the forbearance of God

As I prepared to teach the Gospel of Luke at our May conference of Bethany Bible School, and then as we marked Ascension and Pentecost in the last weeks, I was struck by the significance of the city of Jerusalem in the text. Indeed, as I mentioned in my last entry, the word "Jerusalem" occurs 30 times in 24 chapters in Luke, compared with 10/16 and 12/28 in Mark and Matthew respectively. Fittingly, Jerusalem is central to Luke's accounts of the ascension in the gospel and its sequel, the book of Acts. As it says, Jesus "ordered [the apostles] not to leave Jerusalem" after his ascension into heaven, "but to wait there for the promise of the Father" (Acts 1:4). Staying, or waiting in Jerusalem was the prerequisite for the disciples' reception of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2).

Why was it necessary for the disciples to wait in Jerusalem? We might simply answer that the disciples were still struggling with their fear of the authorities ("fear of the Jews" as John put it, 20:19) and therefore could not--apart from a miracle--have begun any ministry in Jesus' name. Still we must ask, why Jerusalem? Matthew's gospel, for example, closes in Galilee. It is from there--indeed from "the mountain to which Jesus had directed them" (28:16)--that Jesus gives the apostles directions for an upcoming ministry to "all nations." To summarize:

In Matthew, the disciples' ministry to "all nations" under the "authority" of Jesus departs from Galilee; in Luke, the disciples' ministry, eventuating in "all nations" or "to the ends of the earth" (Lk. 24:47; Acts 1:8), in the "power" of the Holy Spirit "begin[s] from Jerusalem" (Acts 1:8; Lk. 24:47).

To all nations. Power of God (Jesus, Holy Spirit). Place of Departure.

These are the common ingredients. The difference is in the place of departure. Matthew assumes that power was conferred on the mount of ascension. Luke emphasizes that power was conferred in Jerusalem. So the question remains: Why Jerusalem? Why has Luke bequeathed to us, his readers, the Jerusalem part of the narrative? What are we to understand?

My working hypothesis is that Luke, via Jerusalem, is emphasizing the long-suffering of God. Jerusalem, the religious center of Israel's faith, the location of the house of God, must be given every last chance to "recognize the time of [its] visitation from God" (Lk. 19:44). Jerusalem, the embodiment of the Jewish people, must be given every opportunity to acknowledge Jesus as its own anointed "Leader and Savior" (Acts 5:31). It is only then, after God has extended every chance, fulfilled every promise to his people, that God can turn his face to the nations. Not without suffering does God turn away from those whom he called. Even beyond the cross, the place of God's suffering for his own, is God found extending his mercy to Jerusalem. The resurrection, ascension, Pentecost, the apostolic ministry bring a second chance--a third, a fourth, a fifth. The apostles preach first, again, "in Jerusalem"--then Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). In fact, even when Paul, God's "chosen instrument to bring his name before Gentiles and kings" (Acts 9:15), ventures throughout the earth preaching the good news of Jesus Christ, he goes first to the Jewish houses of worship. After, in various cases, some Jews reject his message (while others welcome it) and Paul vows "from now on only to go to the Gentiles," he nonetheless returns to the synagogues; Paul cannot give up on his brethren. Indeed, the last picture of Paul's life is of him trying to convince the Jews in Rome about Jesus. So ends Luke's narrative, the story of God's promises extended to the nations--but always, forever, with reference and with concern, for the Jews (Acts 13:46, 14:1, 17:1-2, 17, 18:5-11, 8-10, 28:17ff.).

If this message is for God's first chosen, those whom he first called to be his witnesses upon the earth, it is also for his second chosen--for whomever, from every nation, tribe, and language, has chosen to live by the faith of God's Messiah. Not without suffering does God abandon his wayward people. Patiently God persists, "not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance" (1 Pt. 3:9, 15).

-Joe

fear and fears

Last week I reported on some of my method and content for teaching the Gospel of Matthew at our Bethany Bible School conference earlier this month. Now for Mark.

Mark's gospel is the one with which I have been the most familiar, having taken a course on it in seminary. And, if I had to choose one gospel with which to be most familiar, I would choose Mark, for knowing Mark allows one to know the basic structure of the Jesus-story; Mark's frame is the one which Matthew and Luke most likely built upon in giving us their own account of Jesus' life.

Even so, I needed to revisit Mark afresh to pump new life into my ability to teach it. This time around I particularly noticed Mark's narrative comments about the "sea" in Jesus' ministry. Jesus is always on or around the sea (of Galilee): teaching "beside the sea", from the boat while a great crowd listens to him from the land (3:7-9; 4:1); going across the sea to the "other side", where he delivered the man from Gerasa who had a "legion" of demons, and fed the five thousand in a "desert place" (5:1-21; 6:30-44); on the sea, preaching peace to the storm, and later, "walking on the sea", revealing himself as the presence of God to his disciples ("Do not fear--I AM") (6:50) (4:35-41; 6:47-52).

Why does it seem that Mark was so keen on emphasizing that the Jesus story took place on or around the sea? We might say simply that this is so because the Jesus story did take place beside the sea, and Mark was simply reporting the facts. But something more is going on. Each gospel writer did frame the Jesus story in his own way. We noted how Matthew emphasizes Jesus' teachings in five main sections, each encapsulated by a common narrative refrain. Luke chose to emphasize, even though the early part of Jesus' ministry also takes place in Galilee, that Jesus' ministry took place "on the way to Jerusalem" (from 9:51 onward). The word "Jerusalem" occurs 30 times in Luke, compared with only 10 and 12 respectively for Mark and Matthew. This is all to emphasize that Mark framed his own story about Jesus around the sea; that was the detail he particularly wanted to highlight about Jesus' ministry. So again we ask, why? And so I asked my students.

"What is the significance of the sea?"

"The sea is like the kingdom of God," said one man. "You go to the sea and it takes away everything. Everything [sin, impurity, etc.] gets washed away in the sea."

"The sea is like God," said one old woman.

"How?" I inquired.

"It is sort of scary."

The sea is scary as God is scary--this would be the old woman's logic. I think that many western Christians would deny such a statement with their words. At least I think they wouldn't come out with such a statement as innocently, unashamedly as this woman seemed to do so. Indeed, God for us is supposed to be gentle, comforting, a shepherd who carries us on his shoulders rather than one who keeps us in line with his staff. Scariness, or fear, is supposed to be the enemy of God who is love, whose "perfect love casts out fear" (1 Jn. 4:18).

If, however, I am honest with myself, God is still scary to me. I also experience the comforting God, the God who casts out my fear and leaves joy in its place. But I am not so mature as to have left behind the scary God. We might say that scary is not the right word, and it wouldn't be my first choice. Let us use instead "fear", which is a biblical word and which we might rationalize can mean something more along the lines of that which inspires awe. Yet even that awe is not without fright, for it is the awe of an experience of something so immense that it could utterly overcome, consume the one who stands in its presence. Not unlike a human being before the sea. The sea is big to us in a manner like God is big to us. The woman's point is well-made.

I also think this is Mark's point. The sea, in broad biblical perspective, is that untameable force which was tamed by God. The order of creation came about by God separating the waters, assigning them their place in order that dry land could appear, then produce, then sustain human life. The waters were there, the great, dark "deep", before God said "Let there be light" and began to make a world (Gen. 1). The waters indeed seem before all things, except the One who is not a thing. We might think that the sea is God, if God had not revealed himself, as he did to Job, as the one who said to the sea, " 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped' " (Job 38:11).

All this points us to a reality that something greater than the sea is with us, someone greater, in fact, than all powers and principalities of this world. If that is the case, we need not fear, as Jesus commanded his disciples in the midst of the storm on the sea; we need not fear, that is, the sea and all powers because "I AM", "God is with us" (Mk. 6:50).

But must we fear the One who is greater than the sea?

I think we must. I think, in fact, it is the only way to live joyfully, peacefully, lovingly, in a world which fears the world. The world is now betraying us, as we have betrayed it. Natural disasters increase, sweeping humans away, as our climate changes. We are told we are on the brink of chaos. We can no longer trust the world. Our misplaced trust is now exposed. Yet if God is our Fear (Gen. 31:42, 53), the fears of the world will not destroy us. If God is our Fear, we will not cling to our lives as if no other life exists. If scarcity increases, we will share what we have with others in faith that God will provide. We will "not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell" (Mt. 10:28). Jesus said that. And it is that fear which he meant to be our comfort.

-Joe

literal metaphors

At the weekly meeting of our Bible Study/Fellowship Group on Tuesday, we read the stories of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9) and the coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-21) in preparation for Pentecost. Of course, the two are often paired together because of their focus on language; whereas language was confused at Babel, people at Pentecost heard clearly the disciples "speaking about God's deeds of power in [their] own languages" (2:11). In the Babel story, one language becomes many; at Pentecost, many languages--though not eliminated--become one, united in their capacity to communicate the message of the gospel.

That interpretation is well-enough known. For the present I am interested in another discussion that arose when reading the Babel account: literal versus metaphorical reading of scripture.

One man from among us, a pastor, contended that the stories "at the beginning of Genesis" must be "taken with a pinch of salt", that is, they cannot be taken as literal, which is to say, "historically true". Two others present, one man and one woman, both successful in the modern world but raised in traditional, African villages, contended that the stories are literal or can be taken that way. Anna and I did not really enter the fray; I have found that in discussions such as this, language, words, and meaning fails between people--much like it did at Babel itself. But then, in using such a phrase as "like it did at Babel itself", am I suggesting that the story is literal?

Such a phrase illustrates the point at hand precisely. In speaking as if the events of Babel really happened, I take the story at face-value before probing the hidden depths of its meaning. Or, in other words, I take the story first as a story. The first step in the re-telling of any story--be it a narration of events which happened to one person in the course of one's day or one of Aesop's fables--is to know the story. The first step is to remember the events, put them in order, gather them up. The first step is not to decide whether the story really could have taken place according to other criteria. The first step is to respect the integrity of the storyteller--to take her at her words, to consider that he is giving you a trustworthy account of something. From there, of course, we may discern that the story sounds more like a joke than a report or whatever. But first we must simply listen.

My problem with the interpretation of the pastor is that he had none beyond his contention that the story was metaphorical. It was as if his theories about the stories and texts of the Bible were themselves the message of the Bible rather than what the stories themselves reveal. I much prefer the literalism of the Africans in the room since their literalism--whatever that word even means--leads them to the theological meaning of the story, to revelation, to the moment when God shows God's character, mind, and heart (metaphorically-speaking!) to his people. And they were led to the meaning of the story.

The woman started off the discussion by puzzling about the humans' pretension of building a tower "with its top in the heavens" (11:4).

"In the heavens!?" she gasped. "Did they really think they could reach the heavens?"

Pastor: "Well, you have to take the stories at the beginning of Genesis with a pinch of salt."

Silence.

Perhaps the discussion then continued in other directions for awhile. Eventually the man spoke, returning again to the detail about the height of the tower.

"I think that God intervened because he knew that they would not be able to build the tower without it falling down and killing them. He confused their language so that they would stop building it. It was for their own good."

I thought his interpretation beautiful. He arrived at a profound insight about God. He got there by following the story--then using his imagination. His interpretation was, on one hand, hyper-literal. He did not choose to follow, for example, that the people would be ruined by their pride, by their desire to "make a name for themselves" (11:4), the embodiment of which was the tower, but the tower itself, literally toppling under its own height upon them. It was first from the tower's destructive potential--not first from the destructive potential of what the tower might be said to stand for--that God saved the people. Yet it was God who saved the people from their own destructive ingenuity. That is the common message of the story, the message which might unite both modern and pre-modern interpreters of this text.

We see also then that the issue is not really literal versus metaphorical readings of scripture; the point is that the literal and the metaphorical are the same. I am no longer sure of their difference. Even less am I sure that one can find God by setting out to read the text as metaphorical literature. But one will find God by reading, simply, the story.

-Joe

You might find themes pertinent to this discussion in this fine article from The Mennonite.

the righteouness that exceeds

Last Saturday's topic at our Bethany Bible School conference was the synoptic gospels, or Matthew, Mark, and Luke. My preparation for teaching had been, first and foremost, to read through each gospel again and note the particular flow of each. For Matthew, I focused in on the content of Jesus' five major teaching sections, all so-marked by narrative comments, at the beginning, that "Jesus began to teach his disciples" (and "the crowds") and, at the end, "after Jesus had finished . . .." These sections are:

• 5:1-7:29 The Sermon on the Mount
• 10:1-11:1 Jesus teaches the twelve before sending them out with his authority
• 13:1-53 Jesus speaks in parables about the "kingdom of heaven"
• 18:1-19:1 Teachings about forgiveness/mercy
• 23:1-26:1 Final teachings before his passion

Based on these five sections, I came up with the following summary statement of Matthew's story in order to guide my teaching.

Jesus brings near the kingdom of heaven. Those who welcome the kingdom of heaven will receive it; those who reject it will not. The kingdom of heaven is the rule of mercy and forgiveness.

Based on this, if I had to pick one verse to summarize Matthew's story, it would be 5:20:

"Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

I ultimately settled on this verse because it seems to include the main thrust of the five main teaching sections as well as an important feature of the material outside these sections--Jesus' confrontations with the scribes and Pharisees. I had wanted to use a more positive verse, for example, 5:7, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy"--and this was a close second. Still, Jesus' conflict with the scribes and Pharisees reveals the way of mercy which defines the life, or "righteousness", of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus brings near. Jesus' interpretation of "the law and the prophets" (5:17), contra that of the scribes and Pharisees, is that God calls "sinners and tax collectors" to be God's people and approves the work of healing the sick on the day of rest, the Sabbath (9:10-13; 12:9-14). Or, as Jesus puts it in a phrase recorded among the gospels only in Matthew, God "desires mercy, not sacrifice" (9:13; 12:7). Another way that I would say this is that the sacrifice that God requires is mercy.

In illustrating these themes, I had quoted Jesus' words to the religious leaders of his day--"the chief priests and the elders of the people" (21:23, 45) and "the Pharisees" (21:45)--that "the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you" (21:31). One man, seemingly surprised by this statement--as if hearing it for the first time--asked what it was that the Pharisees could have done that even the prostitutes would enter the kingdom of heaven before them. Why would Jesus speak to them in this way?

Another woman asked me to elaborate on the beatitude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (5:3).

I did attempt an answer to both questions, which probably will not sound here as it did on Saturday. I do think that the two questions are closely related. The Pharisees, to use other terminology from Jesus, were "last" in the kingdom of heaven, not "first" (19:30; 20:16), because they lacked mercy for their fellow human beings. And they lacked mercy because they were not "poor in spirit", or humble of spirit. They lived as though any righteousness that they enjoyed came from their own fulfillment of the law rather than from a hungering and thirsting for the righteousness that comes from and is God (5:6). The humble know that they need God as their flesh needs food and drink. With God as their goal, the hunger of the humble never ceases, for God is not a human being; God is always beyond. The humble seek God's praise.

By contrast, the proud seek the praise of human beings. Their goal is to be seen as righteous in the eyes of a community of like-minded individuals. If the community could fulfill their need of righteousness, the hungering of the proud would come to an end. For a time, perhaps, it does, as the proud take time to bask in the glory of their most recent achievement. Yet when the community's attention turns to an even later, more glorious achievement of another, the proud one recognizes that his hunger has not really been satisfied. He is still hungry.

Eventually, hopefully, the proud may realize that the community can never fulfill their desire for righteousness. Perhaps they realize, like the "poor in spirit", that the only way to be "filled" is always to "hunger"--for the righteousness that comes from God.

-Joe

"in his chest"

Inspired from my reading of the prophetic literature earlier this year, I have since alluded in a few sermons to Jeremiah's description of his vocation: "If I say, 'I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,' then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot" (20:9). My paraphrase has been that the prophet, being one who is given the words of God, has no choice but to give also to others what God has given him. The prophet's particular mode of sharing--of not being selfish--is with words. If the prophet should keep those words to himself, within, those words will become death for him. The prophet will become sick, the prophet may die, if the prophet does not carry out the task to which he has been called.

Also three weeks ago, in Philipstown, a man from the church confirmed those words to me after the service. I had introduced the Isaiah text I was preaching on with something like the above introduction to the prophets generally. Responding to that, this man had said that he used always to be sick until he responded to God's call to begin preaching. He now enjoys full health.

The man's experience--we might call it the prophetic experience--has been well-testified throughout Africa by both Christians and non-Christians. In terms of the latter, the way of a person being called to be a traditional healer, a sangoma in southern Africa, is to become ill. The affliction, sent by the person's ancestors, will subside only when he or she consents to take up the practice. Christians too, although the most-committed ones disavow all practices related to the sangoma and seeking oracles from the dead, often interpret illness as a call to something new. Our pastor, for example, knows that he has a particular, nagging condition "in his chest" that will not go away until he finally makes the decision to go full-time in ministry.

Examples such as these might, at the very least, make westerners pause to consider whether certain illnesses suffered in one's body are, in any way, related to something amiss in one's spirit. Short of inciting a too-easy, one-to-one correlation between a person's sin and her sickness, this wisdom of Africa might at least cause us to re-examine ourselves before God.

-Joe

canon within the canon

I thought I would take stock of my use of scripture on this blog. On the sidebar, I have added a list of those labels to my posts which are a direct citation of a text or the name of a book of the Bible (If you're looking for reflection on a particular text, perhaps you will find something of interest using this tool). In doing so, I also decided to tabulate which texts and parts of the Bible I have used most to date in this "scripture diary" of sorts. Though the frequency of certain texts is partially related to the fact that I often follow the Revised Common Lectionary, it is nevertheless interesting to check how I am using the Bible and if I am giving adequate attention to all parts of the scriptural canon. So, here are the results so far of this blog's "canon within the canon" for a few different categories.

Testament Comparison
1. New Testament 41 labels
2. Old Testament 18 labels

Divisions Within Scripture
1. Gospels and Acts 27
2. Prophets 11
3. Letters of Paul 10
4. Torah/Pentateuch 5
5. Other New Testament Letters 3
6. Old Testament "Writings" 2
6. Apocalyptic 2

Individual Books (two labels or more)
1. Luke 11
2. John 8
3. Ephesians 4
3. Genesis 4
5. Isaiah 3
5. James 3
5. Mark 3
5. Matthew 3
9. 1 Corinthians 2
9. 2 Samuel 2
9. Amos 2
9. Galatians 2
9. Leviticus 2
9. Revelation 2

The concept of a personal "canon within the canon" interests me. What is yours?

-Joe