Dec
2023

Rejoice in the Lord Always!

Advent 3rd Sunday: Joy – Peacefully Harsh

In the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, the third Sunday in Advent is called Gaudete Sunday, after the first word in the Latin introit for this day, Gaudete in Domino semper (“Rejoice in the Lord always”).

The website “About Catholicism” explains why the Advent candle for this day is rose colored, rather than purple:

Like Lent, Advent is a penitential season, so the priest normally wears purple vestments. But on Gaudete Sunday, having passed the midpoint of Advent, the Church lightens the mood a little, and the priest may wear rose vestments.

Gaudete Sunday means that the time of waiting and preparation is nearly over–that Christmas, and more importantly, Christ, is on the way!

File:Jan Lievens, Painting of St Paul, ca. 1627-29. Oil on canvas. Nationalmuseum Sweden.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

The introit for Sunday comes from the Vulgate of Philippians 4:4.  Philippians is Paul’s most joyful letter–and quite possibly, his last.  Here, for the first time, Paul anticipates dying before the Lord’s return (Phil 1:20-26)!  In 1 Thessalonians, Paul’s first letter, he describes the dead in Christ as being raised to meet the Lord in the air at his second coming (1 Thes 4:15-18).  But here, faced with the likelihood that he will be among those awaiting resurrection, Paul considers what that period may be like, concluding simply that he will “be with Christ” (Phil 1:23)–whatever that may mean.

In Philippians 2:1-13, Paul urges the Philippians to practice Christlike humility: “Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5).  He then quotes a hymn of the earliest church, describing Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection, and final victory:

Though he was in the form of God,
        he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.
But he emptied himself
        by taking the form of a slave
        and by becoming like human beings.
When he found himself in the form of a human,
         he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
        even death on a cross.
 Therefore, God highly honored him
        and gave him a name above all names,
    so that at the name of Jesus everyone
        in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow
        and every tongue confess
            that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:6-1 1).

In this hymn, Jesus is our representative.  Being at once God and Human, he overcomes in his own Person the gap between humanity and divinity.  But of course, being fully and truly human means being finite: like us, Jesus was born, lived, learned, grew, suffered, and died.

But the specific death Jesus died–that he indeed chose to die–placed him with the shamed and outcast; the scorned and unjustly persecuted. As Immanuel, God with us (Matt 1:22-23), Jesus proves God’s presence with us even in the midst of pain, abandonment, and death itself.

As is typical, Paul concludes this letter with some personal advice. He urges Euodia and Syntyche, two female leaders in the church (who Paul says “have struggled together with me in the ministry of the gospel,” Phil 4:2-3), to overcome their (apparently famous) differences, and get along–advice one presumes Paul himself had been given regarding his own famous differences with Peter  (Gal 2:6-14)!  He thanks the church for their generous gifts to him in his imprisonment, but tells them that all he really needs is the knowledge that they are well, and growing in Christ: “a profit that accumulates in your account” (Phil 4:17).

It is in this connection, as a bit of practical advice for living the faith, that the passage giving Gaudete Sunday its name occurs.  The Common English Bible for Philippians 4:4-5 reads,

Be glad in the Lord always! Again I say, be glad!  Let your gentleness show in your treatment of all people. The Lord is near.

The Greek word used here, chairete, does mean “be glad.” Indeed, a translation note in the NRSVue, understands this passage as Paul’s goodbye to his beloved friends: “Farewell in the Lord. . . again I say, farewell.”  Still, the text of the NRSV, like the KJV, stays with the Vulgate here.  It is the King James of this passage that I hear in my head: “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.”  Praise and worship give shape to a Christian life.  Whatever our  circumstances, knowing that the Lord is near enables us to face what comes in the certain knowledge that we are never alone!

When I was a young Christian, I learned to sing the Philippians 4:4 passage that gives Gaudete Sunday its name as a round–I invite you to join me in singing it today. Perhaps uncertain times  like these teach us that we can indeed “Rejoice in the Lord always.”

 

Dec
2023

Chanukkah sameach !

What Is Hanukkah? Dates, Traditions, Story
Hanukkah begins on the 25th day of Kislev, the ninth month of the Jewish lunar calendar, and ends on the second day of Tevet, the tenth month.  This year, on our secular solar calendar, those dates correspond to Thursday-Friday, December 7-8 (note that, in Jewish reckoning, each day begins at sundown; see Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31), and Friday-Saturday, December 15-16.  Although Hanukkah is a minor festival in the Jewish religious year, its significance as a family holiday of feasting and gift-giving has grown in parallel to the Gentile world’s celebration of Christmas.  Beginning this Friday, on each of the eight nights of Hanukkah observant Jews will light another candle on their Hanukkah menorahs (these traditionally have nine branches, as one holds the light from which the others are lit).  The Hanukkah story is related in Talmud (b. Shabbat 21b) and in 1 Maccabees 4:36-61. Its setting is the second century BCE–although the roots of the story extend 200 years further back, to the conquests of a young Macedonian general named Alexander.

By 332 BCE, Alexander the Great had conquered most of the ancient Near East.  His kingdom stretched from north Africa to India. But Alexander died, suddenly and unexpectedly, scarcely ten years later, leaving behind no heir. So Alexander’s four leading generals divided the empire among them. Cassander, who claimed Macedonia, and Lysimachus, who claimed Thrace (that is, Greece and Asia Minor), play no role in Israel’s story. However, the heirs of Ptolemy, who ruled in Egypt, and Seleucus, who ruled in Syria, figure prominently.

Through the following generations, the descendants of these two Greek generals, called the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, squabbled for control of Palestine. As long as the Ptolemies of Egypt were in control, the Jews of Palestine were left alone. However, in 200 BCE Antiochus III, the reigning Seleucid, conquered Palestine. At first, little changed. But when Antiochus IV Epiphanes came to power in 175 BCE, he began to intervene drastically in Jewish life (1 Maccabees 1:20-64; compare Daniel 7:25; 11:29-39).

Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Beginning of the Rebellion | Reading Acts

Antiochus IV appointed a high priest of his own choosing (ominously named Jason–clearly not a Hebrew name!) in Jerusalem, and gave his support to those in the Jerusalem aristocracy who favored the new Greek ways. This may have been part of Antiochus’ campaign to unify his kingdom under Greek culture and religion.  Or, he may have sought to control the temple in order to get his hands on the Jerusalem temple treasury.  But when pious Jews resisted, he used cruder methods. In 167 BCE, an altar to Zeus, chief god of the Greeks, was set up in the Jerusalem temple. On this altar was sacrificed an animal sacred to Zeus: the pig.

Similar altars, and similar sacrifices, were ordered established throughout the land. It became illegal to circumcise male children, to observe the Sabbath or any of the other festivals, to teach or even to read the Law, and those who resisted were horrifically persecuted.

Hanukkah: History & Traditions | Live Science

The traditional Hanukkah song “Hayo Hayah” recalls the story:

 

Let us remember reign of terror, reign of terror
King who murdered, pain forever, pain forever
Who then? Antiochus, Antiochus.

The blood he spilled, Jerusalem, Jerusalem
So many killed, gone all of them, gone all of them
Who then? Antiochus, Antiochus.

Our hearts he broke, he burned the torah, burned the torah
Ash and smoke, the crushed menorah, crushed menorah
Who then? Antiochus, Antiochus.

Arise our hero, Judah save us, Judah save us
Prize so dear, the vict’ry gave us, freedom gave us
Who then? Maccabeus, Maccabeus.

Oh sing our songs and praise the torah, praise the torah
Right the wrongs and light menorah, light menorah
When then? Chanukah, Chanukah.

Jerusalem was liberated in 164 BCE by an army of Jewish guerrillas led by Judah Maccabee (likely, “Judah the Hammer”!), or Judas Maccabeus (1 Maccabees 4:36-61).  Following the liberation of Jerusalem, he summoned faithful priests to reconsecrate the temple and its altar, defiled by the idolatrous rites that had been performed there under Antiochus’ rule.  But, according to the tradition, they hit a snag.  Talmud says:

For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils therein, and when the Hasmonean dynasty prevailed against and defeated them, they made search and found only one cruse of oil which lay with the seal of the High Priest,  but which contained sufficient for one day’s lighting only; yet a miracle was wrought therein and they lit [the lamp] therewith for eight days. The following year these [days] were appointed a Festival with [the recital of] Hallel  and thanksgiving [b. Shabbat 21b].

How to Play Dreidel | My Jewish Learning

 

The dreidel game traditionally played during Hanukkah becomes another way of recalling the miracle of the lamps:

Each side of the dreidel bears a letter of the Hebrew alphabet: נ‎ (nun), ג‎ (gimel), ה‎ (hei), ש‎ (shin). These letters are translated in Yiddish to a mnemonic for the rules of a gambling game played with a dreidel: nun stands for the word נישט (nisht, “not”, meaning “nothing”), gimel for גאַנץ (gants, “entire, whole”), hei for האַלב (halb, “half”), and shin for שטעלן אַרײַן (shtel arayn, “put in”). However, according to folk etymology, they represent the Hebrew phrase נֵס גָּדוֹל הָיָה שָׁם‎ (nes gadól hayá sham, “a great miracle happened there”).

 

File:Michelangelo, profeti, Daniel 01.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Much of this history is also related, if symbolically, in the book of Daniel–although with a decidedly different ending!  The conquests of Alexander, his death, and the division of his kingdom are recounted in Daniel 8.  That Greek empire appears to be the focus of the night vision of Daniel 7.   Four chimerical beasts representing conquering kingdoms rise out of the sea— an ancient symbol of chaos (see Isa 27:1; 51:9-10).  The first three at least resemble actual animals: a lion, a bear, a leopard. But the fourth is unlike anything on earth: “terrifying and hideous, with extraordinary power,” it has ten horns and iron teeth (Dan 7:7).

In Zechariah 1:18-21 (2:1-4 in Hebrew), four horns represent the four powers “that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem” (1:19 [2:2]; likely Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia).  So too in Daniel 7:1– 8, four is the number of Israel’s oppressors, although a different four: evidently Babylon, Media, Persia, with the fourth and last being Greece.  This reinterpretation of images is common in apocalypses like Daniel.

Frei Clemente Rojão: O Segundo Anticristo, o Falso Profeta

Readers in later contexts have reinterpreted this vision in other ways; indeed, the first- century CE Jewish apocalypse 4 Ezra reads, “The eagle [a common symbol of Rome] you saw rising from the sea is the fourth kingdom. It appeared in a vision to your brother Daniel,but it wasn’t interpreted for him as I now interpret it for you or have shown it to you” (2 Esd 12:11– 12).  4 Ezra and the book of Revelation (Rev 17:9) alike understood Daniel’s fourth beast to be, not Greece, but Rome!

Among the ten horns of this fourth beast, which in the original context likely represented the kings of Alexander’s Greek empire, is a little horn “that bragged and bragged” (Dan 7:8; the Aramaic is milallil rabrĕbān, or “talking big”)–Antiochus IV Epiphanes (see also Dan 8:9-14; 23– 25).  This one, Daniel is told, “shall speak words against the Most High, shall wear out the holy ones of the Most High, and shall attempt to change the ritual calendar and the law” (Dan 7:25 NRSVue)— all of which Antiochus did. But not much time remained to this arrogant ruler: only “a time, two times, and half a time,” or three and a half years (Dan 7:25;  also variously described in Dan 8:14; 9:27; 12:7, 11-12).

Setting aside the animal imagery of Daniel 7–8, Daniel 10:1–11:39  speaks more straightforwardly about Antiochus’ final days.  Antiochus’ terrible sacrilege–the sacrifice of an unclean animal to an alien god–is the “desolating monstrosity” of Daniel 11:31 (in the KJV, “the abomination that maketh desolate;” for later interpretations of this Danielic image, see Matt 24:15; Mark 13:14).  Daniel 11:40-43 predicts steadily greater victories for Antiochus–until suddenly “reports from the east and north will alarm him, and in a great rage he will set off to devastate and destroy many” (Dan 11:44). Then, preparing to return to Syria, Antiochus will camp in Palestine, where the archangel Michael will fall upon him with the heavenly armies and destroy him, ushering in the resurrection of the dead and the end of the world (Dan 12:1-3).

Antiochus actually died in the course of his campaign against Persia, in 164 BCE.  Daniel does not describe this, nor does it mention the Maccabean revolt: likely because the book was completed sometime between 167 (the date of the “desolating monstrosity”) and 164 BCE.  Although Antiochus’ oppressive rule ended in the mid-second century BCE, the world did not.  As we have seen, later Jewish and Christian readers identified Daniel’s fourth kingdom with Rome (2 Esdras 12:10-12; Rev 17:9): but the world did not end with the fall of Rome, either.

Indeed, the many predictions in the New Testament that the end of the world would come soon (for example, Mark 13:30; 1 Cor 7:29-31; Rev 22:12, 20) clearly were not realized.  Within the New Testament itself, this delay is seen as a sign of God’s grace.  The epistle reading for this Sunday, the second Sunday in Advent, declares “The Lord isn’t slow to keep his promise, as some think of slowness, but he is patient toward you, not wanting anyone to perish but all to change their hearts and lives” (2 Peter 3:9).

It is finally Jesus himself who puts to rest the pretense that, if we are only clever enough, we can read our future in the pages of Scripture: “But nobody knows when that day or hour will come, not the angels in heaven and not the Son. Only the Father knows” (Mark 13:32).  We are called, not to be clever, but to be ready!

Matthias Grünewald: John the Baptist

In all the generations since, the promise of God’s deliverance has been continually re-read, and applied to new situations, in the confidence that God’s faithfulness will prevail over every oppressor.  No matter how powerless we may feel, it is in that same confidence that we can read these passages today, sharing the confidence of John the Baptist:

“One stronger than I am is coming after me. I’m not even worthy to bend over and loosen the strap of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”(Mark 1:7-8)

Trusting in his wisdom and might, baptized with God’s spirit, we can face the trials of our time, and of any time!  Chanukkah sameach–a joyous Hanukkah and a blessed Advent to us all!

 

Nov
2023

Maranatha!

This Sunday is the first of the four Sundays in Advent, the season of the Christian year devoted to anticipating the coming of Christ–both Jesus’ birth, celebrated on Christmas Day, and his promised return at the end of the age.  For some time, I have used the ancient Christian salutation Maranatha (here, from the medieval Southwick Codex) in this season as a benediction, after prayers, and to close emails.  So, where does it come from and what does it mean?

In the King James Bible, the concluding verses of Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth read:

The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand.  If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema MaranathaThe grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.  My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen (1 Cor 16:21-24).

King James’ translators followed the Latin Vulgate in leaving those two enigmatic words in 1 Corinthians 16:22 untranslated,  but few modern translators have done so.  The Common English Bible is typical: “A curse on anyone who doesn’t love the Lord. Come, Lord!”

The first of the two, the Greek anathema, does mean “curse.”  This word appears six times in the New Testament.  In Acts 23:14, Paul’s enemies swear an oath not to eat until they have killed the apostle, calling a curse upon themselves if they fail.  The other five uses of anathema are all in Paul’s letters (Rom 9:3; 1 Cor 12:3, 16:22; Gal 1:8-9). The Vulgate carries the word over untranslated in all five passages, although the KJV follows suit only once, in 1 Cor 16:22.

In the Greek Septuagint, anathema is used 25 times for the difficult expression kherem (or “the ban”) in the Hebrew Bible (for example, Lev 27:28; Num 21:3; Deut 13:15, 17 [13:16-18 in Hebrew]).  This word, sometimes also rendered “curse” (see Malachi 4:6 [Hebrew 3:24]) is often connected with holy war, where the enemy is utterly destroyed as a kind of whole offering to God. But this cannot be the intention of kherem everywhere that the term appears. For example, Deuteronomy 7:2 orders that the inhabitants of the land be hakharem takharim, that is, “certainly (or completely) placed under the ban” (the NRSVue reads “you must utterly destroy them”).  Yet the very next verse forbids intermarriage—difficult to understand if the intent of the text is genocide (see Jerome Creach, Violence in Scripture [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2013], 108)!  Drawing on Origen’s allegorical reading of the ban as depicting the believer’s spiritual struggle with sin (“within us are the Canaanites; within us are the Perizzites; here [within] are the Jebusites,” Homilies on Joshua, 34; cited by Creach, 102), Jerome Creach suggests that kherem came to be sublimated or spiritualized, so that what had once been a “reprehensible practice . . . close to ‘ethnic cleansing,’ was transformed into a metaphor of spiritual purity” (Creach, 108).

St. Cyril of Alexandria Icon - OrthodoxGifts.com

In church history, anathema took on a quite specific meaning:

In AD 431 St. Cyril of Alexandria pronounced his 12 anathemas against the heretic Nestorius.  In the 6th century anathema came to mean the severest form of excommunication that formally separated a heretic completely from the Christian church and condemned his doctrines; minor excommunications, while prohibiting free reception of the sacraments, obliged (and permitted) the sinner to rectify his sinful state through the sacrament of penance.

Whether Paul intended anathema in this formal (and radical) sense is debatable (and I would say, doubtful).  But likely, this is the reason that the Vulgate did not translate this term in Paul’s letters, and that the KJV leaves it alone in the 1 Corinthians passage.

The second word carried over untranslated from the Greek text, maranatha, is actually not Greek.  It comes from Aramaic: the language of first-century Palestinian Jews, and so the language that Jesus spoke.  The New Testament preserves numerous words and phrases in Aramaic.  However, Paul typically stuck with Greek–making his use of this Aramaic phrase stand out all the more.

As the Greek text makes clear, Maranatha is actually not one word, but two: μαράνα θά (that is, marana tha).  The Greek letters transliterate the Aramaic מָרַנָא תָאmar, meaning “Lord,” with the first plural pronominal suffix na (hence, “our Lord”), and the imperative form of the verb ‘atha: “come.”  This phrase appears nowhere else in the New Testament.  However, it is found in the Didache, an early Jewish-Christian book of church discipline dating to the late first-early second century CE.  Here, as in Paul, it appears to be a benediction, although in the Didache it comes at the end of the eucharistic prayer: 

May grace come and may this world pass away.
Hosanna to the God of David.
If any man is holy, let him come;
if any man is not, let him repent. Maran Atha. Amen (translated by J.B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers; in the Greek text, 10:6 [note that in Lightfoot, this passage is 10:11-14).

As an added wrinkle, it should be noted that in Didache 10:6, the phrase is rendered maran atha, rather than, as in 1 Cor 16:22, marana tha.  This may suggest a different assumed meaning: “Our Lord has come.”  As Andrew Messmer notes in his recent article on this expression (“Maranatha [1 Corinthians 16:22]: Reconstruction and Translation Based on Western Middle Aramaic,” Journal of Biblical Literature 139 [2020]: 361–83), that was the meaning assumed by Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Erasmus (Messmer, 362), and it is still, he argues, the best-supported translation (Messmer, 382-83).

Still, while early evidence for the imperative form tha assumed by 1 Cor 16:22 is admittedly lacking, the imperative is certainly found in later Aramaic, and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!  Further, I would argue that the translation “Our Lord, come!” is far more likely in Paul’s theology, which looks earnestly and hopefully to Christ’s return, and that it better fits the liturgical contexts, both in 1 Corinthians and in the Didache.  So to you all, in the midst of war and uncertainty, I say in this season of hopeful expectancy, Maranatha!  Come, Lord Jesus.

AFTERWORD:

Prayers for this season, from Revised Common Lectionary Prayers, 2002. Consultation on Common Texts admin. Augsburg Fortress.

God of justice and peace,
from the heavens you rain down mercy and kindness,
that all on earth may stand in awe and wonder
before your marvelous deeds.
Raise our heads in expectation,
that we may yearn for the coming day of the Lord
and stand without blame before your Son, Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.

Give us ears to hear, O God,
and eyes to watch,
that we may know your presence in our midst
during this holy season of joy
as we anticipate the coming of Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

Oct
2022

Good Guys in Black Hats

 

Randolph Scott - Turner Classic MoviesWhen I visit my father, who turns 88 this month (Happy birthday, Daddy!). we often watch old movies together–especially old Westerns.  You never have to wonder who the good guys are in those old oaters! They are always dressed the part: clean-cut, clean shaven, and wearing white hats.  The villains by contrast are scruffy, mustachioed, and wear black.

Another classic TV western, 'Have Gun-Will Travel' | News, Sports, Jobs - News and SentinelSo, when “Have Gun, Will Travel” appeared on television in 1957, it was something of a shock.  Its main character, Paladin (expertly portrayed through its six-year run by Richard Boone), wasn’t a sheriff or a cowboy, but a gunfighter for hire.  Paladin wore black.  He looked, dressed, and often talked like a villain—yet he was the hero.  Sometimes, in those short, often very well-written episodes, Paladin would wind up changing sides–fighting for the people he believed to be in the right, rather than the ones who had hired him.

 

The Gospel for this Sunday (Luke 18:9-14) is the short, very familiar parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector:

Jesus told this parable to certain people who had convinced themselves that they were righteous and who looked on everyone else with disgust: “Two people went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself with these words, ‘God, I thank you that I’m not like everyone else—crooks, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of everything I receive.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He wouldn’t even lift his eyes to look toward heaven. Rather, he struck his chest and said, ‘God, show mercy to me, a sinner.’ I tell you, this person went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee. All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.”

When we read the gospels, we are already primed to believe that we know who the good guys and the bad guys are—and the Pharisees, who frequently appear as the opponents of Jesus, are definitely the bad guys!  Indeed, in modern English, “Pharisee” can be a synonym for “hypocrite.”

But this was certainly not the case in Jesus’ day.   In first century Palestine, the Pharisees were the advocates for the common people.  Indeed, the differences between Jesus and the Pharisees are so intense in the Gospels because they are, in essence, family quarrels: in many ways, Jesus was closer to the Pharisees than to any other Jewish party in his day.

Unlike the priestly party, the Sadducees, the Pharisees were famous for tolerance and mercy in their court rulings.  While the Sadducees were biblical literalists, the Pharisees held that the “oral Torah”–the teachings of the rabbis that interpreted and applied Scripture to life–also needed to be considered.  As a result, the Sadducees rejected both belief in the afterlife and in the coming of the Messiah, as they saw neither explicitly stated in the Torah. Pharisees embraced both of these ideas.  When the Pharisee describes his personal acts of piety, fasting and tithing, he is not exaggerating or boasting–this actually would have been his lifestyle.

Zacchaeus the Tax CollectorLikewise, in the first century, the tax collector most definitely would have been seen as the villain.  Tax collectors were collaborators with the Roman military occupation.  They were famously corrupt, typically collecting from the people far more than the Romans actually demanded, and living well off the proceeds (Zacchaeus being a familiar biblical example).  That is why people are so scandalized by Jesus eating and drinking with tax collectors (Matthew 9:9-12)

The surprise twist for the original audience of this parable, as for the television audience of “Have Gun, Will Travel,” would have been that the “hero” of the story is the bad guy!  One lesson of this parable, then, is that we shouldn’t assume we know who the good guys are!  As frequently happens in Jesus’ stories, things are not as they seem on the surface.

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector” by Julius Schnorr von  Carolsfeld (1794–1872).

The Pharisee in this story may be looking up, and the tax collector looking down, but it is the tax collector who seeks, and finds, God. In the end, the Pharisee sees only himself–and does not even see himself clearly!  The honest penitence of the tax collector, on the other hand, leads him past self-examination to a true insight into God’s character.  It is he, Jesus says, who “went down to his home justified” (Luke 8:14).

Kallistos Ware: Theologian Who Explained the Orthodox Way to Oth... |  Christianity Today

Regarding repentance, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, who died this past year, wrote

[Repentance] is not self-hatred but the affirmation of my true self as made in God’s image. To repent is to look, not downward at my own shortcomings, but upward at God’s love; not backward with self-reproach, but forward with trustfulness. It is to see, not what I have failed to be, but what by the grace of God I can yet become.

God grant that this may be so for all of us, friends: that we may become, not what the world sees when it looks at us, or even what we ourselves see, but what God sees.

Jun
2022

In Our Own Languages!

 

Sunday is Pentecost, which means that bewildered lay readers (and more than a few preachers!) across the church will once again be wrestling with the jawbreaking, tongue-tangling list of place names (go here for pronunciation help) in Acts 2:7-11.

They were surprised and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all the people who are speaking Galileans, every one of them?  How then can each of us hear them speaking in our native language?  Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; as well as residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya bordering Cyrene; and visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages!”

This concatenation of unfamiliar (to us, at least) places makes an important point.  Pentecost (called Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks, in Judaism) was one of the pilgrim feasts, when Jews able to make the journey were to come to Jerusalem for the celebration (Deuteronomy 16:16; Exodus 23:14-17; 34:18-23). So Jewish pilgrims from all over the Roman world (and, in the case of the Parthians at least, even from beyond the empire) were gathered for Pentecost in Jerusalem’s streets.

People in Jerusalem at Pentecost Map - Acts 2 Nations of PentecostMeanwhile, Jesus’ followers were waiting in Jerusalem as he had commanded them (Luke 24:49), praying in an upper room.

Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak (Acts 2:1-4).

Boiling out of the upper room and into the streets, Jesus’ followers crashed into that polyglot crowd–and those pilgrims from distant lands discovered, to their astonishment, that they could understand these Galileans perfectly: “’we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages!’(Acts 2:11).

The "Little" Tower of Babel - Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563 ...

Luke’s account of Pentecost plainly alludes to the Babel story in Genesis 11:1-9.  But 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 the people all started speaking the same language—that their 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.

We should not be surprised that the members of the Pentecost crowd all hear the Gospel in their own languages. The entire Bible models for us how to escape what Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls the danger of a single story.  Scripture rarely gives us a single story about anything!  At the beginning of our Bible, we find two different accounts of the creation of the world (Genesis 1:1—2:4a and  Genesis 2:4b-25).   Our New Testament opens with four gospels, presenting four quite different accounts of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Scripture itself, by its very structure, calls for us to listen with open ears and open hearts for the truth told, not as a single story, but as a chorus of voices.  Sometimes those voices are in harmony, sometimes they are in dissonance, but always they are lifted in praise to the God who remembers all our stories, the comedies and tragedies alike, and catches them up together in love, forgiveness, and grace–as Luke’s account of Pentecost goes on to show.

Peter responds to the confused crowd’s questions with a sermon (Acts 2:17-21) based on a remarkable little book of prophecy, the book of Joel:

After that I will pour out my spirit upon everyone;
        your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
        your old men will dream dreams,
        and your young men will see visions.
In those days, I will also pour out my
    spirit on the male and female slaves.

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. But everyone who calls on the Lord’s name will be saved (Joel 2:28-32 [Hebrew 3:1-5]).

The setting for Joel is a locust plague, which has decimated Judah.  After the swarm has passed, and the locusts all are gone, reassurance is offered to the community, the “children of Zion” (Joel 2:23), who twice are promised, “my people shall never again be put to shame” (Joel 2:26, 27).

But Joel’s audience also learns that they are part of a larger community than they had realized.  The “children of Zion,” called “my people” by the Lord, turn out to include far more than the adult men of the worshipping congregation!  Women, children, the aged, slaves:  all are a part of God’s congregation, upon whom God will pour out God’s Spirit–and as my dear friend and former pastor Ron Hoellein often says, “All means all.”  The Hebrew Bible emphasizes the importance of this affirmation by a chapter break: Joel 2:28-32 in our English Bibles (following the Latin Vulgate) is Joel 3:1-5 in Hebrew (the English Bible’s chapter 3 is Joel 4 in the Hebrew Bible).

Joel reminds us that we too belong to a larger community than we had realized.  We may have forgotten that—I confess that often I have forgotten that.  We succumb to the temptation to define our community too narrowly, as including only those like us, whether ethnically or ideologically or theologically.

This Pentecost weekend marks the gathering of the United Methodist annual conference in Western Pennsylvania, a meeting held in the shadow of schism, as many of our churches will likely join the newly-formed Global Methodist Church.

Myranda Raymond, right, of the South Hills crosses the Andy Warhol Bridge during the 2021 Pittsburgh pride parade.

Also this weekend, the Pittsburgh Pride march will be held on Saturday, in support of LGBTQ+ folk: a striking juxtaposition, as the new Methodist denomination is forming in large part to escape the continuing controversy in United Methodism surrounding the full inclusion of those very persons.

There may be no stopping that schism.  But in the days and weeks to come, friends, we must learn to listen to one another—not to agree, necessarily, but to listen, to learn, and to understand. Like Joel’s audience, and Peter’s centuries later, we today need to hear God’s promise of deliverance and freedom from shame. But we cannot experience those blessings separately and severally. They are not offered to us in that way. God calls us, not to homogeneity, but to unity in diversity.  We must find our salvation together.

May
2022

God and Guns

Here in the U.S., Monday is Memorial Day: a day for remembering and honoring the deaths of soldiers, sailors, and pilots who fought for freedom. It is good, and right, that we do so.  If you are a veteran, or if you are mourning today for a beloved veteran, thank you and God bless you for sacrificially following your calling.

But it is also right for us to remember that, in the Christian calendar, Tuesday May 31 is the Visitation of Mary, expectant mother of Jesus, to Elizabeth her cousin–also pregnant with her son, John the Baptist.  The Visitation is a celebration of God’s gift of new life.  It is also the occasion for Luke’s Song of Mary (Luke 1:46-55), often called the Magnificat after its opening in Latin, Magnificat anima mea Dominum (in the KJV, “My soul doth magnify the Lord”).  Here is the whole song, from the Common English Bible:

With all my heart I glorify the Lord!
    In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.
He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant.
    Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored
        because the mighty one has done great things for me.
Holy is his name.
    He shows mercy to everyone,
        from one generation to the next,
        who honors him as God.
He has shown strength with his arm.
    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.
He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,
        remembering his mercy,
    just as he promised to our ancestors,
        to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.

The Magnificat (the Presbyterian hymnal has a lovely and vigorous setting of this passage!) draws freely in style and imagery on the Song of Hannah, mother of Samuel (1 Samuel 2:1-10), although Hannah’s song is a bit more specific as to how God intends to upend the seats of the powerful:

The bows of mighty warriors are shattered,
    but those who were stumbling now dress themselves in power! (1 Samuel 2:4).

A woman kneels as she pays her respects in front of crosses with the names of children killed outside of the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas Thursday, May 26, 2022. Law enforcement authorities faced questions and criticism Thursday over how much time elapsed before they stormed the Texas elementary school classroom and put a stop to the rampage by a gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

The notion of God shattering the weapons of war speaks powerfully to me after these last two weeks.  First, a racist massacre at a Tops Grocery store in Buffalo, New York, perpetrated by an 18-year-old white nationalist who “wore body armor, tactical gear and a helmet, officials said, and carried a Bushmaster XM-15 semiautomatic rifle, modified to hold high-capacity magazines.”  Then, another racially-motivated attack at a Taiwanese Presbyterian church in Laguna Woods, California, carried out by a Chinese man armed with two handguns.  Now, this week, yet another horrific school shooting: 19 elementary school children and two adults gunned down for no apparent reason in Uvalde, Texas by an 18-year-old armed with an AR-15 assault rifle.  The same weapon was used nearly ten years ago when another gunman massacred 26 people, including 20 first-graders, at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Since then, there have been over 900 school shootings: Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida; Santa Fe High School in Texas; Oxford High School in Michigan; and FAR too many more.

At N.R.A. Convention, the Blame Is on ‘Evil,’ Not Guns

Meanwhile, also this week in Texas, the National Rifle Association convention continued unimpeded by these tragedies.

One by one, the gun rights activists and politicians who showed up at the National Rifle Association convention on Friday said they were appalled, horrified and shaken by the massacre of 19 children and two adults a few days earlier in Uvalde, Texas.
One by one, they then rejected any suggestion that gun control measures were needed to stop mass shootings. They blamed the atrocities on factors that had nothing to do with firearms — the breakdown of the American family, untreated mental illness, bullying on social media, violent video games and the inexplicable existence of ‘evil.’
Above all, they sought to divert pressure to support popular overhauls like expanded background checks by seizing on the issue of school safety, amid reports that the gunman in Uvalde gained easy access to Robb Elementary School through an unguarded door.
Former President Donald J. Trump, speaking at the event’s keynote session late Friday, called for “impenetrable security at every school all across our land,” adding that “schools should be the single hardest target.”
Friends, I refuse to believe that Americans are more evil, or more prone to mental illness, than folk in other nations; nor do I accept that the family is in worse shape here than elsewhere–yet, these repeated mass shootings do not happen anywhere else. Nor do I accept that our schools and churches need to become “hard targets,” like armed camps or fortresses–and in any case, such measures have been tried, and have failed.  As David Von Drehle of the Washington Post writes,
The milling cops outside the school are a strong reply to those who say the solution to mass shootings is to have more people with guns in our schools and churches, our concert venues and grocery stores. Judging from the videos posted to social media by confounded onlookers, there was no shortage of guns in Uvalde — only a shortage of officers willing to run inside and attempt to shoot a young man who was shooting back at them. “If they proceeded any further not knowing where the suspect was at, they could’ve been shot,” Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Chris Olivarez explained on CNN. “They could’ve been killed.” Realistically, how confident can we be that schoolteachers, lunchroom cooks, church ushers or produce stockers will be any better prepared to draw down and do battle than those trained professionals in Uvalde?
Prayer is certainly needed.  However, we must head the wise advice of my former student and colleague in ministry Jeff Schooley:
“Thoughts and prayers” should be heard for what it is – “thoughtless prayers.”  You want to address the Divine in prayer? Good! But don’t be so thoughtless as to think the Divine has not already addressed you back.  Though it is not without irony, I can assure you – as both a pastor and a Christian – that it is possible to use prayer as a way of ignoring God; to keep talking to the Divine so that you aren’t burdened with having to listen in response.
A fine model for avoiding “thoughtless prayers” is this one, from the National Council of Churches:

May be an image of text that says 'PRAYER FOR UVALDE, TEXAS National Council Churches Almighty God, there are no words sufficient for the horror of this act. We weep for these dear, innocent ones just as Jesus wept for His friend, Lazarus. Comfort all who ache with overwhelming pain from this evil act. Give us the strengh to meet their needs in this moment and be with all who struggle through this extended time of grief. Give us the courage to take bold steps to do all that we can to make sure this never happens again. Amen'

We must be willing to put feet and hands to our prayers–to be a part of God’s solution.  And God’s solution, friends, is right there in the Magnificat. Our God is a God who takes sides, with the powerless against the powerful, with the oppressed against the oppressor, with the victims, and against the guns.  As Hannah knew, our God’s intent is to shatter the weapons of the warriors.  On this Memorial Day weekend, perhaps we can resolve at least to keep weapons of war on the battlefield where they belong, and out of our schools, churches, and grocery stores.

AFTERWORD:

The statue that I have used to represent Mary and Elizabeth’s encounter is Two Women” (ca. 1950-1960), by Charles LePlae.  It stands outside the Openluchtmuseum voor Beeldhouwkunst Middelheim (Antwerp, Belgium).  I found this image in Vanderbilt Library’s wonderful online resource “Art in the Christian Tradition,” which is linked to the lectionary.  Also from that lectionary site comes this beautiful prayer for the Visitation of Mary:

Blessed God,
who invited us to be handmaids of your creative power:
Bless us as you blessed Hannah, Elizabeth, and Mary,
filling our barren hearts with your fertile word,
nurturing faith within us,
sustaining us as we ripen with hope,
until your desire calls us to the time of labor,
and we give birth to your incarnate love. Amen.
May
2022

On NOT Being Warriors

 

Recently, I was captivated by a quote from A. J. Jacobs, the author of The Year of Living Biblically (2007), regarding his most recent book, The Puzzler (2022):

I’m an advocate of what I call the Puzzle Mindset. Instead of seeing the world as a series of hard-to-win battles, I try to view it as a puzzle–to see the world through the eyes of an engineer, not a warrior.  Even using the word puzzle can help. When I hear about the climate crisis, I want to curl up in a fetal position. But if I think about the climate puzzle, I feel motivated to find solutions.

As a Bible Guy, I tend to think biblically–in terms of texts and images from Scripture.  So Jacobs’ challenge “to see the world through the eyes of an engineer, not a warrior” got me thinking about martial metaphors in Scripture.  The earliest passages in the Bible celebrate God as the Divine Warrior: the Song of Deborah in Judges 5; the song of David in 2 Samuel 22//Psalm 18; the psalm in Habakkuk 3; Psalm 68; and in particular, the oldest passage in Scripture, Exodus 15:1-18, the Song of the Sea.

I will sing to the Lord, for an overflowing victory!
    Horse and rider he threw into the sea!

The Lord is a warrior;
    the Lord is his name.

Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he hurled into the sea;
    his elite captains were sunk in the Reed Sea.
The deep sea covered them;
    they sank into the deep waters like a stone (Exod 15:1, 3-5).

 

Unfortunately, because we so readily think of our world as “a series of hard-to-win battles,” and so of life as combat, we are likely to forget that this ancient biblical metaphor is a metaphor, and to embrace it uncritically.  A personal example of this tendency takes me back eight years, to the time soon after my ankle replacement surgery.

I remember waking up on one morning to the realization that my leg was itching under the cast, where I couldn’t reach.  It was driving me crazy.  I twisted my leg inside the cast, got up, stomped around on the walker–and then realized that I would be trapped in that cast for another three weeks.

I sat in my recliner with the offending limb stuck up in the air, trying to read, trying to pray–trying desperately to think about something, anything, other than my leg–to no avail.  I imagined that ants were crawling around on my leg under the cast.  I began to have trouble breathing.  My heart was racing.  I was disoriented.  I thought, “I am having a panic attack.  This must be what a panic attack feels like.”

Then I thought about my son Sean.  Sean has wrestled since childhood with Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.  Along the way, he has learned not only to cope, but to thrive.  So I asked him if he could teach me how to fight my obsession with my leg’s discomfort.

Sean’s answer astonished me.  He said he had learned that you can’t fight obsessive thoughts: “They just come.”  What you can do is rob those thoughts of the emotions and anxiety associated with them.  To do that, Sean taught me, you first relax your body and your mind.  Then, you let the forbidden thought come: you deliberately think about what you do not want to think about.  As you do so, you keep breathing slowly; you deliberately relax, and so replace the anxiety with calm.  Sean suggested that I think, “My leg is uncomfortable, but that really doesn’t matter!”

Pin on My Catholic Faith

That night, when my leg itched, I didn’t try to fight it.  I breathed slowly, in and out, praying the Jesus Prayer in time with my breathing: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”  I thanked God for my healing.  I thought about the hundreds of other people who had had this same surgery, and had come through this period of recovery just fine.  I told myself, “My leg is uncomfortable, but that really doesn’t matter.”  And I fell asleep–the most restful sleep I had had since coming home from the hospital.

Over the next three weeks, I continued to practice my prayer and meditation, and bit by bit, my leg stopped bothering me.  It didn’t become magically more comfortable, or less prone to itching, but I stopped worrying about it.  I “won” the fight when I stopped fighting!

Debating the debate over the Russian war in Ukraine | Russia-Ukraine war | Al Jazeera

Please do not misunderstand me.  I do not question society’s need for warriors.  Undoubtedly, there are times when resistance to political and social evil requires a militant response: as is the case today in Ukraine.  But under the dominant influence of the martial metaphor, resistance to any evil becomes a war: the War on Drugs, the War on Crime, the War on Terror.  Theologian Walter Wink called this seductive notion the “myth of redemptive violence”:

Violence is the ethos of our times. It is the spirituality of the modern world. It has been afforded the status of a religion, demanding from its devotees absolute obedience to death. . . Violence is so successful as a myth precisely because it does not appear mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It is what works. It is inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts (Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], 23).

Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables: Vischer, Phil: 9781595551221: Books - Amazon

In a seventeen-minute video appeal to his fellow Evangelicals, Phil Vischer, creator of the wonderful Veggie Tales series, briefly summarizes the horrific history of race in America–faulting, in particular, the martial metaphor.  The War on Crime and the War on Drugs, he argues, led us to militarize our police, and to criminalize and incarcerate an entire generation of Black and Brown Americans.

Tara O’Neill Hayes, the Director of Human Welfare Policy at the American Action Forum, has the sobering statistics:

There are currently an estimated 2.2 million people incarcerated in the United States.  The incarceration rate is now more than 4.3 times what it was nearly 50 years ago. This increase has led to the United States having the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, 37 percent greater than that of Cuba and 69 percent greater than Russia. This high incarceration rate is not because crime has increased; in fact, crime rates have declined since the 1990s.  Rather, the arrest rate increased dramatically, while sentences—particularly for drug crimes—have gotten longer.  These policy changes have disproportionately affected low-income and minority populations, who now make up roughly three-fifths and two-thirds of the prison population, respectively.

President Biden’s recent clemency actions, pardoning three people and commuting the sentences of 75, were a small start on responding to this injustice: “White House officials say the president thinks too many people — many of them Black and brown — are serving unduly long sentences for drug crimes.”

Defund the Police" Faces the Same Problems as "Taxation Is Theft ...

In the wake of the very public, brutal murder of African American George Floyd by a white police officer, worldwide protests called for justice and reform–including calls, specifically, to “Defund the Police.”  But a far better call would be to ditch the martial metaphor, and demilitarize the police–as they did in Camden, New Jersey.

In 2013, Camden had one of the highest murder rates in the country.  In response to that sobering statistic, the city “dismantled the entire police department, starting a community policing approach.”

The department un-hired, then hired back most veteran officers and then 150 new officers — 50% of officers are now minorities.  . . . The new force has more officers on the streets out of their cars, having conversations and mostly listening. They go through de-escalation training. . . they are trained to use their words, and guns are a last resort.

Retired Police Chief Scott Thompson, who helped start the new program, describes the difference like this: “from day one. . . our officers would be guardians and not warriors.”  It worked.  After the police in Camden ditched the martial metaphor, choosing (and training themselves) to be “guardians and not warriors,” shootings and murders went down by 50% in two years.  Metaphors matter!

So, what about those biblical texts depicting God as a warrior?  It is important that we hear these ancient songs, not from the perspective of a strong, secure, and self-confident Israel, but of an Israel in its infancy—a people fragile and vulnerable, who had until very recently been no people, hanging onto survival by their fingernails. Otherwise, we may use the image of God as a warrior standing against Israel’s oppressors to justify our own violence.

Title: Prophet Miriam [Click for larger image view]

Certainly Jewish tradition did not read the Song of the Sea as a call to arms!  According to the Talmud (the authoritative collection of the teachings of the rabbis), when the Israelites began to celebrate the defeat of the Egyptians, God asked, “How can you sing as the works of my hand are drowning in the sea?” (b. Megillah 10b).

Without doubt, the imagery of warfare and struggle is part of the biblical witness. But Scripture also, in many places, subverts the martial metaphor, transforming it unexpectedly into imagery of peace.

An actual rainbow | Rainbow, Quotations, Love quotes

Following the flood in Genesis, the LORD declares, “I have placed my bow [Hebrew qeshet] in the clouds; it will be the symbol of the covenant between me and the earth” (Gen 9:13).  Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, qeshet refers to a weapon, whether in the hands of a hunter (for example, Genesis 27:3) or a warrior (for example, Zechariah 9:10).  The rainbow is the LORD’s war bow (Habakkuk 3:9; Psalm 18:14), which God now sets aside, placing it in the clouds.

Remember, God had just finished destroying the world with a flood! Now, as life begins again on the renewed earth, the unavoidable question for the reader has got to be, what if this happens again?  God promises that it never will:

I will set up my covenant with you so that never again will all life be cut off by floodwaters. There will never again be a flood to destroy the earth (Gen 9:11).

To underscore and seal that promise, God disarms Godself.

This is far from the only Bible passage subverting the martial metaphor! Not too long ago, on Palm Sunday, we recalled Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matt 11:16-19, 25-30). In their accounts, both Matthew and John (Matt 21:5 and John 12:15) quote Zechariah 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.

By riding an ass rather than a war horse or chariot, the king in Zechariah’s passage shows humility, and declares that he comes in peace.  But there was a long tradition of kingly processions involving the king riding an ass (Carol and Eric Meyers, Zechariah 9-14; AB 25c [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1993], 129).  Why should this one be any different than all those others?  Zechariah declares that this time, it is more than theater!  The LORD’s Messiah truly is humble, and not only comes in peace, but 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 (Zech 9:10).

By entering Jerusalem in this way, Jesus declares what sort of Messiah he intends to be.

Your God is a Mighty Warrior - Good News Unlimited

So, what about Revelation, where a blood-soaked Jesus returns to earth at the head of a heavenly army (Rev 19:11-16)?  Doesn’t this vindicate the martial metaphor?  Of course, that may be just fine with us!  In the end, God is finally going to trot out the big guns, and act in a way we can understand.

If we read the book of Revelation closely, however, we are in for a surprise.  The familiar biblical imagery of divine warfare (see especially Isa 63:1-3 for the blood-soaked garments and the winepress of divine wrath) is transformed when we realize that the robes of the rider on the white horse are already red with blood as he descends from heaven–so the blood cannot be from his slaughtered enemies!  Indeed, the only weapon he bears is his word: the sword which comes from his mouth (Rev 19:15; see also Rev 1:16; 2:16; Heb 4:12; Eph 6:17), as is appropriate for the one called The Word of God (Rev 19:13).  Whose blood, then, stains his robes?  It must be his own.

Crucifixion of Jesus - Wikipedia

In Revelation 5, John finds himself in the heavenly throne room.  In God’s hand is a scroll, sealed with seven seals.  John desperately wants to know what secrets the scroll contains,

But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or look inside it. So I began to weep and weep, because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look inside it. Then one of the elders said to me, “Don’t weep. Look! The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has emerged victorious so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals” (Rev 5:3-5).

John turns, fully expecting to see a Lion.  But instead,

I saw a Lamb, standing as if it had been slain. It had seven horns and seven eyes, which are God’s seven spirits, sent out into the whole earth. He came forward and took the scroll from the right hand of the one seated on the throne (Rev 5:6-7).

Ecce agnus Dei | 12.4.2009: from Matthias Grünewald, Isenhe… | Flickr

Anything further removed from the lion John had expected to see is difficult to imagine. The lion is regal, the lamb is ordinary. The lion is powerful, the lamb is powerless. The lion is a predator, the lamb is prey.  Further, it is a slaughtered lamb, which emphasizes even more its absolute powerlessness, as well as calling up another set of images associated with the lamb: the lamb as sacrifice.

Yet the lamb, although bearing the marks of slaughter, is standing–and so obviously alive, not dead!  Clearly, as John the Baptist had declared in John 1:36, Jesus is the Lamb of God.  In the remainder of Revelation, Jesus is never again called a Lion; but he is called the Lamb 30 times (e.g., Rev 5:12-13; 7:9-10; 12:11; 17:14; 21:22-23),

We often say that God is love (1 John 4:7-8), which surely means, if it means anything at all, that love is the strongest power in the universe: stronger than violence or coercion or control. So we should not find at all strange the marvelous assertion at the close of Scripture that the kingly power of the Lion is now invested, and manifested, in the suffering, sacrificial love of the Lamb.  God, in the end, has no need of the martial metaphor.  Perhaps we too should give it a rest.

 

Apr
2022

Christ is Risen!

In the early church, when believers met in this holy season, 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!”

God bless you, friends!  In celebration of this day of resurrection, I would like to share with you two short and very sweet Easter poems by Ann Weems. First, “The Story and the Child.”

Mess-free Easter egg dyeing tricks for parents – SheKnows
The child comes, and we dye eggs
and make a cake and decorate.
“Why are we doing this?” he asks
“Because,” I answer, “Life is about to happen,
and on Sunday morning we’ll catch stars.”
He looks at me, quizzically at first,
and then grins. It’s then I ask him
to tell me the story. The only way he’ll learn
is to tell it himself.
The only way we’ll learn
is to tell it again… and again…

 

The second poem, by way of retelling the story, is “Lost and Found.”

Jack Dawson: Day 19 - The Borrowed Tomb - The Great Passion PlayAs we approached Jerusalem
The crowd stood at the gate and cried in a tear-choked voice:
“We are lost in his death.”

Icon of the Resurrection – F86 | Skete.com

Upon the hill the angels sang: “We are found in his rising.”

Christe anesti, friends!

Apr
2022

Riding On a Donkey

Facts about donkeys | Live ScienceI am a lectionary preacher–a practice I commend as a way to break out of the hamster wheel of our favorite, comfortable passages and encounter the wideness–and wildness–of the Bible.  But I confess that sometimes, the logic of the lectionary escapes me.  The only reading from Zechariah in the Revised Common Lectionary is 9:9-12.  Apart from it being yet another witness to the comparative paucity of readings from the left-hand side of the Bible in the Revised Common Lectionary, I have two problems with this reading.

My first beef  is its location in the church calendar: as the alternate Old Testament lection for Year A, Proper 9: the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost; the Gospel for that day is Matt 11:16-19, 25-30.  How, I wonder, is this is not one of the readings appointed for Palm Sunday?

Entry of Christ into Jerusalem by Anthony van Dyck.jpgBoth Matthew and John quote Zechariah 9:9 in their accounts of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matt 21:5 and John 12:15), while Mark 11:1-11 and Luke 19:28-40 both use the word polon, “colt,” found in the Greek Septuagint (commonly abbreviated LXX) of Zechariah 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.

Applying to this passage a wooden literalism, Matthew describes Jesus entering Jerusalem mounted on both an ass and her colt, like a circus act (Matt 21:6-7)!  But this was no mistake on Matthew’s part: the most Jewish of the Evangelists certainly knew how Hebrew poetry works.  Rather, this bizarre image was intended to ram the point home, making absolutely certain that the reader could not miss the connection between the prophecy and its fulfillment. Similarly, in his commentary on this book, the early Christian teacher Theodoret of Cyrus records, “This acquires a clear interpretation in actual events: the king who is prophesied has come.”

The NRSV translation “triumphant and victorious” (9:9) is difficult to understand, although the CEB “righteous and victorious,” is only a little better. The Hebrew reads tsaddiq wenosha’. The first term means “righteous,” perhaps defending “the royal legitimacy of the king” (so Carol and Eric Meyers, Zechariah 9-14; AB 25c [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1993], 127), although it may also refer to his morality (the Aramaic Targum on this verse has zaqay, which means “innocent”).

The second word, nosha’, is a passive participle, meaning literally “one who is saved” (reflected also in the Targum). The LXX renders this as sozon, an active participle (“saving”). Following the Greek rather than the Hebrew, both the CEB and the NRSV read nosha’ actively, as “victorious.”  Carol and Eric Meyers, however, stay with the plain sense of the Hebrew: “Yahweh is victorious over the enemies, with the result that the king is ‘saved,’ thereby enabled to assume power” (Meyers and Meyers 1993, 127). In short, Zechariah 9:9-10 presents a transformed notion of kingship, grounded not in dynastic and regal pomp, but in God’s own action.  Remember Zechariah’s words to the governor Zerubbabel, earlier in this book:

This is the LORD’s word to Zerubbabel:
        Neither by power, nor by strength,
        but by my spirit, says the LORD of heavenly forces (Zech 4:6).

As this unit unfolds, it continues to draw distinctions between this king and other, previous kings. Although the humble mount in 9:9 derives from a long tradition of kingly processions involving the king riding an ass (Meyers and Meyers 1993, 129), this passage surely catches the point of that tradition: by riding an ass rather than a war horse or chariot, the king shows humility, and declares that he comes in peace. Yet this time, the prophet declares, this is more than theater!  This king truly is humble, and not only comes in peace, but comes to bring peace: a promise our war-torn world desperately needs to hear!

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 (Zech 9:10).

The mention of Ephraim (the largest of the northern tribes, often used to represent the entire northern kingdom of Israel, for example, see Isa 7:2; Jer 7:15; Ezek 37:19; Hos 5:3) shows that this renewed kingdom will include those formerly excluded: the “lost tribes” from the northern kingdom destroyed and dispersed by the Assyrians long before.

This brings me to my second problem with this lectionary reading: it is two verses too long!  Although in its final form, Zechariah 9 is a unit, the differing histories of its parts call for attention.  Zechariah 9:9-10 belongs with the first eight verses of the chapter–a series of oracles against the nations of Syria-Palestine, culminating in the arrival of God’s appointed king.   Zechariah 9:11 and 12  belong with 9:11-17.

Your God is a Mighty Warrior - Good News Unlimited

In sharp contrast to the peaceful vision of Zech 9:9-10, but in continuity with older visions of divine kingship (see Nah 1:2-11; Hab 3:1-19; Zeph 1:2-18), these verses describe the LORD as a blood-soaked warrior. The exiles are gathered, not so that God can guard them in peace (Zech 9:8), but so that God can muster them as an army. The expression “the blood of the covenant” appears only in Zechariah 9:11 and Exodus 24:8, where Moses sprinkles the people with the blood of their offering at Sinai, sealing their promise to obey God’s torah. Here as there, God has delivered Israel from bondage and oppression, but will now lead them into times of trial and conflict.  Including Zech 9:11-12 in our reading will likely prompt us to misread, or even ignore, the peaceful message of Zech 9:9-10–which would be a tragic shame.

It is little wonder that Zechariah 9:9-10 so captured the imagination of the Gospel writers. While the first Christians confessed Jesus as Christ (Greek christos, the term used in the LXX for Hebrew meshiakh, “Messiah”), it is clear that their understanding–and Jesus own understanding–of what being “Messiah” means transformed this title.

St Sophia Cathedral, Kiev | The Christ Pantocrator. Mosaic, … | FlickrMark 1:1 identifies Jesus not only as Christos, or Messiah, but also as “the Son of God.” While related to the idea of the king as God’s adopted son (Psalm 2:5-9; 45:6-7), this confession goes much further than any Jewish conception of Messiah: Jesus the Messiah is God! This confession creates new problems, raising the need for the church to affirm that “Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2; John 1:14).

But while on the one hand Christian confessions about Jesus exalt the role of Messiah far beyond traditional Jewish expectations, on the other hand these ideas subvert the idea of Messiah as king. In debate with the Pharisees, who believed in a literal future Messiah, Jesus asks. “‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” ‘David’s son,’ they replied.” (Matt 22:42). In response, Jesus quotes Psalm 110:1

The Lord says to my lord,
    “Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool” (NRSV)

Assuming the speaker to be David, Jesus asks, “If David calls him [that is, the Messiah] Lord, how can he be David’s son?” (Matt 22:45). Although Matthew’s genealogy takes pains to demonstrate Jesus’ descent from David (Matt 1:6, 17), Christ is more than David’s son!

Grünewald's Resurrection from the Isenheim Altarpiece - Kelly BagdanovParticularly subversive of traditional Messianic expectation is the Christian view that the Christ must suffer. Thus, in Mark, Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi that Jesus is Christos is inadequate: faced with Jesus’ determination to suffer and die, Peter rebukes him, and is in turn himself rebuked by Jesus (Mark 8:29-33). Indeed, in Mark, the first human to make a full confession about Jesus is his executioner, who declares when Jesus dies, “This man was certainly God’s son” (Mark 15:39).

It may well be that Jesus understood his own role in terms of the Suffering Servant in Second Isaiah (42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-11; 52:13—53:12). Certainly, early Christians did (1 Cor 15:3; Acts 8:32-35; 1 Peter 2:22-25), and the idea must have come from somewhere (Matt 8:17; 12:18-21; Mark 9:12; 10:45[//Matt 20:28]; Luke 22:37). In any case, for early Christians, the image of the peaceful and humble king in Zechariah 9:9-10 was the perfect representation of Jesus–and one we as well must learn to embrace.

AFTERWORD

The mosaic icon of Christ Pantocrator (Christ as king of all) above comes from the central dome of  the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kyiv, Ukraine.  The scene of wartime violence is also from Ukraine, following the Russian missile strike on refugees at the Kramatorsk train station.  The continuing senseless violence perpetrated by Mr. Putin in Ukraine is a reminder of how much we need the peace-bringing Messiah of Zechariah 9:9-10.

If you would like to support the people of Ukraine, I recommend that you consider giving through the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).  Since administrative costs are covered through the church by other means, 100% of money you donate will go to Ukrainians.  UMCOR is communicating with partners in the region to coordinate a humanitarian response. You can support UMCOR’s international disaster response efforts by making a gift to Advance #982450. Global Ministries’ Advance #14053A supports Methodist pastors in Ukraine and Moldova.

 

Apr
2022

Bodies and Souls

This has been a hard month for our family.  We lost two dear friends: our cat Mocha on March 9, and our son Mark’s cat Diana this past Saturday.  Mocha came to us fifteen years ago, as a kitten so tiny that Wendy brought her home cupped in one hand.  She was so playful and hyperactive that I joked we should name her “Ritalin”–but her coffee and cream coloring made Mocha a more fitting (yet suitably caffeinated) substitute.

Diana, named for the goddess of the moon and the hunt, was eighteen–a venerable age for a cat.  She moved with our family from Ashland to Pittsburgh, and then moved out with our son Mark when he left home.  But wherever she lived, Diana always carried herself with the dignity of a queen, accepting adoration as her due, and graciously conferring affection upon her subjects.

It was hard to say goodbye.  We wept in the veterinarian’s office, praying, holding one another, and stroking these dear friends as they breathed their last.  The end of these wee, wild lives is tragedy enough.  But it has also been a hard reminder that all things end–and that we, too, will one day die.

Friends have offered solace.  Many, in their well-meant words of comfort, simply assumed that Mocha and Diana had gone on to another life.  Others asked me what I believed, as a Christian pastor and a Bible Guy.  Do animals have souls?

WILLIAM BLAKE: GOLDEN STRING: CREATION OF ADAM

Many will be confident that the answer to that question is “no.”  Surely, the soul is what distinguishes we humans from the animals.  Some would point, as evidence, to Genesis 2:7:

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (KJV).

The problem (as it so often is) is a matter of translation.  The Hebrew phrase rendered “living soul” in the KJV is nephesh khayyah.  The NRSV instead reads “the man became a living being,” while CEB simply has, “the human came to life.” Intriguingly, the phrase nephesh khayyah is used for the animals as well in Genesis 2:19 (there, the KJV renders it “living creature”).  Not only the human (Hebrew ‘adam) but “all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky” are nephesh khayyahSo if nephesh means “soul,” then the animals have them, too.

But while nephesh is sometimes translated as “soul,” it never refers to some separate, separable, supernatural part of the self.  Its basic meaning has to do with breath; in fact, nephesh can sometimes mean something as narrow and specific as “throat” (for example, Habakkuk 2:5; Jonah 2:5[6]).  Most commonly, nephesh simply means “self.”  So, a corpse can be called a dead nephesh (for example, Leviticus 21:11), while in Genesis 2:7 ‘adam becomes a living nephesh, alive and self-aware–or, as the NRSV reads, “a living being.”

Biblical cosmology - Wikipedia

What happens when we are no longer “living beings”?  Where do the dead go?  In the Hebrew Bible, the dead go to the underworld, or Sheol: a term that appears 66 times. But that Sheol appears only 66 times in such a huge, wide-ranging collection as the Old Testament tells us something important about the interests of the biblical writers!  The Hebrew Bible is focused on life, not death or what comes after.

Sheol is no afterlife, however.  The dead in Sheol are dead, removed from the living, worshipping community of Israel. So, in his thanksgiving prayer following his healing, Hezekiah says:

The underworld [Sheol] can’t thank you,
        nor can death praise you;
    those who go down to the pit
        can’t hope for your faithfulness.
The living, the living can thank you, as I do today.
    Parents will tell children about your faithfulness (Isa 38:18-19).

In the Psalms, death is not an event at the end of life, but a power that reaches back into life, to rob the living of joy and fulfillment–a power from which the righteous person prays to be delivered (Psalms 6:4-5; 30:1-3, 8-10). Death and contact with the dead were a major source of ritual defilement in the priestly worldview (Numbers 19:11-22; 31:19-24), and the cult of the dead (sacrificing to ancestors, or calling upon the dead for knowledge or for power) is universally condemned (for example, Leviticus 19:31; Deuteronomy 18:10-12; Isaiah 28:14-18; 65:2-4). Texts that affirm God’s presence in Sheol, such as Psalm 139:8 (“If I went up to heaven, you would be there.  If I went down to the grave [Sheol], you would be there too!”), or that speak of death in positive terms (such as Psalm 104:28-30), are the rare exceptions to the rule.

The earliest explicit statement about a life beyond death in the Bible is Daniel 12:2, a text that in its final form dates to the second century BCE: “Many of those who sleep in the dusty land will wake up—some to eternal life, others to shame and eternal disgrace.”  Notice that this passage is not about the assured immortality of the soul, but rather about the hoped-for future resurrection of the body.    Indeed, the resurrection of the body at the end of the age is the teaching of the rabbis in the Mishnah, and is assumed throughout the Christian New Testament (for example, Luke 14:14; John 5:29; 11:24; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28).  The creeds of Christianity, too, confess the resurrection of the body, not the immortality of the soul.

Most importantly, the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection everywhere emphasize the empty tomb (Matthew 28:11-15; Mark 16:6) and the physical, tangible nature of the risen Jesus, who displays in his body the wounds of crucifixion, invites his friends to touch him, and even shares a meal with them (for example, Luke 24:36-43; John 20:26-29). The risen Jesus is not Jesus’ ghost, but Jesus himself: the same Jesus who was crucified.

Crucifixion of Jesus - Wikipedia

This Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, leading us inexorably to Golgotha, and the cross.  The entire witness of Scripture resists any attempt to shy away from Good Friday’s grim finality.  Jesus will suffer and die here–as all of us will one day die.  On Easter Sunday, we will celebrate the joyous surprise of his resurrection, but that the resurrection is a surprise–a glorious, grand, miraculous, and unexpected gift–must not be forgotten.  Death is real.  But so is life.

So–what do I believe happens when we die?  I believe in the resurrection of the dead.  That means, first of all, that I believe that the dead really die: not only Mocha and Diana, but those saints whom I have loved.  One day soon, I too will really die.  But I am also certain that the last word belongs to the Lord of life.  The God who raised Jesus can, and will, raise us up at the end of the age, in the world to come.

What will happen in the meantime?  Will I sleep, as Luther believed?  Will there be the opportunity to strive further toward perfection in purgatory, as Catholic dogma holds?  Frankly, I do not know.  But like Paul, I believe that nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38), and so when I leave this life, I will be with him (Philippians 1:23).  I remember Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross, “today you will be with me in paradise”  (Luke 23:43), and whatever that may mean, I trust him not to let me go.

Christian theologian Jurgen Moltmann puts it this way: “The immortality of the soul is an opinion – the resurrection of the dead is a hope.”  Christian hope is not Pollyanna optimism–a saccharine denial of the hard realities of life, and of death.  It is rather the confidence that we may place ourselves, our world, our future, and even our mourned and beloved dead into the hands of God, trusting that the power at the heart of all things is indeed just and loving and kind, and that nothing beautiful–not even the tiniest wild and wonderful life–will ever be lost.