Nazareth, PA: A 16 year old girl was arrested and charged with
treason and sedition after police say she uttered unpatriotic slogans and
threats against the government.
The young woman (name withheld) was booked into the county jail and is being
held without bond.
Witnesses say that she was singing or chanting political protest slogans. “I
heard her say something about pulling down the thrones of power,” said Terry
Ousterman, a Nazareth resident. “She was going on and on about how the rich are
going to get what’s coming to them, and how the poor are going to take it all.
It’s this kind of class-warfare that’s ruined our country,” said Ousterman.
When asked if the Treason and Sedition charges (which, if convicted, can carry
the death penalty) are too extreme considering her age, Federal Prosecutors said, “It’s hard, we know. But these
poisonous sentiments cannot be allowed to destroy our nation.”
The young woman herself has declined to comment on the charges, but has asked
for special medical consideration during her incarceration as she is pregnant.
Her next court hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 6.
I’ve been thinking about that question my friend and colleague asked me the
other day: Do you know any songs about Joseph?
I shared the few that I knew and found in my library of music books. But
it still seems that Joseph is a bit slighted in the carols department. There are
multiplied thousands of songs for Mary, for the shepherds, for the magi, for
the angels, for the stars, for the animals … but relatively few for Saint
Joseph.
So I decided to write one for him myself.
Here is “Joseph Was a Good Man” – sung to the tune “The Lone, Wild Bird”
Joseph was a good man, upright and true
and he did what the angel told him to;
he took as his bride
the virgin, Mary,
and Joseph loved her baby too.
Joseph took them both to Egypt land
to escape King Herod’s mighty hand;
when the tyrant died
Joseph knew he could
take his wife and the child home again.
After that we hear no more of him -
how he lived, how he died, the story dims,
but we sing with pride
of that good man
and we sing to God our Christmas hymns.
It ain’t much, I know, but it’s better than Christmas Shoes. *shudder.
A friend and colleague of mine asked a wonderful question
yesterday: she asked me if I know any Christmas songs / carols about
Joseph. And this is striking.
There are countless thousands of songs about the Virgin Mary, about the
shepherds, the wise men, the angels, and the star.
There are songs about the animals and the children who came to visit.
But there are relatively few Christmas songs and carols about good St. Joseph.
I dug through my memory and through the books of Christmas music that I have on
my shelves and found a few:
There is the French: Joseph Est Bien
Marié (Joseph Married Well)
And the German: Joseph
Dearest, Joseph Mine
The Portuguese: José
Embala O Menino (Joseph Rocks the Little Boy)
Joseph gets the third verse… half of the third verse, actually, of The Snow Lay on the Ground:
He’s mentioned again (but briefly) in the French song: Noël
Nouvelet:
Though the Catalonian carol El Rei Herodes is titled after King Herod, the song focuses on
Joseph:
Joseph gets several verses of the Venezuelan carol: La Jornada:
And of course, there is the strange but wonderful Cherry Tree Carol, which has
an emotionally wounded Joseph telling Mary to let the boy’s real father pick cherries for her. It’s
based on a story from the Gospel of Psuedo-Matthew.
There are probably more – but not many.
Have I missed any? Share them in the comments.
First, I’d like to say: “Happy New Year!” You smile because you think I’m
early, but I’m not. I’m right on time. We all live under several different
calendars – those of us with school age children have the school calendar that
begins in August and ends in May, In the Salvation Army our fiscal calendar
begins in October and ends in September (I don’t understand it. I just use
it.) And in the Christian church we have
the liturgical calendar, the church year that begins today – the first Sunday
of Advent. So again, I say: “Happy New Year!” And may it be a happy one, filled
with goodness and light.
In the summer of 1914 the world seemed fairly bright. Things were going well. There
was hope and a sense that the world was moving forward into a brighter,
healthier, wealthier future. This isn’t to suggest that there weren’t significant
social issues that needed to be addressed, but there was a sense that the world
was getting better.
International trade was growing with
traditional goods as well as new technologies: Electrical goods, chemical dyes,
internal combustion vehicles, gold, diamonds, African rubber, South American
cattle, Australian sheep, Canadian wheat, etc… goods were bought and sold
around the globe. (Keegan 10 – 11)
Of that time, the English journalist Norman Angell wrote in his book, The Great Illusion (1910) that the
disruption of international trade and credit that would inevitably be caused by
the outbreak of war would either inhibit nations from going to war, or would
force them to bring conflict to a swift resolution. (Keegan 10) Because war
would be futile, and it was a matter of “enlightened self-interest,” to avoid
going to war. (Angell 488)
This Belle Époque was further
enhanced by the development of international laws. “It had been recognized then…
that the peace of Europe was a matter for the concern of all European
countries. There were certain categories of actions that were widely recognized
as threatening the peace and security of all states, and as such actions were
not supposed to be taken without prior consultation with the other governments”
(Lafore 31).
There was also the growing recognition that continued the militarization of nation
states would not protect the peace, but would lead to war. Tsar Nicholas II
called for an international conference in 1899 to strengthen limitations on
armaments and to found an international court dedicated to settling disputes
between stations. Tsar Nicholas warned that the accelerating arms race – to produce
ever larger armies, heavier artillery, and bigger warships – was transforming
the armed peace into a crushing burden that weighs on all nations. (Keegan 17) “It appears evident, then, that if
this state of things were prolonged, it would inevitably lead to the very
cataclysm which it is desired to avert, and the horrors of which make every
thinking man shudder in advance.” (Nicholas II)
And if the bonds of international trade and commerce guided by enlightened
self-interest, along with the recognition of the need for international law and
the need to check the increasing militarization of nations weren’t enough to
keep the peace, there were also the bonds of familial relationships. The leaders of many of the nations that came
to be involved in “the great war” were related either by blood or marriage or
both. The Kaiser in Germany was cousin to the Tsar in Russia. “It was broadly
true that all European royalty were cousins; even the Hapsburgs of Austria, the
most imperious of sovereigns, occasionally mingled their blood with outsiders;
and since every state in Europe, except France and Switzerland, was a monarchy,
that made for a very dense network of inter-state connections indeed” (Keegan
16).
But in the summer of 1914, when everything seemed good and bright, primed for the
increasingly peaceful relations between nations, the assassination of Archduke
Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo sent the world into an extended paroxysm of
violent, bloody death, the likes of which the world had never seen, and from
which – one hundred years later – we still have not fully recovered. The “war to end all wars” as it came to be known, did nothing of the sort.
World War One came to an end, only to flare up again a few years later in World
War Two, which ended but not really. The cold war, Korea, Vietnam, Algeria,
Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan… the War to End All Wars continues to be
fought.
But it will happen. It will happen. It must happen. We must put an end to our incessant
warring. The prophet Isaiah had this hope, this faith, this vision – that there
would come a time when humanity would put away their weapons of war and learn
the ways of peace.
“How desperately our world needs such a faith! Without its inspiration and its
power to sustain our search for a way of peace, we are condemned to the
dreadful prospect of wars succeeding wars until the human race destroys itself.
We have in each generation the strange, tragic spectacle of men endowed with
genius, yet wholly unable to learn the art of living together in peace. Even
with bitter experience of the horrors of war, every proposal for peace is
basically related to the use of force” (Kilpatrick 180 – 181).
The prophet dreams, and I dream and hope and am anxious for that time when I
can “lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside, and study war no more.”
“Let’s go up to the mountain of Yahweh,” I rejoiced when they said that,
because there we shall learn peace. There we shall learn the peace of God.
There we can be united and whole with our weapons put away, our weapons melted
down and the instruments of death turned into the tools of production. There our
swords will melted down and made into plows and our spears will be hammered
into sickles.
Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers – they have learned the
ways of God and walk in his paths. Peace based on “enlightened self-interest”
will not hold. Peace through continually increasing militarization – that is, peace
through superior fire power, - is a lie. There is only the peace of God found
in love, and grace, and forgiveness.
If we are sharpening our swords, instead of melting them down, then we have not
learned the law of God; we have not gone up to the mountain of the house of
Yahweh.
Come, please. O Come, let us go up to the house of God, up to the city of
peace.
It is, of course, much too early to begin celebrating Christmas - but I really must share some of my research with you. I've been using a high powered electron microscope, sending an accelerated beam of electrons across the surface of a bit of glitter scraped from a Christmas ornament one of my kids made in kindergarten.
As you can see, Christmas at the subatomic level is a curious thing.
I am startled awake by the sound of shattered glass and I didn’t realize I had
dozed off. Again. I dozed off again. My eyes are thick and slow to focus, so I
wipe them with my muddy hands. It doesn’t help – but everything is out of focus
here in the mist, and fog, and smoke, and drizzle. Glass shatters again.
Someone is shouting. I am awake. At least, I think I am awake. Sleep is
deceptive and I sometimes shout at my dreams.
There are dead men everywhere. Dead men and horses. Musicians. Shepherds,
Statesmen. All dead. Still I take no pleasure in the death of an enemy. I wear
no frogged jacket, no iron cross, no flag pin, no medallions of bravery for
country or for king.
The fields are wide and stretching into forever. They are unfurrowed, but torn
ragged. They are unfenced. Why bother? No one wanders here except for me – but if
that is true, then who is shouting and smashing windows? Am I dozing off again?
Dreaming? I hear voices and think, “That’s
not me.” I want no phone conversation, no orchestra, no Russian choir – only silence
as October and November disappear into the eternal, horizonless fog.
Three things this afternoon (this evening?)
1) The bridge is out – sappers took it out with explosive and with axes. 2)
Machine gun units are pulled into place by scrawny dogs. 3) The river foams
with blood. And though these three are not unrelated, I cannot find the connective
tissue between them.
She has something in her eyes, but it isn’t me.
The basement is cold and dark, and burnt books provide no light, no fuel, no
warmth. The basement is cold, but it’s
where I sleep – with the lights turned off dark is dark. Who’s to notice the
ragged edges of my blanket, or my träumerei screaming? If the lights are out,
shouldn’t the danger be gone? Who is shouting?
I've been somewhat remiss this year about creating and sharing free, weekly background images. If you were one of the three or four people who downloaded them regularly and were counting on them, I'm sorry.
But, in what I hope is not too little - too late, I am sharing these four images for Advent that you are free, and welcome to download, and to use as your very own. Use them at home, at work, as school, at church, use them in a train, use them in the rain. Use them in good health.
David’s son Absalom had a beautiful sister whose name was Tamar; and David’s
son Amnon fell in love with her. So Amnon lay down, and pretended to be ill;
and when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, “Please let my
sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my sight, so that I may eat
from her hand.”
Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, “Go to your brother
Amnon’s house, and prepare food for him.” So Tamar went to her brother
Amnon’s house, where he was lying down. She took dough, kneaded it, made cakes
in his sight, and baked the cakes. Then she took the pan and set them out
before him, but he refused to eat. Amnon said, “Send out everyone from me.” So
everyone went out from him. Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food into
the chamber, so that I may eat from your hand.”
So Tamar took the cakes she had made, and brought them into
the chamber to Amnon her brother. But when she brought them near him to
eat, he took hold of her, and said to her, “Come, lie with me, my sister.” She
answered him, “No, my brother, do not force me; for such a thing is not done in
Israel; do not do anything so vile! But he would not listen to her; and he
said, “When you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them
by the pussy. You can do anything."
Today’s Gospel reading (Luke 23: 33 – 43) seems dislocated
in time – it seems strange to read from the Easter story, of Jesus’ death by crucifixion as our thoughts are turning towards Thanksgiving, and Advent, and
Christmas. But it is a fitting
reading, appropriate for today which is the Feast of Christ the King.
The Sunday before the beginning of the Advent season is marked, in the Christian
liturgical calendar, as “the Feast of Christ the King,” or, more fully, the
“The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.” This festal day
is a relatively recent addition to the Christian calendar, instituted by Pope
Pius XI in 1925. Pope Pius XI established the Christ the King festival in
response to the troubling growth in violent nationalism that led to World War
One, the splintering of Europe, and increased polarization and divisiveness
along arbitrarily drawn boundary lines and between differing cultural groups as
a way to draw Christians together in unity under Christ the King.
During our recently concluded and very bitter election, many people shared what
were intended to be words of comfort, saying that, “no matter who wins the
election, Christ will still be King.” And this is true. It does not matter who
is president of the United States, Prime Minister of England, or King of Saudi
Arabia; King Jesus still sits on the throne of the universe.
But, the question needs to be asked: What kind of King? And what kind of
kingdom? There are a few answers that we can draw from today’s reading.
King Jesus offered no resistance or retaliation to the abuse and scorn he received.
He was abused and tortured; he was jeered and mocked, but he did not resist. He
did not strike back. When they hurled
insults at him, he did not hurl curses back. He did not call up his followers
and disciples to rescue him or to avenge his death. He did not call down a
legion of angels to destroy his enemies. “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet
he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a
sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” (Isaiah
53:7 NIV)
“They crucified my Lord, and he never said a mumblin’ word.”
Instead he offered a prayer of forgiveness. “Father, forgive them for they do
not know what they are doing.” He
offered “friendship instead of disgrace.” (“O Sacred King” – Matt Redman)
King Jesus offered grace and forgiveness. When the “good thief” (Luke doesn’t
use the word “thief” he instead calls them, “wrongdoers”) rebuked his
compatriot for his mockery, Jesus offered him grace. He didn’t earn it. He didn’t
deserve it. But King Jesus gives it. It is an extravagant and gratuitous grace.
“Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
King Jesus moves from death on the cross to resurrection from the grave; he is
a king that moves from death to life – not from death to more deaths.
It is our human pattern, and the behavior of kings, and premiers, and
presidents around the world – and through time, to respond to attack by
attacking, to answer bombs with bombs, to return death for death. If our
citizens are killed, we respond by killing the people of the offending nation. Our
earthly prime ministers, and presidents move from death to death – and from
death to death – and death to death in a never ending spiral of darkness and
destruction.
But King Jesus moves from death to life. He moves from crucifixion at the place
of the skull to resurrection in the garden of Paradise.
This is the kind of King that we serve, and this is the kind of kingdom over
which he rules. So now – how will we, as servants of this High King of Heaven,
live as citizens of that Kingdom? Will we live with grace and forgiveness, moving
from death to life? Or will we accept the earthly pattern of revenge, and
retribution, moving from death to death in a spiral towards hell?
This image is made up of several abstract photos, or rather, parts of several abstract photos that I didn't like quite enough to publish on thier own. Still, leftovers can be good sometimes.
Here's a little bit more holiday twinkle for you. I shared one like this the other day, but I think that I like this slightly more. The previous one utilized no photoshop trickery; this one used a little bit. Just a little bit.
Outside the walls of Castle Machaerus, perched high on a
hill in the Judean desert and surrounded by steep ravines, the wind moaned and
rattled like the final, gasping breath of a wounded man. Sand and grit picked
up by the wind flicked against the stone walls of the fortress – and, given
enough time and a steady wind, would eventually etch away the stone stronghold.
Within those walls there was the noise of drunken revelry. King Herod and his
guests had drunk their way through cask after cask of wine during his birthday celebration.
Their inhibitions were drowned in the flow of wine. They snorted and laughed
with dissipated carousing; their boorish shouts echoed through the halls and
corridors of the fortress palace.
Shimon bar Alpheus heard them from his post. A soldier in Herod’s army, he was now
stationed as a guard outside the dungeon cell of the dangerous radical,
Yochanon, know everywhere simply as “the Baptizer.”
The Baptizer had threatened Herod’s rule – which is easy to say since Herod
felt threatened by most everyone. He had a suspicious temperament. The king had feared that Yochanon would lead
the crowds that gathered to hear him preach (and they were large crowds) to
raise up a rebellion, or other mischief, and had him imprisoned here within his
strongest fortress, “The Sword,” Machaerus.
Shimon regarded the imprisoned prophet, a wizened man whose body had been
coarsened by long exposure to the sun, and heat, and wind of the Judean
wilderness, now gaunt and skeletal from malnourishment during his long
imprisonment. His sink, once firm and brown, now appeared sickly green, death
pale and sagging. Who would fear this
pathetic figure? To whom could he be a danger? Yet Herod would not release him.
He heard footsteps now, another soldier descended the stairs to the basement
dungeon with orders from the king: “Send up the head of Yochanon,” he said, then
added, “on a platter,” before turning smartly and climbing the stairs back up
to the palace.
Shimon trembled. He knew this man had done nothing wrong, had broken neither the
laws of man nor the Law of the Lord. Now
the king demanded his death. And it
would be death for Shimon and for his family as well, if he refused to obey.
“Rabbi,” he said to the imprisoned man, “you are an honest man, a man of God,
and speak only truth. Tell me, if I do what I can to make your death painless
and swift, will you bring me with you into the World to Come?”
From the shadowed corner of his cell, the prophet spoke only one word: “Yes.”
“Do you swear?”
And again the gravel throated voice said that one word, “Yes.”
“Bless you, rabbi, and forgive me. I will sharpen my heaviest sword, and will
make my aim precise. The stroke will be sure; you will not suffer.”
Shimon applied a thin layer of oil to his whetstone and passed the blade of his
heavy, two-handed sword carefully, slowly, repeatedly over its surface until it
was as sharp as a thin, new razor. Then
he unlocked the iron door to the cell, and the manacles that bound his
prisoner. He lead the condemned prophet
to the block. Yochanon knelt down and stretched his neck obligingly for the
headsman.
“Remember me in the World to Come, Rabbi,” Shimon said as he lifted the heavy
sword above his head. “Yes,” said the prophet as the blade came down.
The sword was sharp, and his aim was sure. Yochanon’s neck was sliced clean
through. The head fell away from the bleeding trunk. Shimon dropped his sword and lunged to snatch
the prophet’s head out of the crimson spray. He wiped away the blood that had
besmirched the noble face.
Shimon watched with revulsion as the Baptist’s eyelids and blue lips twitched spasmodically.
“Rabbi, I’m sorry,” he sobbed.
Just then Yochanon’s twitching eyelids snapped open and his eyes locked in
place – eye to eye with Shimon. Time froze. The dungeon walls receded. The
sounds of drunken revelry and moaning wind were silenced. Then the Baptist’s
eyes turned reverently toward heaven and his lips parted. From that maw spoke a
voice that was not the parched and gravel throated voice of the decrepit
prophet, but a clear and resonant voice that said:
“There are those who acquire their place in heaven through years of practice
and suffering, but there are also some who enter the World to Come in a single
moment. The Lord is gracious; blessed be the Lord.”
***
This story is based on / inspired by the "good wrongdoer" crucified with Jesus, the story of John the Baptizer's death, and a story told in the Talmud ('Arobda Zara).
We laid our faithful, loving dog, Psyche, to sleep today. She has been a good
dog.
I remember the way she would chase the boy child around and around the house,
nipping at his heels to make him run faster, the way she would bark a high,
piercing bark of concern when I tickled the girl child until she squealed. I
remember the way she would press her face into my leg and nuzzle for attention.
After the worst election in history,
filled with frauds, falsehood, and frippery,
it’s a good time, I think,
for us to have a drink,
so we can forget our misery.
Last night I shared a photograph I made of a small explosion of light and color. Here's another. They're made with a macro attachment for the camera, a wadded piece of cellophane, and a colorful placemat. Simple really.
I don’t like to throw around the word “Blasphemy”; it is
used far too casually. But this video endorsement President-Elect Donald Trump
is the most blasphemous thing I’ve seen in quite a while:
“Every critic, every
detractor will have to bow down to President Trump. It’s everyone who’s ever
doubted Donald, whoever disagreed, whoever challenged him. It is the ultimate
revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”
Omarosa has (mis)appropriated the biblical language of the worship of God (Romans
14:11, Philippians 2:10) and applied to “the Donald.” This is blasphemy or I don’t know what is.
And, is anyone else concerned that becoming president of the United States is equated
with revenge? This is blasphemous and
dangerous territory.
I do not know how to say “Happy Veteran’s Day.” How can a day set aside to honor those who
have served, and are serving in our nation’s military be a “happy” day?
I say this not as a denigration of
those who have served in the armed forces. It is not an insult. It is not a
disparagement of the millions of individuals who have served in the military.
But every military conflict, every war, every battle, every casualty, every
death represents humanity's failure to be kind, to be just, and to be
peaceable. This is not a happy thing.
I am, you will know, disappointed by the results of yesterday’s election.
Disappointed, not because Hilary Clinton lost – I had not pinned my hopes on
her or the Democratic Party. “Do not put your trust in princes, in human
beings, who cannot save.” (Psalm 146: 3) But disappointed because Donald Trump
won. And while I don’t believe he will be an apocalyptically bad president, I
have no confidence that he will be a good one.
This election has shown me that Hate wins – at least in the short term. I say
that for at least two reasons that I can describe.
1- Conservative and Evangelical voters hated Clinton enough that they could
stomach voting for Trump. Many of them held their noses and voted for him, not
because they want him as our president, but because they hate Clinton and the
establishment and elite that she represents in their minds. Hate won.
and
2 – I know that not every conservative and Evangelical voter is racist, misogynistic,
and xenophobic – but their endorsement of Trump has legitimized the hatred of
those groups like the KKK that also supported Trump. His victory is their victory.
Hate won.
But I am not hopeless (trying, anyway). Hate may win in the short term. But I
believe in Love. And I believe in Justice. And I still believe in Hope and
Change (with or without the help of political parties.)
In the video he also promised that “President Donald Trump” will repeal the “Johnson
Amendment” which Pence says, “threatens tax exempt organizations and churches with
losing their tax status if they speak out on important issues facing the nation
from the pulpit.”
This is not true.
The Johnson Amendment prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations
from, “directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any
political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for
elective public office.”
Church leaders can – and should – and do – speak about important issues facing
the nation, from the pulpit even. But they cannot endorse or oppose any
particular candidate on behalf of their organization. Churches are not
threatened by this amendment. Not at all.
But if any particular church feels the need to campaign for a particular
candidate they can certainly do that. They are free to do so, if they choose.
But they will have to relinquish their 501 (c)(3) status and pay taxes.
This is not a threat. This is not harassment. This is not an infringement of the
first amendment. It is the tradeoff between rights and responsibilities in a pluralistic, democratic society.
There once was a man, a good man who tried to live by his
faith, who sought to find the kingdom of love and grace. But he was tired. He
was depressed by the evil that he saw in the world around him. And he began to
doubt. ‘If God is good,’ he pondered, ‘and if God is active in the world then
why,’ he wondered, ‘does evil so often prevail?’
One night as he lay down to sleep he prayed, “O God! The world is gone bad and
there is no kindness anymore. I just want to see something of your goodness
before I lose all hope.” He put his head down on his pillow and was soon
asleep.
As he slept he saw a vision of an angel that said to him, “Your prayer has been
heard, and God will answer. Tomorrow you will see the powerful goodness of God
on display. You will see the light of kindness in this darkened world and your
faith will be restored.”
He awoke the next morning with great anticipation. “Today I
will see the power of God fighting the forces of evil.” He dressed and set off
for work, eager to see the goodness of God prevailing during the course of the
day.
At the bus stop, he bounced on the toes of his feet as he waited for the bus,
he was so anxious. “God will show me something good,” he said to himself. Just
then he saw a young woman being threatened by three teenagers, hoodlums. They
were grabbing at her as she walked, and shouting sexually aggressive comments
at her.
“Hey you!” he shouted at them. “Leave off! Get out of here.
Leave her alone.” The trouble-makers cursed him and threw an empty beer bottle
at him and the woman, but did not cause any more trouble. The bus arrived and
he and the young woman found their seats inside. “Thanks,” the woman said to
him.
The man sat in his seat, thinking about the young punks who caused so much mischief.
“Why do they get away with it?” he wondered.
He exited the bus and walked the block and a half to the office where he
worked. Outside the building stood an Asian couple puzzling over a piece of
paper. They stopped him before he could enter his building, thrusting the paper
in front of his face and speaking rapidly in a langue he didn’t understand. On
the paper was an address. The couple motioned, pointing up and down the street.
The man understood that they were lost and looking for directions.
He tried to explain how to get to the address written on the paper, it wasn’t
far but the inability to communicate left them both stymied. He shrugged and
motioned for them to follow him and he walked with them the short distance to
their destination. They thanked him in their strange language, and shook his
hand and patted his arm.
He was late getting to work, so he had to stay later than
usual to finish his work for the day. Afterwards he took the bus back home
again. It was nearly dark as he walked back from the bus stop to his home.
As he walked he noticed a jumble of furniture and appliances
piled at the curb in front of an apartment building. There was a couch and a
stained mattress, a microwave and bags of clothing and a refrigerator. Closer
now, he heard muffled screams and sobs coming from inside the fridge.
He dashed to the refrigerator and saw that the hinged door was wedged shut –
and someone was crying inside. He pulled the other debris away from the ice-box
and yanked the door open. Out tumbled a boy with a dirt-smudged face; his tears
had carved canyons through the dirt. The boy fell on the ground and rolled over
on his back gasping. His sobs dried up quickly as he caught his breath. Then he
stood and ran away, towards home the man hoped.
Back in his own apartment again, he sighed and locked the door. He changed out
of his work-day suit and into casual clothes, then set about making a meal for
himself, a meal that he ate standing in the kitchen over the stove.
“God,” he said between bites. “I thought you were going to show me something
today. I thought I was going to see your powerful goodness on display, but I
saw nothing. Nothing except the same sort of violence and desperation I see
every day. Nothing changed.”
Just then the angel appeared to him again. “Nothing changed, you say, but you
are wrong. You saw the powerful kindness of God on display three times today.”
The man snorted, a cynical sort of laughter. “What? Am I living out the Russian
cobbler’s story? When I helped those people I was helping God? Is that what I
was supposed to learn?”
“No,” said the angel. “Not at all. When you helped those people today you were
not helping God. God does not need your help. No. When you helped those people
you – YOU – were the powerful kindness of God to them.”
It’s one of those things we say; a cliché without meaning
except for the meaning that is understood by our peers and comrades when we say
it. The phrase itself doesn’t have to mean anything in itself, everyone already
understands what we mean.
God is in control of everything. God’s
plan will be accomplished in the upcoming election.
But what might that mean? If we really believed it, what
might it mean? Here are some possibilities:
God is using Donald Trump to punish America for its sins
with its sins personified. President Donald Trump will lead us further into the
darkness that we have chosen.
God is using Donald Trump to restore America to its former glory, to lead us
back from the edge of darkness.
God is using Hilary Clinton to lead America towards a brighter and better
future.
God is using Hilary Clinton to destroy America for its sin and liberalism.
If you’re using the cliché, maybe you could let us know which of these (or other)
possibilities that you intend to communicate.
In the Evangelical branch of the Christian community, we have
been taught that the right way, the proper way to interpret a passage of
scripture is to attempt to understand it in its historical-grammatical context.
We are to put aside (as best we can) our own worldview and attempt to find the
author’s original intent. We are to ask ‘what
did the author write?’ and ‘what did the author mean?’ before we even begin
answering the question ‘what does it mean to me?’ Observation and
interpretation before application.
And I appreciate this method. It is an attempt to be objective in our exegesis.
It is an attempt to favor exegesis over eisegesis. Properly followed it would keep us from wild
interpretive flights of fancy and from reading our own issues backwards into
the sacred texts.
But this is not the way that our biblical predecessors worked; this was not
their hermeneutic.
I’ve been reading from Luke 20: 27 – 38[i]
this week, in preparation for Sunday’s sermon – the story of Jesus’ singular
encounter with the enigmatic Sadducees in Luke’s gospel – and thinking about
the question of hermeneutics. How should we hermeneutic? How should we
interpret the scriptures?
In the story we are told that the Sadducees did not believe
in the resurrection. And this is,
apparently, all that we need to know about them for the story to play out. In
fact we know little about them at all – and what little we do know comes from
sources that were biased against them.
In addition to their denial of the resurrection, one of the
things that is commonly said of the Sadducees is that rejected everything
except the Pentateuch. The Jewish historian Josephus said that they observed nothing
apart from the Law. “But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: that souls die
with the bodies; nor do they regard the observation of anything besides what
the law enjoins them…” and “…the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great
many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the
law of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them and say
that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the
written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our
forefathers…” (Antiquities of the Jews 18.17
and 13.297)
This should not be read to mean that they kept only the Torah and rejected the Writings and the
Prophets. It may mean only that they elevated the authority of the Torah over the other books of Hebrew
scripture (which had not yet been firmly established. It may be “that at a time
when the Jewish canon was still in flux, the best ‘ground rules’ for a dispute
among the Jews who differed in their theological outlook were for both sides to
draw their scriptural citations and their arguments from the universally
revered written Torah of Moses” (Meier 420).
When the Sadducees approached Jesus that day with a question
about the resurrection, it wasn’t specifically an attack on Jesus or his
followers (though as a group that denied the resurrection, this certainly set
them in opposition to the Christian audience reading the gospels.) They came to
him with one of the theological questions of the day.
It was, of course, a trick question, a question designed to make the idea of a
physical resurrection of the dead (and anyone who held that belief) look as
foolish as possible. Their question revolved around the hypothetical ridiculousness
of the system “Levirate”marriage. They took the situation and stretched it to
what they felt were absurd, ludicrous conclusions: Polyandry is ludicrous – Resurrection
will lead to polyandry - Therefore resurrection is ludicrous.
Jesus answers in two parts – first to side-step their trick question. He
nullified their ridiculous conclusion by showing that they really didn’t understand
the concept that they were trying to refute. There won’t be any need for
marriage in the resurrection because the resurrected will be immortal and there
won’t be the need for procreation to create children to carry on one’s name.
Then, secondly, Jesus attempts to prove the resurrection to the Sadducees by
citing one of the texts that he knows they can both accept as authoritative
(Exodus 3:6), but it is his interpretive hermeneutic that is under question
here.
There is little in the Old Testament that speaks about a resurrection. The idea
of a resurrection of the dead “does not appear except in texts that are rare,
obscure with regard to their precise meaning, and late” (Martin-Achard 680). In
the Old Testament there is no concept of resurrection, life after death, or
rewards or punishments in the afterlife. In the Old Testament, the dead, all of
them –the good, the bad, and the ugly, go to the grave, the pit, to sheol. And that’s it.
The origins of Jewish belief in a resurrection after death
are unclear (Nickelsburg 685). But by the time of Jesus, many (but not all) Jews
accepted the idea of a life after death. The Sadducees did not accept this
theological point, and thus the debate we have recorded in the gospels.
The text that Jesus chose to use as a defense of the resurrection, if we are
following our historical-grammatical method, says absolutely nothing about
resurrection. “I am the God of your
father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus
3:6 NRSV) You can pull it apart, you can examine the verse in the larger
context of Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush, you can parse the words
and phrases of the text, but you won’t find any clear, authorial intent to
describe, define, or defend the resurrection in Exodus 3:6.
Jesus was not interpreting the scriptures the right and
proper way – not the way that we have been taught to do it. Jesus (along with the Jewish rabbis) started
from a different point and followed a different set of interpretive rules and guidelines.
Jesus started with his community of faith, a community “that already held to belief
in the resurrection. Already confident that God does in fact raise the dead and
that he had revealed this truth to Israel in the Scriptures, [they] readily
found clues and intimations of resurrection in texts whose literal sense has
nothing to do with the subject” (Meier 426).
So how should we hermeneutic? Should we be objective and neutral? Should we
favor exegesis over eisegesis? Or is interpretation more fluid? Should we look
for support of theological concepts we believe in texts that may not apply in
the plain sense to those concepts?
Martin-Achard, Robert. “Resurrection (OT)” The Anchor Bible
Dictionary Volume 5. New York. NY: Doubleday. 1992. Print.
Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew Volume 3: Companions and
Competitors. New York, NY: Doubleday. 2001. Print.
Nickelsburg, George W. E. “Resurrection (Early Judaism and
Christianity)” The Anchor Bible Dictionary Volume 5. New York, NY:
Doubleday. 1992. Print.
[i]
The story is also in Mark 12: 18 – 27 and Matthew 22: 23 – 32.
