The Prophet is Unloved (Cheer Up! There’s Worse To Come)

Home is where you’re safe, right? Home is where you’re welcome, yes? When you’re troubled, when you’re low, you can go to your family for strength, for comfort, for help, right? If you’re not a prophet, perhaps. Jesus said, “A prophet is despised only in his own country, among his own relatives and in his own house.” (Mark 6:4) Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, one of the priests living at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin during the days of King Josiah, King Jehoiakim and King Zedekiah, was threatened by many enemies during his life: he was beaten and put into stocks by priest Pashhur, son of the high priest (20: 1-4), imprisoned by King Zedekiah (37:18, 28:28), threatened with death (38:4), and thrown into a cistern (38:6), but perhaps the most hurtful of the abuse he suffered came from those closest to him. Jeremiah was not loved and welcomed in his hometown; the people of his home town, and members of his own family even, plotted to kill him.

“You must not prophesy anymore,” they said. “You must not prophesy in the name of the LORD or you will die by our hand!” (11: 21)

This violent antipathy for the prophet seems to have surprised Jeremiah. Perhaps we would say that he was foolish and naïve. Perhaps he really should have realized that his vigorous defense of the religious reforms initiated by King Josiah, even after King Josiah’s untimely death on the battlefield against Pharaoh Necho II – even after those reforms had been halted and undone by Josiah’s successor, would stir up fierce animosity among the many of the religious leaders, especially among those religious leaders whose work was threatened by Josiah’s reforms. Perhaps Jeremiah should have realized that even the priestly members of his family would see him as an enemy. And yet, Jeremiah doesn’t seem to have anticipated the hatred that came from his own country, among his own relatives and from his own house.

The LORD informed me, and I knew -
Then you let me see their deeds.
For I was like a docile lamb
led to the slaughter;
I did not realize
that it was against me
they fashioned their plots:
“Let us destroy the tree with its [sap],
Let us cut him off from the land of the living.
That his name be remembered no more!”
(11: 18 – 19 JPS)

God had warned Jeremiah, told him about the evil in the hearts of his family, and Jeremiah knew it. He knew it, but couldn’t believe it, couldn’t bring himself to accept the truth of it. These were his own, his friends and family. He’d played in the streets with them, he’d gone to school with them. He’d studied side by side with them. He trusted them. He loved them. And even though God had informed Jeremiah, it wasn’t until an unnamed confidant of Jeremiah showed him proof, provided evidence of their treachery, that he was finally able to admit to himself that the men of Anathoth (including members of his own family) were trying to have him killed.

He trusted them, even as they were planning his death, He trusted them. And why shouldn’t he have trusted them? They were family. They were friends. They were, ostensibly, ‘on the same team,’ working together to minister to the people in the name of their God. They wore the same uniform, offered the same prayers, offered the same sacrifices… But these men of Anathoth (11: 21), his brothers, members of his own house (12: 6) were scheming to destroy him. And Jeremiah is ashamed of his own trusting naïveté.

God,
I have
been naïve;
I’ve been callow.

I trusted those who planned my destruction;
those who were my comrades and my brothers.

If family
and friends fail,
who is
left?

(The Prophet's Lament)

This is the way of it – life is hard and we are hurt and abused by many, but it is the ones closest to us who hurt us the worst. Our wickedest wounds come from those we trust. Jesus’s family thought he was crazy – when they heard of the crowds that were following him and the things he was saying, they set out to take charge of him, to seize him and drag him home saying, “he is out of his mind.” (Mark 3: 21) His followers betrayed and abandoned him and left him to die alone. And Jesus warned his disciples that those who followed him would find that their enemies would be the members of their own households (Matthew 10:36).

This abuse comes in many forms both direct and indirect. There are the obvious examples of yelling and hitting, cruel words and physical blows. These kinds of hurts are immediate and evident. But there are many subtle forms of aggression that can be easily overlooked (or easily hidden) in what should otherwise be a close-knit relation: spreading gossip, ignoring phone calls or emails, showing up late for meetings, sabotaging projects, giving the silent treatment, disguising criticism as compliments, etc.

These forms of abuse are easily masked behind smiles and compliments, and can be difficult to describe or pinpoint, but they are real. The wounds of passive-aggressive behavior may be hidden, but they hurt as much as a physical blow. This abuse can come from relatives and co-workers and leaders and bosses, from trusted friends, from those in our church. From people we trust. 

There is nothing particularly friendly about “friendly fire.” Soldiers expect to be shot at by the enemy, but when the shells are coming from our own lines, from our friends, we are disheartened. We hesitate to try again. We lose confidence in our leaders. We lose confidence in ourselves. We are demoralized (U.S.Congress Office of Technology Assessment 2).

And the prophet Jeremiah was demoralized as well. The realization that his own house, his own family, his brothers and co-ministers were out to destroy him caused him to question all that he once believed to be true. Suddenly the goodly order of the universe and providential care of God seemed not so manifest. 

“You will win, O LORD, if I make a claim against you,” said the prophet. You are God, and I’m only a pitiful man – what could I say? How could I challenge you or your word or your world? “Yet I shall present charges against you,” he continued (12: 1a). The disillusioned prophet, shattered by the attacks he’d suffered at the hands of those who were closest to him, now dared to question the goodness and graciousness of the God who’d called him to service.

“Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are the workers of treachery at ease?
You have planted them, and they have taken root,
they spread, even bear fruit.
You are present in their mouths,
but far from their thoughts.” (12: 1b – 2)

The prophet begins to doubt the goodness of God. The abuse that Jeremiah has suffered is God’s fault. The wicked prosper – because God allows it. The workers of treachery have lives of ease – because God allows them to live at ease. For crying out loud! He planted them where they are – he put them into those positions of authority from which they abused the prophet. But they hid their abuse well. They spoke of God fluently and frequently, but he was far from their thoughts.

O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!

My tables—meet it is I set it down

That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain—
Hamlet I – V – 106 - 108

But why? Why? Why would God allow this? Why would God allow these men to abuse his faithful prophet? This is what Jeremiah could not understand. And I would like to be able to tell you that eventually he came to understand at some point, that the clouds lifted and the sun came out, that the mysteries were revealed. I would like to say that there was peace and comfort for the mistreated prophet. But there wasn’t. Not really. The five ‘confessional’ passages of Jeremiah’s book (11: 18 – 12: 6/ 15: 10 – 21 / 17: 12 – 18 / 18: 18 – 23 / 20: 7 – 18) are increasingly dark. His life and sufferings are unrelieved. There is little in the way of divine comfort. There is no guiding hand of God, no miracle. No ravens feed him in the wilderness (1 Kings 17: 2 – 6). No angels bring him a meal of bread and water to fortify him for his journey (1 Kings 19: 4 – 8). No angel shuts the lion’s mouth (Daniel 6:22). Jeremiah is alone, abandoned to suffer abuse from those he trusted.

I’m sorry. Jeremiah doesn’t make for ‘good’sermons… 

Yet in all of this, Jeremiah persisted in preaching the message he’d been given, and persisted in bringing his complaints to God. He persisted in proclaiming the prophetic message even when there was no change, even when there was no repentance, even when there was no increase in the weekly attendance statistics He spoke the words he was given. And he persisted in bringing his despair, his frustration, his anger directly to God.

In all of this, however, He never sought vengeance for himself. The prophet was content that God, the Righteous Judge, would decide and give acceptable recompense for what he’d endured.

“O LORD of Hosts, O just Judge,
who test the thoughts and the mind,
let me see Your retribution upon them,
for I lay my case before you.” (11: 20)

He calls upon God to ‘butcher’ or to ‘slaughter’ his abusers (12: 3). And this sounds at least as violent as the plot of those who wanted to see Jeremiah dead – (I know I’ve frequently admitted my own discomfort with the imprecatory parts of the bible) - But in this response (as dark as it may be) he has NOT denied the abuse or the hurt that he’s suffered (because denial of abuse can lead to self-destructive attitudes and behavior) and he has NOT sought personal vengeance (to do so leads to hatred and to violence). Instead he has allowed the Just Judge to work out the appropriate response.

In this case it is God assurance to Jeremiah that those who have conspired to have him killed will themselves be cut off from the land of the living and that their children and descendants would be wiped out, that their name would not be passed down.What they wanted for Jeremiah would be turned around upon them. (There were, however, 183 of the “sons of Anathoth” who returned from the exile – (Ezra 2:23). Perhaps there were some in Anathoth who repented and were given mercy and we can filter those imprecatory prayers through grace…)

I know that as a minister of the gospel I am expected to bring “good news” – the joy of salvation in Jesus Christ – but sometimes that good news is “Cheer up! There’s worse to come…” and I say that with as much wry, black humor as I can manage.

Jeremiah, the faithful prophet, was abused throughout his career as a prophet. He made few converts, his statistics were abysmal. He was abused by his enemies and (what is worse) by his own friends and family. He was beaten. He was arrested. He was jailed. He was cut off from his community. And through it all he persisted. He persisted through the abuse, and through God’s persistent silence.

Jesus endured much the same. His family thought he was crazy, and rejected his message. His friends betrayed him and left him alone in his darkest hour. And Jesus said that his followers could expect the same as well.

But “do not be afraid of them [who conspire to abuse you]. Everything now covered up will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the daylight; what you hear in whispers, proclaim from the housetops.  Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Can you not buy two sparrows for a penny? And yet not one falls to the ground without your Father knowing. Why, every hair on your head has been counted. So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.  So if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of human beings, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven.” Matthew 10: 26 - 32

  

U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, Who Goes There? Friend or Foe OTA-ICS-537 (Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, June 1993) 

Whorled Yellow Loosestrife

Whorled Yellow Loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia - part of the Primrose family) found in my neighbor's yard.  Photographed with a homemade, DIY bokeh filter, cut from heavy paper - much like the one used in these two earlier photographs.)

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,

As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;

Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,

And recks not his own rede.

Ophelia - in Hamlet  -

They Are Gone, But Something Remains – A Graveside Committal Sermon

I am performing (Performing? Performing isn't the right verb, but the only other ones I can think of: "conducting," "leading,"..."officiating" are even worse...) a graveside committal service this morning.  G. died last week.  The ashes of he and and his wife, V. (who died a few years ago) are being interred together.

Funerals are for the living - and for that reason, the final song quoted in this sermon was one of the family's choosing. 

***

We are here this morning because they are gone, G. and V.  

While alive they shared our lives, and we theirs.  We shared their joys and triumphs.  We suffered their losses and miseries.  The highs and the lows.  The pains. The celebrations.  And all the daily routines and the extraordinary wonders that compose this life. We shared these together.

But they are gone from us.  Gone from this life.  And yet something of them remains, something more than their ashes which we commit to the elements, today. We have the memories of them formed within us, and the shape they gave to our lives. These things outlast our fragile bodies.  Call it spirit, call it soul; though the body is temporary, something remains.  And it is that something that we honor today. 

We are here because they have gone. In this life we will hear their voices no more.  We will never take their hand or clap their shoulder.  No more shared laughter over jokes and games.  No more shared tears for grief and wounds. For G. and for V. these things are past.  Yet something remains.  The past is gone, just as G. and V. are gone from us.  But something remains.  The future is wide, wider than we can know.

Jesus of Nazareth, our Savior and Lord, on the occasion of the death of his friend, Lazarus, said “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”[i]   There is life after this life, and in this we take great comfort.

Death is not the end.  This mortal life is not all there is for us.  In his famous play, Hamlet, William Shakespeare wrote the lines, “all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.”[ii]  All that lives must die.  Everything and everyone passes through this brief life and then is gone.  Yet, we insist that something remains.

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”[iii] Faith remains, even when our friends and loved ones have passed, Faith remains.  Hope too, remains even after this flesh is gone.  And love.  The greatest of these, Love, remains.  Our love for G. and for V. does not cease when we commit their ashes to the elements.  Love remains. 

And it is God’s great love for us that gives us ground for our faith and our hope and our love.  It is his great love that nullifies the power and finality of death.  He breaks the power of cancelled sin and sets the prisoners free.[iv] It is his love that has swallowed up death in victory and gives us immortality,[v]  so that we might remain forever with him.

We are here because they are gone.  And their absence leaves us with grief and sorrow.  But we take comfort in what remains.  We have our faith that God is good.  We have our hope, the blessed hope of eternal life with God the Father.  And we have our love, our love for each other and our love for G. and V., despite their absence.  Our memories of them will keep that love alive within us, and in however many days and weeks and months and years we have left here ourselves, we will share those memories with others.   And in doing so we will share that love with others. Love not only remains but Love grows.

We may gather around the grave to grieve today for what we have lost, but we take comfort in all that remains.  We say farewell to G. and to V.  We entrust them to God’s great love, and place ourselves within that same love for peace and comfort in the days ahead.

So, go rest high on that mountain.
[G. and V.] your work on earth is done.
Go to heaven a shoutin’
love for the Father and the Son.[vi]

Amen.

---

[i] John 11:25 – 26 

[ii] Hamlet – Act 1 Scene 2

[iii] I Corinthians 13: 12 - 13

[iv] O For a Thousand Tongues To Sing – Charles Wesley

[v] I Corinthians 15: 54

[vi]Go, Rest High on that Mountain – Vince Gill

The Old Ones in Hamlet

I’m pretty sure that Prince Hamlet’s friend, Horatio must have read from the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred’s secret grimoire, The Necronomicon, during his studies at Wittenberg University.  He seems to know something of the madness that the Old Ones can inflict upon those mortals who discover their existence.

What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other, horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness?  Think of it.
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.

Hamlet Act I Sc. IV

"Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

Problem-free Philosophy

If Disney's The Lion King  is (loosely) based on Shakespeare's Hamlet ...

..then Tom Stoppard's play should have had a completely different ending.

Arang: Seeking Justice in a Wondrous Strange Universe

You remember that scene in Hamlet, right?  After having seen a ghostly figure stalking about the castle parapets Hamlet tells Horatio that:

“there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
 than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”[i]

Horatio, like his good friend Hamlet was a student at the University of Wittenberg, a noble bastion of Protestant humanism.  They would have been students of a classical education, studying ethics, logic, natural science, and of course philosophy and theology.  This sort of rational, logical, scientific study left little time for superstitions and ghost stories. 

I’ve had no personal experience with a ghost, much to my continued disappointment.  I have never heard the shriek of a banshee, been thrown across the room by a poltergeist, witnessed an apparition from the etheric plane, or found ectoplasmic residue from a spiritual encounter.  But I’ve always believed in ghost stories, or at least I’ve wanted to believe in them. Like agent Mulder and his UFO’s, I’ve wanted to believe in the strange and inexplicable all my life.

The world is a strange place but most of the time it makes sense, most of the time the world behaves in an orderly and predicable manner.  Scientists would have a difficult time if their experiments produced different results every time without a rational explanation. We live, as we do today, with electricity and internal combustion engines and chemical pharmaceuticals and etc… because the world behaves in a rational and orderly and predictable way.  Usually…

But we’ve all heard those stories. A friend of a friend heard a voice speaking to him in that empty house or so-and-so’s great grandmother got off the Titanic at the last moment because she felt a presence warning her not to go.  We’ve heard stories about haunted houses and strange happenings and we wonder.  Maybe you’re like me and you’ve wanted to believe that they might be true.  Maybe you hoped, as I did, that some of those stories might be true.

But at some point people tried to tell me, for my own good – of course, that ghosts and vampires and other assorted supernatural lore are not appropriate material for a Christian young man to study.  Ghosts, I was told, were nothing more than demonic spirits masquerading as departed spirits in order to lure people into the occult.[ii]  There was no room for a wondrous strange world.  And there was no room in my instructors’ philosophy for ghosts.[iii] 

And, for a time, I believed them.  I tried to put away those childish things, but I began to wonder.  Stories and legends about wraiths and ghosts are numerous and varied  but it seemed to me that most of the stories about ghosts involved departed spirits lingering in this physical world for one of two things (and sometimes both).  Either spooks and haints haunted a place seeking justice for a wrong committed upon them while they were alive or they haunted a place were a great and terrible tragedy occurred.  And if ghosts are nothing more than demons trying to lure us into a diabolical snare – why do they so often seem to be trying to find justice in this world – if not in the next? 

But, as I said, I’ve never had a personal encounter with a ghost, demonic or otherwise.  To this point it’s all been stories from a friend of a friend of a friend or something I’ve read,

or a movie that I’ve watched.  And since I’m watching a horror movie every night this month[iv] it was inevitable that I would eventually watch the movie version of a ghost story.  Arang (2006) is my first ghost story this month. 

It’s also my first Korean horror film. And as such there was a lot in the film that was difficult for me to understand.  Filmmakers (and storytellers in general) make certain assumptions about what their audience knows or doesn’t know.  If I tell you a story about my family loading up the station-wagon for a summer vacation visit to my great-grand parent’s home in Kansas I probably don’t have to explain to you the idea of summer vacations, Kansas, or station-wagons (unless you’re under twenty years old and you’ve only ever known the station-wagon’s marginally cooler cousin, the mini-van…).  These are things that we understand together.  But if someone in my audience was unfamiliar with these things, the story would be more difficult for them to understand.  It wouldn’t be impossible; visiting family and being cooped up with others for long and difficult travel are probably universal enough that anyone anywhere can understand them even with cultural differences but it might be difficult.

And that’s how watching Arang was for me. 

It probably would have helped if I’d have known the legend of Arang before watching the movie.  The Legend of Arang is a fairly well known ghost story – at least in Korea – but I had to look it up.  Thank God for the internets…

It is the story of Arang, the daughter of a city magistrate.  A servant in her father’s house conspired with her wicked nanny to seize and rape Arang. But Arang resisted and the servant stabbed her death and hid the body.  Her father, thinking that she had either eloped with a stranger or that she had been abducted, resigned his position in shame and spent the rest of his life trying to find her.  Newly appointed magistrates were visited by the ghost of Arang, who pleaded with them to find her murderer.  But the visit was so frightening that they all died from fear.  Soon no one was willing to take the position.  But at last a bold and good man was appointed to the post and he promised Arang’s ghost that he would seek out justice for her. He found the wicked servant, arrested him and had him executed.  And after that Arang’s spirit ceased to haunt the town.

Maruyam Okyo's painting
The Ghost of Oyuki

It’s a pretty typical ghost story, and one that we’ve probably heard before with a different name and with different details.  So it’s not as if the story was completely foreign to me.

But it’s the details that differ.  If you’ve seen the recent American versions of Japanese[v] horror films like The Ring (2002) (based on Ringu) or The Grudge (2004) (based on Ju-On) you’ve seen a pretty typical example of a Japanese ghost – the pale skin, white robe, and the long disheveled dark hair.  These are things that the Korean audience of Arang would notice immediately. 

But even with the cultural gap, the story plays well.  It is one part ghost story and one part detective thriller.  After a series of bizarre deaths two police detectives, So-young – a young but experienced woman with her own intense reasons for becoming a police officer – and Hyung-gi, her new and naïve partner – realize that in order to solve the mystery they’ll have to investigate a 10 year old crime.

To say more would be to give away the story and I don’t want to do that.  I encourage you to watch the movie and to experience it for yourself. 

The bible really says very little about ghosts.  To insist with dogmatic certitude that they are nothing more than demonic lures goes beyond what the bible actually says and leaves us in world without the potential, at least, for the wondrous and strange things of this queer universe.

---

[i] Hamlet Act I Scene v

[ii]  Citing 1 Timothy 4:1 " [they] come to deceive people and draw them away from God and into bondage."

[iii]  They wouldn’t have agreed Hamlet or with the British geneticist / evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane who said, “...it is my suspicion that not only is the universe queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose.” 

[iv]  …or almost every night. I’ve fallen behind alittle bit.

[v]  Yes. I am aware the Japanese and Korean cultures are different.  But they are more similar than American and Korean… 

Passing through Nature into Eternity - A Review of Chapter Five of Love Wins

All that lives must die
passing through nature into eternity.
Hamlet Act I Scene ii

A few days ago my children and I had a discussion about the differences between the “Disneyfied”  version and the original versions of various fairy tales.  “The original stories,” I told them “are all about death.  All of them.  Cinderella.  Goldilocks. Sleeping  Beauty.  Beauty and the Beast.  They’re all death.”

I may have been exaggerating slightly for comedic effect, but there is a smidge of truth there.  It’s all about death.  And it’s all about life. It’s all about resurrection. These themes are Universal.  They are everywhere.  .  The universe, it seems, is designed to show us this progression from life through death to life. Rob Bell notes this in his newest book, Love Wins

This death-and-life mystery, this mechanism, this process is built into the very fabric of creation.  The cells in our bodies are dying at a rate of millions a second, only to be replaced at a similar rate of millions a second.  Our skin is constantly flaking off and our body is continually replacing the skin cells with new ones; we have entirely new skin every week or so. (Love Wins pg. 131).

The atoms and molecules that form our body were once part of stars.  We live because a star burned out. We live because something has died. 

Hamlet – A man may fish with a worm that hath eat of a king,
            and a cat of the fish that hat fed of that worm.

Claudius – What doest you mean by this?

Hamlet – Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
            progress through the guts of a beggar.

Hamlet Act IV Scene iii

We live because something has died.  The fruits and vegetables we eat to keep us alive and healthy once lived themselves.  The meat we eat once lived.  But now we live because of it.

It’s all about death.  It’s all about life.  It’s all about resurrection.

Nothing that has not died will be resurrected.
C.S. Lewis – The Weight of Glory

A seed has to be buried in the ground – it has to die – before it can grow.

And when it comes to Christianity it’s about Dying to Live.  Bell writes about some of the ways that this is understood in the bible – and there are several different and overlapping ways of understanding the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

“Motivation of fear, motivation of love
one of these is hell, but it gets the job done”

Dighayzoos

Some are better than others, but no one metaphor can fully encapsulate the cosmic scope of that resurrection life.  And those descriptions that make Christianity merely an eternal fire-insurance policy are especially inadequate.  There is much, much, so much more to it than the avoidance of hell.

I Was Hamlet Once

Too Solid Flesh

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!

(Hamlet -Act I, Scene ii)