Jesus and the Dogs in Dearborn (Matthew 15:21-28)

    We’ve spent the past few weeks moving through the life and teachings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew – lingering on his parables and thinking about his miracles. Today I’d like to continue that by taking the next episode in Jesus’ life, the next little pericope – as Bible students will call it – and treat it as a sort of parable. I want to tell his earthly story with a heavenly meaning with the goal of shaping how we live our earthly lives for the purposes of the kingdom of heaven.

    We’ve seen Jesus, in these past weeks, preaching and teaching the people. We’ve seen how they followed him for instruction and pursued him for healing. And now Jesus wants to find someplace to be alone, some place where he can get away from the seeking, searching, pleading, desperate crowds. He wants a place to recharge.

    So imagine Jesus going up and down through the towns and villages of Michigan. He’s been to Ann Arbor and Flint. He’s been up to Port Huron. But now, when he’s tired and wanting some place to be alone, some place where they haven’t heard of him, some place where he won’t be recognized, he and his entourage of disciples head to Dearborn.

    But while he is there a Muslim woman, wearing her hijab and carrying her small daughter, approaches him on the street and shouts out, “Isa! Isa al-Masih! Please, take pity and heal my troubled daughter.”

    She shouts so loudly that she is starting to attract unwanted attention, so the disciples say to Jesus, “Master, please. Give her what she wants so she’ll shut up and just go away.”

    But Jesus says, “No. I’ve not come for people like them. I’ve been sent only to care for real Americans. America first.”

    And this Muslim woman in her hijab pleads again. “Please.”

    Jesus says, “No. It is not right to take food from the children to give it to dogs. I don’t know you.”

    But the woman won’t quit. She says, “As the prophet, peace be upon him, has taught us, Allah has said, ‘O humanity! Indeed we created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may get to know one another. Surely the most noble of you in the sight of God is the most righteous among you.’”¹

    And Jesus, looking at this Muslim woman, wearing her hijab and carrying her small daughter, said, “Woman, you have great faith. Let your wish be granted and your daughter healed.” And from that moment her daughter was well.

    Or consider again, German Jesus in Berlin, approached by a Jewish woman, “Bitte. Bitte. Heal my daughter.” And German Jesus says, “No. I can’t. I’ve come only for the pure-blooded Aryans.”

    Or Jesus in Georgia in the 1960s still under the Jim Crow laws approached by a Black woman with her daughter…

    Or Jesus in San Francisco in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS crisis, approached by a gay man, “Please heal my partner…”

    And Jesus replies to them – “It’s not right to take food for the children and give it to dogs.” Dismissive and denigrating, he speaks to them as if they aren’t even human. As if they are animals. Beasts. And this is ugly and grotesque.

    Now I am not saying that Jesus was an American Christian Nationalist, or a Nazi, or segregationist, or a homophobe, but in calling the Canaanite woman a “dog” Jesus was repeating the first century Jewish equivalent of these groups’ rhetoric, the same kind of ethnic and religious boundary language that has been used throughout history to exclude people for one reason or another.

    And it is ugly. But here it is. As I said before, Jesus’ parables are not simple. They are strange and weird, and sometimes told to deliberately confuse. It’s up to us to wrestle with them. And the same is true with this episode in Jesus’ life. It is difficult, and strange, and horrifying. And we must wrestle with it.

    Now the common explanation, the easy explanation of this event in Jesus’ life is that Jesus is testing her – saying the ugly thing to see if her faith is strong enough to overcome the objection. But Matthew never says this, never gives any indication of this. He simply records Jesus calling her – and her small daughter – dogs.

    But her humble response changes him. Her simple rebuke corrects him. He learns from her and grows in compassion. Maybe we’re uncomfortable with the idea of Jesus having to learn compassion. But the letter to the Hebrews describes Jesus learning obedience through suffering (Hebrews 5:8) and the Gospel of Luke describes Jesus growing in wisdom (Luke 2:52). Here we see that growth, that learning in action. Jesus learns compassion from the Canaanite woman.

    And in that moment of learning and growth Jesus says, “Woman! Your faith is great!” He is changed and in that change the world is changed. The child is healed. The gospel is not only proclaimed but put into action. And the Kingdom of Heaven is expanded.

    The good news, the gospel good news, is that Jesus listens and learns to love. The good news is that compassion builds the kingdom. The good news is that faith can break down the barriers between us.

    So we wrestle with this story this morning. And we ask the question: Who are the dogs? Who are the outsiders? Who are the unwelcomed? Who are the excluded? Who are the unwanted and unloved?

    The Jew? The black single-mother? The lesbian? The illegal immigrant? The red-hat MAGA enthusiast? The liberal? The conservative? The socialist? The atheist? Who is the dog?

    And what will you share with them?

1Surah 49:13 – Translated by Dr. Mustafa Khattab, 2016

The Fall and Rise of Eutychus

     We were, one night, the last night we were there, gathered together in the upper story of the house, the great room with many small windows. It was late and we’d been working all day but Paul was going on and on, preaching as he did. It was a conversational sermon, Q-and-A, give and take, rap session concerning the glories and hardships of living in the kingdom. And he went on and on and on. It was very late. We lit many torches to light the room. Midnight and many lamps.

    And one of the boys, Eutychus, Little Lucky we sometimes called him, was sitting on the window ledge for the breeze. The room was stuffy with the hot and oily air. Claustrophobic and close. Eutychus sat in the window for a breeze but still he grew drowsy – his eyes moving slowly, his muscles relaxing – brainwaves diminishing - and was soon overcome by sleep. His head bobbed down and up and down and then he fell from the window. Three stories down, he fell and smashed upon the pavement below.

    I’m a one-time sleepwalker, myself. I was fifteen or sixteen, away from home for the weekend at a youth retreat. I woke up in the middle of the night, very early in the morning, on the floor of the cabin bathroom. I assumed that the other guys in the cabin had dragged me there as a joke or a prank on the spindly kid with glasses and braces who preferred Dungeons and Dragons over football. I woke up, cold and confused on the floor, in the dark with no idea where I was. It took several long, almost panicky moments to figure out where I’d awoken. Realizing that I was in the bathroom didn’t alleviate my confusion. I went back to my bunk and back to sleep. I expected that the other boys would tease me in the morning. But they didn’t. No one said anything about it. I realized that I must have been sleepwalking. I had no sleepwalking episodes before that. And I’ve had no sleepwalking episodes since. My younger brother, however, used to sleepwalk all the time. He’d walk out of the house and urinate on the front porch when he was a small child. I don’t know if he still does that.

    But brother Eutychus wasn’t a sleepwalker. He was a sleep faller. And his was a sort of autodefenestration, if you will.

    What is sleep, anyway? No one really knows. Even the neurologists who study sleep don’t really understand it. Neurotransmitters acting on groups of neurons in the brain. It is death and it isn’t. The body may be stilled (somewhat) but the brain is living and active. Sleep is a sort of death. Sleep is a strange country.

    For Little Lucky, the euphemism of sleep became the reality of death. We raced down the stairs and found him, smashed upon the pavement and picked him up dead.

    But Paul in prophetic reenactment clasped the body of the boy to himself and said, “There’s no reason to fear,” he said, “There’s life in him yet.” Yet he was dead. In the strictest and severest sense of the word. We know death. We’ve seen death and we know death. A broken neck is death but Paul said, “There’s life in him yet.”

    We were still there with tears forming in our eyes when, without warning, Paul stood up and went back upstairs to break the bread with the brothers and to continue his preaching until daybreak.

    A few moments later, Little Lucky – Eutychus – coughed once and spasmed twice and began breathing again. I leaned over him and felt for a pulse. It was strong and true. “Speak to me, son,” I said. “Recite your numbers.”

    The boy stood, folded his hands and recited his lessons: “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Jack. Queen. King.”

    We were not a little comforted. There he was, our Little Lucky.

Can’t Consecrate Your Church without a Relic, Sir

    I met the relic merchant Jacob Spatharios in Ephesus. He had a little shop there then. He’s had to relocate several times since then – always ready to pick up and head on down the road a ways to set up a new shop in a new location, under a new name. But at the time he had quite an assortment of relics and other religious oddments for sale at his little shop in Ephesus. And all of them were, according to the hand lettered sign in the window, “Guaranteed thaumaturgically effective or your money back.”

    He had on display the foot and comb of the cock that crowed before Peter’s denial of the Christ. He had Pontius Pilate’s pinky decoder ring – used to decode and translate secret communiques and dispatches from Rome. He had the beak of Phillip’s pet cuttlefish, Saint Helveticas’ earlobe, Saint Albedo’s reflection, and Zerubbabel’s trowel and plumb-bob. He even showed me a bottle of Noah’s wine – once considered a very fine vintage. He declined to offer me a taste saying that it had long since turned to vinegar. ¹

    “Can’t consecrate your church without a relic, sir,” he told me, “not since the second council of Nicaea in the year 787.” He told me this as he offered a bicuspid from Hugh of Lincoln for my inspection. Hugh of Lincoln had once himself bitten the ulna bone of Mary Magdalene. He also showed me a chunk of stone which had been scored with teeth marks. “Count Fulk of Anjou went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem some years ago. In the holy sepulcher he knelt at the tomb of Christ and bit off a piece of the stone with his own teeth. He carried this bit of stone away and now, after a circuitous route and many exciting exploits that are too strange to be believed, sir, it has come to me and I offer to you. And at a significant discount. I’m practically giving it to you. It would make a fine cornerstone for the construction of any new church, sir.” But I waved it aside.

    “What’s this,” I asked as I picked up a plank of wood, “a board from Noah’s ark?”

    “No sir,” he said smiling, “everyone’s got a bit of Noah’s ark these days, just like everyone has a piece of the 'True Cross.' You’re right to be a little suspicious as there are many devious salesmen who would take your money and sell you the purported foreskin of Jesus, which would prove to be nothing more than a bit of dried bit of bacon. But you can trust me, sir. I wouldn’t lie to you. That there, sir, is an actual timber used in the scaffolding during the construction of the Tower of Babel.”

    I looked at him in disbelief.

    “It’s true, sir. I stole it myself.”

    “You stole it?”

    “Yes, sir. Noble trade it is, our relic thieving. Furta Sacra, if you like. The hero of the trade is a monk named Felix who once carried off the remains of Saints Agapitus, Cecilia, Columbana and several others. Me own da’, who was never quite so renowned as that lucky monk, once stole a pair of Fatima’s earrings from the basilica in Tyre.”

    “Fatima’s earrings,” I wondered aloud. “I thought these were Christian artifacts.”

    “They are sir, finest in the region. Did I say Fatima? I’m sorry, sir. It must have been mislabeled by the novices in Tyre. Them there were Joan of Arc’s earrings. Simple mistake, sir. But no harm done, right? No harm done. You know what they say, sir. The relics of the saints that the Lord has provided for us gush with fragrant oil.”

    He whisked the earrings out of sight into one of the many hidden pockets of his voluminous robe and, in the same motion, drew out a sachet bag. “What?” I asked. “And what is that?”

    “Is it unbelievable, good sir, that if God poured water out of a rock in the desert and for thirsty Samson in the desert, provided water from the jawbone of an ass, is it unbelievable that fragrant oil should pour out from the relics of the saints?”

    He paused and smiled, then with a flourish displayed the sachet bag to me. “This, my friend, is what remains of Saint Polycarp. After his death by fire, my great-grandfather Nicetes who was captain of the guard, pleaded with the magistrates to allow him gather up the ashes and bones that remained and to take them to a suitable place where they could be venerated by the faithful. But, truth be told,” he said as he glanced out the window, scanning the street in both directions, “I don’t actually have a license to deal in the holy artifacts. There was a slight… mistake with the paperwork. But for you I will make a special deal.”

    “I don’t see any oil,” I told him. He frowned and removed the sachet bag from view.

    Jacob Spatharios had many other relics and wonders in his shop but the objects that fascinated me that morning as I stood among the clutter of curios were a carefully folded handkerchief (stained with sweat) and an apron which were once owned and used by the apostle Paul. Jacob claimed that touching them to the sick and infirm would cure them of their illnesses and expel their demons. I might have purchased one or two of them for myself but I was skeptical of Spatharios’ thaumaturgical guarantee -and more than a little leery of his lack of licensure. The netherworld of the shadowy relic and antiquities market recognizes no borders and flouts all legalities and rules, ignores academics and scientific researchers. I don’t trust them.

    “What’ll it be, then?” Jacob asked ready for a sale. “The handkerchief? The apron? Something from the back room, perhaps. Something reserved for discerning customers such as yourself, sir?” he said with a disturbing leer.

    But I declined to purchase anything from his shop. His collection of curious was certainly curious, but however charged those items might have once been with the uncanny charisma and supernatural power when I saw them in Spatharios’ display cabinets they were old and inert – mere physical objects from the past, reminders of what could be, dead remainders of what the living God can do.

1Jacob Spatharios also had an extensive collection of documents and papers of religious import – ancient texts in a cardboard box pressed between recent pages of the daily newspaper - including the one hundred sixteen pages lost from the original Book of Mormon, the first draft of the so-called “Salamander Letter” and the “Satanic verses” purged from the words of the prophet (peace be upon him). These were all very suspect and I did not look long at them.

 Acts 19. 11-12

What This is This? (Acts 4: 1-12)

    Some of you – those of you who see my Facebook posts, or who have read my books perhaps, may have figured out that I have strong opinions. And that I am not afraid or ashamed to put them out to the public. I am somewhat outside the political mainstream. Not a Republican. Not a Democrat. But something other. I’m not much of a patriot. I’m a pacifist. Radical? Maybe. Troublemaker? Not intentionally. I’m not afraid of conflict, but conflict is not my goal but it’s often there.

    This distinction, however, has been lost sometimes. I was kicked out of seminary after the Principal decided he needed to break me of my ‘rebellious spirit.’ And after having been restored and ordained, I spent twenty years at odds with the administration of my denomination. Consistently under review and frequently on probation. I was scrutinized. I was mentored and monitored.

    So – I chuckle a bit when I’m trusted with today’s pericope, with its theological and political uproar. Peter and John causing a public disturbance. Confrontation with the political and religious authorities – it sounds like my life.

    We’re continuing the story that began with the healing Pastor Mark discussed last week, when Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate saw the man born lame – “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I give unto thee – in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” I must have memorized that verse as a boy; I still hear it in the King James Version.

    And that man went walking and leaping and praising God into the Temple.

    Following the miraculous healing of the man born lame, Peter and John launched into an extemporaneous sermon about crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus – which had occurred in the most recent days, and how faith in this risen Jesus is what restored the crippled man to health, and how “it was for you in the first place that God raised up his servant Jesus and sent him to bless you as every one of you turns from his wicked ways.”

    And then comes the repression. Then comes the suppression. The priests and the captain of the guard and members of the Sadducees were annoyed by Peter and John’s teaching - specifically about the resurrection of the dead – and arrested Peter and John and put them in prison overnight.

    What reason? What charges? Pffffffft. We don’t need reason. We don’t need charges.

    The next day Peter and John were hauled before the court to explain themselves. “By what power and by whose name have you done this?” There are no charges listed. There are no offenses. But Peter and John are called upon to justify their actions. By what power and by whose name have you done this, the leaders asked.

    So here’s the question. What this is this?

    “Are we being arrested for this act of kindness?” Peter asked “Are you asking us about an act of kindness to a crippled man and asking us how he was healed?” Are we being detained because we acted with kindness and compassion to someone in need?

    And this sounds like a bit of the hyperbole of the absurd. Surely you wouldn’t arrest us and put us in the cells overnight because of an act of kindness. That’s absurd. Right? In what world would that make sense?

    But in our world today it’s less an absurd notion than maybe we’d like to think; when public figures are deriding kindness and empathy as the curse and ruination of Western Civilization. “I can’t stand the word empathy” said one such figure. “I think empathy is a made up, new-age term that does a lot of damage.” (Charlie Kirk)

    Kindness will not be tolerated in much of the world these days – especially in places where it is needed most. Consider the fact that over 400 humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza since the outbreak of that war – that genocide. Doctors and rescue workers have been targeted by snipers and bombed by airstrikes, even when they’ve been traveling in clearly marked ambulances or UN vehicles. Food and medical supplies are denied to the population within the war zone. Kindness will not be tolerated there.

    So, no. It’s no longer the hyperbole of the absurd to ask if we’re being arrested for an act of kindness.

    Perhaps Peter and John were arrested for a difference of theological doctrine?

    To understand here we need to recognize that there were a number of divisions within the Judaism of that day (as there are today, and as there are divisions within Christianity as well). There were the Pharisees -with whom Jesus and his followers frequently clashed (and with whom Jesus and his followers actually shared many similarities) and there were the Sadducees – who were generally from the aristocratic class. There were also the Essenes and later, the Zealots, and other shades and varieties. The faith was not monolithic.

    The Sadducees believed only the five books of Moses to be morally authoritative scripture while the Pharisees gave equal weight to the psalms and the prophets. The Sadducees disbelieved in angels and spiritual beings; the Pharisees saw them everywhere. But the big difference between the Pharisees and the Sadducees was on the doctrine of the resurrection. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead, while the Sadducees dismissed it as a relatively new theological innovation.

    Were Peter and John arrested because of their proclamation of the promise of resurrection in the person of Jesus of Nazareth? It’s very likely that it figured into the Sadducees decision to have them arrested. They may not have liked the proclamation of a doctrine they considered repugnant, but the Sadducees were typically tolerant of the other branches of Judaism.

    Peter and John were warned off from making further public disturbances – though the author of Acts records no real disturbance here. There were no shouting crowds. No mobs. No violence. If the Sadducees were worried about pushback from the Roman imperialist forces – which was a valid political concern in those troubled days – there doesn’t seem to be any reason for that concern here. If there was a disturbance or an uproar, it was of the Sadducees’ own making.

    What reason? What charges? Pfffft.

    We do not seek trouble. We do not seek conflict. But when mercy is done in the name of Jesus, and when Jesus is proclaimed as risen Lord, trouble may come looking for the church. When acts of mercy and kindness are viewed as dangerous and even criminal, the Church will be in trouble.

    We are not looking for trouble – but we will do the good works. We will act with kindness and charity. We will give of ourselves to others. We will live with empathy for those in need.

    We are not looking for trouble – but we will speak the truth of our convictions – sharing the inclusive love and redemptive life of the risen Christ Jesus with those around us. We will show the world the love of Christ for one and all.

    We are not looking for trouble – but this will probably cause a disturbance.

For a different - comedic - take on this same story: Allegedly

from Doctor Luke’s Personal Notes (Ananias and Sapphira)

    Though I was not present to witness the deaths of Ananias (“Yahweh is gracious”) or Sapphira (“Beautiful”) and neither did I perform an autopsy on their bodies following, I have been asked by members of the community to address as a doctor and member of the Royal College of Surgeons the peculiarities of their sudden demise and to, if possible, describe the cause (other than the supernatural obvious). The community wants to retain a record of these events, as discreditable as it may be, so that Ananias and Sapphira and their legacy will not be forgotten.

    Ananias: 42-year-old, male with no previous history of heart disease or cardiovascular difficulties and his wife, Sapphira: 30-year-old female with sparkling blue eyes and a clean health history were both suddenly and inexplicably struck dead on the same day, within a few hours of each other.

    The couple had voluntarily sold a piece of property and brought the cash to the apostles as part of the voluntary communalism being put into practice by the Followers of the Way. Ananias reportedly told Peter that the amount he brought in was the full amount of the sale. But when challenged on this, Ananias began to sweat profusely. The apostle Peter described this as a lie not to men, but a lie to the Holy Spirit and asked him, “Wasn’t the property yours to use as you wished? And once sold, wasn’t the money yours to give as you desired? What put this scheme into your head? Your philargyry will not save you. Keep your money. Keep your mammon. Keep your mummery.”

    And with that Ananias fell down dead; he ‘breathed out his soul,’ as one witness described it. A group of young men wrapped the body in a sheet and took it out for burial.

    A few hours later Sapphira came too and was challenged in the same way by Peter. “Listen! You can hear the footsteps of the men who just finished burying your husband returning. They’ll carry you out next.” Immediately she fell down dead like her husband. The group of young men who had just buried her husband, wrapped her in a sheet and buried her body next to that of her husband.

    There are a variety of physical conditions that could have resulted in this sort of sudden death. The sudden onset of excessive sweating could be indicative of a Heart Attack. This “cold sweat” would probably have been accompanied by other symptoms including chest pains and a racing or skipping heartbeat. If their deaths were caused by a Stroke they would have felt a numbness or a prickling sensation in various parts of their body, along with a headache and blurred vision. This is not an uncommon occurrence; deaths caused by strokes are fairly common. Emperor Valentinian died as the result of a stroke precipitated by yelling angrily at a group of foreign envoys. I might have suspected a Pulmonary Embolism but there is no indication that either of them were coughing or that they experienced a bloody or frothy mucus with the coughing. Shigellosis (a bacterial intestinal infection) might be considered except there was not an accompanying diarrhea, fever, abdominal pain, or bloody stool. Neither does an Aortic Rupture seem likely as this would have been accompanied by a sudden loss of blood pressure and a blue tinge to the skin. It may have been a case of Exhaustion as the result of diseased blood vessels in the lungs – but this seems unlikely. There was no trace of either Strychnine, or Prussic Acid, or Opium.

    More exotic diagnoses have been suggested including: Being Struck by Lightning – I read an article in one of the Latin medical journals about an entire football team from The Democratic Republic of the Congo that was simultaneously killed by a bolt of lightning. The old adage, “Lightning never strikes the same place twice” is veritably untrue. It is possible that the couple in question were both killed in the same place by separate lightning strikes. This is strange, but not outside of the realm of fortean possibilities. Or they could have been killed by other articles falling from the sky. A villager in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq was killed by a falling Meteorite, and the Greek playwright Aeschylus was killed by Tortoise dropped by an eagle flying overhead which mistook the author’s bald head for a stone on which to drop and break the tortoise’s shell. It’s true that none of the witnesses mention lightening, meteorites, or tortoises, but these possibilities cannot be completely discounted.

    My sometimes traveling companion, Paul, has often suggested that members of the church who violate the standards and expectations of the community should be Turned Over to Satan for the “destruction of the flesh.” I am not sure what he means by that but it sounds like death to me.

    Psychosomatic or Psychogenic Death (sometimes referred to as “Voodoo Death,” is a parasympathetic backlash of the mind against the strong emotions of fear and terror that is powerful enough to shut down the body. It is possible that the couple were, quite literally, scared to death.

    A skillful physician could, from the color and cast of the skin, make an inferential diagnosis of an illness, but it is impossible at this far removal in both space and time to make any authoritative diagnosis, but it would seem that something incredible and fearful happened here. More than that I would not hazard to say.

Allegedly

What follows is a transcript of the emergency meeting of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin, Tammuz 15, in the Year of the Consulship of Ocella and Sulla, otherwise counted as 786 Ab Urbe Condita¹ from a recording made on an Uher 5000 reel to reel tape recorder.² Those present were the rulers, elders, scribes in the presence of Annas, the High Priest as well as Jonathan, his son, and Alexander Unknown - all members of high priestly families and respectable men.

Elder 1: (Speaking to the detainees – by name Peter and John, and including the formerly crippled man) By what power and what name have you done this?

Peter: Rulers of th…

Elder 2: I’m sorry to interrupt…

Elder 1: Yes? Yes?

Elder 2: But what is the question under discussion here this morning?

Elder 1: What?

Elder 2: Is it the question of the healing of the crippled man…

Scribe 1: Alleged healing…

Elder 2: Yes. Alleged healing. Or is it the question of their heretical doctrine, namely the resurrection of the dead?

Scribe 2: Alleged resurrection.

Elder 2: Yes. Alleged Resurrection.

Elder 1: What?

Peter: Rulers of th…

Elder 1: The detainee will keep silent until he has been addressed. Now, what is the question?

Elder 2: Exactly.

Elder 1: What?

Elder 2: What is the question to be addressed here this morning? Is it the healing… alleged healing, or is the question of the questionable doctrine of the alleged resurrection?

Elder 1: What does it matter? We’re not here for questions; we’re here for answers. Now (to the detainees again) Why haven’t you answered my question?

Peter: Rulers of th…

Scribe 2: Could we have the question repeated for the record?

Scribe 1: I believe it was, “By what power and what name have you done this?”

Elder 1: Yes. Yes. That was it. By what power and by what name? And we are still waiting for an answer.

Peter: Rulers of th…

Scribe 2: Could you speak up? So we can hear your words and record your answer.

Elder 2: Yes. Do speak up.

Peter: Rulers of the people and elders! If you are questioning us about an act of kindness…

Scribe 1: Alleged act of kindness.

Peter: If you are questioning us about an act of kindness to a crippled old man, if you’re asking us how he was healed, then you all should know, that it was in the name and authority of Jesus of Nazareth – whom you crucified …

Scribe 2: Allegedly

Peter: …. and whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands on his own two feet before you today. Of all the given names in this world given to men, there is none other by which we can be saved.

The detainees were excused for the moment, sent back to the holding cells still bearing their fetters.

Elder 1: Your excellencies, what are we to do with these men? They are uneducated to be sure, but they are aweless and unafraid.

Ruler 1: Perhaps it is because they are uneducated that they are so audacious; they have not learned the proper respect for our position, or for theirs.

Elder 1: That may be so. We know them to be associates of the criminal Jesus, who was, like them, untrained and uncredentialed.

Elder 2: However that may be, the man has been healed.

Scribe 2: Allegedly.

Elder 2: Oh, lay off. We all know he was. We’ve all seen him in the court of beggars. We’ve seen him lying there for years. And now we’ve seen him standing in front of our eyes. And what is more, it’s obvious to everyone in the city that he’s been healed. These men are exciting the casual inhabitants of the city – the dockworkers, porters, hawkers, costermongers and the like. If we don’t silence them now, then all the bookbinders, clock-winders, and tailors in the city will be talking about this miracle.

Scribe 2: Alleged miracle.

Elder 2: Shut it, you old fool! You just saw him yourself.

Annas: Gentlemen, please. We are losing ourselves here.

Jonathan: Yes, father. You are quite right. Quite right.

Annas: What we want is stop this report from spreading any further.

Elder 2: And again, I am sorry, my lord, but which report is that?

Annas: What?

Elder 2: Are we trying to stop the report of the healing or the report of Jesus’ resurrection.

Scribe 2: Alleged resurrection.

Annas: Oh, for heaven’s sake. Call the detainees back in and warn them in the sternest terms possible not to speak of this or in this name to anyone ever again.

Jonathan: Yes, father. You are quite right. Again, quite right.

The detainees were called in before the members of the Sanhedrin once more and their shackles were removed from their wrists and ankles.

Elder 1: Gentlemen, you are hereby and forthwith ordered to stop all promulgation and proclamation in, of, about, or concerning the name of one Jesus of Nazareth, who was recently hung upon the executioner’s tree in this very city. You will, pursuant to the orders given by this governing body as incorporated under the authority of the emperor in Rome, Tiberius Caesar Augustus, cease and desist from all reckless speech and discourse, both here in the city of Jerusalem, and in the land of Israel and all her territories.

Elder 2: Now, what say you?

Peter: You are the judges, and you will judge what is right and proper. But we have seen what we have seen, and we know what we know. Is it right and proper for us to listen and to obey you, or to obey the voice of our Lord God?

John: We cannot and will not stop proclaiming what we know to be true.

Elder 1: I warn you again, I warn you most sternly: say no more to anyone about this or you will not fail to face the consequences. The next scream you hear may be your own.

John: And what, good sire, would those consequences be? What punishment is proper for the healing of cripples and restoring them to health?

Elder 1: …

Scribe 1: (Whispering) My lord, we have no chastisement we can give for this. I’m not even sure, my lord, if this can be described as a criminal action.

Elder: (to the detainees) Depart. And go with this warning.

The detainees, including the formerly crippled man, were escorted from the building.

Scribe 1: My lord, I forgot to ask earlier, but it’s important for the records: how old was the man who has been miraculously cured?

Scribe 2: Allegedly cured…

1July 2, 33CE 

2By a strange twist of asynchronicity it was the exact same Uher 5000 reel to reel tape recorder used by President Richard Milhous Nixon as part of his White House taping system. It slipped through time and space and wound up in the possession of the High Priest. It's presence in first century Jerusalem remains unexplained.

God Stands before Us in the Wilderness (A Sermon)

Exodus 17: 1 – 7
Psalm 95

We said last week that Lent is a dangerous journey. It is a pilgrim’s journey through wild and wasted places (Psalm 121), across rugged terrain, up and down steep slopes, under the sweltering sun and the poisonous moon, through thirsty, arid lands where there is no water, surrounded by wild animals, thieves and demons and foul spirits of every kind. And yet the guardian of Israel is there for the pilgrim, to help and to protect, to preserve. “Yahweh guards your comings and goings henceforth and forever.” (Psalm 121: 8 New Jerusalem Bible)

In our text this week, we continue that dangerous journey theme.

The people of Israel, having left the slavery of Egypt, head into the wild and wasted place – three month journey from Egypt to Sinai, through the wilderness of Sin (location unknown.)

This is not “sin,” – the violation of God’s will or command, but the Wilderness of Sin, one of the seven wildernesses crossed by Moses and the Israelites (Shur – Exodus 15: 22 -23, Etham - Numbers 33:6-8, Sin – Exodus 16: 1, Sinai – Exodus 19: 1 - 2, Paran – Numbers 10: 12, Zin – Numbers 27:14, and Kadesh – Psalm 29:8) The name “Sin” here may refer to the Mesopotamian moon god “Sin,” or – perhaps more probably – to an Egyptian border fortress in the Nile Delta, Pelusium, also named “Sin” in Ezekiel 30:15 (KJV). (Seely 47)

In the course of this three month journey so far, the people of Israel have been pursued by the chariots and armies of Egypt and been protected from those foes. They’ve crossed parched, dry deserts where the only water they could find was bitter, brackish water – and the bitter water had been made sweet and fresh for them.  They’ve stared down the face of starvation – and been fed with quail and miraculous manna (just don’t ask ‘what is it?’ you might not like the answer). It has been a difficult journey, an arduous journey and they’ve not yet arrived at their destination.

Now at Rephidim (location unknown) they are thirsty again – they, their children, and their cattle with them are so very thirsty. And why not? The desert is a thirsty place. And so the people – the whole congregation of them – “find fault” with Moses, “took issue” with Moses (Exodus 17: 2 RSV and NJB).  “Why did you bring us out of Egypt – to kill us and our children and cattle with thirst?” (17:3)

Maybe that is a fair question. Moses was leading them, and one of the demands of leadership is demonstrable results. Moses had promised to lead them to a land of milk and honey (Exodus 3: 17), maybe that’s started to sound to the Israelites like so many empty political promises. They were thirsty and cried for water - ‘demonstrate the effectiveness of your plan or we’ll find a new leader,’ seems to be the unspoken subtext of this demand. But before we criticize the Israelite people too harshly we should remember 1- they were thirsty in the desert, a situation that if not remedied can quickly lead to death, and 2- our American system of government is pretty much based on this demand of leadership – prove your promises or we’ll elect someone else…

But, then again, maybe it is not a fair question. Moses has not failed them in this journey so far. They’ve faced several seemingly impossible obstacles and each time they have endured, they’ve survived. Maybe it is not fair that they quarrel with Moses here. Maybe his record so far should have earned him some trust.

And further, the way this story is presented by the author / editors of Exodus, a complaint against Moses is not merely a complaint against Moses the man, but also against Yahweh God who has appointed Moses (though this detail isn’t mentioned until the very final verse of the story). Their complaint isn’t just: ‘Hey! We’re thirsty!’ it is: ‘Hey!’ We’re thirsty! Is Yahweh with us or what?!’

And Moses cries out in fear, “they’re ready to stone me!” (17:4)

I wonder if his fear was legitimate or, perhaps, if it was over exaggerated somewhat, embellished in order to provoke God to action, if not for Israel’s benefit, then for his. (There were occasions also when Moses would have preferred to die than to lead the people of Israel any more – Numbers 11: 15).

And speaking of Moses’ fear that the Israelite people were ready to kill him, I make a slight wilderness wandering within this wilderness sermon. The Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud wrote a book in 1939 entitled Moses and Monotheism, in which he described how the Israelite people rebelled against, and then killed Moses and replaced him with a new leader. Freud went on to say that the guilt for this vaticide (the killing of a prophet) caused them to long for the coming of “one like Moses,” a messiah to rescue them from their sin and guilt.

Very few (if any) take this theory seriously.

But in response to the people’s complaints (We’re thirsty!) and Moses’ fear (They’re going to kill me!) Yahweh God “stands before” Moses on rock at Rephidim and says ‘Swing away, boy. Hit that rock.’ Moses does, and water comes gushing out, sweet, fresh water to slake their thirst and stop their murmuring and complaints. Moses names the place “The Spring of Trial and Contention” or “The Spring of Testing and Strife” because of the people’s sour attitude and fault finding.

Now the author / editors of this story in Exodus seem to want us to understand that God (and God’s agent) cannot be, should not be doubted, that God is not to be tested, that God’s reliability is not something that needs to be proved or established. (Hamilton Handbook 185)

And maybe that’s true; the psalmist we read last week (Psalm 121) was equally confident that the Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps (121:4) but remember the other psalms that we mentioned calling for God to wake up and do something: “Wake, Lord! Why are you asleep? Awake! Do not abandon us for good.” (Psalm 44: 23 NJB) “Up, awake, to my defense, my God and my Lord, to my cause!” (Psalm 35:23) There certainly are times when it feels like God is asleep and his anointed agents have lead us awry.

It is also interesting to see Yahweh God “standing before Moses” in this story. It’s a very anthropomorphic idea: God walking and talking and standing among the people (though a question arises here - could Moses and the elders of Israel present for this event actually see Yahweh God standing before them on the rock?)  And to “stand before” had a particular connotation in Hebrew thought, one that wasn’t always acceptable to the faithful when it was applied to God.

To “stand before” someone implies service, homage, a state of inferiority. It also indicates worship. (Hamilton Genesis 23) That is why the Masorites who copied and edited the Jewish scriptures between the 7^th and 10^th centuries altered a verse in Genesis.  Genesis 18: 22 in the Masoretic Text (which is widely used as the basis for the Old Testament in Protestant bibles) says that “the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the Lord.” (NRSV) but there is a footnote to explain that in an earlier scribal tradition the verse says that it was the LORD who remained standing before Abraham.

There are several of these scribal corrections, emendations made by the Masorites – to remove unseemly expressions, and to protect the dignity of God. Perhaps the Masorite scribes were uncomfortable with the idea of Yahweh God, the creator of the heavens and the earth “standing before” Abraham, and so made a change, reversing their positions, leaving Abraham to stand before God instead of the other way around. (Hamilton Genesis 24)

And yet the phrase remains here in Exodus 17. (Did the Masorites miss this one?) Yahweh God, creator of the heavens and the earth, the Guardian of Israel, “stands before” Moses and the assembled elders of Israel and makes himself vulnerable to them – risking physical injury if Moses’ swing goes wild, perhaps? (Hamilton Handbook 188) But even if we don’t go so far as to suggest that Moses could have clobbered God in the head with his staff, God still made himself vulnerable to his people. He heard their complaints, he heard their desperation and frustration and fear and anger and vexation and -

and he stood before them on the rock at Rephidim to give them what they needed, to give them water in a place of dryness, to give them life in a place of death, to give them peace in a place of anxiety and intimacy in a place of dissent.

You see, as a symbol the wilderness is an ambiguous, ambivalent place. It is not only a wild and wasted place, the haunt of jackals and demons, of fiery serpents and scorpions, underneath an oppressive sun and a baleful moon; the wilderness is also a place of enlightenment and vision and intimacy with God. The wilderness is a powerful place. To enter the desert, one must leave behind the security of settlement and venture into a region of physical and spiritual danger. The wilderness is a liminal place, the borderland between here and there, a “thin place” between the physical and the spiritual. (Blenkinsopp 161)

For the prophet Jeremiah, the wilderness was where Israel and Yahweh God shared their most intimate time together:

‘Yahweh says this:
“I remember your faithful love,
the affection of your bridal days,
when you followed me through the desert,
through a land unsown.”’ (Jeremiah 2: 2 NJB)

The Qumran community went out into the wilderness near the Dead Sea in order to find a renewed intimacy with God. Christian monks went into caves and wild places to experience that intimacy with God that comes with getting away from the rest of the world. Jesus himself was driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit and after his confrontation with the Tempter was comforted by the angels of God. (Mark 1:12 -13) The desert is a visionary place, a refining place, a place of innocence and intimacy with God.

And here, at the rock of Rephidim, in the Wilderness of Sin, Yahweh God – the creator of the heavens and the Earth, the Guardian of Israel, “stands before” Moses and the people – makes himself vulnerable to their distress and their anxiety. He makes himself vulnerable to their testing and strife. He condescends to their weakness.

This is the point of Jesus’ incarnation – that God is willing to come down and “stand before” us in our weakness. He lowers himself, humbles himself – even to the point of death (Philippians 2: 8) so that we might live.

We are in the middle of our Lenten journey, a journey through the wilderness of sin and death. We are in a dry and weary land, thirsting for comfort and relief. We are in the place of death, under an oppressive sun, beneath a malicious moon – but we are journeying towards the land of milk and honey, the promised land of life, and life to the fullest, life everlasting. And, what is more, we are not making this journey alone. The Guardian of Israel stands before us, stands with us, goes with us. He gives us our spiritual food and our spiritual drink from the spiritual rock that follows – which is Christ himself (1 Corinthians 10:4)

We are in the desert place, making a dangerous journey through life, surrounded by death, but we are not dismayed, for God is with us. We will not give in to our fears and our desperation. We will not let our thirst overwhelm us. We will not harden our hearts as at Meribah. We will listen to his voice. (Psalm 95: 8 – 9) We will follow him through the wild place of death to the land of rest and resurrection.

 ***

Blenkinsopp, Joseph. The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible. New York, NY: Doubleday. 1992. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. Moses and Monotheism. Knopf. 1939. Print.

Hamilton Victor P. The Book of Genesis Chapter 18 – 50.Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 1995. Print. 

Hamilton Victor P. Handbook on the Pentateuch. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House. 1982. Print.

Seely, David R. “Sin, Wilderness of.” The Anchor Bible Dictionary Volume VI. New York, NY: Doubleday. 1992. Print.

Biblical Limericks: Like a Rolling Stone

Rephidim’s rock, so it is written,
followed Israel like a lost kitten -
the rock, as would behove
did pursue out of love
for by Moses it had been smitten.

This one is a little complicated to explain but here goes:

In Exodus 17: 1 – 7 the Israelites are somewhere near Rephidim which is near Mt. Horeb.  They’re thirsty, they complain, God tells Moses to strike the rock there with his staff, and they have water. And Moses names the place, “Meribah.”

Later, after receiving the torah, they leave that place and head to Kadesh (Numbers 20:1–14) where again they are thirsty and complain that they need water. Moses strikes the rock again (a no-no this time) and they have water. And again Moses names the place “Meribah”

This might be an example of one traditional story being told in two different ways, but the Jewish rabbis had a legend that since the rock is named “Meribah” in both places, that it was the same rock and that the rock actually followed the people of Israel from Rephidim to Kadesh.

“And so the well, which was with Israel in the desert, looked like a rock with the size of a sieve, surging and gurgling upward, as from the mouth of this flask, rising with them up on to the mountains and going down with them into the valleys.

“Wherever the Israelites would encamp, it made camp opposite to them, opposite to the Tent of Meeting.”  Tosefta  Sukkah 3:11

The Apostle Paul apparently knew of this legendary tradition. He draws from the story of the “rolling stone” in his letter to the church at Corinth: “and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians 10: 4 NRSV)

Biblical Limericks: Moses the Dowser

Moses was a bit of a wowzer,
and before you object, note how sir:
he swung his wooden rod,
as instructed by God,
and struck the rock just like a dowser.

Exodus 17: 6

Biblical Limericks: Anti-Miracle Crowds

Jesus, trav’lling the Jericho route,
did anti-miracle crowds refute;
when the blind man spoke loud
the antagonist crowd
tried to make poor Bartimaeus mute.

Mark 10: 46 - 52

Should Jesus Have Been Disappointed?

I included this thought as a tag to yesterday’s Biblical Limerick post, as an afterthought linking back to a previous limerick. But I think it is a question that is worth a little more than a casual postscript to something as lowbrow as a limerick, so I’d like to draw it out a bit.

In Luke 17: 11 – 19 we have the story of Jesus’ encounter with a group of 10 lepers. Jesus cures them and sends them away to report their cleansing to the priests who could restore them to their places in the community. Of the ten, one came back to express his thanks. And this one was a Samaritan. “Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they?” (Luke 17: 17 New Jerusalem Bible)

I’ve heard many a sermon and Sunday school lesson on the theme of these thankless lepers. And last night (providentially, perhaps) I found, the following lines in a book of poems by Commissioner Irena Arnold (an officer in The Salvation Army) – it’s not especially noteworthy poetry, but it does illustrate the tone of those multiplied sermons and Sunday school lessons.

Nine men sought Christ in their trouble sore,
Forgetting Him when their pain was o’er.
Nine men with joy to their homes returned,
They all were healed, but their Healer spurned.
Accepting all that their Savior gave;
His loving kindness, His power to save,
                But none of them gave thanks.

-from “Only One Gave Thanks” (Arnold 229)

But if we read the story of the thankless lepers while keeping in mind the parable that Luke recorded just a few verses prior perhaps we would be compelled to ask Jesus, “Why did you expect to be thanked?”

In Luke 17: 7 – 11, Jesus is recorded as telling a brief parable: “Which of you with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him, when he returned from the fields, “Come and have your meal at once”? Would he not be more likely to say, “Get my supper ready; fasten your belt and wait on me while I eat and drink. You yourself can eat and drink afterwards.” Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told? So with you: when you have done all that you have been told to do, say, “we are useless servants: we have done no more than our duty.” (New Jerusalem Bible)

If the good servant (or slave in other translations) shouldn’t expect to be thanked for doing his duty, should Jesus have been disappointed in the other nine lepers who did not stop to thank him?

Arnold, Irena. More Poems of a Salvationist. Harpeville: GA. Tyler and Company. 1945. Print.

Biblical Limericks: Thankless No. 2

Ten men with virulent leprosy
called out to Jesus piteously.
Cured, he sent them away;
one stopped, his praise to say
but the others ran off thanklessly.

Luke 17: 11 - 19

Does this story about thanks (and the lack of it) add anything to the previous parable about thanks (and the lack of it)?

Jesus Is a Rude Dinner Guest – Luke 14: 1 - 14

We have been walking and moving this morning, traveling. We are, as we might say in The Salvation Army, ‘on the march,’ and in the scriptural passage that we’re looking at, Jesus also is journeying. And has been for some time. Luke’s gospel describes Jesus as travelling from his base of operations in the Galilean hill country up to Jerusalem over the course of 10 chapters, between Luke 9:51 (“When the days drew near for him to be receive up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (NRSV)) and his arrival in Jerusalem in chapter 19 (somewhere between verses 41 and 45) - over the course of these ten chapters Jesus is involved in preaching and teaching and healing and telling parables.  Some of Jesus’ most memorable stories were told along the road to Jerusalem.

Today we could make that trip in a couple of hours. We could hop in the car in the morning, get on the highway and be in Jerusalem in time for dinner. But Jesus would have been walking. If we were to assume (and we should be careful about our assumptions…) the average human walking speed of about 20 miles per day, this is a trip that would have taken him about 5 days. 

It’s not a terribly long trip (at least for those like Jesus who would have been accustomed to regularly walking such distances). But Luke seems to stretch it out a bit. Jesus must be taking the scenic route – stopping at every little town and village and hamlet and rural parish along the way, stopping to perform another miracle, or to tell another parable.

Actually, our estimate of 5 days might have to be modified. It would be about 5 days if he were walking straight through, but that fails to take into account Sabbath days. If he started mid-week, then Jesus could expect to stop for the Sabbath at least once. And since he seems to have been taking the long roundabout route, it’s likely that he stopped for several Sabbaths along the way. On Sabbath days – the day given to rest and worship – Jewish people were to limit their walking distance to about 2,000 cubits, roughly three-fifths of a mile. 

But this is no bother. He doesn’t exactly seem to be in a hurry. We’re stretching this 5 day walk over 10 chapters; so he has plenty of time to linger. It’s almost as if, like Scheherazade, he wants to delay what he knows must happen to him when he arrives at Jerusalem. And besides, Jesus liked to be in the synagogue on Sabbath days. It was his custom to be there with others of his faith even as he journeyed from place to place, from town to town and village to village, you could always find him in the local synagogue on any given Sabbath. He taught the people there. He met them there, shared with them, and ministered to them. So as he made the long journey from Capernaum – his base of operations in Galilee – to Jerusalem, Jesus stopped for Sabbath rest and joined the worshiping community in the synagogue wherever he was.

Now this particular Sabbath, Jesus is somewhere between Galilee and Jerusalem (Luke isn’t precise with the details) and a member of the Pharisees has invited Jesus to his house for the Sabbath meal. Already, I know, we are preparing ourselves for conflict, for confrontation. We have been conditioned to expect the worst of the scribes and lawyers and Pharisees. They are the perpetual boogeymen of the gospels.

But in historical perspective, the Pharisees were generally well liked and respected by the common people of Israel; “they were close to and revered by the ordinary folk” (Crossan 92). Despite the reputation they have today, the Pharisees were not one dimensional melodrama villains. If they went overboard in their attention to the legal issues of the torah it was because they wanted to be good and to be right with God.

One example, relevant to our discussion of Sabbath observance will suffice: the Pharisees who, in our common estimation, were cold legalists without a heart of warmth and compassion, actually allowed that the joining of the door-posts and lintels of houses was an acceptable way to obviate the injunction against travelling on the Sabbath. Families could join the doorposts of their houses, and then bring their food together to share the Sabbath feast together, without breaking the Law. (Porter 373) If this is cold legalism, let us have more of its kind.

Let’s also remember that this Pharisee has invited Jesus to his house and not assume any malicious intent or nefarious motive. It may be true that “they were watching him closely,” but wouldn’t anyone?  Jesus was an oddity, an unknown quantity, a dark horse rabbi coming up from nowhere, from Nazareth (can anything good come from Nazareth?), untrained, and unschooled, yet commanding great respect, healing and doing great miracles. Of course they were watching him closely.

If it seems that I’m going out of my way here at the beginning to present the Pharisees as the “good guys,” that is because I am. They were not, as I said earlier, one dimensional melodrama villains. They were decent people, for the most part, trying to live godly lives as they understood those terms.

And Jesus is eating the Sabbath meal with them. This is when things take a turn for the confrontational. And, it should be noted, it is not the Pharisees, the good guys, who cause this confrontation. It is Jesus. They’re eating and sharing the Sabbath meal together when, all of a sudden, “in front of him was a man who had dropsy.”

Dropsy is an old fashioned, out-of-date medical term for what we would today call edema, a condition marked by the buildup of watery fluids in the cavities and tissues of the body. The body begins to swell with the buildup of this fluid, and it can cause serious pain. Edema is actually a symptom of several other issues rather than a disease itself.

Jesus sees this swollen man and immediately turns on the lawyers and Pharisees around the table. “Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath or not?” Jesus starts the fight, fires the first shot, throws the first punch. Jesus is the one who makes a scene, not the Pharisees.

The healing of the man with Dropsy could have waited; there was nothing particularly life threatening about the condition. It wasn’t a life or death, emergency situation. Jesus could have, easily, waited a few hours for the sun to set in the western sky, and then healed the man with no Sabbath day issues whatsoever. And it’s not even clear that there is a Sabbath day violation here. Jesus doesn’t actually do any work. “The matter is simple: no work was performed. If Jesus had had to remove a rock which was crushing a man’s hand, there would have been a legal principal at issue: was the man’s life in danger, or could the work have waited for the sun to set? But the laying on of hands is not work, and no physical action of any kind is reported” (Sanders 266).

Jesus deliberately and purposefully provoked a fight. He made an issue out of a non-issue, and phrased his emphatic question in a provocative way so as to force his audience to make a definitive answer. (Jeremias 103) This, generally, is not the polite behavior of an invited guest. The lawyers and Pharisees sit in a stunned silence. Jesus, in Luke’s gospel, seems to delight in shutting them down. (Luke 13.17) Perhaps we might envision him singing the old Beach Boys song: “Shut it off, shut it off, buddy, now I shut you down” (Wilson).

Jesus asked them a question, again deliberately phrasing his question so as to provoke them: “If one of you has a child,” (or in some manuscripts, “an ass” (and those two are sometimes indistinguishable, aren’t they…)) “or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?” And they are still stunned. It’s a loaded question like, “are you still beating your mother?” The Pharisees and lawyers cannot answer.

Jesus heals the man swollen with excessive fluid and sends him on his way, but Jesus isn’t through with the Pharisees and lawyers around the table. He now tells two parables – first to the guests of this Sabbath meal, and second to the host of the feast – parables that don’t really sound like parables. We are used to thinking of parables as “earthly stories with heavenly meaning,” to use the phrase some of us learned in Sunday school. But the Greek word “parable” like its Hebrew equivalent, “masal” had a wide range of definitions and categories; parables could be: similitudes, allegories, fables, proverbs, riddles, symbols, apologies, arguments, jests, comparisons, or, as in our text this morning, behavioral rules. (Jeremias 20) Jesus gives them parables - rules for ethical behavior - that challenge their perceived roles in the social order within the Kingdom of God.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them this parable (or behavioral rule): “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place.’ But when you are invited, go and sit at the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher,’ then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.’

Honor was a big deal in that time and place (as it is still today, even if we are not as consciously aware of it as Jesus’ audience was). Honor was, “to some extent, the product of birth, family, and wealth, it was sustained by social recognition. It was not just social status, but also the regard one felt entitled to in virtue of that status. … Much behavior was therefore dictated by the desire to acquire, preserve, or display honor and to avoid its opposite, shame” (Borg 212).

The most important guests, the most dignified, the most honored guests, distinguished by age or social standing (Jeremias 192) would arrive last, making a grand entrance, seen and marveled at by everyone, and taking their assumed position close to the head of the table. The humiliated guest, the one who assumed too much, assumed a seat that wasn’t for him, would be forced to take the lowest seat at the far end of the table, because all the other seats would have been filled by that time.

Jesus instructs his audience to humble themselves before others, and before God, because in the coming kingdom, all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” This has been the central them of Jesus’ gospel, even from the time before he was born. When Mary learned of his conception from the angel Gabriel she sang a radical and revolutionary song of this reversal:

“…he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts,
he has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.” (Luke 2: 52 NRSV)

Then to his host Jesus says, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives, or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

This is, again, the great reversal, the “messianic inversion,” in the perspective of God’s kingdom, “the despised and the insignificant come first” (Gutiérrez 215).

And this is why I set out at the beginning to emphasize that the Pharisees and lawyers were the good guys, people of respect and honor. The Pharisees really were the good guys, which is why the great reversal is so great, so provocative, so shocking. Traditional cultural expectations are turned upside down (Crossan 93).Those who are honored in this life for their position, their wealth, their good looks, their distinguished family, their education, their job title will be shunted down to the end of the table, or replaced by the crippled, the broken, the blind, the lame and the destitute. Jesus’ parable is intended to be offensive; it is supposed to shock. It is rude and upsetting.

“Those who seek places of honor, those who feel important, those who do everything out of their love of power and positions of honor will not be invited to the banquet of the Kingdom. … They have already received their reward” (Gutiérrez 216).

From table manners and practical wisdom, Jesus has launched into God’s eschatological activity, which is nothing less than the humbling of the proud and the exaltation of the lowly. (Jeremias 193) Jesus has, so to speak, flipped the table, and upset the party to put into practice that gospel message: that God has raised up the lowly.

If that message offends, if that message wounds, if that message disturbs us, perhaps we need to reevaluate which seat we’ve assumed for ourselves at the banquet table.

Borg, Marcus J. Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teaching, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary. New York, NY: Haper Collins, 2006. Print.

Crossan, John Dominick. The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2012. Print.

Gutiérrez, Gustavo. Sharing the Word through the Liturgical Year. Trans. Colett Joly Dees. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997. Print.

Jeremias, Joachin. The Parables of Jesus 2^nd Revised Ed. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972. Print.

Porter, Stanley E. Handbook to Exegesis of the New Testament. New York, NY: Brill, 1997. Print.

Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1985. Print.

Wilson, Brian and Roger Christian. “Shut Down.” Surfin’ U.S.A.  Capitol Records. 1963. 

Biblical Limericks: An Interpolated Angel

When the angel comes the water’s stirred;
first one in gets all his ailments cured -
but closer inspection
of this gospel section
shows it’s an interpolated word.

John 5:4

or read the same verse in Haiku form...

The Joy of Messianic Wine

While we in The Salvation Army believe in the inspiration of Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and they alone are “the divine rule for Christian faith and practice,” not every story is given equal weight and value in our practice. The story in today’s lectionary text of Jesus at the wedding of Cana (John 2:1 – 11) is one that has the potential to be swept under the rug a little bit within our denomination.

You see, The Salvation Army is a non-sacramental and tee-totaling denomination; we don’t practice communion and we don’t drink alcohol. We don’t believe that the sacrament of communion is wrong–not at all. But, like the Society of Friends (the Quakers), we don’t believe it necessary to our salvation. And neither do we believe that alcohol is evil in and of itself, but so much of our work is with people whose lives have been ruined by an addiction to alcohol that we have chosen to live our lives in solidarity with them by not drinking.

As a young Cadet (seminary student in our idiosyncratic jargon) I delivered a sermon at one of our ARCs (Adult Rehabilitation Centers–drug and alcohol treatment programs) based on this text. At the time I was somewhat fascinated by prestidigitation and, using a bit of misdirection and a drop or two of red food coloring, I – prestochango - ‘changed’ water to wine. The ARC officer laughed and told me that I was “very bold” to preach this passage in a room full of recovering alcoholics.

So when we come to John’s story (and this story is only in John, it is not found in the synoptic gospels[i] ) about Jesus procuring huge quantities of wine for a wedding celebration, a story told with heavy Eucharistic overtones it doesn’t sit very well with our theological practice.

I’ve heard some of my fellow Salvationists insist that the wine that Jesus drank and the wine that he created in this story was not actually fermented wine but only unfermented grape juice. I’m sure they mean well, but those hold this interpretation[ii] are working too hard to find something there that isn’t there. The wine is wine and, as we’ll see, Jesus made a lot of it. Jesus was free with the wine. In fact, one of the accusations made about Jesus by “the Pharisees and lawyers” was that he was too free with the wine:

“…the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” (Luke 7:30 – 34 NRSV).

So there was a wedding in Cana, and “the mother of Jesus was there.” (2:1) Curiously, the gospel of John never refers to her by name. She appears only here at the beginning of John’s narrative and at the end of story, at the foot of the cross. In both places Jesus refers to her - maybe somewhat coldly - as “Woman” (John 2:4, 19:26). And Jesus was also invited to this wedding celebration along with his disciples (2:2). 

Jewish weddings were relatively simple affairs, but they were also quite extravagant. After a period of betrothal, when the time was right and all had been prepared, the bride was summoned from her father’s house and publicly escorted by friends of the groom to the groom’s house or tent; she was paraded through the town with shouting and trumpets, with music and laughter. Then under the chuppah, (the wedding tent) blessings were recited by the rabbi (or if the village didn’t have a rabbi, one of the respected elders) and that (largely) was it. Simple. But the celebration that followed - extraordinary, exuberant, extravagant! As many guests were invited as was possible, the entire village, even, (Patai 64-66) to share in the joy of the happy couple.

There was food, and wine, and singing, and wine, and shouting, and wine, and games, and wine, and dancing, and wine… There was a lot of wine. And while the bible may have a mixed message about the consumption of alcohol (in some places wine is condemned as a “mocker” - Proverbs 20:1 - and in others we’re told that wine “gladdens the heart of man” – Psalm 104:15) the scriptures are consistent in their connection between wine and celebration; times of festivity were times of wine. When the wine was gone, joy was gone.

There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine;
all joy has reached its eventide;
the gladness of the earth is banished.
Isaiah 24:11 NRSV

But at some point during this protracted celebration - a Jewish wedding festival could last as long as a week – the host ran out of wine; “…the wine failed” (2:3 ASV). This would be a great embarrassment even today, to run out of food and wine for the guests invited to a modern wedding reception, but even more so there and then in a culture so grounded in the necessity of extravagant hospitality. To run out of wine for your guests, unimaginable horror!

It is at this point that “the mother of Jesus” turned to her son and said, “They have no wine.” (2:3)

How she knew this, we aren’t told. And neither are we told why she came to her son with the problem. But the Roman Catholic Priest and biblical scholar, Raymond E. Brown suggests that the wine supply for wedding feasts was dependent, to some extent, on the gifts of the guests, and it may be that Jesus and his disciples, as poor as they were, had failed in their duty to bring a gift and were (at least partially) responsible for the shortage of wine (Brown 102). If, as is likely, the family was only a poor peasant family, and if Jesus and his disciples, (also poor - without homes, without jobs, without money of their own) came without bringing a gift of wine, a shortage would have been inevitable.

The wine (for whatever reason) had run out, had failed, and the joy of the wedding celebration was, as soon as this sad fact was discovered, going to come to a rather abrupt end. The mother of Jesus in disquietude and kindly sympathy with her friends’ growing embarrassment (Gossip 493) came to her son and told him: “they have no wine,” they have no joy…

But Jesus resists her meddling, her scolding (perhaps) saying: “Woman, what do you want from me? My hour has not come yet,” (2:4 NJB) which could be more dynamically translated as, “what does my business have to do with you? – Mind your own business, woman!” (Le Donne 46). But his resistance is minimal, and even before he has consented to assist, she has already instructed the servants to do whatever he asked.

The young Russian Orthodox novice, Alyosha Karamazov, in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, reflects dreamily upon this passage: “….Gladness, the gladness of some poor, very poor, people…Of course they were poor, since they hadn’t wine enough even at a wedding….The historians write that, in those days the people living about the Lake of Genesareth were the poorest that can possibly be imagined…and another great heart, that other great being, His Mother, knew that He had come not only to make His great terrible sacrifice. She knew that His heart was open even to the simple, artless merry-making of some obscure and unlearned people, who had warmly bidden Him to their poor wedding. ‘Mine hour is not yet come,’ He said, with a soft smile (He must have smiled gently to her). And indeed was it to make wine abundant at poor wedding He had come down to earth? And yet He went and did as she asked Him…” (Dostoevsky 336).

His hour has not yet come, the time is not ready, but he consents to begin with this, the first of his seven signs as described in the book of John (2:11). And what an inauspicious beginning to the revelation of his glory this is: Jesus does nothing to draw attention to himself in this miracle (and note that John doesn’t even use that word) – only the servants and his disciples (and possibly his mother) know what has happened (2: 9, 11).

Jesus points the servants to the six stone jars that were nearby, stone jars kept, John explains-probably to a gentile audience unfamiliar with Jewish traditions-for the Jewish rites of purification (2:6) and instructs them to fill these jars, each of which holds 20–30 gallons with water. Jesus tells the servants to fill these jars with water, to fill them up to the brim, and then to take some of the water to the steward of the feast (2: 7 – 8).

Now somewhere between the time that the servants poured water into the jars, ladled out a cupful, and carried it to the steward of the feast something happened. And I can’t be more specific than that, because John isn’t more specific than that. He doesn’t tell us what happened or when.  But when the steward tasted what the servants brought to him, it was wine – and most excellent wine too. The steward remarked to the bridegroom, ‘Usually people serve the good wine first, while everyone’s sober enough to taste it, and then the inferior wine, but you’ve kept the good stuff until now.’ (2:10)

The water in those stone jars, 120 – 150 gallons worth, had become fine luxurious wine but how and when it happened is not made clear. In fact, very few seemed to have noticed. The change from water to wine went all but unnoticed except by the servants who carried the water and by Jesus’ disciples. The change went unnoticed because, in John’s view, that’s not what is important here. The primary emphasis is not on the action of changing water to wine. The emphasis is not on the resulting wine – though it was good and there was a lot of it (Brown 103).

These are part of the sign. And the sign is not the destination. The sign points us toward something greater.

The wine, the extravagant quantity of wine, is a mark of the messianic time, a mark of the wedding feast between God and his people.  In Isaiah 62 the prophet spoke of the vindication and the salvation of God’s people, Zion. This time of blessing would be marked with the eating of food and the drinking of wine (Isaiah 62:4 – 8).  The prophet Jeremiah said something similar in his work:

The shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion
and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD
over the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and over the flock and the heard;
their life shall become like a watered garden
and they shall never languish again.
(Jeremiah 31:12 NRSV)

The expectation of those heady messianic days seems to be marked in the Jewish imagination by great quantities of wine.  In a non-canonical apocalyptic work from (roughly) the time of Jesus we find the following description of those days:

“…the earth shall yield its fruit ten thousand fold, each vine shall have a thousand branches, each branch a thousand clusters, each cluster a thousand grapes, and each grape 120 gallons of wine.” (2 Baruch 29:5).

The old things were passing away – the water for the Jewish purification rites was being replaced by great quantities of messianic wine.  The changing of water into wine at the wedding of Cana isn’t about Jesus and his friends and family drinking a great quantity of wine, but a mark of, a pointer towards the eschatological, end of things marriage of God and his people.  “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19: 9 NRSV).

And we are invited to share in that feast. We are invited to share in that celebration. We are invited to share in the joy of that messianic wine (even us tee-totaling Salvationists.) We are invited to share in the joy of being with God through his son Jesus. The new age is here, the time of the Messiah is now, the new wine of salvation and joy is ours.

“Do you fear Him. He is terrible in his greatness, awful in His sublimity, but infinitely merciful. He has made Himself like unto us from love and rejoices with us. He is changing water into wine that the gladness of the guests may not be cut short. He is expecting new guests, He is calling new ones unceasingly for ever and ever….There they are bringing new wine.” (Dostoevsky 337)

(Let's have some wine!)




Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel According to John (i - xii): Introduction, Translation, and Notes. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc. 1966.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. (translated by Constance Garnett). New York, NY: Barnes & Nobel, Inc. 1995.

Gossip Arthur John. “Exposition” The Interpreter’s Bible:  Vol. 8 The Gospel According to John. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 1952.

Le Donne, Anthony. Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co. 2011.

Patai, Raphael. Sex and the Family in the Bible and the Middle East. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company Inc. 1959.

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[i] However… Jesus’ teaching about the new wine in old wine skins, in the context of a wedding, near the beginning of his ministry in Mark 2: 19 – 22 may be an echo of John’s story (Brown 105).

[ii] This interpretation isn’t limited to only members of The Salvation Army, and is not held by all members of The Salvation Army.