God’s justice, humans’ faith

For Wednesday’s discipleship class we studied Luke 18:1-8, often called the parable of “the persistent widow.”

The message of the text advances through four statements which may be divided into two sets of two. The first set is the repetition of the description of the “unjust judge”, the judge “in a certain city who neither feared God nor had respect for humans.” In its first appearance, the description is in the voice of Jesus the Narrator; in its second, it is the voice of the judge through Jesus the Actor (as Jesus plays the part of the judge). In both, the description is of a judge “who neither fears God nor has respect for humans” (vv. 2, 4). This is the characterization of the judge that we are not supposed to miss: no respect for God or humans; in short, he is, as Jesus calls him, “unjust” (v.6).

If the first set of repetitions is about the unjust judge, the second set of two is about the just judge, God. The first statement of the second set comes as Jesus’ question to his disciples: “Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?” (v. 7). The second statement, which repeats the critical information of the first, is Jesus’ emphatic answer to his own question: “I tell you, [God] will quickly grant justice to them” (v. 8). This, then, is the critical characterization of God: God grants justice—and “quickly” (v. 8).

Between the four statements of two sets lies the action on which the text turns—the action of “a widow” (vv. 3, 5). Because she kept “bothering” the unjust judge “for justice against [her] opponent”, the judge granted her justice. The unjust judge himself described the situation:

“ ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for humans, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming’” (v. 5).

The text continues, “And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them” (vv. 6-8).

There is an implicit comparison here in Jesus’ words between the widow and God’s “chosen ones who cry to him day and night” (v. 7). Though the widow was no one’s chosen, most certainly not that of the unjust judge to whom she continually cried, she received justice from the judge. How much more, then, will those whom the Judge loves receive justice? In fact, if God the Just is so predisposed towards his “chosen ones”, the absence of justice in human relationships must be a thing dependent upon the disposition of human beings—especially, as the parable seems to indicate, those humans who have been the victims of injustice. Though the widow, for example, may not have been responsible for the initial act of injustice that befell her, her incapacity to plead for justice is the cause of injustice’s continued reign. On the other hand, as the text teaches, her capacity to plead for justice—her perseverance through injustice—is that which restores to her her justice. Her perseverance is that which wins her respect precisely from a judge who does not “respect humans.” Though the unjust judge “for a while” did not have “a will” to grant the widow her justice, God has always a will to do so “quickly” (v. 4, 8). If, therefore, the lack of will is not God’s, the tarrying of justice in the lives of God’s people must owe to their own. God is looking for a people who care about justice enough to tell him about it. God is looking for a people with faith enough not to give up in the face of injustices.

And so, Jesus wants to know, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (v. 8)

-Joe

Peter, not James

During the Sunday school time before the worship service this week, Pastor Ntapo was leading the people in a reading of Acts 12, the account of Peter’s rescue from prison and perhaps imminent death at the hands of King Herod. Indeed, the story begins with the report that Herod had “laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church”, even having “James, the brother of John, killed with the sword” (vv. 1-2). During this time, the text states, “while Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him” (v. 5). From this basic introduction to the story, Pastor Ntapo deduced what was for me another unexpected gem of biblical interpretation within the context of South African Christianity and the spiritual realities a vast majority of its adherents encounter. No doubt responding to the perspective of African “traditional religion” that the ancestors of the home (sometimes called in the scholarly literature “the living dead”) exert an active influence over and maintain a “real presence” with their living descendants, Pastor Ntapo pointed out that the church in Acts “prayed fervently for Peter,” which is to say, and not for “James” whom Herod had already killed. “It does no good to pray for a dead person,” he said. “We can do nothing for them,” and by implication, apart from the will of God (known to us in scripture) they can do nothing for us. On the other hand, we can and should pray and intercede to God on behalf of those still alive—and expect, just as Peter was delivered, for the only living God to shower us with his grace.

-Joe

worse than the first

We have now completed six weeks of a discipleship class with our church, Harvest Time Ministries in Mandela Park, Mthatha. Last week, we studied Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus’ parable of “a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves” (v. 23). As with the twin illustrations which we studied several weeks ago (Mt. 13:44-46), the parable of the king and his slaves is an illustration of what “the kingdom of heaven is like” (v. 23). And like the parable of the Good Samaritan which we also studied in recent weeks, so Jesus told the parable of the king and his slaves in response to a question; in the former, a lawyer, wishing “to justify himself”, had asked, “Who is my neighbor?” (Lk. 10:29); in the latter, Peter, one of the twelve, seeks to place limits on forgiveness: “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” (v. 21). As the lawyer sought to limit the scope of love for neighbor—“to love those only who love you” (Mt. 5:46)—Peter here seemingly seeks a limit for the number of times a person may be forgiven. That this is Peter’s intention seems obvious from Jesus’ answer: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven”—a number so large, however one interprets it, so as to make forgiveness a perpetual state of mind throughout a person’s life, while rendering Peter’s “seven” paltry in comparison.

The story Jesus tells, then, to illustrate the forgiving spirit, or mercy (v. 33), hinges on the comparison between the action of the king who had a “will” to “settle accounts with his slaves” and one of his slaves who did not have a “will” (translated, NRSV, “But he refused”) to forgive his fellow slave (v. 30). Whereas the king forgave the debt of “the one who owed him ten thousand talents”, that very debtor will not forgive the debt of one who “owed him a hundred denarii”; forgiven much, he does not forgive, in reverse of the woman who showed Jesus hospitality in the home of Simon the Pharisee (Lk. 7:36-50). That the one forgiven much will not forgive is all the more scandalous in light of the identical pleas of both debtors in the story. The first debtor, the very slave forgiven who does not forgive, “falls on his knees before [the king]”, pleads for his lord’s “patience”, and promises to “pay” the debt. This very one forgiven, however, does not recognize himself in another, his fellow slave who owes him “five hundred denarii”. Indeed, though the forgiven’s debtor, like the forgiven, “falls down”, pleads for “patience” and promises to “pay”, he is not met with a “will” to forgive. The first debtor does not have the “compassion” (“pity”, NRSV) of his king (v. 27).

We, the readers/hearers of this story are rightly scandalized, for the king’s mercy has prepared us to expect a merciful response from the first debtor when he hears his own plea from one of his fellow slaves. Twice someone has “fallen down”, begged for “patience”, and pledged to “pay”; only once has someone received compassion. Something is wrong with this picture.

The other slaves in the story, the fellow slaves of both the first and second debtors, are, like us, unable to withhold their protest. When they see mercy not extended, they report to the king (v. 31). The king—perhaps like us, perhaps not—is unable to withhold action of his own. He summons the first slave, reminds him of the forgiveness that was his, and outlines what the debtor should have done in his own capacity as a lord (vv. 32-33). Yet until that one once forgiven much will live by the mercy he received, he will be “handed over” and “tortured”—“until he would pay his entire debt” (v. 34). Even here there is mercy. Not even now, as the first debtor did to his debtor, does the king “grab” the slave and “choke” him while demanding payment. The king even leaves open the possibility that the debt might somehow be paid and the unmerciful slave released from prison. But until that time—which also may never come—the slave must live with the prison he has built for himself. Once a debtor of “ten thousand talents”, the first slave, on account of his plea, “was released” and “forgiven”; his freedom was unconditional, on the basis of the king’s mercy, compassion in the face of human need—not on the basis of the debtor having to pay the original debt. Having been given the world, having moved from bad to good, the slave need now but walk in the mercy of his lord toward others—that is the only “payment” now required of him. If, however, he “refuses so great a salvation”, his latter condition will be worse than his first (Heb. 2:3; Mt. 12:43-45). Rejecting the life of mercy, he will have gone from bad through good to worse.

So it will be for us “if we do not forgive our brothers and sisters from our hearts” (v. 35).

-Joe

salvation: on tense and status

The book of Lamentations, 1:1-6, came up in the lectionary last week. I have never preached on Lamentations before, but the images the author uses to give voice to his despair fit within a broader theme I was encountering during the weekend. When discussing our Bible School with some friends recently, they were perplexed that most of our students would come from “Zionist” churches, the name typically used for African Independent Churches (AICs) in southern Africa. Although there is a range of spirituality within Zionism (not to be confused, by the way, with the movement of the same name with regard to the modern state of Israel), the dominant perception of outsiders is that it is sub-Christian, consisting of churches whose members “worship the dead” in line with ancestral traditions of Africa. Members of New Pentecostal or Charismatic churches often regard Zionists as “unsaved”. The problem with all this is not that certain Zionists do not in fact do what certain Charismatics say that they do; the problem is that often the language of “saved” and “unsaved” comes across as the attempt of the one who uses such categories to justify himself—something which can never be done not at the expense of others. A second problem, furthermore, is that this language of salvation is often intended by these who employ it within a very specific sense; if preaching or teaching, albeit thoroughly biblical and Christ-centered, does not lead directly to a short ceremony whereby one can “raise their hands” to accept Christ and be led in a prayer of repentance, it does not lead to salvation. Hence, one of our friends asked us whether “we ever discuss at our Bible School things like salvation”; my internal reaction was that, if we are not teaching salvation, we might as well pack our bags and leave South Africa. Indeed, salvation is the gospel, but the gospel is much bigger than many people understand.

Whereas the comments of many Christians tie salvation to a specific ceremony, pledge, or formula, the Bible consistently speaks of it as a way of life that never ends. Although it is the culture in “saved” churches here for every testimony to begin with the phrase, “I am saved”, the Bible speaks of salvation in the present and future tenses as well as the past. “In hope you were saved”. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life” (Rom. 8:24; Php. 2:12; Rom. 5:10).

If salvation, therefore, has not one but at least three tenses, it follows that that which happened to us in the past must somehow work itself out in the present so as to be effective in the future. If that which happened in the past does not work itself out—within us to whom it has happened—it will not work in the end. If we do not work out that which we are, we will cease to be.

We will be, in the words of Lamentations, like “the city that once was full of people”, now “lonely” (1:1). Or like the nation, once “a princess among the provinces”, now a “vassal” (1:1). Or like “the roads to Zion”, once full of festival-goers, now deserted (1:4). Or like “the princes of Zion”, once well-fed, now “stags that find no pasture” (1:6).

If we do not intentionally seek to live the life of Jesus “daily” (Lk. 9:23), we can expect our status to change. Though God has taken the initiative to change our status from bad to good, from weak to powerful, from enemies to friends, we must—even now, every day—pray for the “clean heart,” the “right spirit”, the “joy of salvation”, lest we lose that which is most precious and become that which we do not want to be (Rom. 5:6-10; Ps. 51:10-12).

-Joe

keep in the mouth

After the service on Sunday, Tata Maka said “Ndiyanambitha”, a Xhosa word meaning “to chew, keep in the mouth, or relish”; he was relishing the message, so much so, he said, that he felt like going straightaway somewhere to be alone without even saying hello to people whom he might pass on the way. I thought immediately of Jesus’ command to the “seventy others” he “sent on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go” (Luke 10:1). I had always wondered why, specifically among the other commands, Jesus told them to “greet no one on the road” (10:4). Not greeting struck me as an act of coldness not befitting those who would follow Jesus. Tata Maka’s response helped me to wonder, however, if Jesus’ command to “not greet” is simply the proper response to a teaching deeply received. One must keep all else out of the mind—out of the mouth—until one has truly reflected upon, processed, indeed relished, that which has gone in.

-Joe