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 Parables of Jesus – Old Treasures and New (Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52)

    We’ve probably all heard the definition of a parable – that it’s “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” And it’s true enough. It’s a definition that works – mostly. Sorta’. But it’s thin. It’s an incomplete description of the form of teaching that Jesus used. The stories that he told, the parables of Jesus have endured. They’ve been told and retold. Adapted and readapted. Interpreted and reinterpreted for two thousand, some odd years now. These parables have power and resist the simple simplification.

    Jesus was deliberate in this. When the disciples asked him why he taught them with parables, he told them, “Because to you is granted to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not granted. Anyone who has will be given more and will have more than enough; but anyone who has not will deprived even what he has. The reason I talk to them in parables is that they look without seeing, and listen without hearing or understanding. So in their case what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah is being fulfilled:

    Listen and listen, but never understand!
    Look and look, but never perceive!
    This people’s heart has grown coarse,
    their ears dulled, they have shut their eyes tight
    to avoid using their eyes to see, their ears to hear,
    their heart to understand,
    changing their ways and being healed by me.” 
    (Matthew 13:11-17 – New Jerusalem Bible)

    Last week our guest told us about the parable of the darnel, or the weeds. And she did a great job. Several of you told me how much you appreciated it. But she had it easy. She had one parable to talk about – and Jesus explained it for her. In our passage for today we’ve got what, six? Six parables to treat, and Jesus doesn’t really explain them – and the one he does explain, only gets more difficult with the explanation. So we’re going to have to be brisk as we move through these parables today.

    Mustard Seed (Matthew 13:31-32)

    Here Jesus exaggerates in two directions. 1) The mustard seed is not the smallest seed. It is small, yes, but there are technically smaller seeds and 2) the mustard plant, while it does grow tall – as much as ten feet tall, it’s not really the largest and birds don’t really nest in it. The story is an exaggeration to make us laugh. It’s an impossible fiction to teach us about the truly possible kingdom.

    I’ve know people who insist that the parables of Jesus are true. Absolutely true, not just figuratively true, that there was a specific, literal landowner whose enemy sowed his field with poisonous weeds, that there was a literal, historical prodigal son who wasted his portion of his father’s estate. They insist that the parables are not just stories. It’s all true because, if it’s not true historically how can it be true prophetically? They insist that there is no untruth in the Bible, that you can’t express truth with untruth. But these folks have radically misunderstood the genre of parable.

    These stories, yes. But not just stories. They are fictions, but they are not mere fictions; they are true. And the mustard seed isn’t the smallest and birds don’t nest in its branches – but the Kingdom of Heaven is like this – the smallest of seeds grows up and out, quickly sprouts, and transforms the world, bringing beauty, and color, and safety, and shelter. This is the Kingdom of Heaven.

    Yeast (Matthew 13:33)

    The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast that a woman mixes with two measures of flour till it is all risen. Some of you are bakers. You understand this picture. It doesn’t take much yeast to do the work.

    Now Jesus used yeast as an illustration a number of times – usually in a negative manner. “Beware the yeast of the Pharisees,” he told his disciples (Matt. 16 / Luke 12) But the yeast here is a blessing. It is the hidden, the small, spreading influence. It doesn’t take much.

    Treasure Field (Matthew 13:44)

    How did the treasure come to be in the field? Who did it belong to? We don’t have that information, but in another telling of this story, the hero would be a something of a villain, a cheat, a fraud, thief. His questionable actions to acquire the field with hidden treasure is more than a little shady.

    But the Kingdom of Heaven is here, nevertheless, hidden in a story about a treasure field. Someone finds it and is thrilled. Overjoyed at the discovery. Here is something that will radically change his life. Nothing will be the same after the discovery. He hides it again, goes back home, and with great joy, sells everything he owns so that he can possess this treasure field. The discovery changes everything.

    The Fine Pearl (Matthew 13:45)

    Here’s a similar story. We have a pearl merchant looking for fine pearls. In the previous story the discovery was accidental – the hero stumbled upon the hidden treasure. Here the search is deliberate. Purposeful. The merchant is crossing the globe, looking for fine pearls. He goes to the Persian Gulf. He goes to India, looking for the finest pearls. And when, at long last, he finds that one exquisite pearl, the pearl of great price, he sells all. He liquidates his holdings in order to purchase it. He sells everything to posses this one rare and beautiful thing.

    The Dragnet (Matthew 13:47-50)

    Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet thrown into the sea and hauled ashore – an image that his disciples would have appreciated. And when the net is brought out of the water, it is filled with all kinds of fish: Tilapia, Sardines, Saint Peter’s Fish, Eels, Catfish… And the fisherfolk begin sorting them, putting the good ones into baskets and throwing away the ones that are of no use.

    The fisherfolk sort them by the dietary laws laid out for them in Leviticus. Fish with scales and fins are acceptable to eat. Fish without scales and fins are not.

    Now one possible, simple explanation of the parable – one that might have occurred to his original audience is that this division is made along ethnic lines, separating Jews from Gentiles. Dividing them clean and unclean. The Jews at the clean thing – the Tilapia, the Sardine, the Saint Peter’s Fish - while the Gentiles ate the unclean – the Eel and the Catfish. But the fisherfolk in Jesus’ story are not sorting them clean and unclean but rather useful and not useful. Maybe that’s a distinction without a difference, but I think it works.

    And Jesus offers a bit of explanation – though the explanation introduces more questions. He says – this is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will appear and separate the wicked from the righteous. And the wicked will be thrown into a blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

    “Are you getting all this?” Jesus asked them. “Do you understand? Have you understood all of these?”

    And they said, “Yes.” But I wonder…

    Storeroom Treasures (Matthew 13:51-52)

    One more. Jesus tells them of a scribe who becomes a disciple of the Kingdom of Heaven. We are accustomed to thinking of the scribes and Pharisees as the bad guys, as antagonists of the gospel. But there we have a scribe who is an admirable disciple of the Kingdom of Heaven. A student. A scholar devoted to the teachings of heaven. And this scribal disciple is like a householder who goes into the storeroom or the pantry and brings out new and old treasures to enjoy. The old isn’t thrown out for the new. The two are brought out and shared and enjoyed.

    Are you getting all this? Do you understand? Have you understood all these?

    And this is where you say, “Yes…”

    So blessed are your eyes, because they see. Blessed are your ears because they hear. Many prophets and upright people longed to see and never saw, waited to hear, but never heard. (Matthew 13:16-17). Blessed are you for seeing and hearing and understanding.

    Or maybe you don’t understand. It’s okay. I get it – because I don’t get it. These stories are strange and beautiful and weird. They are not simple. But it’s okay. These parables have endured for two thousand, some odd years now. They’ll go on with or without us. Maybe you need to go home and struggle with one of them for a while. It’s okay. The story is there for you to puzzle over.

    Take the stories with you. Let the little seed sprout. Let the yeast rise. Look for treasure. Change everything. Be filled with joy. Spread color, and beauty, and shelter. Bring out the old treasures along with the new. This is the Kingdom of Heaven.

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

Crickets, Fireworks, and Christian Perfection - An Ascension Day Sermon

    Tiff and I weren’t here last week – some of you noticed. Joyce sent us a copy of the bulletin to make sure that we knew we were missed. Thank you, Joyce. I was doing what I’m doing today, filling in for an absent pastor, across town. But here I am today and here you are. So as we celebrate Mother’s Day

    Well, you didn’t hear it last week. I thought I could get away with reusing the same sermon.

    Actually, today is Ascension Sunday. One of my favorites in the church calendar – though it doesn’t get the pomp and splendor of Easter, or the emotional saturation of Christmas. It doesn’t get page after page of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs like the other High Holy Days. In fact, if you check the index in the back of The United Methodist Hymnal, under the Christian Year heading, there are only six listings – and two of those are All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, under two different melodies.

    In some denominations the clergy may switch to white or gold vestments. Whoa… way to really party it up… I recently learned that in Florence, Italy they celebrate the Festa del Grillo - the Cricket Festival - on Ascension Day. Crickets are sold in tiny little cages and then the children release them into the streets. Loki – who wants to be an entomologist – will appreciate that one. And in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, people often hike up into the mountains on Ascension Day – like the disciples following Jesus up the Mount of Olives to witness his ascension.

    But I think we need something like fireworks for Ascension Day. Shooting up into the sky in a blaze of brilliant glory, cascading colors, the sky ablaze with sparkles and spangles. It’s a joyful, brilliant day to be celebrated with song and explosion. Loud songs and small explosions…

    For forty days he continued to show himself alive to his disciples after his Passion – that is to say, after his pain. For passion is pain. And pain is death. He showed himself to them after his death. For forty days he showed signs, and wonders, he showed them many demonstrations, evidences, and proofs. He spoke to them of many things: of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax, of cabbages, and of carpenter kings. He spoke to them of the coming the Kingdom and of God¹.

    “And don’t leave Jerusalem,” he told them while he was sitting down to eat with them, “until you receive what was promised.” They were sitting around eating and drinking, sharing a communion of fellowship with the risen Lord. I like to think that his favorite post resurrection meal was broiled fish and honeycomb.²Those privileged to share that meal with him would remember it always. “John baptized with water,” he reminded them. But not too many days from now you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit – and this is a baptism by fire - and this is where the sprinkling versus full immersion debate gets interesting…

    And the disciples asked him, “Lord, has the time come for you to restore the Kingdom to Israel?” They were thinking perhaps of the Maccabean glories, and Solomonic marvels, and Davidic victories of the past. “Are you going to, in this hour, make Israel great again?”

    But Jesus said “No,” or rather, “It’s not really for you to know.” He commissioned them instead to be his witnesses in ever-expanding circles – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria – and to the remotest parts of the earth. And the commission is given with another promise of the Holy Spirit.

    Meanwhile the disciples were still trying to figure out when the Kingdom would be restored even as Jesus was lifted up from the ground. A glorious sight - he rises up and up and up through endless ranks of invisible angels, until he is disappeared in a cloud. Up through obscuring clouds. Gone. Vanished. Disappeared from their eyes. Two men in white step into view and announce that this same Jesus will come back in the same way he went.

    And here we are - celebrating the ascension of the risen Lord. Let’s sing another hymn and where are the fireworks and the crickets? Today is a day to celebrate.

    The risen and ascended Christ is the promise of something extraordinary and it rarely gets discussed – at least on this side of the Eastern Orthodox / Roman Catholic / Protestant divide. It is the promise of theosis or divinization or even deification– to use some of those heavyweight theological words.

    And this might sound a bit alarming – as if the substitute pastor were saying that we all get to be God, or little g gods. But he’s not. You don’t have to send Pastor Mark a concerned email.

    The word Theosis is a two-part Greek word: theo being God and the suffix -osis which means a process. Think of a white cloth being saturated with red dye by the process of osmosis. In the same way we are filled and saturated with the presence of God by theosis.³ Theosis is the end goal of our salvation. It is what we were created for. It is what we are redeemed for.

    We were created in the image and likeness of God – and this isn’t just our physical, fleshy bodies. We were created to be good, as all of creation was called good. Very good.

    Since we’re good Methodists here, lets quote John Wesley:

“In the image of God was man made, holy as he that created him is holy, merciful as the author of all is merciful, perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect. As God is love, so man dwelling in love dwelt in God, and God in him. God made him to be ‘an image of his own eternity’ an incorruptible picture of the God of glory. He was accordingly pure, as God is pure. … He ‘loved the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his mind, and soul, and strength.’ … Such then was the state of man in paradise. By the free, unmerited love of God he was holy and happy, he knew, loved, enjoyed God, which is (in substance) life everlasting. And in this life of love he was to continue forever if he continued to obey God in all things.”⁴

    But sin broke that goodness and death destroyed that life. We were enslaved by fear and lust and shame and wrath and hate. Christ came to restore what had been destroyed, to return what we’d traded away, to revive what was dead.

    The second century Bishop, Irenaeus of Lyons wrote, “The only true and steadfast Teacher, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, through his transcendent love, became what we are, that he might bring us to be what he is himself”⁵

    Saint Augustine of Hippo said: “We carry mortality about with us, we endure infirmity, we look forward to divinity. For God wishes not only to vivify, but also to deify us.”⁶

    In the second letter of Peter we read: By his divine power he has lavished on us all the things we need for life and true devotion, through the knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these, the greatest and priceless promises have been lavished on us, that through them we should share the divine nature and escape the corruption rife in the world through disordered passion.”⁷

    Paul said it over and over again in his letters: If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation… For me to live is Christ… It is no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me… Christ in you, the hope of glory… And we all, with unveiled faces like mirrors reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the image that we reflect in brighter and brighter glory.⁸

    Ascension Sunday is not some weird appendix to Easter. Ascension Day is not an afterthought. The Ascension is not just Jesus going away with a promise to return. It is Jesus enthroning a redeemed and restored humanity in the presence of God the Father through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

    This is the entire sanctification, the Christian perfection that John Wesley described. That we are so filled with the love of God and a love for God that “no wrong temper, none contrary to love, remains in the soul; and that all the thoughts, words, and actions are governed by pure love.”⁹

    The disciples, having watched the risen Lord, rising into the sky, went back to Jerusalem worshiping and full of joy, continually praising God.¹⁰ When we leave from this chapel, we should go out into the world like bottle rockets, shooting up into the sky in a blaze of brilliant glory, cascading colors, the sky ablaze with sparkles and spangles of holy joy. We go out, transformed in brighter and brighter glory. We should explode in love for each other, for our neighbors, for our enemies, for the world. We should be brilliant bursting bodies of love for God.

1Lewis Carrol - The Walrus and the Carpenter

2Luke 24: 42 (not all of the early manuscripts include the honeycomb. It’s probably rightfully omitted from our translations, but I still like it.)

3Frederica Mathews-Green, Welcome to the Orthodox Church, Paraclete Press, pg. 68

4John Wesley - Sermon 5, “Justification by Faith,” I.1.4, Works, 1:184-85.

5Against Heresies, Book 5,

6Sermo 23B

72 Peter 1:4

82 Corinthians 5:17, Philippians 1:21, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 1:27, 2 Corinthians 3:18

9Thoughts on Christian Perfection (1760), Q. 1, Works, 13:57.

10Luke 24: 52-53

How Shall I Rise in Brightness? A Christmas Sermon

     At long last and with great joy, we say, Merry Christmas! Joy to the world, the Lord is come and we celebrate and rejoice. After the long and cold weeks of waiting through the season of Advent, where we focused on the small but potent image of the seeds of promise – the seeds of Hope, and Peace, and Joy and Love – we’ve come to the season of Christmas.

He is born the holy child
Play the oboe and the bagpipes merrily!
He is born the holy child
Sing we all of the Savior mild.
    (French 18^th century)

    With lights and songs, with gifts and feasting, with laughter and family, we’ve come together, in our own homes and in our own ways, to celebrate the joy and wonder of this day, to celebrate the gift of God, redemption and salvation from heaven. The word became flesh and lived among us. And we have seen his glory – the light that shines into every darkness. Praise God and celebrate, amen!

    I want to say more about the festivities and the celebration. I want us to linger in the light and laughter, and love of this day but we cannot. I’m sorry. Our scripture reading for this morning sends us wham and whiplash into terror and screaming and slaughter. We are dragged from delight into danger. We are dragged from the light back into the darkness.

    After the departure of the magi, who’d come to give homage to infant prophesied to be the King of the Jews, King Herod realized that he had been fooled. The wise men did not return to him to tell him what they had found and where. And he furious, full of wrath. He sent his soldiers to kill all the youngling boys in Bethlehem.

    In some Byzantine liturgies, we are told that Herod’s soldiers slaughtered some 14,000 of Israel’s sons. In a Syrian text the number is 64,000. In some medieval texts the number is expanded to 144,000 to match those martyrs of Israel described in the book of Revelation, sealed and preserved by God. But these are unnecessary embellishments. Bethlehem in the first century was little more than a hamlet, a few miles south of Jerusalem. The number of slaughtered innocents could scarcely have been more than 20 at most. (Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, 204) But even twenty is an incalculable tragedy. One slaughtered innocent is too many to endure.

    Saint Augustine called these murdered children “the Church’s first blossoms, matured by the frost of persecution during the cold winter of unbelief.”

    We have no historical evidence of this cruelty. Josephus, the Jewish historian of those times, doesn’t mention it. There is no other contemporary account of the slaughter outside of the book of Matthew. But it certainly fits within what we know from other historical records of King Herod’s character. He was a murderous and vengeful king, who was fearful and paranoid and willing to have even members of his own family killed in order to keep his grasp on the throne of Israel. He ordered the deaths of chief priests and scribes and members of the Sanhedrin, as well as his own brother, his own sister and her husband, three of his sons, and his beloved wife Mariam. And years later, when he was ill and knew that he was about to die he ordered that several prominent Jewish leaders be rounded up and executed at the moment of his death, so that the people of Jerusalem would have reason to mourn his passing.

    It’s a story that leaves us uncomfortable – and it should. There’s no historical record of the slaughter of the boys in and around Bethlehem. And we certainly don’t sing about it. Not often anyway. We have hundreds – even thousands of Christmas carols, songs, and hymns but how many of them are about this part of the Christmas story? The Coventry Carol is somewhat familiar

    Herod the King, in his raging,
    Charged he hath this day,
    his men of might
    in his own sight
    all young children to slay.

    Then woe is me, poor child for thee
    and ever mourn and say
    for thy parting
    neither say nor sing
    by, by, lully, lullay.
        (English 16^th century)

    But that might be the only one that most people know. After a bit of digging around I found a Catalan carol entitled El Rei Herodes.

    One day Joseph resting, the Child by his side
    heard shouting and tumult that evil betide;
    The wicked King Herod has made a decree
    for soldiers to kill ev’ry infant they see.
        (Catalan Traditional)

    There are a few others, but not many – and none that are a part of our usual Christmas festivities. We are reluctant to sing of this cruelty. We rarely bring it to mind. We sing of the angels, and the shepherds, and the star, and the magi. We sing of Joseph and Mary. We sing of wassail and figgy pudding. We sing of holly and ivy. We sing about partridges and pear trees and the whole assorted list. But the slaughter of innocent children by a mad bastard of a king – no. We rarely sing of that.

    The Slaughter of the Innocents

    When the solders came with sharpened swords
    obeying orders from a paranoid and murderous king
    the holy family fled across the sands to a pagan land.
    Mothers screamed into the silent starry night
    as their tiny infants bled out and died.
    Rachel weeping for her children would not be comforted.

    When heavy booted soldiers come again with rifles and grenades
    obeying orders as patriotic soldiers always do,
    when refugees flee across barb-wire borders
    when innocents are crushed beneath the rubble
    when mothers scream into satellite skies
    how will they be comforted?

    Matthew connects the story of Herod’s slaughter with a text from the prophet Jeremiah

    “A voice was heard in Rama,
    weeping and much grieving.
    Rachel weeping for her children,
    and she did not want to be comforted
    because they were no more.”

    How dare we sing of Santa in the face of that grief? How dare we sing of flying reindeer, and magic snowmen and all the other innocuous traditions of the holiday when Mother Rachel is crying out for her dead children?

    And she is still crying even today. Still refusing to be comforted for her dead children. Her weeping has not been stilled; her grief has not be silenced. She is weeping in the face of war in the Ukraine. She is screaming against the genocide in Gaza. She is keening in Cambodia and Thailand after another explosion. She is shrieking after every mass shooting in the United States. In the gospel story, Mary and Joseph take the infant Jesus and flee into the safety of Egypt. The immigrant family, refugees from horror and death. But immigrants and refugees still face that horror here and now.

    How shall I rise in brightness while Mother Rachel weeps?

    There is no magic escape here. There is no hallmark happy ending. The children are slaughtered. Mary, Joseph and Jesus flee into the night, barely escaping the violence themselves. They traverse across desert terrain to the relative safety of a foreign land until they hear that Herod the King has finally died himself.

    But take comfort there. Tyrants die. Their power is not forever. Their empires crumble. Their thrones are pulled down in disgrace.

    And we sing the songs of despair. Lament is not faithlessness. Lament is resistance to tyranny. We refuse to normalize the slaughter. We refuse to accept the violence. We refuse to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to Mother Rachel still weeping today in every land, across every border.

    This mystery of glory
    that joy and pain come mixed
    is like frankincense perfume,
    a bittersweet fragrance.
    O Lord of light and glory
    bright shining star of dawn
    the myrrh that anoints in death
    gives way to heaven’s gold.

    Jesus, the word of God become flesh and living among us, inhabits the lowly plains of this dark world with us. God with us. God with the mothers of Ukraine. God with the mothers in Gaza and Thailand and Cambodia and in a hundred other places. God inhabits our tragedy with us. God is here, the light that shines into every darkness.

    We will sing another couple of hymns this morning. We will pray our prayers and go back to our lives. Back to our homes. And we will go back to the joy and celebration of Christmas. And we should. This is indeed a time to celebrate and merry – even if that delight is mixed with pain and grief. Sing the songs of joy. Sing the songs of woe. God hears them all.

    How Shall I Rise in Brightness

    How shall I rise in brightness
    while mother Rachel weeps?
    And how accept the gifts
    of magi from the east?
    O Lord of light and glory,
    bright shining star of dawn,
    bring light to those in darkness,
    bring light to all our hearts.

    This mystery of glory
    that joy and pain come mixed
    is like frankincense perfume,
    a bittersweet fragrance.
    O Lord of light and glory
    bright shining star of dawn
    the myrrh that anoints in death
    gives way to heaven’s gold.

Dislocated in Time and Space - A Transfiguration Event

 

Transfiguration Sunday comes early this year. It seems that we’ve only just wrapped up the Christmas festivities and put away the trees and lights and decorations and already we’re at the Transfiguration.  In a few days, on Wednesday, we’ll exchange beauty for ashes; we’ll trade the joy of Christmas for the mourning of lent (to invert Isaiah 61:3).  We’ll put away our hallelujahs and begin the long trek toward the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of our Lord.

But that’s the way of things in this life. Life turns quickly. Yesterday the children were born, today they’re grown, tomorrow they’ll have children of their own. Our lives move from one moment to the next in a continual blur. It all happens so fast, everything changes. It’s here and it’s gone, every moment fleeting.

In our gospel reading for today we find Jesus along with his friends, Peter, James and John atop a very high mountain experiencing one of those fleeing moments – a literal mountain top experience that is over all too soon. The glory of the theophany fades and Jesus and his disciples return to the plains below.

But for that one glorious moment, they were overwhelmed by a theophany, an appearance of God. God, who is a separate reality distinct from and unlimited by the word, sometimes embraces the self-limitations of a specific time and a particular form in order to appear to us in this world. God appears as a thunderstorm, with thunder and hail, lightning and torrents of rain. Or God appears as an infinitely burning bush. And there atop the mountain in the glory of God’s appearance, Jesus was transfigured, transformed, changed.

It is a strange experience, dislocated in both space and time. Heaven and earth meet, the past and the future overlap in a moment of transcending present. Time and space are warped, blending forward and backward. And the mountain is the place for this kind of experience. The mountain is the place where one can meet with God, the place where one can leave the world of the natural and the mundane and to ascend into very heavens. Around the world, in nearly every culture, from Israel to Greece, from India to China, from Japan to the Americas, the mountain is a place where the reality of our world touches the divine realms. There is a mystery there – a sense of awe, surrounded by banks of clouds with an expansive view, unlimited vision of both the clouds of heaven and the horizons of earth. The God of the bible is sometimes named El-Shaddai which may mean the God of the mountain. He meets with Moses on the mountain. He meets with Elijah on the mountain. And this is not without relevance to our story today.

The mountain is unnamed in our gospel account; Mark describes it only as a “very high mountain.” Some have suggested that it was Mount Hermon, or perhaps Mount Tabor, but neither of these are especially high mountains. Others suggest that Mark is thinking of the same mountain of the north that apocalyptic authors, like the author of 1 Enoch, described as the place where there would be a manifestation of the divine in the last days. This is a place of mysterium tremendum – a place of strange harmony between fear and awe, a place of both fascination and great danger. A place of wonder and of terrible power.

Jesus was transformed there in front of them on top of that mountain. Elijah and Moses appeared with him and a cloud of glory overshadowed them all. And from that cloud a voice from heaven spoke saying, “This is my son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!”

Here on the mountain with Jesus we are dislocated in both time and space. The same voice that spoke to Jesus at this baptism, speaks again to say, “This is my son, the beloved.” Moses and Elijah, prophets from the past are there to speak with Jesus about his soon coming death. Time and space blend back and forward. The Greek language has two words for time, chronos and kairos.  Chronos refers to chronological or sequential time, the tick, tick, tick, of the clock hands one moment following after another.  Kairos signifies a time between, moments of indeterminate time in which something special happens. Chronos is quantitative and measurable.   Kairos is qualitative and cannot be measured or marked or preserved.  It can only be experienced.

“Jesus took John and James and Peter up the mountain in ordinary, daily chronos; during the glory of the Transfiguration they were dwelling in Kairos” (L’Engle, 93)

Indeed – the transfiguration event has sometimes been interpreted by theologians as a misplaced story of the resurrection. The description of Jesus’ transfiguration shares some similarity with the resurrection and it is thought by some scholars that the events of the resurrection were moved backward in the story so as to help make sense of the inexplicable resurrection event. Jesus had just before this event, told his disciples that he would suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he would be, that he must  be killed – but that after three days he would rise again. He spoke to them plainly about this, but they didn’t understand. (Mark 8: 31 – 32). The passion prediction – not understood in the moment is finally comprehended when seen through the eyes of the resurrection. We didn’t, we don’t understand how death can be glory – not until after the resurrection. I’m not convinced that this is the case – that the transfiguration story is a resurrection account transplaced in time - but it is true that the mystery of the transfiguration event expects the resurrection, and the resurrection explains the mystery of the transfiguration.

Peter’s desire to memorialize the moment is understandable. Time is fleeting. Everything fades. The voice speaks and then is silent. The cloud of glory envelops them and then is gone. The moment on the mountain fades and Jesus and his friends return to the plains below.

'Tis good, Lord, to be here!
Your glory fills the night;
Your face and garments, like the sun,
Shine with unborrowed light.

Fulfiller of the past!
Promise of things to be!
We hail your body glorified,
And our redemption see.

 

Before we taste of death,
We see your kingdom come;
We long to hold the vision bright,
And make this hill our home.

‘Tis Good, Lord, To Be Here - J. Armitage Robinson

Wednesday is the beginning of the Lenten season – a time of preparation. We only just recently celebrated the birth of Lord and Savior and already we are getting ourselves ready to consider his gruesome death and glorious resurrection. But here on the mountain, in this transfiguration event, we see and hear and experience the fulfillment of that preparation. In the words of Robinson’s hymn, “We hail his body glorified, and our redemption see.”

And with Peter we might say, “Rabbi, Teacher, Master, it is good that we are here.” But Peter didn’t really understand what was happening and he definitely didn’t know what he was saying. He was so afraid. He was sore afraid (to steal from Luke’s phraseology.) On the mountain, surrounded by the cloud of glory, with the prediction of pain and suffering and death blotted out by the awe and wonder of the moment, Peter says, “let’s build three shrines here. One for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for Jesus.” But he didn’t know what he was saying. He was afraid.

But time moves on, and as suddenly as it began, it was all over. Time is fleeting, every moment bleeding into the next. The vision fades, the cloud evaporates and the transfiguration is over.  Jesus and his friends come back down from the mountain and he tells them to keep quiet about it all – until after the Human one, the Son of God, had risen from the dead.  “History cannot be stopped, and we must grasp it significance. The light of the resurrection enables us to see it with hope. The death of Jesus is not the victory of darkness, which is already overcome” (Gutierrez, 51).

Lent is the time of preparation. We’ve had the glory and joy on the mountain, but now we’ll go back down to the plain and begin the long, hard road towards death and suffering and to the wonder and mystery of the resurrection. We may not understand, but we will take that journey.

 

 

Gutierrez, Gustavo. Sharing the Word through the Liturgical Year. Orbis Book, Mary Knoll, NY. 1997.  

L’Engle Madeline. Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, North Point Press, New York, NY, 1980.

Robinson, J. Armitage. ‘Tis Good, Lord, To Be Here. 1890.

 

 

 

No Eschatological Expectations for the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25: 1 – 13)

    The End Is Near.

    That’s an exciting way to begin a sermon. I use it somewhat tongue in check, not to indicate the imminence of Jesus’ return or the end of the world – though with the gospel reading for today, it would be understandable if you leapt to that conclusion. But the end is near – the end of the liturgical year. We are coming to the end of the church’s calendar and we will soon, with the beginning of the Advent season, begin a new year. But now, in these last few weeks before advent, the lectionary readings take a turn toward the eschatological – things related to death, judgement and the end.

    I grew up in an Evangelical church, and for many evangelical Christians in America there is a peculiar fascination with all things eschatological. I grew up with those heightened apocalyptic expectations. I vividly recall being at the church building with my parents and not knowing where they were and being scared that I had missed the rapture – at least until I heard their voices again. I still remember dreams that I had as a young boy of volcanoes and blood falling from the sky, dreams that could rival the visions of John recorded in the book of Revelation.

    As a young minister, I spent a lot of time studying the prophetic and apocalyptic books of the bible, reading commentaries on, watching documentaries on the various interpretations, and going conferences on the topic. I even spoke at a couple of conferences dealing the study of eschatology. I was fascinated with the subject. 

    But these days I’m less interested in apocalyptic speculation. Less interested, but not disinterested., I still am. The novels that I’ve written, especially my first, have a decided influence from the apocalyptic genre. My interest has waned but not disappeared completely. Meanwhile, the Christian community these days, at least in America, is fired up on the topic again. It seems to flare up with regularity every time there is renewed conflict in the Middle East. I see many of my friends on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) posting memes and messages about the soon expected coming of Jesus. When I listen to Christian radio, I hear them talking about the thrill of “living in these last days…” And, honesty, I find a lot of what they are saying and posting to be a little disturbing. I’m not sure I trust people whose religious faith is excited by the imminent expectation of the end of the world.

    So I come to this parable of Jesus with mixed feelings. I like the topic and still find it fascinating. But I also find it wearisome.  Tiring and thrilling at the same time.  I’m difficult. I know.

    “The Kingdom of Heaven will be like this: Ten wedding attendants took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom and the bride.” This is how Jesus’ parable recorded in Matthew 25: 1 – 13 begins. And already we have some difficulties to examine. The first thing we should note is that most English translations stop with “the bridegroom.” A few include a footnote to indicate that “other ancient authorities add and the bride.” The bride is missing from some manuscripts, “probably because the ‘bridegroom’ was understood as an allegorical reference to Christ, and the copyist could see no way of fitting the bride into the allegory (Johnson 556).”

    First – this is a parable and not an allegory. Allegories need a specific referent. The novel Animal Farm by George Orwell is an allegory about the Russian Revolution of 1917. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory of the spiritual life from baptism through trials to heaven. Allegories need a specific referent. Parables do not. Parables don’t need a point by point comparison, this equals that, in order to be understood. They are simple stories that point beyond themselves to greater truths.

    But the Church got stuck reading this particular parable as an allegory of Jesus as the Bridegroom and the sudden appearance of the bridegroom at midnight as the Parousia - the expected second coming of Christ, and eventually ‘the bride’ dropped out of the parable. For how could Jesus, the bridegroom, come with his bride, the church, at his second coming?

    The allegorical interpretation was fleshed out, point by point, to make the foolish Virgins, or maidens a reference to Israel and the wise Virgins, or maidens to Gentile believers – further exacerbating the tensions between Jews and Christians over the years. (Jeremias 51 - 53) Interpreted thusly, the parable is used to encourage believers to not fall asleep – like the Jews, or other non-believers, so that we can be ready when Christ appears to receive his bride at the rapture or the second coming. (Never mind the fact that the story clearly says that all ten of the waiting virgins, both the foolish and the wise) fell asleep as they waited…)

    Maybe the confusion is to be expected. After all Jesus said that he taught the people with parables so that they would not understand. His disciples asked why he taught the people using parables and Jesus said, “The reason I talk to them in parables sis that they look without seeing and listen with hearing or understanding. So in their case what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah is being fulfilled: Listen and listen, but never understand! Look and look, but never perceive! This people’s heart has grown coarse, their ears dulled, they have shut their eyes tight to avoid using their eyes to see, their ears to hear, their heart to understand…” Matthew 13: 10 - 15

    But all of this is going astray. If we keep in mind that it’s a parable – and not an allegory – and that in the story the bridegroom is coming with his bride we can read it as an occasion of joy and festivities with shouts of rejoicing and mirth and the voices of the bridegroom and the bride proceeding through the city. (Jeremiah 7:34). It is an elaborate procession with the bridegroom and bride decked out as the King and Queen, carried on a palanquin of wood from Lebanon, with posts of silver and a canopy of gold. They are surrounded by their friends and families dressed as champions and swordsmen (Song of Solomon 3: 7-11)

    Ten wedding attendants went out to wait for the procession, but the wedding party was delayed and the attendants fell asleep. But at midnight, the cry went up. “Look! The bridegroom! Go and meet him!”

    The attendants snapped awake and readied themselves to go join the festivities. But five of them had come unprepared, with no extra oil. Their smoking, sputtering, smoldering wicks would not light. “Share some of your oil with us,” the foolish ones said to the others who’d wisely brought extra oil. But they replied, “There might not be enough for all of us. Run quickly to the oil merchant (the oil merchant is open at midnight?!) and buy some.

    And while they were off buying more oil, the wedding party arrived and everyone went into the house for the feast. When the foolish attendants returned, with their lamps burning brightly now, they begged for the door to be opened so that they could join the party. But the bridegroom said to them. “I don’t know you,” and the door stayed closed.

    There’s no need for fearful apocalyptic, eschatological expectations here. And definitely no need to slur and vilify people of the Jewish faith. The Kingdom of God is like this: those who are ready and prepared will enter and be welcomed to the party. Those who are not ready and prepared will remain unknown and outside the door.

    Some might have difficulty with the seeming finality of that that “I do not know you.” But another teaching of Jesus recorded in the gospel of Matthew ends the same way. In chapter 7 Jesus told his disciples, “It is not anyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven. When the day comes many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name, drive out demons in your name, work many miracles in your name?’ Then I shall tell them to their faces: I have never known you.” (Matthew 7: 21 – 23)

    Many who think they belong, who are prophesying in his name, who are driving out demons, who are preaching sermons, who are waiting for the coming of Christ will find that they have missed the boat because they haven't been doing the will of the father. 

    A few days ago – November 7^th- would have been the birthday of the French existentialist philosopher, journalist, and author, Albert Camus. In a quote that is attributed to him (but for which I cannot find the source) he said, “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”  We won’t know the kingdom of God if we’re sitting around waiting for the kingdom of God. To know (and be known in) the kingdom of God is to hear the message of Christ and act on it. Do the will of God. Do the work of the Kingdom. Feed the hungry. Give drink to the thirsty. Welcome the stranger. Clothe the naked. Visit the sick and the imprisoned. (Matthew 25: 31 – 46)

    The Kingdom of Heaven is like this: Some of those who are waiting to see it will miss it because they are not ready to see it. Listening and listening, they will not hear it. Looking and looking they will not see it. And when the cry goes up, they won’t get in the door because they haven’t understood. So watch and be ready. Do the will of the father.

 

 

 

 

Jeremias, Joachim. The Parables of Jesus. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1972. Print.

Johnson, Sherman E. “The Gospel According to St. Matthew: Exegesis.” The Interpreter’s Bible Volume VII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 1951. Print.

 

 

 

Love Leads to Truth

Last Sunday the pastor at the United Methodist church I attend (Pastor Chad) was out of town for the UMC annual conference. He asked me to fill in for him.  I did - but I forgot to post a copy of the sermon here on the old blog.

Love Leads to Truth

As the co-director of the Newton Community Theatre’s production of Arthur Miller’s play – The Crucible – I have spent the last several weeks, the last couple of months thinking about the Puritans and the Salem witch trials of 1692.  I have also been thinking about the events that inspired Miller to write the play – the red scare, the communist menace, the House Un-American Activities Committee and the outrageous accusations of Senator Joseph McCarthy.  I’ve been thinking about truth and lies – but since we closed last weekend, you’ve missed your chance to see our production of the play, and I’m glad to be done – mostly done thinking about these things.

But before I move on altogether…

“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, and the Roman prefect’s question has been alternately described through the centuries as either the sincere question of an earnest seeker of wisdom or (more frequently) as the smug, cynical question of a weary skeptic who has grown tired of competing truth claims.  But the question remains: What is truth?

What is truth and how can we know it? In an age of fact checkers and snopes.com, what is truth?  In a time when our president has made over 10,000 false or misleading statements in his time in office – so far [i]– what is truth and how can we know it? Facts are ignored. Lies are spread.  And the witticism that has been attributed to at least a dozen different individuals seems true – “A lie will go around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.”

Before leaving his disciples, Jesus said to them, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. I will ask the father, and he will send another companion who will be with your forever. This companion is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world can’t receive because it neither sees him nor recognizes him. You know him because he lives with you and will be with you.” John 14:15 – 17

So we, as followers of Jesus, have this Spirit of Truth to live in us and to be with us forever and yet Christians often seem as blind to the truth as the rest of the world who neither sees nor recognizes that spirit.  In the history of the Church we have multiplied examples of Christians both telling and believing lies and falsehoods of all kinds. Even with the Spirit that will guide us in all truth (John 16:13), the Spirit who is truth (1 John 5:6), we seem as susceptible and prone to untruth as anyone else.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” So how can we recognize and agree upon the truth as Christians, as Methodists, as members of St. Luke UMC?

Lately I’ve been wondering if the commandment “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor,” (Exodus 20: 16) might mean something more than simply, “don’t tell lies.” I recognize of course that the 9^th commandment is specifically about false testimony in a legal setting (Freedman 139) but what if we thought of bearing false witness as that carrying around of lies and falsehoods? What it we thought of it as including those untruths that we are unwilling to release?

It can be difficult to let go of those untruths – particularly when they either flatter or embellish our opinion of ourselves or when it mocks and distorts our enemies. Our pride and our vanity can blind us to the untrue things we believe about ourselves. We are blind to the thousand justifications and excuses that we make for our own shortcomings. And we nurse and rehearse the slanders and mischaracterizations of our enemies. The things we like to believe about them may have begun as slight exaggerations or rhetorical hyperbole for effect, but we go over them again and again, like picking at a sore that just won’t heal, until it becomes infected and inflamed; they become the lies and false witnesses that we bear with us everywhere we go.

What if “thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor,” means that we should release these falsehoods? This would require a rigorous self-examination that we often find too difficult and unpleasant. But can the Spirit of Truth be said to inhabit us now and forever if we are clinging to and embracing those lies and calumnies? Can the spirit of truth guide us into all truth if we are bearing these false testimonies against our neighbors in our hearts?

Today, on this Pentecost Sunday –we celebrate the unity of the early church, gathered together in one accord (Acts 2:1) in the mighty wind and burning fire of the Holy Spirit. And if we want that same unity of the Spirit- the spirit of truth- we must give up our treasured falsehoods.

Before Jesus left his disciples he gave them a promise that another Comforter would come for them – but he prefaced that promise with a condition and a command. “If you love me you will keep my commandments. I will ask the Father and he will send you another companion.” But what commandment?  A few sentences before this he said to them, “I give you a new commandment: love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other.” (John 13: 34-35)

Love leads to truth, or it at least opens us up to be able to receive it. If we will love each other – and even love our enemies – we will not want to believe all the horrible, untrue things we’ve been told, and that we tell ourselves. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7)

“Teach us to utter living words of truth which all may hear
the language all may understand when love speaks loud and clear
till every age and race and clime shall blend their creeds in one
and earth shall form one family by whom thy will is done.”

O Spirit of the Living God, Thou Light and Fire Divine- by Henry Hallam Tweed

Freedman, David Noel.  The Nine Commandments: Uncovering the Hidden Pattern of Crime and Punishment in the Hebrew Bible. Doubleday. New York, NY. 2000.

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[i] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/29/president-trump-has-made-more-than-false-or-misleading-claims/?noredirect=on

Amos Says, “Screw Your Sacrifices”

It was a time of peace and prosperity. It was a time of luxury, even, of affluence and delight. The statesmanship of King Jeroboam II had “made Israel great again,” had brought back the glory and opulence of the rule of Solomon. King Jeroboam II had waged aggressive military campaigns to “recover territory from the Pass of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah” (2 Kings 14:25). He’d forced Damascus and Hamath to return to their promises of allegiance to Judah and to Israel (2 Kings 14: 28). “By our own strength,” he boasted, “we captured Karnaim” (Amos 6:13).

And with the expanded borders and this peace secured through superior firepower came an economic boom. The people of Israel were buying both summer and winter houses, fine ivory houses and splendid mansions (Amos 3:15). They lived in comfortable confidence on the hills of Samaria (6:1). They slept on carved ivory beds and plush divans. They dined on stall-fattened veal, drank wine by the bowlful, oiled their skin with fine oils, and relaxed to soothing melodies played on the lyre (6: 4 – 5).

“We are rich,” they proclaimed, “and we are strong.” And they believed that this was of God. And why wouldn’t they have thought this was true? After all, “Blessings are on the head of the upright…” (Proverbs 10:6). Yes?  And “the wealth of the rich is their stronghold, while poverty is the undoing of the weak” (Proverbs 10: 15). Their wealth was a strong wall around them (Proverbs 18: 11). They remembered that “In the house of the upright there is no lack of treasure…” (Proverbs 15:6).

The people of Israel went to the city of Bethel - to the “house of God’ – to worship. They brought sacrifices and offerings each morning. They brought their tithes every third day (Amos 4:4). They made oblations and burnt offerings, they attended solemn assemblies and exuberant festivals (Amos 5: 21 – 22).  All was well in Israel, or so it seemed.

Amos came from nowhere, from obscurity – without pedigree or college degree – to challenge and condemn the houses and people of power in Israel. Amos was a migrant worker, moving between tending sheep (1:1) and cattle (7:14) in the high hill country of Tekoa where the shepherds eked out a subsistence existence on the stony slopes of the limestone hills, and tending the sycamore-fig trees of the low Jordan valley (7:14). He was not a trained prophet or a member of the brotherhood of prophets (7:14). He spoke by intuition and inspiration (and maybe those are the same thing). He saw visions of Israel and her impending doom.

It was true, of course, that King Jereboam II ruled in a time of peace and economic prosperity, just as it was true that the people of Israel made a show of their faith at the temple in Bethel. But this was all veneer. Beneath this beautiful and laudable exterior the Virgin Israel was a dead woman, a rotting corpse (Amos 5: 1 – 2).

Amos came up from Judah to Israel to make an announcement, for the prophets seldom engaged in debate or argument. They did not entreat or exhort; they announced; “Thus says the LORD” (Gowan 343). He began his announcement by listing the sins and offense of Israel’s neighbors, the war crimes of the surrounding countries. The Aramean city-state of Damascus had cruelly threshed the region of Gilead, completely suppressing it. Gaza, a Philistine city, had sold an entire population into slavery, as had Tyre, a wealthy Phoenician trade port, in spite of a covenant of brotherhood. Edom was condemned for pursuing his brother with a sword – a reference to the familial heritage between Israel and Edom going back to the book of Genesis (Genesis 25: 23, 3:1). Ammon had “disemboweled the pregnant women of Gilead” in order to expand their borders. And Moab had desecrated the grave and the bones of a king (Amos 1: 3 – 2: 3). Amos continued by condemning the southern, brother nation of Israel, Judah despising Yahweh’s law and for failing to keep his commandments (Amos 2: 4 – 5).

This rapid fire denunciation of Israel’s neighbors may have rallied the people in Bethel to excitement. “Yes. This Amos fellow really tells it like it is.” But before their schadenfreude glee could be fully realized Amos turned his gaze on Israel and launched into a most uncivil criticism.

Israel had sold the upright for silver,
                sold the poor for a pair of sandals,
                crushed the heads of the weak and powerless into the dust of the earth,
                thrust the rights of the poor aside (2: 6 -7)
                They had crammed their palaces full with violence (3:10)
                and exploited the weak and the poor (4:1)

They had despised the man teaching justice at the city gates just as they had loathed anyone speaking the truth (5:10). They’d trampled on the poor man and taxed his wheat in order to build their own storehouses and to plant their own pleasant vineyards (5:11).

Yes. They slept on carved ivory beds and plush divans, and dined on stall-fattened veal. Yes. They drank wine by the bowlful, and oiled their skin with fine oils – but for the ruin of Joseph, for the ruination of the poor and the low – they cared nothing (6:6). They were swindlers and cheats, generating their fortunes by force and by fraud, tampering with scales and exploiting loopholes in the law so that they could buy up the poor as slaves to further increase their gains (8: 5 – 6).

This is why Amos called them “fat cows of Bashan” (4:1) and Virgin corpses (5: 1 – 2): in their mistreatment of the poorest of the people they had forgotten Yahweh, God Sabaoth, the Lord of the Angel Armies.

“But,” they objected, “we bring our tithes and offerings to the temple. We make the ritual observances. We sing the hymns and recite the prayers.”

“Screw your sacrifices,” Amos answered speaking for God. “I hate, I abhor your festivals and assemblies. Your sacrifices do not please me, and spare me the execrable din of your incessant chanting. Your piety is worthless without justice” (5: 21 – 23).

“Let justice flow like water.
Let righteousness flow like a never failing stream! (5:24)
This is what I want.”

“Who can ascend to the mountain of Yahweh,” the psalmist asked. “Who shall stand in his holy place?  Only the clean of hand and the pure of heart. Only the one not set on vanities. Only the one who does not lie and deceive (Psalm 24).

“So go ahead and go to the sanctuary, to the temple in Bethel” Amos said, speaking for God. “Go ahead and go to Bethel and sin, sin all the more. Take your sacrifices, and your tithes, burn your offerings if it makes you happy. But I’ll have none of it” (Amos 4: 4 – 5).

Now this was all too much for the Amaziah, the priest of Bethel. It was uncivil. It was rude. It was treasonous. So he sent a message to King Jeroboam II: “the man Amos is conspiring against you in the heart of the House of Israel. The country cannot tolerate his speeches. He threatens you with a sword, and says that Israel will be taken away into captivity” (7: 10 -11).

And to Amos Amaziah said, “Get out of here you so-called seer. Go back to Judah where you belong. Prophesy there, if you like, but never come back to speak in Bethel. This is a sanctuary, a national temple” (7: 12 – 13).

There’s little arc in this brief narrative nestled in among the words and visions of Amos, the shepherd of Tekoa. There’s no introduction and no conclusion; it’s all second act and no denouement. We do not know what happened to Amos. Did he return home to tend the sheep and pluck the figs having proclaimed his message of imminent doom? Was he arrested and put to death by the religious and political forces he’d offended in Samaria and Bethel? We do not know.

But the words and visions of Amos, the shepherd of Tekoa, were recorded and preserved as the earliest part of the prophetic tradition (though he himself declined that title.) Maybe he isn’t quoted as often as the prophet Isaiah. Maybe he isn’t as famous as the anti-prophet Jonah. But his indictments and challenges stand: religious ritual is not enough and displays of worship are grotesque parodies of faith without a commitment to justice and righteousness. His warning that a people held enthralled by military might and economic prosperity while exploiting and abusing the poor and powerless are despised by God should cause us to tremble – even if his announcements and threats were not addressed specifically to us. His instruction to “seek good and not evil so that you may survive” (5:14) is just as relevant to the USA in the 21^st century AD as it was to Israel in the 8^th century BC. 

“Hate evil, love good,
and let justice reign at the city gates” (5:15).

This is, and not our nationalistic displays of empty worship is what God wants. How we treat the poor, the immigrant, the widow, the orphan, the minority, and the powerless is a better signifier of our faith than our grand churches and worship services. We may claim to be a Christian nation, founded in the values of the word of God, but if we do not protect and serve the poor, it is a lie. Our wealth and power are not indicators of God’s unequivocal blessing.

“Hate evil, love good,
and let Justice reign at the city gates.”
This is what God wants.

Gowan, Donald E. “The Book of Amos: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VII. Nashville, TN. Abingdon Pres. 1996.  

How Blessed, How Fortunate, How Happy…(Psalm 1)

There is a story told of the Reformer, Martin Luther – that when asked what he would do if he knew the world would end tomorrow, he responded that he would plant a tree. The story is apocryphal, a liturgical legend – and doesn’t go back any further than the middle of the 20^th century. But still, there is something interesting in that story. Faced with the prospect of calamity and destruction, with ruin and despair, Martin Luther (or at least, this pious story version of Martin Luther) chose to plant a tree. That is, he took the long view, even when the future might seem bleak; he planned and planted something enduring, something that would grow.

A few years ago a friend of mine living in Michigan called me one afternoon with bad news. His life, his career, his hope, all of it was collapsing. His wife was leaving him. He was soon to lose his job. And there was little that he could do about it. And there was even less that I could do about it for him. I had no influence over anything. I couldn’t fix the broken things. I couldn’t restore the dying things. And he lived too far away for me to hop in the car and go over for a visit – and even if I had made the drive across the country to see him, the best that I could have done would have been to sit in stupid silence with and for him.

My schedule for that dark day included helping another friend of mine, one who lived here in town. He needed help transplanting a small magnolia tree. The tree was going to be cut down by developers who were clearing a lot in order to put up a new building, and my friend wanted to try to save the tree. I changed out of my Salvation Army uniform, and drove over to his place to meet him. Together we dug up the tree with its roots, loaded the tree, along with our shovels and gallons and gallons of water into the back of the pickup truck, and moved the tree to its new spot, right near his garden.

We dug a new hole for it, put it in place, poured water over the roots, replaced the dirt, poured more water into the soil around the tree, tamped down the dirt, and poured more water over it all. At the time we weren’t sure if the tree would survive. Neither of us had any experience in digging up and transplanting trees. But, we reasoned, if it didn’t survive, well at least we tried. And if it did survive, then we’d have done something good. Faced with destruction and ruination, despair and helplessness, I planted a tree.

That was a few years ago – and the magnolia tree has survived. I went to check on it yesterday, and it has been growing; it’s taller now than it was. It was in bloom yesterday, with purple, pink blossoms reaching up towards the falling rain. And my friend from Michigan has survived too, though like the tree, he has been transplanted to a new home; he now lives in another state and has a new job. His marriage did fall apart, and his wife did leave taking their children with her. My friend misses his boys tremendously, but he has survived, and grown. Bloomed even.

Is he happy? Blessed, Fortunate? I don't know. These are difficult words to pin down, especially when the world around us is cluttered with chaos, when our lives are bombarded from without and inflamed from within by stress and anxiety and agitation. How can we be (even if we don’t feel) blessed, fortunate, and happy?

So this week we turn to the Psalmist for a bit of an Old Testament Beatitude for a little about what it might mean to be blessed, or fortunate, or lucky, or even happy.

How Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers (Psalm 1:1 NIV)

How blessed – that is, fortunate, lucky, happy – How blessed, how happy is the one who does not walk with the wicked, or stood in the assembly of sinners, or sat down in the session of scoffers.

There is an interesting bit of entropy in this verse, a steady decline in power and vigor. The psalmist's negative example decelerates from walking to standing and then from standing to sitting. Little by little he loses energy and vitality, he loses his strength. She associates with those who bring her down.

But blessed is the one who keeps moving. Blessed is the one who keeps on keeping on. Blessed is he or she who makes some progress every day, even just a little. Even just one step. Blessed, Fortunate, Happy is the one who never lets the counsel of the wicked slow them down. If we allow the world to encourage us to be angry, to hate our enemies, to turn our passion into resentment, to turn our fear into loathing, our energies will be sapped. We will lose our power, our motion. We will get bogged down by the ensnaring concerns, drained by fear and anger and we will give up. We will sit down with the scoffers, slowly dying.  

But blessed, fortunate, happy is the one who keeps moving. Blessed is the one who is not paralyzed by fear and doubt, or immobilized by resentment. Instead, the law of the LORD is her delight. The teaching and instruction of the LORD is his delight. And they meditate on it day and night. They recite it. They ponder it.

Now we should note that the Hebrew word translated “law” here is the word torah which is something more than a legal list of rules and obligations. The psalmist’s beatitude is not saying that happiness can be reduced to a mechanical process of following a set of rules and regulations. Instead it is a dynamic process that requires a constant meditation on the instruction of God in order to determine the will of God in every situation.  (McCann) It is the continual transformation and renewal of our minds so that we can discern what is the will of God, what is good, and acceptable, and perfect (Romans 12:2 NRSV).

Such a one is like a tree planted near streams;
it bears fruit in season
and its leaves never wither,
and every project succeeds. (Psalm 1:2 – New Jerusalem Bible)

Actually the verb here is more than “planted.” More accurately it would be “transplanted” (Dahood, 3). They have been dug up from the soil, pulled up from the roots and moved to a new location, put into new soil, near streams of water where they can grow anew – like my friend’s magnolia tree transplanted, but still blooming, and like my friend whose world came to an end but he kept on going. They bear fruit in season. Maybe not right away. Maybe not a lot at first. But they bear fruit. How blessed, how fortunate, how happy.

There’s also an interesting temporal dimension to these verses that’s not always picked up by the various translations of the bible. In Mitchel Dahood’s translation we read:

How blest is the man who has not entered
                the council of the wicked
nor in the assembly of sinners stood,
                nor in the session of scoffers sat.
But from the Law of Yahweh is his delight,
                and from his law he recites day and night.
So shall he be like a tree
                transplanted near streams of water;
which yields its fruit in its season,
                and whose leaves never wither.
Whatever it produces is good.

We in these verses we have the past (blessed is the one who has not entered, stood, sat…), we have the present (the law of the LORD is his delight, he recites day and night), and we have the future (so shall he be like a tree).  (Dahood, 3)

Yes, the past may have been difficult; we may have found ourselves surrounded by hostile forces, lured by temptations, excited by passions. We may have been tempted to give in, and give up. But we keep the law of the Lord in our minds, and on our tongues, reciting it day and night, constantly refreshing ourselves with it and renewing our minds by it, and we will be like a blossoming tree, bearing the fruit of success.  How blessed, how fortunate, how happy.

And now our psalmist changes tack: Not so, he says, the wicked. How different are the wicked, how very different. They are like chaff blown around by the wind” (Psalm 1: 4 New Jerusalem Bible). They are impermanent, ephemeral, without roots, useless, drifting, always changing their story, telling new lies. They are blown by the inconstant winds here and there, never amounting to anything. They are all desperation and no dreams. All vanity and vainglory. All dust in the wind.

The path of the wicked is doomed; it is a dead end. It is death and nothing more. The wicked are dust and detritus caught in a current of wind. They cannot stand in the face of judgment. They have no root, no depth. They will not endure. They will not prevail.

But the blessed one, the fortunate and happy one, is intimately known by God, is looked over and protected by God. The assembly of the just is kept safe by the LORD. Our lives, cluttered as they are with chaos, bombarded from without and inflamed within by anxiety and fear are known by God, and are protected. We are fortunate, and blessed, even happy. Thanks be to God.

Dahood, Mitchell, Psalms 1 – 50: Introduction, Translation, and Notes. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1966. Text.

McCann, J. Clinton. Commentary on Psalm 1. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2452