the people to rebuild the temple had resulted in God’s absence, and so in infertility and drought.  In the great baseball film “Field of Dreams,” a Voice prompts Ray Kinsella to carve a baseball field out of his Iowa cornfields, saying, “If you build it, he will come.”  Just so, Haggai urges his community to action:

Go up to the highlands and bring back wood.
    Rebuild the temple so that I may enjoy it
        and that I may be honored, says the LORD (Hag 1:8).

“If you build it,” Haggai assures his people, “he will come.”

We may see connections between Haggai’s temple theology and the modern “prosperity gospel,” which promises health, wealth, and success to those who believe the right things, and pray in the right way.  But this so-called “gospel” is actually an outrageous misappropriation of Haggai’s theology.  Haggai does not tell his community what they must do in order to prosper.  Indeed, he lays the blame for their currently unfulfilled lives on their pursuit of prosperity.  Haggai 1:4 asks, “Is it time for you to dwell in your own paneled houses while this house lies in ruins?”  The reference to paneling (Hebrew saphun) calls to mind the opulence of the royal palaces of Solomon (1 Kings 7:7) and Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 22:14).  Haggai’s community, with their “paneled houses,” had aspired to that former wealth and prosperity, and in so doing had placed themselves first, and God last.

But this way of living had not brought them the satisfaction and fulfillment they sought; in fact, it had desolated both them and their land.  Only by obeying God’s command through the prophet to rebuild the temple, and so placing God first, could Haggai’s community not only find the fulfillment that had eluded them, but also heal their land.

This St. Patrick’s Day, may we listen to the message of the saint–a message proclaimed long before him by prophets like Haggai.  May we seek God first, and so find fulfillment for ourselves and for God’s world.

Oh, and–Erin go bragh!

AFTERWORD

Here is the complete traditional text of the “Breastplate of St. Patrick.” Beannachtai Na Feile Padraig Oraibh–May the blessing of St. Patrick’s Day be upon you!

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through the 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 obedience of angels,

In the service of archangels,

In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,

In prayers of patriarchs,

In predictions of prophets,

In preaching of apostles,

In faith of confessors,

In innocence of holy virgins,

In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven:

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendor of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

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 way to lie before me,

God’s shield to protect me,

God’s host to save me

From snares of devils,

From temptations of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,

Against every cruel 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 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.

Scarcely a day goes by without new reports of atrocities committed by the terrorists who call themselves (despite the protests of Muslims around the world) the Islamic State, ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), or ISIL (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant: that is, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria).  The Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation reports that the number of hostages ISIS has taken from Christian villages in Syria may be as high as 150.  According to the AsiaNews service, “There are numerous unconfirmed reports that some hostages have been killed, some rapes committed, and ‘blood everywhere.'”  Churches destroyed in the conflict include “the church in Tel Hurmiz, one of the oldest churches in Syria, the Mar Bisho church in Tel Shamiran, the church in Qabr Shamiy and the church in Tel Baloua.”  The murder of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya by forces claiming allegiance to ISIS, as well as the numerous horrific videos of brutal executions carried out by this regime, make any reasonable person fearful for the fate of those Syrian and Iraqi Christians taken by this cruel regime.

So what are we to do?  Not surprisingly, many around the world are calling for vengeance.  Arkansas State Senator Jason Rapert wrote in a Facebook post:

Faced with such horrors, the desire to respond to violence with violence, to atrocity with atrocity, is understandable, even appealing.  Yet Bishop Georges Abou Khazen, of the Latin (what we would call Roman Catholic) diocese of Aleppo, told the AsiaNews service: “This will not be be solved with bombs.”  Instead, Bishop Khazen urges, “What we ask is for others to stop supporting these people, to stop selling them weapons. We have been saying this for some time but no one has been listening to us.”

The Bible often frankly addresses our desire for vengeance (see, for example, Jeremiah 11:20; Ps 3:7; 104:35; 137:8-9).  But perhaps nowhere in Scripture are such passions given as free and full an expression as in the book of Nahum, one of the Twelve.

No selections from this difficult and disturbing little book appear in the Common Lectionary–and no wonder.  Nahum gloats over the collapse of Nineveh, capital of the oppressive Assyrian empire, which fell in 612 BC. Poetically, Nahum is a masterpiece: even in English translation, its vivid imagery and striking use of language and rhythm come through:

Cracking whip and rumbling wheel,
        galloping horse and careening chariot!
Charging cavalry, flashing sword, and glittering spear;
        countless slain, masses of corpses,
            endless dead bodies—they stumble over their dead bodies! (Nah 3:2-3)

But appreciating the poetic artistry of Nahum is not unlike appreciating the cinematic breakthroughs and innovations achieved by D. W. Griffith in his horrifically racist film “The Birth of a Nation.”  Whatever the artistic value of the work, the purpose to which its artistry is directed remains repulsive.

Most disturbing of all, however, is the way that Nahum describes Nineveh’s fall.  He personifies the city as a woman, so that its siege becomes a mugging, and its fall a rape:

Look! I am against you, proclaims
    the Lord of heavenly forces.
        I will lift your skirts over your face;
        I will show nations your nakedness
            and kingdoms your dishonor.
I will throw disgusting things at you;
        I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle (Nah 3:5-6).

Of course, Griffith’s cinematography manifested the culture of the powerful, while Nahum represents the voice of the powerless. As John Goldingay observes, “Nahum is divinely-inspired resistance literature” (Minor Prophets II; NIBC 18 [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009], 18).  Viewing Nahum from a South African context, Wilhelm Wessels argues that the violent language of Nahum both “served as an outlet for suppressed or cropped-up emotions” of an oppressed people and also imaginatively created “a world free from the domination of the cruel Assyrians, stripped of their power”; it is not to be taken literally “as a call to violence or a legitimation of violence” (Wilhelm J. Wessels, “Nahum, An Uneasy Expression of Yahweh’s Power,” in Old Testament Essays 11 [1998]: 625).

But while knowledge of Nahum’s historical context may explain the book’s violent, hateful content, it surely does not excuse it–as Wessels indeed recognizes (pp. 615, 627).  In fact, the scribes responsible for preserving Nahum and incorporating it into the Book of the Twelve wrestled with these questions as well.  They have given Nahum’s oracles against Nineveh (Nah 2–3) a poetic preface that places Assyria’s fall in a theological context.  An opening psalm (Nah 1:2-11) affirms that God is not a capricious, violent deity, but a God of justice: “The LORD is very patient but great in power; the LORD punishes.” (Nah 1:3).

Next, this preface ascribes Judah’s oppression at Nineveh’s hands to God:

The Lord proclaims:
Though once they were a healthy and numerous force,
        they have been cut off and have disappeared.
I have afflicted you;
        I won’t afflict you further, Zion.
Now I will break off his yoke from you
        and tear off your chains (Nah 1:12-13).

The God of justice who now judges Assyria had formerly used that nation to punish Judah for its own faithlessness and injustice (as Amos, Hosea, and Micah had each also said).

Another way into Nahum as Christian Scripture comes through John Wesley’s  A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. Here, Wesley writes,

We ought quietly to suffer whatever befals us, to bear the defects of others and our own, to confess them to God in secret prayer, or with groans which cannot be uttered.

As United Methodist theologian Marjorie Suchocki observes, Wesley extraordinarily calls upon us to “confess the sins of others as though they are our own” (Albright-Deering Lectures, April 24, 2008, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary).  Particularly in this season of Lent, Nahum prompts us to confess the sins, and pray for the redemption, of a world still in bondage to violence and retribution.

Reading Nahum in these troubling times, we can recognize his zeal for vengeance in our world and in ourselves.  But by acknowledging our violent impulses before God in prayer, we can vent those dark passions and be freed to live our lives in joy, not anger; in love, not hatred.   Nahum may then lead us, not to jingoism and the pursuit of vengeance, but to earnest repentance and the pursuit of peace.

AFTERWORD:

As you pray for our sisters and brothers facing persecution, imprisonment and death at the hands of ISIS, remember too before God the names, and the families, of those 21 Coptic Christian martyrs:

Today, in many churches around the world, people lined up to receive a cross of ash, on their forehead or the back of their hand.  Many heard, as this gritty black mark was traced onto their skin, the biblical injunction, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  With this ceremony, the season of Lent has begun–forty days of fasting and penitence leading up to the remembrance of the passion and death of Jesus.

Why, then, is this post titled, “Joy?”  What could possibly be joyful about this mournful, lugubrious season?  Wouldn’t, say, “penitence” be a better title, or perhaps “sorrow” or “mourning”?

One reason for this title has to do with the very meaning of the word “Lent.”  I began this blog two years ago with a Lenten reflection in which we considered where the word comes from:

[C]uriously, the term “Lent” has nothing to do with winter, or darkness, or fasting, or penitence.  Etymologically, “Lent” derives from the Middle English lenten and the Old English lencten, and is related to the Old High German lenzin, all of which mean “Spring”!

At its root, “Lent” is not about death at all, but life; not about endings, but beginnings.  While this season culminates with Holy Week, remembering Jesus’ suffering and death, it leads us into Easter joy–the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, and of ours.

Another reason for the curious title of this post relates to our ongoing project, meditating together on the so-called “Minor” Prophets–much better named, with the early church and synagogue alike, the Book of the Twelve.  Today, in honor of this Lenten season of preparation leading into celebration, we will turn to the book of Zephaniah.

To be sure, Zephaniah begins in a Lenten mood!  The opening verses of this book describe judgment upon Jerusalem in cosmic terms:

I will wipe out everything from the earth, says the Lord.
        I will destroy humanity and the beasts;
        I will destroy the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea.
        I will make the wicked into a heap of ruins;
        I will eliminate humanity from the earth, says the Lord.

Indeed, while the early Christian theologian and commentator Theodoret of Cyrus (393-457) acknowledged that these verses relate in their context to the return of the exiles from Babylon and the restoration of Jerusalem, he still insists,

But you can find a more exact outcome after the Incarnation of our savior: then it was that he healed the oppressed in heart in the washing of regeneration, then it was that he renewed human nature, loving us so much as to give his life for us (Theodoret, Commentary on the Twelve).

 Our passage begins with a call to praise:

Rejoice, Daughter Zion! Shout, Israel!
        Rejoice and exult with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem (Zeph 3:14).

While describing the city or the people as a woman, presumably wed to the LORD,  is often used negatively in Scripture, to describe the people’s unfaithfulness (see Hosea 1:2-3), here it is completely positive.  After the judgment pronounced earlier in the book, Daughter Zion here is assured of God’s forgiveness and deliverance:

The Lord has removed your judgment;
        he has turned away your enemy.
The Lord, the king of Israel, is in your midst;
        you will no longer fear evil (Zeph 3:15).

This tension with Zephaniah’s earlier message of universal destruction and devastation suggests that we have to do here with the final editing of this book for its place in Scripture, and in the Book of the Twelve.  This is particularly evident in Zephaniah 3:17:

The LORD your God is in your midst—a warrior bringing victory.
        He will create calm with his love;
        he will rejoice over you with singing.

God joins in Daughter Zion’s song–very different from Amos 5:23, where God rejects the songs of Israel!  Strictly speaking, however, God does not exactly sing  here.  In Hebrew, the word used is not shir (the usual term for singing), but rinnah.  This word may be onomatopoeic (like, for example, English words such as “thump” or “zing”), meant to represent the joyous, triumphant sound of ululation, still heard in the Middle East today at weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other celebrations.  God ululates–shouts with unrestrained joy–at Zion’s deliverance!

In her book The Grand Entrance, my PTS colleague Dr. Edith Humphrey observes, “[A]ll songs are inspired by that One. . . . he promised by the prophet Zephaniah (3:17) to utter his rinnah, his ululation or great cry of triumph, when we his people are renewed” (Grand Entrance : Worship on Earth as in Heaven  [Grand Rapids, MI : Brazos Press, 2011], 197).  So too Gregory of Nazianzus prayed, “All things breathe you a prayer, / A silent hymn of your own composing” (trans. W. Mitchell; cited by Humphrey 2011, 197).  All creation is caught up in God’s exultant song of joy.

Apart from Hosea (see Hos 3:1; 11:1 and 14:4) at the beginning of the Book of the Twelve, and Malachi (see Mal 1:2; 2:11) at its end, Zephaniah 3:17 is the only mention of God’s love in the Twelve (though in Zephaniah, the noun ‘ahabah is used, not the verb ‘ahab found in Hosea and Malachi).  In the final form of the Twelve, God’s love begins, ends, and centers the entire collection.

It is appropriate then that Zephaniah, which began in wrath, should end in joy and renewal:

At that time, I will bring all of you back,
        at the time when I gather you.
        I will give you fame and praise among all the neighboring peoples
            when I restore your possessions and you can see them—says the  LORD (Zeph 3:20).

May this Lenten season be for you a time of growth and renewal, grounded in the joyous realization that God loves you, and shouts with joy over you as you deepen in God’s love.

This past week, the National Prayer Breakfast featured an Evangelical keynote from NASCAR Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip  and the presence of the Dalai Lama.  Most of the attention focused on this faith gathering in this country, however, has involved remarks made by President Barak Obama:

So how do we, as people of faith, reconcile these realities — the profound good, the strength, the tenacity, the compassion and love that can flow from all of our faiths, operating alongside those who seek to hijack religious for their own murderous ends? Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history.  And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.  In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.  Michelle and I returned from India — an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity — but a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs — acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation. So this is not unique to one group or one religion. 

There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.  In today’s world, when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to counteract such intolerance. But God compels us to try. 

These words have been construed by some as an attack on the Christian faith.  Frontpage wrote, “Obama Defends Islam, Attacks Christianity at Prayer Breakfast.”  An article in the Washington Post quoted former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore:

The president’s comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime. He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.

Listen to those words closely.  According to these and many other critics, the President has attacked Christianity.

Not long ago, Newsweek magazine published a cover article titled, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin.”  The main point of this article was that many claims made about what the Bible says are in fact erroneous–a point that these blogs have also made, on many occasions. Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, appeared on Fox News in response to this article,  calling it a “hit piece,” and yet another example of “incredible hostility” toward evangelical Christians.  The Fox News website report is headlined, “Hit Piece on the Bible?! Newsweek Slammed for ‘Open Attack’ on Christians.”

Do criticisms of Christian behavior and questions about biblical interpretation amount to assaults on faith and the faithful?  Are American Christians “under attack”?  Considering that there are indeed, as the President mentioned in his remarks, places in this world where Christians are under attack, suffering capture, torture, imprisonment and death for their faith–for example, parts of Nigeria threatened by Boko Haram, or areas in Syria and Iraq threatened by ISIS–I submit that we American Christians should be ashamed of ourselves for thinking that we are persecuted whenever anyone disagrees with us.

But I am particularly concerned that we choose to describe our context as a faith among other faiths in terms of warfare, in which we regard ourselves as under attack by those who think differently than we do.   Within the Book of the Twelve, the book of Zechariah calls this warfare metaphor into question, and encourages us to think differently.

The only reading from Zechariah in the Revised Common Lectionary is Zechariah 9:9-12.  But this passage is quoted in Matthew 21:5 and John 12:15, in their accounts of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and may be assumed in Mark 11:1-11 and Luke 19:28-40 as well (both use the word polon, “colt,” found in the Septuagint Greek of Zech 9:9):

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion.
        Sing aloud, Daughter Jerusalem.
Look, your king will come to you.
        He is righteous and victorious.
        He is humble and riding on an ass,
            on a colt, the offspring of a donkey (Zech 9:9).

The Hebrew word translated “victorious” here is nosha’--literally, “one who is saved.”  Carol and Eric Meyers, in their commentary on this text, insist that it is God, not the king, who “is victorious over the enemies, with the result that the king is ‘saved,’ thereby enabled to assume power” (Meyers and Meyers 1993, 127).  This is a very different idea of kingship, grounded not in the king’s victories in battle, but in God’s own action (compare Zech 4:6).

The humble donkey in Zechariah 9:9 derives from a long tradition in the ancient Middle East of kingly processions where the king rode an ass (Meyers and Meyers 1993, 129).  But this passage catches the point of that tradition: by riding a donkey rather than a war horse or chariot, the king shows humility, and declares that he comes in peace.

Zechariah dreams of a new day, and of a king who truly is humble–who not only comes in peace, but actually comes to bring peace:

He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
        and the warhorse from Jerusalem.
The bow used in battle will be cut off;
        he will speak peace to the nations.
His rule will stretch from sea to sea,
        and from the river to the ends of the earth (9:10).

Little wonder that Jesus’ first followers recognized his mission in these ancient words!

Another surprising passage from this “minor” prophet is Zechariah 14:13-19.  At first, this vision seems to be yet another depiction of the end of the world as a final battle.  In the last day, Zechariah declares, Jerusalem’s people will plunder those who had come to plunder them (a common biblical theme; see Exod 12:33-36; Ezek 39:9-10; 2 Chr 20:25).  So that the enemy will never again be able to mount an attack on Jerusalem, a plague will strike “the horses, mules, camels, donkeys, and any cattle in those camps” (Zech 14:15), destroying their military capability entirely.

Yet despite the sweeping devastation of plague and war, the enemies of Jerusalem are not destroyed, after all:

All those left from all the nations who attacked Jerusalem will go up annually to pay homage to the king, the Lord of heavenly forces, and to celebrate the Festival of Booths (Zech 14:16).

Similarly in the New Testament book of Revelation, even after the last judgment sees all the enemies of God’s people (including “Death and the Grave”) thrown into the lake of fire (Rev 20:11-15), John can still somehow say of the New Jerusalem,

The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.  Its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there.  They will bring the glory and honor of the nations into it (Rev 21:24-26).

God’s ultimate purpose is not destruction after all, but transformation and renewal.

Reflecting on the recent alleged “attacks” on the faith, and re-reading these ancient words of Zechariah, I find myself remembering what Abraham Lincoln said to a fiery old woman who urged her President to regard Southerners as enemies to be destroyed: “Why, madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

Calling for humility from all people of faith, President Obama put it this way:

. . . Our job is not to ask that God respond to our notion of truth — our job is to be true to Him, His word, and His commandments.  And we should assume humbly that we’re confused and don’t always know what we’re doing and we’re staggering and stumbling towards Him, and have some humility in that process.  And that means we have to speak up against those who would misuse His name to justify oppression, or violence, or hatred with that fierce certainty.  No God condones terror.  No grievance justifies the taking of innocent lives, or the oppression of those who are weaker or fewer in number.

 Can we learn from Zechariah’s ancient words, sisters and brothers? What would happen if we listened to one another, and engaged in conversation, rather than debates and verbal assaults?  What might happen if we stopped spoiling for a fight, let our anger, fear, and anxiety go, and opened ourselves to become channels of God’s peace?

In Western Christianity, Monday February 2 is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, commemorating Jesus’ presentation at the temple (see Luke 2:22-40).  This old icon expresses Luke’s account simply and beautifully.

Joseph (portrayed, as is traditional, as a very old man) carries the two turtledoves that Leviticus 12:8 says a poor woman may offer instead of a sheep for her cleansing from the ritual uncleanness caused by childbirth: a defiling act, for mother and child alike (see Leviticus 12:2-8; note that in Roman Catholicism prior to Vatican II, this day was called “the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin”).

In the priests’ world view, the life of any being was contained in the blood, meaning that blood belongs exclusively to God.  Childbirth, being a bloody process, rendered mother and child alike ritually unclean.

The period of uncleanness depended on the sex of the child: 7 days of impurity for a male child, 2 weeks of uncleanness if the baby was female.  This was followed by an additional 33 days for a male child, 66 days for a female, during which the mother “must not touch anything holy or enter the sacred area” (Lev 12:4).  Although in the icon, little Jesus looks more like a young boy than a baby scarcely over a month old, Luke says that Joseph and Mary, as observant Jews, made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem “When the time came for their ritual cleansing, in accordance with the Law from Moses” (Luke 2:22): that is, forty days after Jesus’ birth (which is why the Feast is celebrated in the Christian West on February 2, 40 days after December 25).

Also pictured are Simeon and Anna.  Simeon, who had been promised “that he wouldn’t die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Luke 2:26) holds baby Jesus, praises God for him, and prays a beautiful prayer, called (after its opening words in Latin) the Nunc dimittis:

Now, master, let your servant go in peace according to your word,
     because my eyes have seen your salvation.
 You prepared this salvation in the presence of all peoples.
 It’s a light for revelation to the Gentiles
    and a glory for your people Israel (Luke 2:29-32).

Anna, an 84 year old widow who “never left the temple area but worshipped God with fasting and prayer night and day. . . began to praise God and to speak about Jesus to everyone who was looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:37-38).  In Luke’s gospel, then, from the very first, anyone with eyes to see and a heart to believe knows who Jesus is!  His presentation in the temple as a baby marks, in a sense, the beginning of his mission.

This celebration, coming in the dead of winter, is traditionally associated with hope for Spring’s return.  Good weather on this midwinter day is held to be a bad omen of more bleak days ahead, while bad weather augurs the swift return of sunshine and greenery–which is why, in America, February 2 is better known (heaven help us!) as Groundhog Day. We wait to see if a groundhog (in Pennsylvania, of course, THE Groundhog, Punxsatawney Phil) will see his shadow.

The association of February 2 with light and warmth leads to the other name for this feast day, Candlemas.  In the Revised Common Lectionary, the Old Testament reading for Candlemas every year is Malachi 3:1-4:

Look, I am sending my messenger who will clear the path before me;
        suddenly the Lord whom you are seeking will come to his temple.
        The messenger of the covenant in whom you take delight is coming,
says the Lord of heavenly forces.
 Who can endure the day of his coming?
        Who can withstand his appearance?
He is like the refiner’s fire or the cleaner’s soap.
 He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver.
        He will purify the Levites
            and refine them like gold and silver.
            They will belong to the Lord,
                presenting a righteous offering.
 The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord
        as in ancient days and in former years.

Malachi comes at the end of the Book of the Twelve, and in the Christian Bible, at the end of the Old Testament.   The book is set well after the end of the Babylonian exile, when Judah once more has a temple, a priesthood, and a functioning sacrificial liturgy. Yet, according to the prophet, the people are bland, cynical, and indifferent.  Far from being moved to repentance and change by Malachi’s call to reform, the people say, “Anyone doing evil is good in the Lord’s eyes,” or “He delights in those doing evil,” or “Where is the God of justice?”(Mal 2:17).  In other words, Malachi’s community believes that either God does not see what they do, or that God does not care.

Malachi gives assurance that these questions and doubts are about to be addressed, for “suddenly the LORD whom you are seeking will come to his temple” (Mal 3:1).  Those who piously claim to delight in God’s covenant will soon have the opportunity to express their gratitude personally!

Actually, Malachi proclaims not only the advent of the LORD, but also of the LORD’s messenger.  In Hebrew, “my messenger” is  mal’akhi–the same word that appears at the beginning of the book (Mal 1:1), where mal’akhi is the one through whom this message of judgment is communicated.  While we might expect a name like Malachiah (“the LORD’s messenger”), “my messenger” seems an unlikely name for any parent to give a child. Probably, then, the prophet is anonymous, called Mal’akhi  because of Malachi 3:1.

But already within the editing of Malachi, we see further reflections on the identity of this enigmatic figure.  In the conclusion to this book (see Mal 4:5 [3:23 in the Hebrew text]), the prophetic forerunner of the day of the LORD has become Elijah, who was taken alive into the heavens in a chariot of fire (2 Kgs 2:11) and so can be called upon for this task.

In Christian Scripture, Jesus is the one who comes to cleanse his people from their sins (Mal 3:2-3), and John the Baptist becomes the “messenger” sent to proclaim Jesus’ coming (see the quotes of Mal 3:1 at Matt 11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 1:76; 7:27), and “Elijah who is to come” (Matt 11:14; cf. Matt 17:10-11; Mark 9:11-12; Luke 1:17).

Perhaps this is why Augustine on the one hand describes John the Baptist the “messenger” of Malachi 3:1 (Tra. Ev. Jo. 14.10.1), and on the other relates Malachi 3:1-2 both to Christ’s first coming (reading the Lord coming to “his temple” as a reference to the incarnation; see Matt 26:59-61; Mark 14:55-59; John 2:19-21, where the “temple” refers to Jesus’ body) and also to his second coming at the end of time (“Who can endure the day of his coming?,” Mal 3:2; cf. Civ. 18:35; 20:25).

Perhaps as you have been reading this blog, the musical setting of Malachi 3:1-3 from George Handel’s famous oratorio The Messiah has been playing in your head–as it has in mine.  Charles Jennens, who composed the libretto for this oratorio, doubtless picked this passage for inclusion because, like Augustine, he regarded it as a reference Christ’s first and second coming.

It is also little wonder that this text should be used for Candlemas, a day celebrating Jesus coming into the temple.  But, as the old name for this feast reminds us, the occasion for Jesus and Mary coming to the temple on this particular day is their cleansing, mother and child, from ritual impurity–an idea also expressed in Mal 4:2-3:

He is like the refiner’s fire or the cleaner’s soap.
 He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver.

In Malachi, it is the the priesthood (the “sons of Levi,” in Handel’s stirring oratorio) who, after being purified and cleansed by God in the coming trials, will at last present right offerings to the LORD, restoring Judah and Jerusalem to a right relationship with God (Mal 3:4).  A Christian reader may find the idea of ritual purity and uncleanness strange, even meaningless.  Indeed, regarding ritual purity and impurity laws relating to food, Jesus said:

 In Western Christianity, January 6 is the Feast of the Epiphany–a celebration of the light of God shining into the world with the birth of Christ.  In particular, this day is associated with the light of the star that guided the wise men from the East to the Christ Child (see Matthew 2:1-12).

There is something particularly wonderful about this part of Matthew’s Christmas story.  Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospels–and yet, in his account, the first visitors to the newborn Jesus are not only Gentiles, but foreigners: astrologers from distant Persia.  What better way to underline the grace of God: that the light of God would shine, not only upon me and mine, but particularly upon folks unlike me, from far away?

In the Book of the Twelve, that astonishing grace of God, particularly to foreigners, is the particular theme of the book of Jonah.  In this wonderful prophetic novella, Jonah is sent to deliver warning of God’s judgment to foreign Nineveh, capital city of the oppressive Assyrians.  When he instead flees for Tarshish, God sends a storm to halt the ship in which he is traveling.  In spite of Jonah’s poor example, the foreign sailors on the ship become faithful worshippers of the LORD (Jon 1:16).  Jonah, who had insisted that the sailors throw him overboard to avert God’s wrath,  is saved from drowning when he is swallowed by a giant fish (Jon 1:17)—not what we would normally call a rescue!   Then, when he eventually fulfills God’s command by declaring to the Ninevites, “Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!” (Jon 3:4), the people of that wicked city repent, extravagantly:  not only does everyone in Nineveh from the king to the lowest beggar fast and mourn in sackcloth and ashes, but their animals fast and sit in sackcloth and ashes, too (Jon 3:7-9)!  As a result, “God stopped planning to destroy them, and he didn’t do it” (Jon 3:10).

Jonah, who wants God to act according to divine justice rather than divine grace, is furious–but not surprised.  This, he says, is why he had earlier tried to flee from God’s presence:

Come on, LORD! Wasn’t this precisely my point when I was back in my own land? This is why I fled to Tarshish earlier! I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy (Jon 4:2).

Jonah had not wanted to deliver the message of judgment against Nineveh he had been given because he knew that God was likely to back out, leaving Jonah with the stamp of the false prophet, whose predictions do not come true (see Deut 18:21-22)—which is, of course, what happened. No wonder Jonah is so angry!  The prophet quotes here from the divine self-declaration in Exodus 34:6-7,

 The LORD! The LORD!
    a God who is compassionate and merciful,
        very patient,
        full of great loyalty and faithfulness,
         showing great loyalty to a thousand generations,
        forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion,
        yet by no means clearing the guilty,
        punishing for their parents’ sins
        their children and their grandchildren,
        as well as the third and the fourth generation.

This passage is cited throughout Scripture, usually with a decided emphasis on God’s grace and forgiveness (for example, Pss 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Neh 9:17; Joel 2:13).  But while Exodus 34:7 describes the LORD as “by no means clearing the guilty,” (Hebrew wenaqqeh lo’ yinaqqeh), Jonah describes God as “willing not to destroy”  (Hebrew wenikham ‘al-hara’ah)–using the Hebrew wenikham (“relent”) here to pun with wenaqqeh (“declare innocent; clear”) in Exodus, and so underlining and reemphasizing God’s gracious choice to preserve Nineveh.

In the New Testament, Matthew refers twice to  “Jonah’s sign” (Matt 12:39-41 and 16:4) as the only sign of the in-breaking kingdom his “evil and unfaithful generation” would receive (the first of these references is paralleled in Luke 11:29-32).  Jonah’s three days in the fish’s belly (Jon 1:17 [Hebrew 2:1]) become a sign of Jesus’ resurrection, paralleling his “three days and three nights . . . in the heart of the earth” (Matt 12:40).  Indeed, many early Christian interpreters read Jonah as a type for Christ.

Tertullian wrote that Jonah “would have been lost, were it not for the fact that what he endured was a type of the Lord’s suffering, by which pagan penitents also would be redeemed” (On Purity 10; cited in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament XIV: The Twelve Prophets, ed. Albert Ferreiro [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003], 134).

Reformer John Calvin concluded, “Hence Jonah was not a type of Christ, because he was sent away unto the Gentiles, but because he returned to life again, after having for some time exercised his office as a Prophet among the people of Israel” (Commentary on Jonah, Lecture 72, in Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets, trans. John Owen [Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2005 {orig. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society,1847})

Further, foreign Nineveh is lifted up in the Gospels as an example of sincere repentance:

The citizens of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it as guilty, because they changed their hearts and lives in response to Jonah’s preaching. And look, someone greater than Jonah is here (Matt 12:41//Lk 11:32).

Although Jonah is not mentioned, there are also clear parallels between Jonah 1 and the Gospel story of Jesus calming the storm (Matt 8:18-27//Mark 4:35-41//Luke 8:22-25).  In each case, there is a “[great] storm.”  Jesus, like Jonah, is asleep in the boat.  In each account, the sailors are delivered, and there is a calm after the storm.  Indeed, the many parallels between these accounts intensify the contrast between the faithful foreign sailors in Jonah, who after their deliverance “worshipped the LORD with a profound reverence; they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made solemn promises” (Jon 1:16), and the faithless disciples in the Gospels, who ask, “Who then is this?” (Mark 4:41; compare Matt 8:27; Luke 8:25).  In the Gospels, then, Jonah is remembered as a book about God’s gracious deliverance.

In this season after Epiphany, devoted to exploring the implications of God’s gracious revelation in Christ, we would do well to remember Jonah’s message of the hilarious extravagance of God’s grace, lavished upon us.  Particularly today, on the Feast of the Epiphany, may we recall God’s grace to the foreign sailors, to the foreigners of Nineveh, to the foreign wise men–and to outsiders like us, now brought near by the light and love of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.