the text in mission, mission in the text

sign of protection

2012-02-06T05:20:00.001-08:00

As we did in 2010, we're leading a discipleship class at a local congregation, Harvest Time Ministries, on Wednesday evenings. Since largely the group has changed since we last taught the class, we're again beginning with lessons from the gospels, primarily from the parables of Jesus. The insight I'd like to report on here, however, comes not from my lesson but from the testimony of a man who was given a chance to speak after the lesson. The purpose of his speaking was to clarify some things to the church about why he had been absent recently, and to reaffirm his support of the pastor. Within that explanation, making a connection which I did not fully understand, the man narrated part of the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel (1 Kings 18).

The man's narration climaxed in the detail about the self-lacerations of the prophets of Baal in their plea to their god. He contrasted their blood that flowed to no effect to the blood of Jesus which is "all that we need". I don't know all that was in the man's mind when he made this application; I do know that to even make the application suggests a need within the cultural setting to hear such a message. That need, I would guess, is the desire for healing of which the shedding of blood is often involved. The story describes how the prophets of Baal, "as was their custom . . . cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed out over them" (1 Kgs 18:28). I immediately thought of the many people from this context who exhibit scars on their faces, signs of their own, or perhaps their parents', attempt to insert protective or healing traditional medicine (muti) through incisions in the face. In such a setting, the blood (life) of Jesus that protects us without the shedding of more blood is good news indeed.

-Joe

obedience and counting

2012-01-11T00:08:00.000-08:00

At our Mennonite worker retreat over New Year's, each participant shared his or her personal faith story. Additionally, each participant brought one topic for discussion to the group for our second hour of input. On our day, Anna and I opened a discussion on Luke 14:25-33, a text which I have done some thinking about earlier in this blog and which is a difficult text for a mother and father of four children--for any family for that matter.

Indeed, this is the text in which Jesus speaks of the disciple's calling to "hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters" (14:26). The text recommends a "forsaking all" for a life of following after Jesus.

In our discussion, we noted that the "forsaking all" of the text is somewhat analogous to the simple obedience with which biblical characters like Abram (in Gen 12:1-9, our first journey story for our first night of worship) set out to follow. Some of us called it "unquestioning", not raising any objections--though there may be many--to what God has asked us to do. In our attempt to find common themes of "journeys with God", we couldn't deny that this must be one: the disciple's willingness simply to go where the teacher has led.

But that is not all. Jesus, within the same text, speaks of a "counting the cost" of discipleship. This "counting the cost", in fact, makes up the bulk of his words in the text and is the subject of his illustrations. "Counting the cost" means "estimating" whether one has enough resources to "build a tower" before one begins to build it (14:28); it means calculating whether one has enough weaponry and manpower to defeat the enemy before one engages him in war (14:31). There is only "ridicule" for the one who acts without counting (v. 30). In light of this, therefore, the obedience inherent to following may not, in one sense, be so simple. Information is needed, and evaluation. And wisdom to choose the course that leads to the destination.

Nevertheless, "counting the cost" does not negate "simple obedience", any more than "simple obedience" means refusing to count. Rather--and perhaps this is why Jesus speaks of them within the same breath--obedience and careful consideration are the two parts which make up the one complete whole of following him.

Lacking the simple desire to obey, we will never go. And lacking the ability to assess what we need to survive, even to enjoy, the journey, we will never reach "the place in the distance" where God has led (see Gen 22:3-4).

-Joe

upon his shoulders

2011-12-25T16:08:00.000-08:00

Our family has beenmemorizing Isaiah 9:1-7 during our evening devotions this Advent. In hearing the text repeated over and overout loud, I noticed the repetition of the word “shoulders”. In its first usage, “shoulders” is where the “bar”of the people’s “burden” (as in “the yoke of their burden” ) and the “rod oftheir oppressor” lies. Their shouldersare the locus of the people’s oppression, the place where their suffering ismost keenly felt. In its secondappearance, however, “shoulders” is not the same place of the people’s burdenbut upon which the “authority” of the “child born for [them]” “rests”. Suffering is no longer the “bar across theirshoulders”; “authority rests upon his shoulders.”

Through this word-play, thatis, through “shoulders”, Isaiah emphatically links suffering andauthority. “The people who walked indarkness have seen a great light”, they now “rejoice as with joy at the harvest”,because “the yoke of their burden and the bar across their shoulders, the rodof their oppressor” has been broken “as on the day of Midian”. It has been broken because authority, inspite of all worldly pomp, does not in fact rest with “their oppressor” butupon the shoulders of “the son given to us”--the Messiah or Christ, theanointed one of God. “The bar acrosstheir shoulders” has been broken because all authority rests upon the shouldersof the One who is for them, “for us”.

Yet the close linkage in thetext between suffering and authority does not refer simply to the endresult--the change in state from darkness to light, from suffering tojoy--which the people enjoy. Surely,Isaiah also has in view the means by which their oppression was broken. Isaiah sees not only that the people nowenjoy freedom; he sees with great clarity the One who purchased theirfreedom. The prophet sees that the “childborn for us” broke the “bar across their shoulders” only by bearing the baracross “his shoulders”. The authoritythat rests upon the shoulders of the Messiah is revealed in his suffering forthose oppressed. Only then is heacclaimed, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince ofPeace.” And only thus “will hisauthority grow continually”, even in us--as we share in his suffering forothers so also to be exalted with and by him.

-Joe

the mirror and the law

2011-10-06T09:40:00.000-07:00

As we thought about what we wanted our message to be to the church in North America this summer, we selected James 1:22-25 as our starting point. The text seems to compare two things, two things which human beings might "look into." One, a mirror, appears in the context of a person who, after looking into a mirror, "immediately upon going away forgets what he looks like." James calls this the predicament of a person who "hears the word but does not do it." A second thing, what James calls "the perfect law, the law of liberty", has an opposite effect; rather than the mirror which accompanies forgetfulness, the perfect law, when looked into, leads to blessing.

Of course, on the one hand, it is not simply the "looking in" to the perfect law that guarantees blessing any more than simply "looking into" a mirror is a recipe for forgetfulness; the person who looks in must also "persevere"--then she will "be blessed in her doing." On the other hand, it does greatly matter what we as human beings are looking into. On closer examination, looking into a mirror is not as fruitful as looking into the perfect law of freedom, the story of scripture which gives shape and direction to our lives. For a mirror--if that is what we are regularly looking into--shows us only what we are on the outside, imperfections and all. Moreover, the mirror shows us only ourselves and our most immediate surroundings. But the perfect law, when looked into, is like a mirror which shows us beyond our own time and space; it puts us within a vast history, and in the presence of the God who has gone with our ancestors throughout time. And knowing that story, that law, that movement from slavery to freedom, through suffering to redemption, determines our own walking--our own doing--in the paths of blessing.

-Joe

the grace of sheer silence

2011-08-09T13:57:00.001-07:00

During this period of relating to the North American church while away from South Africa, I’ve attended two sessions of a men’s Bible study in which we read the texts from the lectionary. Last week we read 1 Kings 19:9-18, the story of Elijah’s encounter with God at a cave. The study group discussed a number of themes elicited by the story, one of which—the problem of violence and the will of God—I will comment on below.

The violence surrounding the text, of course, is Elijah’s slaughtering of the prophets of Baal after they have been defeated in the great contest on Mt. Carmel (1 Kgs 18:40). It seems to be Elijah’s violence, in fact, which has led him to the cave. As the story goes, setting the context for Elijah’s wanderings after his triumph on Mt. Carmel, “Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword (1 Kgs 19:1). To this report from Ahab, her husband, Jezebel responds by swearing that she will make Elijah’s life “like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow” (1 Kgs 19:2). In other words, because Elijah acted to kill the prophets of Baal—after Yahweh had already defeated them by fire on Mt. Carmel—Jezebel now vows to kill Elijah as he killed others. Perhaps Jezebel would have acted to destroy Elijah on the basis of the results of the contest alone, on the basis of her wounded pride that her gods were not as powerful as Elijah’s God. Even so, the text seems to emphasize that it was the violence following Yahweh’s victory—Elijah’s decision to take up the sword against the false prophets—which further incited Jezebel, Elijah’s enemy, against him. That explains, therefore, why the text seems to separate the simple results of the contest in the preceding narrative (1 Kgs 18)—“all that Elijah had done” (19:1)—from Elijah’s activity following the victory of Yahweh—“and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword” (19:1). It also explains why Jezebel justifies her intent to kill Elijah on the basis of the fate of the prophets of Baal at the hands of Elijah. Elijah’s act of violence, not the victory of his God over false gods, is that which has put him to flight—and led him now to the mouth of the cave.

Against that background, one does not read Elijah’s case before God in the ensuing story as a righteous plea but as a plea of self-righteousness. For when Yahweh summons him at the cave—“What are you doing here Elijah?” (1 Kgs 19:9)—Elijah lists not the violence he’s committed but the violence committed against him and his people: “for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away” (1 Kgs 19:10). It is also to such a response that God responds in turn with, as on Mt. Carmel, a demonstration of God’s power—though not as Elijah expects. Having just received, on Carmel, wind which brought a drought-breaking rain (18:44-45), “a great wind” passes before Elijah in the cave—“but the LORD was not in the wind” (19:11). Having just received, on Carmel, fire from heaven, fire passes before Elijah in the cave—“but the LORD was not in the fire” (19:12). Rather, it is only after a “sound of sheer silence” that the voice of God speaks (19:12ff.).

Elijah might have learned, first from Carmel’s fire, then from Carmel’s wind and rain, that God’s grace was sufficient for him. Through no effort of his own, the fire fell from heaven to put his enemies to flight, the wind and rain to water a dying land. In the narrative, however, Elijah uses grace as a cause for sinning; he capitalizes on the defeat of Baal to slaughter his prophets “with the sword” (19:1). Elijah turns a victory of the Spirit into a battle against flesh and blood (see Eph 6:12). Fleeing from grace, Elijah finds himself within the wrath of retribution—the vow of a wicked queen to kill him as he himself killed.

But God is persistent. Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more (Rom 5:20); though Elijah might have known the character of God in fire and rain, God visits him again in the “sound of sheer silence”. If Elijah does not yet understand, God continues to reveal Godself to Elijah, waiting for the day when he—when we—might understand.

The “sound of sheer silence” also did not awaken Elijah to the fullness of the presence of God. Following the sound, Elijah repeats his prior speech and, within the permissive will of God, is commanded to anoint others for further acts of violence (19:14-17). Because Elijah, like Moses before him, could not break the cycle of retribution, he was not declared—by the voice that came after him on another mount—to be “my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased” (Mt 17:5). That was reserved for “Jesus alone” (Mt 17:8), the Word who spoke to Elijah in “sheer silence” and speaks to us through Elijah’s story.

-Joe

the glory of community

2011-08-01T18:45:00.001-07:00

Since last February, when I taught the topic of “salvation” at Bethany Bible School, a couple of texts have been paired in my mind.

Exodus 33:18-34:7 and 1 John 4:7-12 both define the essential characteristic of God as love. 1 John says that “God is love”, while Exodus says that Yahweh, “the LORD”, is “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”, something which Yahweh also “keeps to the thousandth generation” (1 Jn 4:8; Ex 34:6-7).

In Exodus, the love of God is linked to the “glory” of God, as in Moses’ request to God—“Show me your glory, I pray”—which led to God’s unfolding revelation of himself to Moses (Ex 33:18). In Exodus 33-34, that revelation of God’s glory “unfolded” in two stages. In the first place, in response to Moses’ request, God directs Moses to “a place in the rock” where Moses might hide while God “passes over”, enabling Moses to glimpse God’s back—not God’s face or else Moses would die (Ex 33:20-23). While passing over, God also proclaims God’s name, “Yahweh”, and pronounces God’s character, “gracious” and “merciful” (Ex 33:19).

Merciful and gracious, it turns out, are the very same characteristics which Yahweh uses to introduce himself again to Moses in the second stage, that is, when God again proclaims God’s name (Ex 34:5-6). Likewise, whereas God “passed over” Moses by the rock in the first revelation, in the second revelation God “passes before” Moses on the mountain (Ex 33:22, 34:6).

It was upon Exodus’s narrative foundation of God’s glory, God’s name, and God’s character that John built his address to “the beloved”, his “little children” (1 Jn 2:1, 28, 3:2, 7, 18, 21, 4:1, 4, 7, 11). The glory of God, for example, also appears as a prominent theme in the theology of John’s gospel, as in the prologue: “We have seen his glory, the glory of a Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14). Similarly for John was God’s name important: “Yahweh” or “I am” is the name which Jesus the Son applies to himself repeatedly throughout the gospel (Jn 6:35, 8:12, 8:58, 10:7, 10:11, 11:25, 14:6, 15:1). Finally, for John, God’s character was primary; in addition to the Father’s only Son being full of “grace and truth”, through the Son “God so loved the world” (Jn 3:16). Now, also in his first epistle, the apostle proclaims that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). And that “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world in order that we might live through him” (1 Jn 4:9).

It is here—within the context of God’s love “revealed among us”—that John states the greatest narrative modification to the story of Israel in the person of Jesus, the Christ, the Son. That is, whereas the glory, the name, and the character of God “passed over” Moses in Exodus 33-34, the “signs” of God’s presence “remains”, “abides”, “dwells”, “stays”, “lives” with God’s people—upon one condition: that they “love one another.” As it says, “If we love one another, God abides with us and his love is perfected among us” (1 Jn 4:12).

“If we love one another”, John perceived through God’s revelation of God’s very self in the person of Jesus, God will never take away God’s glory from God’s people; no longer to “pass over”, as a revelation of God’s back, the love shared between the followers of Jesus is that which allows us to begin to “look into” the face of God. Because we have not yet truly, fully loved, God’s glory is still hidden. “We see”, in the words of another apostle, “in a glass darkly” (1 Cor 13:12). Thus, as John put it, “it is not yet revealed what we will be; but when he is revealed we will be like him, for we will see him as he is”— “face to face” (1 Jn 3:2, compare with 1 Cor 13:12).

So Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” And God replied, “Love one another.”

-Joe

preaching as brooding

2011-05-11T07:19:00.001-07:00

For the topic of Preaching last weekend at Bethany Bible School, I selected three texts: Genesis 1:1-5; Jeremiah 1:1-10; John 1:1-9.

These three texts have in common a focus on the Word of God or, in other words, that which human preachers dare to proclaim when they preach. That preaching is a big job is underscored by the call of Jeremiah, in which the prophet reacts to the coming of the “word of the LORD” to him with self-degradation—“Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy” (1:4-5). Yet proclaiming that word to others is something he must do, though something he can only do because the word is not his but God’s own put within his mouth (1:6, 9).

If it is thus true that the call of Jeremiah establishes for us the preaching imperative, the preacher still needs to know what and how he/she should preach. Genesis 1:1-5, the first words of the Bible, sheds light on the how of preaching. It is interesting to note, for example, that the spoken word is not the first thing in the story; before God speaks (1:3), “God”, “the Spirit of God”, and “formless” material of some kind (along with darkness and water) are in the story (1:1-2). In other words, before the word which is “light” (1:3) is spoken, the Spirit of God has been “hovering over the waters” (1:2). Though the waters are dark, though the earth is “formless and void”, though the creation is not yet really creation, though it is chaos, yet something is there—something over which God is pleased to hover.

The Xhosa translation uses -fukama for what the Spirit was doing over the waters; –fukama, what a mother hen does to her eggs and chicks, is what God was doing to formless matter: lovingly, jealously guarding-protecting-keeping it, considering what it will be until the day it is born. God the Mother was brooding over the waters.

It is from such brooding that the word finally speaks—and orders-creates a world. It is from the hovering of the Spirit of God (1:2), from perhaps the Mind of God (1:1), that the Word of God creates.

This is all to say that the preacher—the one called to speak the Word of God—must hover over the things of creation that will be before his word can begin to order them. Herein lies a “how” of preaching, a method for preaching. Before the proclaimer can speak, he must brood over material as a hen over unborn offspring. She must consider all things—people’s lives and stories, culture, news, proverbs, wisdom and—of course, especially—the text itself. Somehow, out of that consideration, by the Spirit of God, the creative Word speaks (or the spoken Word creates). This is a call for preparation—not of a rigid, inflexible kind but of a prayerful “brooding” over stories and the Story until the preacher has virtually taken them into herself. In short, a preparation of the Spirit.

The hovering of the Spirit of God has a second, equally important, implication for preachers and their preaching. Just as the Spirit hovered before the Word was spoken (not before the Word was), so the Spirit of God hovers over the things of creation before the preacher speaks or fashions them into a world. For the preacher this means that, no matter how chaotic the world to which he comes might be, how much unlike an ordered world it seems, that world—its inhabitants, its stories, its wisdom—is lovingly kept by its loving God. The Mother Hen is guarding her children and watching the preacher, keen to see whether his words will conform to the spirit of care with which God broods over them. Though, as God attested to Jeremiah, the Word can have a rough edge—“to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow” (1:10)—its ultimate purpose is “to build and to plant” (1:10). Tough love must be God’s and not the preacher’s own—it must come from the Word or not at all. God will judge the preacher if his words do not convey God’s love for the people.

Third, on this point, the brooding of the Spirit before the spoken Word contains an obvious connection to the missio Dei, or that common concept in mission theology that Christian mission is God’s and not our own. The implication of the missio Dei, of course, is that—in spite of certain historical mission rhetoric—the missionary does not “bring God” to people who do not know God; rather, the missionary, like Paul, proclaims “the unknown God” from within known cultural categories (Acts 17:22ff.) and toward the revelation of God through God’s Word. The presence of God before/ahead of us with others is essential for missionary patience and trust—virtues through which love is expressed to others.

Finally, a God-focused rather than a preacher-focused approach to preaching resonates with John 1:1-9, the third text here considered. For just as the “man sent from God, whose name was John” was “not himself the light” but only a “witness” to the light, so is any preacher in relation to the Word (1:6-8). For Christian preaching, that “Word” which “was in the beginning with God and was God” is Jesus himself (1:1-2); “for we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor 4:5). He is, in the end, both “what”—who—we proclaim and “how” we must proclaim what we proclaim. For it was his Spirit that lovingly hovered over the waters at creation as “a hen gathers her brood under her wings” (Lk 13:34).

-Joe

fear, deception, mercy: the burial and resurrection of Jesus from Matthew’s Gospel

2011-05-10T08:42:00.001-07:00

In my last post, I argued that Matthew’s story of the passion exposes the violence from all sectors of a human society united against Jesus. In the follow-up to the passion, the burial and resurrection, Matthew continues with that theme. If, however, no one group assumes greater responsibility for the death of Jesus than another in the passion, the burial-resurrection narrative implicates especially the “chief priests” along with the “Pharisees” (27:62) and the “elders” (28:12) in another plot against Jesus—a cover-up of his resurrection.

From 27:62, the story begins with the “chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate” asking for “the tomb to be made secure” in order that Jesus’ disciples may not “go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead’”—a “last deception”, they say, which “would be worse than the first” deception, presumably Jesus’ own prediction that he would “rise again” (27:62-64).

For someone who was so plainly destroyed and humiliated before their very eyes, the chief priests and company show a most peculiar fear. Rather than delighting in the elimination of one who was such a threat to their power, they are consumed by the fearful prospect of his enduring influence. That fear is tied to Jesus’ disciples who—if the chief priests had been watching from the events of Thursday-Friday—were nothing to fear. Indeed, long ago they “all” had “deserted him and fled” (26:56). The disciples, not courageous enough to stay with Jesus in his darkness hour, were scarcely a threat to steal his body from the tomb and willingly proclaim a lie, a resurrection that was not. Yet the chief priests fear precisely that. They fear it so much to go to Pilate and ask for “the tomb to be made secure”, a request that Pilate grants with a “guard of soldiers” (27:65).

A “guard of soldiers” and “sealing the stone”, however, is not enough to prevent what they fear. In fact, their first fear gives way to a worse one—evidence that what Jesus promised of himself has actually taken place, his resurrection from the dead. In one sense, of course, their fear was not fulfilled; the disciples did not steal away the body. In the other sense, their fear increased. They who had feared a “last deception worse than the first” find themselves ensnared in a “last fear worse than the first”: Jesus, their enemy, is alive.

Ironically, that which they feared would happen—the disciples stealing the body of Jesus and proclaiming a lie—is, following the report of Jesus’ resurrection by the guard, all to which the chief priests have to cling; their first fear remains their last security—and a flimsy one at that. The very lie that the chief priests feared is the lie they now actively spread, paying the soldiers a “large sum of money” to say that “ ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away’” (28:13).

Of course, the chief priests find themselves clinging to a “last deception worse than the first” because they could not submit—neither in Jesus’ life nor now in his resurrection—to the truth. No amount of plotting, scheming, or force can thwart the Life that Jesus embodies. He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Jn 14:6); they—we—the “imposter” we made him out to be (27:63).

Surely the story has something to say about the trap of fear. Just as the chief priests submitted to their worst fear rather than to the truth in Jesus, so we, doing the same, find our “last” condition “worse than the first” (see also Mt 12:45). Yet in the grace and mercy of his resurrection he says to us, as he did to two Marys, “Do not be afraid” (28:1, 10). Or to “the eleven”, those who had deserted him: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (28:16, 20).

-Joe

“Let his blood be on us”: Violence and the Passion of Christ

2011-04-18T05:27:00.001-07:00

Though it was Palm Sunday, I went to church yesterday prepared to preach on the passion. This was so because it has been my observation over time that our small, Pentecostal church does not necessarily utilize the passion-Easter narrative on Easter, let alone any other stories specific to the times of the church year. And, because we would not be with them for Easter, I wanted to ensure that the people would hear something from the passion this Holy Week.

It happened that my re-reading of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ last week coincided with a grisly murder last week in the Mandela Park community in which our congregation is located. Just before the sermon, our pastor brought the event up for prayer, as “the church in the community is compelled to pray for the community.” This, then, is what happened: the widow of a pastor had been murdered by disgruntled congregants. The church of the deceased had been in his home, and the widow no longer wanted the church around in the same place where she lived and raised her children. According to our pastor, the widow also disagreed with the orientation of the church, whose pastor practiced healing through “holy water” rather than “through Jesus.” All that aside, the murder had taken place in front of the children, now orphans. “Imagine how traumatized they must be”, our pastor said.

Matthew’s narrative, it turns out, also includes a reference to children within a story of violence. In calling for the death of Jesus, “the crowd” before Pilate says, “His blood be on us and on our children” (Mt 27:25). The verse ranks among the most controversial in the New Testament; within the history of Christian biblical interpretation, it has served as a justification for the total depravity of the Jewish people and a legitimation of violence against them. Regardless of how Christians have interpreted it, in Matthew’s story it seems to be simply the final flank in a united effort to eliminate Jesus. That is, rather than a simple condemnation of Jews, Matthew’s report serves to demonstrate that the “crowd” simply completed what both its “chief priests and elders” and the Gentile rulers (Pilate himself) had already begun—the condemnation of Jesus, “the King of the Jews” (Mt 27:11, 37). Matthew’s point, I dare to say, is not the condemnation of one people for the condemnation of Jesus, but that the whole of the human society to which he came found Jesus threatening to its way of life. The story, to pick up Girardian language, exposes the violence of human society more than the violence of a particular people (see Rene Girard, The Scapegoat (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1986.))

That “the crowd” should be seen as no more or less guilty for the death of Jesus than either its Jewish leaders or the Gentile rulers of first-century Palestine is justifiable from the evidence of the text. For example, it is sometimes assumed that Matthew is sympathetic to Pilate, that Pilate was forced against his will by the crowd to condemn Jesus. In Matthew’s narrative, however, Pilate is explicitly compared to “the chief priests and elders”—the Jewish leaders—in his role in the death of Jesus. For earlier, after “Judas the betrayer” has “repented” by bringing back “the thirty pieces of silver” which he took for handing Jesus over, the “chief priests and elders” say to him, “What is that to us? See to it yourself” (Mt 27:4). The same phrase, curiously, is used of Pilate as he prods the crowd to explain its choice to condemn Jesus instead of Barabbas. Pilate, that is, says, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves” (Mt 27:24). “See to it yourself(-selves)” unites Pilate and the chief priests and elders in a most devious injustice: transferring responsibility or guilt for the death of, in the admittance of Pilate’s own wife, an “innocent” man, Jesus, even as they themselves send him to his death. Indeed, though they both absolve themselves of responsibility, first “the chief priests and elders of the people conferred together against Jesus in order to bring about his death” and “bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate the governor”, then Pilate, “after flogging Jesus . . . handed him over to be crucified” (Mt 27:1-2, 26).

Moreover, continuing a prominent theme in his gospel as a whole, Matthew records both the chief priests and elders and Pilate engaging in religious rituals/formalism as a replacement for the simple doing of justice, as though each could maintain each’s righteousness before the divine by fulfilling religious law. The irony is indeed bitter: the chief priests and elders are concerned only that “it is not lawful” that the “blood money” that Judas has returned not go “into the treasury” of the temple—not that they have transgressed the righteousness of God by putting to death the righteous/lawful one; Pilate brings out a basin of water before the crowd in order to “wash his hands” of “this man’s blood” even as he spills it (Mt 27:6, 24).

If therefore, on the evidence of the narrative, we should see Pilate and the chief priest and elders as one in violence, so too might we see as one those others with whom they conspire against Jesus. In other words, it was “Judas” whom “the chief priests and elders” chided with “see to it yourself”, and “the crowd” whom Pilate goaded with the same. Consequently, Judas, consistently referred to as “one of the twelve”, one of Jesus’ inner circle/closest friends, is one with the generic “crowd” in the violence against Jesus—no more nor less responsible/guilty for the death of an innocent man (Mt 26:14, 47; cf. 26:20-25).

What this all adds up to, therefore, is a society, often divided against itself, strangely united in its quest to eliminate Jesus. In spite of their differences, real or perceived, that which makes all people the same—and guilty before God—is their violence, their hostility and their rebellion from the way of God. Unity in violence destroys, but the One who was destroyed—but raised beyond the violence committed against him—brings unity “in the bond of peace” to the divided ones through the blood of his forgiveness of their sins (Eph 4:3). Thus, at the Last Supper, in the very setting of betrayal, of handing over to a violent death, Jesus proclaims that the cup is “my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26: 28). The blood which all people thought they were taking from Jesus so as to bring about his death was the blood that he was giving in love for their lives.

It is in that same context, also, that we should read the crowd’s response, “Let his blood be on us, and on our children” (Mt 27:25). Though the crowd meant one thing by the statement, reality was quite another. The blood shed in violence, craved by the crowd, “washed off” by Pilate, “bought” by the chief priests and elders, handed over by “one of the twelve”, is the blood—the life and the love—Jesus did not withhold from his enemies, though an army of “more than twelve legions of angels” was his to defend him from death (Mt 26:53).

“Let his blood be on us and on our children”—this is the summary statement, in the voice of “the crowd” because it constitutes the largest grouping of humanity, of the human violence shared from Judas to the chief priests to Pilate. The violence against Jesus rises from its particularity in Judas, the priests, and Pilate to its universality in “the crowd”; all have “conspired”, “taken counsel together against the LORD and his anointed” (Ps 2:1-2).

Therefore, because the violence belongs not to one but to all—because of its universality—the story belongs in 21st-century South Africa as much as first-century Palestine. Wherever violence crescendos out of control, there the passion of Jesus still “speaks a better word” (Heb 12:24). Just as the blood of Jesus was on the crowd and its children not for condemnation but for forgiveness of sins, so it can cover the violent ones in Mandela Park—and the children terrorized by their violence. But in order for that blood to speak a better, more powerful word than the blood of hostility, it will need the old, old story, and those willing to proclaim it.

-Joe

“wiping away”, “laying aside”

2011-03-17T08:27:00.001-07:00

Luke 10:1-24 is a text which has come up repeatedly for me during our time in South Africa. Several weeks ago, for example, Wayne Hochstetler, with his wife Lois worker care staff for Mennonite Mission Network, led our Mennonite worker team on a study of the text. Deep reflection on a biblical text, first alone and then in the company of others, never fails to produce valuable insights—words for life.

On that day, then, Lois pointed out something from the story which I had not noticed before: a possible meaning for the dust which the messenger of Jesus “wipes” from his or her feet “in protest” against the towns that reject the messenger. It seems to me, on the one hand, that—as the text states—the wiping away of dust is indeed for the town that rejects those who come with the “authority” of the One who sent them “ahead of him” (10:19, 10:1). Indeed, the wiping away of dust is an act of “protest against” (10:11). Such a recognition, however, need not negate Lois’s point: that the wiping away of dust is also an act for the messenger.

For those who are sent by Jesus do have a job to do. Namely, that is to proclaim “peace” and the arrival of “the kingdom of God”, accept hospitality from those who welcome, and “heal the sick” (10:5-9). But failure to remove the “dust that clings to one’s feet”, the dust acquired in the town to which one has been sent—the dust of rejection—is to destroy the messenger, to take the messenger out of the service of God. For the messenger’s own well-being, for his capacity to remain the messenger of “peace”, an emissary of “the kingdom”, and a “healer” for others, he must “wipe away the dust that clings”. Rejection of the good things that the messenger brings must not derail her calling to bring “good news” to those who will welcome it. Rejection by some must not impede acceptance by others. We must “wipe away” the rejection that “clings”, “laying aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely” (Heb 12:1), in order to remain ourselves within the “love, joy, and peace” of God’s very presence.

Perhaps it was the seventy’s very obedience to Jesus’ command of “wiping away” that enabled them to return “with joy” to the Lord. Their joy was not a feeling wholly dependent upon the good will of others; their identity was not wholly in the success of their work. Or, if their identity did lay in human acceptance or worldly success, Jesus did not permit them to dwell there. It was not the work itself—the demons cast out—but the intimacy they experienced with God while going on their way—that their “names are written in heaven”—that was their “joy” (10:17, 20). Indeed, theirs was as Jesus’ own, who “for the sake of the joy set before him”—and for no other earthly reason or rationale (for there was none)—“endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).

Our God, as we concluded together on that day, is a God who “absorbs” our burden. God bears the rejection we sometimes take—in order that we might press on “ahead of him . . . to every town and place where he himself intend[s] to go” (10:1). We proclaim, we forgive, we heal, we go the extra mile, in Jesus’ name, but we do not effect the acceptance of our gifts: Reconciliation is “from God” (2 Cor 5:18).

-Joe

speaking simply

2011-03-14T11:32:00.001-07:00

At the first meeting of the Steering Committee for the Anabaptist Network in South Africa last December, we had a lengthy conversation on the subject of “simplicity”. And though the bulk of our conversation had to do with economic considerations, one of our members suggested another manifestation of the life of simplicity to which Jesus calls his disciples: simplicity in speech.

Simplicity, or “simple living” as I most often heard it described, was indeed a central value in my Mennonite upbringing—and perhaps especially as it related to speech. Somehow, I picked up that boastfulness, that singing one’s own accomplishments, is about as distasteful a characteristic as one can have. I also learned that “taking the Lord’s name in vain” was an offense of the highest order; though my understanding of such “swearing falsely” has grown to include all injustice done in the name of Jesus, it also still includes an avoidance of the flippant use of any of God’s names in everyday speech. Yes indeed, my colleague’s suggestion that Jesus, simplicity, and speech somehow belong together strikes a chord with the Anabaptist faith I heard and welcomed.

It is probably for that reason then—because I carry a simple faith or a faith in the simple—that the most disturbing encounters I have had within the wide world of South African Christianity have in common the element of someone “saying too much or more than one should.”

For the sixteenth century Anabaptists, the issue that exemplified simplicity in speech was the medieval practice of the swearing of oaths, or, in the case of the Anabaptists, the non-swearing of oaths. Taking their lead from the simple commands of Jesus, the Anabaptists refused to “swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King” (Mt 5:34-35). Applied to Reformation-era Europe, obedience to Jesus’ prohibition against oaths was disobedience to the law of a society built upon injustice, for oaths were the seal of an uneven (and unholy) alliance between lords and subjects, masters and servants. By swearing an oath to human masters in the sight of God, peasants agreed to do their masters’ bidding—even to fight their wars. Oath-swearing was thus the ultimate affront to a righteous God, for it placed ultimate power, the power to take life, within the hands of violent men. It was a renunciation of faith for the faithful, for it denied the God in whom they put their trust in favor of human masters.

All this implies, of course, that the swearing of oaths is fundamentally about relationships—to whom does one owe his/her first allegiance? To whom is one ultimately loyal? Who is one’s primary relation?

Though I was unaware as events unfolded, I have had two separate relationships in which—as I see it now—a partner in ministry swore a kind of loyalty, an oath, to me. In one case, one of our brightest students at the Bible School, whom we had singled out for future leadership, declared to me that he would “come to Bethany Bible School until the rapture.” Looking back, I have wondered whether this was not a bit like “swearing by heaven.” In the second case, another pastor declared that our relationship was the one to “take us into the New Jerusalem”—was this “swearing by the city of the great King”? In each case, the wording too closely resembled the places prohibited for swearing on Jesus’ list to escape my notice as an “oath”—and therefore also implied the same limitations inherent to oaths according to Jesus’ words. For just as one who swears “by [his/her] head” has not the power to “make one hair white or black”, so these friends swore to me that which only God can see for their lives (Mt 5:36). In both cases, the one swearing the oath was not prepared to fulfill it.

It seems to me, therefore, that there are only two kinds of “oaths” blessed by God for humans to take. One, the vow of marriage, repeats the basic structure of creation, blessed by God: “God created the human being in God’s image, male and female God created them” (Gen 1:27), the same “man and wife” who share such intimacy so as to be “one flesh” before their God (Gen 2:24). A second, baptism, binds the believer to Christ and his Body, the Church, the “first fruits” of a “new creation” (2 Th 2:13). Yet because the Church is “one body made up of many members” (1 Cor 12:12), the believer’s baptismal vow is to its totality rather than its partiality, to the whole not the part, to the universal rather than the particular. For, while the commitment to the universal can only be lived within the particular, vows must not be made to any one alone; they are made to God—and even then, in the case of baptism, in order to be blown by God’s Spirit to wherever, to whomever, whenever, God chooses (Jn 3:8-9). This is the “vow to the Lord” which we might “swear”—not to say more than we should but “yes, yes” or “no, no” to the Christ who bids us follow him (Mt 5:33, 37).

-Joe

on sacrifice

2011-03-01T07:16:00.001-08:00

When, at our gathering of Bethany Bible School last month, I asked for insights from the students on the meaning of “sacrifice” as it appears in 1 John 4:10, one old man referred me to the story of Abraham offering Isaac (Gen 22:1-19). And so it happened that I began to ponder that story once again.

The old man’s point, I think, was that “sacrifice” is an act of “love”—the main theme of the 1 John text we were studying. That, of course, is also how the author put it there: “Not that we loved God but that God loved us, and sent his only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10).

Many theologians in the West, both professional and lay, would dispute the assumption that sacrifice is an expression of love, that God’s sending of the Son to his slaughter proves not God’s love but God’s cruel detachment. However one interprets the Aqedah, “the binding of Isaac” from Genesis 22, on its own merits, the New Testament’s interpretation of that story—of which the 1 John text may be one example—is a classic example of employing a human story to speak of the mysteries of God. In other words, the story of Abraham offering up his “only son, Isaac, whom [he] loves” became for the New Testament authors a window on the Heavenly Father who offered up his “only begotten Son” for a sinful world. For the New Testament authors, the story of Abraham and Isaac illuminated the story of Jesus, the one whom they “declared to be the Son of God” (Rom 1:4).

The key, of course, is that the New Testament’s declaration of “the Son” does not imply his distance but his closeness to the Father—a closeness so close so as to reveal that they were really One Person. Yet, when that One should appear in flesh—a new realm for the One who is not a human being—he cannot but acquire another human title which differentiates him from the experience of him in the realm of pure Spirit. That title, of flesh married to Spirit within God, is “the Son”.

Once, therefore, the Son is understood, not from the perspective of pure flesh (“from a human point-of-view”) (2 Cor 5:16) but from flesh-in-Spirit, the Son ceases to be a pure object of slaughter, something acted upon by someone else. The Son becomes, rather, both Subject and Object, One who gives himself to the world of flesh. The Son is not simply the human Jesus, sent to his death by Another; the Son is Jesus the “Christ”, the one “in” whom “God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19). The “Father” is not detached; the “Father” is in the “Son.”

From the perspective of closeness, therefore, one also begins to appreciate the metaphor of Abraham and Isaac, a father and his son, for the Father and the Son. For, when we read that Abraham heard the word to “take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love . . . and offer him there as a burnt offering . . .” (Gen 22:2), we remember, from knowing the whole story, that this Isaac was the same son of his old age, the one promised him with his wife Sarah before they as yet had any heir. It was this Isaac for whom they waited and scarcely dared to hope, this Isaac who, when announced by angels, was greeted with the laughter of incredulity (Gen 17:17; 18:12). It was this Isaac who, when born, actualized the promise of God that Abraham might become the father of many nations, his descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky (Gen 15:5). This is the Isaac whom God now says to sacrifice, he the long-awaited promise now given up.

It is from this perspective--the story of a human father Abraham giving up his human son Isaac--that 1 John 4 has drawn its interpretation of God in human flesh in Jesus the Christ. In other words, it is not from the characterization of God at the outset of Genesis 22--the God who simply "tests" and commands Abraham to offer Isaac as a "burnt offering"--that the author of 1 John has found inspiration; it is from Abraham's, the father's, "sacrifice" of his "only son, whom he loved." 1 John's inspiration, moreover, comes not specifically from the father Abraham, that is, in isolation, nor from the son Isaac, but from the "sacrifice"--with all its intense relational implications. Abraham the father with Isaac the son approaches, becomes the best available analogy for God in Christ, because the story so vividly "counts the cost" of "offering up", of "sacrifice" (Lk 14:28). Whatever Abraham's reasons for heeding the call to offer Isaac, or however obvious it may seem that Abraham's will to kill Isaac was to deny his love for him, the background to the text--the personal history of father and son and all the implications of their relationship--and the text itself illustrates the complexities, the hardships, the suffering inherent to love. Precisely because Abraham "loved" Isaac is their story a story of sacrifice. Only that which is loved is truly "offered up".

Because the story of Abraham and Isaac is, therefore, a true offering, it invites, for those who know it, comparison with another story of authentic love. Considering the giving up of the son of promise, the one through whom the world was promised to Abraham, we glimpse the depth of the love of the God who "sent his only Son into the world . . . to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 Jn 4:9-10). We see, that is, that God gave up God's own Self-identification. Like Abraham who gave up his God-promised dreams for posterity in offering his son, so God gave Godself in the person of the Son. The Spirit takes on flesh. The Source of life enters death. The Light confronts the darkness. The blessed becomes the cursed (Gal 3:13). The Righteous One is made to be sin (2 Cor 5:21). In the Son, God denies Godself--everything, that is, but his love. "So that we might live through him" (1 Jn 4:9).

-Joe

the way of grace

2011-02-28T03:54:00.001-08:00

As I prepared to teach on the Psalms—150 “psalms” in five “books”--at Bethany Bible School earlier this month, I found a unifying thread in the subject of “enemies”. The Psalms seem obsessed with “enemies”—how shall one deal with one’s enemies?

Different psalms seem to recommend different courses of action. There is, for example, the violent approach toward enemies in Psalm 18; “David” seems to boast: “I pursued my enemies and overtook them; and did not turn back until they were consumed. I struck them down, so that they were not able to rise; they fell under my feet . . ..I beat them fine, like dust before the wind; I cast them out like the mire of the streets” (18:37-38, 42). In Psalm 58, again “of David”, there is—if not a boast of violence inflicted—delight in the painful demise of “the wicked” (58:3): “Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime; like the untimely birth that never sees the sun” (58:8). And then, most emphatically: “The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked” (58:10).

If Psalms 18 and 58 represent, on one side of a spectrum, a recommendation of violence against one’s enemies (Are the righteous bathing in blood that they have spilled?), others recommend more clearly a path of leaving the course of vengeance to God. For example, Psalm 37:

“Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices. Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath. Do not fret—it leads only to evil. For the wicked shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land” (37:7-9).

Perhaps between the violence of Psalm 18 and the “stillness” of Psalm 37 is what we might call the “confession” of Psalm 139. Without any mention of vengeance taken by his own hands, “David” nonetheless erupts with his mouth against the wicked:

“O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies” (139:19-22).

Even this verbal tirade, however, this eruption against “the wicked” is not directed at them—it is direct address to God: “O Lord”, the Psalm begins, “you have searched me and known me” (139:1). And, after all malice has been said—but not yet done—the Psalm ends where it began—with the Psalmist’s need for God to “search [him] and know [his] heart, with the Psalmist’s need for God “to see if there is any wicked way in me” (139:23-24). Before giving physical expression to his anger, before even any direct expression of his anger against his enemies, the Psalmist gives it to God. And giving it so, “David” finds himself again, after pondering all thoughts far and wide, only with his God (see v. 18). The grace of God, it would seem, is sufficient for him (see also 2 Cor 12:9). It also seems, therefore, that confession—that speaking truth in the presence of God about one’s own condition conditioned by others—is the means of that grace given to us.

So Psalm 32:3-5:

“While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”

-Joe

“perfected in us”

2011-02-17T06:11:00.001-08:00

The small-group Bible study text that I chose for our February lesson at Bethany Bible School on soteriology was 1 John 4:7-12, one of the great “love” texts of the Bible.

The text contains four key, repeated nouns and one key, repeated verb. The nouns are “Beloved” (vv. 7, 11), “God” (all verses), “the Son” (vv. 9-10), and “love” (which can also be, of course, a verb) (all verses). The verb is “sent” (vv. 9-10). We might approach this text by asking how these nouns and this verb fit together.

Who, for example, is being “sent”? Who is sending? Why, or for what purpose, was the sent one sent? Or why did the sender send the one who was sent? The answers to these questions may help us to understand the meaning of every key word which we have found.

The text proclaims, then, that “the Son” was “sent”. Moreover, “the Son” was sent by “God”. Furthermore, “the Son” was sent “into the world”. And why did God send the Son into the world? “In order that we might live through him” and “to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (vv. 9-10). We might go even further and ask about the motivation of the sender: Why does God desire that we “live through him”; why does God make an “atoning sacrifice for our sins”? The text is clear—because of God’s “love”.

So far we have accounted for the usages of “God”, “the Son”, and “love”, as well as the verb “to send”. The missing noun, “Beloved”, is also, however, implied within this schema. The “beloved” is the “we” who might “live through him”, the “our” whose sins have been atoned for. The “beloved” are, in other words, the objects of the love of God who “sent the Son into the world”. “Beloved” is a collective noun. The “beloved” are the many-in-one, made to be so because of the love that brought them together.

It is on the note of the unity of this collective, this one body made up of many members, that this text ends—with an astonishing claim. “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us” (v. 12). “God is love”; the text has already said so in no uncertain terms. Indeed, “love is from God” and “everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (vv. 7-8). “God is love”.

If God is love, it would seem that love has already been “completed” or “made perfect”. Even before the creation, love is perfect in the God who is, the God who is love. And this may be so—except that the text claims that God has a purpose for God’s love beyond God’s own invisible Self—whom “no one has ever seen”. God’s purpose was that love would not be contained within God, but overflow to those whom, because of love, God created. As soon as God creates, as soon as the possibility of other lovers becomes a reality, there is more love to share, more love that needs to get out, more love seeking completion. The love of God is seeking completion in the members of God’s creation. Though “God is love” and no other, though it was “not that we loved God but that God loved us” (v. 10), it is yet only in us, the “beloved”, that God’s love can be perfected. God cannot perfect his love in us without us. We must “love one another” (vv. 7, 11, 12). Only then do we have the assurance of God’s abiding presence with us. Only then do we know that God remains. Only then can the One “whom no one has ever seen” be seen.

“God sent the Son into the world in order that we might live through him.” “If we love one another”, that same world to which Jesus came will see the glory of God.

-Joe

Jesus Our Obedience

2011-02-09T06:26:00.000-08:00

Our topic last Saturday at Bethany Bible School was Creation, Sin, Redemption, or the basic course I've outlined on soteriology, the Christian teaching on how Christ saves. I included the three words--creation, sin, redemption (or salvation)--in the course title in order to make it clear that salvation from sin is of or for the creation. In other words, salvation is not an experience unrelated to how God created us to live as God's creatures in God's creation. On the contrary, salvation has everything to do with human life. It is not simply preparation for a future, as-of-yet unexperienced reality (though it does prepare us for whatever lies ahead); it is, simply, the life that God created us to live. Because of sin, our rebellion against God, our disobedience to the Creator's will, salvation is new creation, that is, it is a making new of something which had lost its way or fallen away from the Creator's design. Therefore, albeit "new", the connection of creation to salvation, is, quite obviously, close.

I take as critical to my understanding of the relationship between creation, sin, and redemption the logic which the Apostle Paul employs in Romans 5-6. Paul talks about sin entering the creation through human disobedience (see Rom 5:19). Sin is the force of disobedience. If therefore, sin is the sickness, that from which humans must be saved in order to be restored to the will of God, it follows that its cure, that which takes away its effect, is obedience. Salvation is the force of obedience.

All of this brings us to Christ, the Savior. Christ is the force of obedience. By becoming like us, "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom 8:3), yet "without sin" (Heb 4:15), Christ reversed the curse of disobedience in the human will. Through his obedience to the love of God, Christ opened the way of obedience to God for all human beings. As the writer of Hebrews said, "he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him" (5:8-9). As the Son's obedience to the Father was the source of his salvation in the flesh, his rescue, his being made perfect, his exaltation (Php 2:9), his being raised from the dead, so our obedience to the Son, to walk in the way of Jesus, is our salvation. And because Jesus is raised, exalted, complete, beyond what we have been, he is, in the words of Paul, a spiritual person who gives life--not merely a human being to whom life and breath was given (see 1 Cor 15:45). He is a Spirit, the Holy Spirit, who abides with us as we hear his Word and begin to live by it. He is the One who inspires our obedience to the love of God--and so saves us.

-Joe

a better word

2011-01-17T08:09:00.001-08:00

On the occasion of having to preach at a funeral for a man who was the victim of a stabbing, I found myself pondering again the first murder in the Bible, the story of the brothers Cain and Abel (Gen. 4).

That these were indeed “brothers” is not something the text will allow us to forget.

After birthing Cain, Eve “bore his brother Abel” (v. 2).

After having his offering disregarded by God, “Cain said to his brother Abel . . . (v. 8a).

“And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him” (v. 8b).

“Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ (v. 9a)

“He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ (v. 9b)

“And the Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand” (vv. 10-11).

By emphasizing their familial connection, indeed their relationship of blood, the text heightens for the reader the horror of Cain’s murder of Abel. Perhaps a person might conceive of taking the life of a stranger; a brother does one scarcely conceive to kill.

Such a taking of life before God, the giver of life, is an offense of the first magnitude—an offense for which the blood that was shed “cries out to God from the ground” (v. 10).

What was the blood of Abel, the blood that Cain shed, saying?

From the surroundings of the story, it seems that the blood of Abel was crying, “Vengeance!” Indeed, it is vengeance that Cain fears when confronted for his offense. It is likewise vengeance—of a “sevenfold” variety—that God threatens for the punishment of any who would kill Cain in retribution for his brother—an ironic godly prohibition against vengeance and a provision for Cain. Moreover, it is again vengeance—this time of the “seventy-sevenfold” variety—which Lamech, Cain’s fifth-generation descendant, boasts, taking advantage of God’s mercy for Cain, will be his vindication for the murder of a “young man” (4:23-24). Shall we sin in order that grace may abound indeed! (see Rom 6:1)

Thus, as sure in the story as God’s grace for the offender is God’s justice for the victim; vengeance may be foregone for Cain, but the blood of Abel is in the mind and in the ears of God.

In the immediate context, the redemption God prepares for Abel comes in the form of Seth, another son for the bereaved mother Eve: “God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, because Cain killed him” (v. 25).

In the broader biblical, canonical context, the redemption of Abel and Cain—indeed for every victim and offender throughout time—comes in the form of Christ, the one whose “blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb 12:24). For the blood of Jesus, like Abel’s, also had a voice crying to God—not vengeance but “Father, forgive them" (Lk 23:34).

-Joe

trust that this is true

2011-01-05T20:57:00.001-08:00

At our recent Mennonite mission worker retreat, our input person, Jack Suderman, led us in eight sessions of "refreshing" our understandings of Christian mission. Among many priceless nuggets of wisdom and stories, he reminded us of Jesus' "first words" in the gospel of Mark. When Jesus first appeared on the scene, "proclaiming the gospel", he said nothing more, nothing less than "the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mk. 1:14-15). In other words, Jack contended, though the gospel may mean many things to many people, according to Jesus its entire meaning can be broken down to two basic ideas/realities: the time is now (has been fulfilled) and God's kingdom is here (has come near, is at hand). Everything else about the gospel is an elaboration of "the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand."

In response to his gospel, Jesus prescribed repentance and faith in, again, the "good news" ("gospel"). Or, as Jack put it, we are called to "trust" that this proclamation of the good news "is true." We are to trust that the time is indeed, truly, fulfilled and that God is present, is ruling, is King over the world in which we live.

As I pondered trusting the truth of the good news within the theme of Christian mission, an outline for a spirituality of mission (or a missionary spirituality) dawned on me. Just as Jesus was sent by the Father, or in Jesus God sent Godself to the creation, so, through the gift of his Holy Spirit, we too are sent. The mission of God has been extended to us, that is, to anyone and everyone who comes in Jesus' name. If we are thus, in some way, sent as Jesus was sent, then Jesus' mission reflects on our mission and our mission reflects on his. This means that, for Jesus, God in human form, his coming to the earth, his arrival, his engagement with the creation, was as sudden or as in-breaking as ours is. He also had to arrive in a setting that was, in the sense that he was not an original member of it, not his own. Being thus foreign to him, as the flesh is to the Spirit, the creation was for Jesus a field which he had to observe, explore, experience in order to know. The created world was for Jesus a field in which he saw--and proclaimed--the presence and activity of God: "the kingdom of God is at hand". Jesus came to where he came, to whom he came, proclaiming upon his arrival--and therefore, even before he got there--that God was present, ruling, reigning, working.

Indeed, when Jesus taught the nature or character of the "kingdom of heaven", he did not preach himself but identified the presence of God through the creation and its interactions: a woman kneading yeast through dough, a sower scattering seed upon different kinds of soil, a merchant in search of fine pearls, and on and on (Mt 13). All of these were things present before he got there, but they were not things seen because people had neither "eyes to see nor ears to hear". Thus God ordained an outsider to alert insiders to "God with us", God among them. And Jesus proclaimed to them, among them, within them, that "the kingdom of God is at hand". Such a proclamation is at once both a radical affirmation and critique--a judgment--of the creation, wherever it may be. It is an affirmation, for it proclaims, consistent with God's initial act of creation, that the flesh is a worthy carrier of God's Spirit; it is a critique because the presence of anything found not of God cannot reside in that in which God was pleased to dwell. First and foremost, however, simply, "the kingdom of God is at hand."

"The kingdom of God is at hand". Jesus "trusted that this was true." Jesus trusted that God's presence, wisdom was among the creation to which he came. That is the cornerstone of a missionary spirituality that affirms, challenges, transforms, loves.

-Joe

now is the time

2010-12-02T04:48:00.000-08:00

A text which I have thought a lot about since being in South Africa, Jesus' story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), came up again last Sunday in the sermon of Pastor Ntapo. Some of his key insights are below.

The time for salvation is now. It is unwise to put off those difficult things in life which we must do. The rich man, in the pastor's words, "never took time to consider his life" because he was "caught up in the things of the world", caring more about his purple robes and fine feasts (v. 19) than the essence of life itself. Though the pastor himself did not say this, by implication that essence of life which the rich man should have considered was available to him in the person of Lazarus, that "poor man at his gate" (v. 20). By opening his eyes to see the poor man, "covered with sores" (v. 20), the rich man might have realized his own vulnerability and ultimate fate as one subject to death. He realized his own pain only after death, "tormented in Hades" (v. 23), when it was too late for him to amend his ways.
The laws of God's creation are fixed. When the rich man finally realizes his own vulnerability, he wishes that Lazarus might be sent to him in Hades with water to cool his tongue (v. 24). "Father Abraham", the one to whom the rich man makes his request, denies it, in part on the basis that "between ["Abraham's bosom where Lazarus resides after death] and [Hades where the rich man resides after death] a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us" (v. 26). This point thus reaffirms the first point: the time that the Creator has set for human obedience is between birth and death--not after. This is a reality that we might want to protest but have absolutely no power to change. But realizing the order of creation, we do have the power to live life harmoniously, joyfully within it, in spite of life's struggles.
A person remains in death what he or she was in life. Even if more chances to get life right, that is, after death, were available to us, they would come to nothing. Even torment in Hades could not change the rich man's behavior. He still imagined that he had the power to command Lazarus in the manner of many who are rich--he still imagined that Lazarus existed to serve him. Thus the rich man called out to Abraham, "send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames" (v. 24). This point is also related to the previous two: because the time is now by order of God, those who seek comfort in death in relation to others must seek it in life in relation to others. If the rich man in death now wants to see Lazarus, albeit from an assumed position of superiority, why would he not see him in life who "lay at his gate" (v. 20)? In order to relate to others in death, we must be related to them in life. If we shall live with them then, we will live with them now.

In summary, therefore, the emphasis lies in this life. All roads lead to the present. By the grace of God, righting the wrongs of the past now will secure for us a goodly future.

-Joe

as the head, so the body

2010-11-29T04:01:00.001-08:00

The Christ hymn of the book of Colossians, 1:15-20, claims, once at the beginning and once at the end, that the “beloved Son” (1:13) is so close to “the Father” (1:12) that he is with the Father one God. First, in v. 15, it claims that the Son “is the image of the invisible God”; second, in v. 19, it claims that in the Son, “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” These twin statements about the identity of God the Son are complemented by twin statements about the activity of God the Son as Creator and Savior. First, “in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him” (v. 16); second, “through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven” (v. 20). Obviously, the work of the Son in creation and salvation in this second pair of statements is emphasized by the language of “all things”—first, the Son is the one through whom “all things” were created; second, the Son is the one through whom “all things” were reconciled to God. Moreover, in both cases, “all things” include that which is “in heaven and on earth” (v. 16, 20). In short, therefore, as reflected in this hymn, the early Christians claimed that Christ Jesus, the Son of the Father, one God from “before all things” (v. 17), is the Creator and Savior of the universe (or whatever is the biggest possible designation for “all things”).

Alongside these lofty claims, however, are two claims “from below.” That is, if the Son is God, the Invisible One, he is also simply “the head of the body, the church” (v. 18), the visible one. God, who is Spirit, who has no body in the form of God’s creation, is nonetheless, in Christ, the “head of the body, the church”, made up of many human members. A second claim “from below” is more shocking: the One in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” is the same One through whom God “was pleased to reconcile to himself all things . . . by making peace through the blood of his cross” (v. 19-20). God, the eternal one, “before all things,” Creator not created, became in Christ the mortal one, beneath all things, rejected, crucified—“on the cross.” God, “before all things”, is “pleased” to work in no other way than “through the cross,” through God’s giving of God’s self to the world in creation and redemption. God, though “before all things,” is not a God who stands far off from all things, but enters into their condition in order to redeem them. God is pleased to dwell in the flesh, and to be glorified in it.

And how will God be glorified in the flesh?

If the dual claims “from above”—that the Son is God who creates and redeems all things—are related—then so too the claims “from below”—“the head of the body, the church” reconciles all things to God “by making peace through the blood of his cross” (vv. 18, 20). As the church proclaims in word and deed—in true worship—the identity and activity of the Son, it becomes like its “head.” The church that truly sings of its head will become like its head. The church that claims the identity of its head must take up the activity of its head, “making peace”—even at the cost of its own life, “through the blood of his cross.”

-Joe

to give or not to give

2010-11-25T07:19:00.001-08:00

For the final lesson of our discipleship class this year, we studied Jesus’ parable of the ten bridesmaids, Matthew 25:1-13.

The parable gives out a key conclusion from the outset—of the ten bridesmaids, “five of them were foolish, and five were wise” (v. 2). Moreover, the text elaborates from the beginning the reason for their respective foolishness and wisdom: “When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps” (vv. 3-4). As a result, then, the suspense, the drama of the unfolding story, lies not in that five were wise and five were foolish, nor in the specific action that marks the line between wisdom and folly, but in why taking “flasks of oil with their lamps” should constitute wisdom. In order to answer that question, the reader will have to know more about the purpose for which the ten took lamps and did or did not take with them “flasks of oil”, which is the same as asking for whom did the bridesmaids take their lamps.

The second variant of that question, of course, is also stated from the outset—“Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom” (v. 1). Indeed, to meet the bridegroom was the sole purpose for which the ten took their lamps. Having one purpose, five took “flasks of oil” with their lamps and five did not. Seeing that one purpose, we wonder why five brought no flasks of oil with their lamps, and understand why having oil with their lamps is the difference between wisdom and folly. Indeed, if the bridesmaids truly cared about their one purpose, or for the one for whom they were bridesmaids, they would have prepared themselves against all contingencies. Though they—not even the wise ones—did not expect the bridegroom to be “delayed”, five of the ten were nonetheless prepared to meet him “at midnight” when the “shout” of his arrival went up (vv. 5-6). Consequently, the wisdom of the five who were prepared (“those who were ready”, v. 10), though they slept like the rest (v. 5), consists not in their foreknowledge of the bridegroom’s time of arrival but in their knowing what they needed to complete the task for which they were called. That sole task—to accompany the bridegroom into “the wedding banquet”—requires enough oil-powered light to illumine the narrow way (Mt. 7:13-14) forward through darkness.

To have enough oil to show the way absolutely forbids, in this case, sharing what one has with others who have not; the oil in this parable is not bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty, clothes for the naked (cf. Mt. 25:31-46). The giving of oil in their flasks to those who brought no flasks with oil but could have is akin to “throwing your pearls before swine” who will only trample (Mt. 7:6), to attempting to do for others what they must do but have failed to do for themselves. To give, in this story, is to try to do for someone else what only that person can do for herself. To give here is to intercede where no intercession is possible, to intervene between a person and her bridegroom—her Lord—where no intervention can work. That the five who brought flasks of oil with their lamps perceive that to give to those who did not bring flasks of oil with their lamps is a dead-end is precisely what makes them wise. They know, that is, that the whole purpose for which they—and their fellow bridesmaids who brought no flasks of oil—exist as servants—to go with the bridegroom into the wedding banquet—will not succeed if they give their oil. It is better to have five lamps, burning oil, making enough light to see the task through than to forfeit the task itself by spreading the oil so thin among ten that all the lamps will go out before the bridegroom enters his glory.

This, then, is the knowledge that pertains to knowledge, the wisdom of wisdom: It is better to put a lot into a few than to put a little into many.

If we should follow the wisdom of the first half of this statement, we will enter the wedding banquet with the bridegroom. If we follow the second half, neither we—once thought wise, once prepared—nor the foolish will enter.

Let, therefore, those who bring flasks of oil with their lamps go with the bridegroom into his wedding banquet.

-Joe

deducing evangelism: an inductive Bible Study

2010-11-17T05:09:00.001-08:00

Last night I presented to our Tuesday night Bible Study group a lesson I had done on evangelism at Bethany Bible School in February. Our text was Matthew 4:23-25, three verses directly preceding the sermon on the mount in chapters 5-7.

I chose the text to explore the meaning of evangelism because it is one of the places in the New Testament where the Greek word from which we get the word “evangelism” (or its relatives “evangel”, “evangelist”) occurs. In other words, I did not choose to explore the topic through texts commonly associated with the topic—for example, John 3:16, or a series of verses from Romans meant to illustrate humanity’s sinfulness and God’s response in Christ (e.g. Rom. 3:23, 6:23)—yet which do not contain the word or words from which we get “evangelism.” But by choosing a different starting point, we might gain a fresh perspective.

In the Matthew text, then, the word from which “evangelism” comes occurs in verse 23: Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news [Gk: euangelion] of the kingdom . . ..” Jesus’ “proclamation of the good news” is sandwiched between two of the text’s three key repetitions—the words “Galilee”, the place of Jesus’ activity, and “healing”, the third of the three verbs, in addition to “teaching” and “preaching the good news of the kingdom”, used to describe Jesus’ ministry. A third key repetition in the text occurs just after the word “healing”, that is, Jesus was “healing every disease and every sickness among the people” (v. 23). This basic description is repeated in v. 24 in inverted order: “they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains . . . and he healed them.” Following that, we find the second occurrence of “Galilee”; just as Jesus went about “Galilee” teaching, preaching, and healing, so now “great crowds followed him from Galilee”. This second time, however, Galilee does not stand alone, in geographic isolation, but is joined by “the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan” as places whose people received the blessings of Jesus (v. 25).

Again, the three key repeated words in the text are:

Galilee

healing

diseases

Moreover, these are arranged in the following pattern:

Galilee

healing

diseases

healing

Galilee

This arrangement, known as a “chiasm”, or an A-B-C-C-B-A pattern, is common in biblical texts of both the Old and New Testaments.

Identifying the repetitions helps us to narrow our focus on the text and moves us toward discovering its central meaning. Once we have identified them, we also begin to identify what lies around them and to what they might point.

For example, we now ask if there is any critical information in the text that lies between the first mention of “Galilee” and the first mention of “healing.” Indeed, this is the case: as noted above, there is the description of Jesus “teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom” (v. 23). This seems too important to miss. Likewise, we ask whether there is any critical information in the text between the second occurrences of “Galilee” and “healing”—and we find that “great crowds followed him”. This is also too important to leave out.

Consequently, if we were to visualize this text, we would need to represent all of this key information as we build toward a central meaning. We can do that as follows:

A Jesus went throughout Galilee

B teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom

C and healing

D every disease and every sickness among the people

D and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains . . .

C and he healed them

B And great crowds followed him

A from Galilee . . .

By now the parallels (marked by corresponding letters) and the chiastic pattern of the text should be obvious. Even still, one piece of critical information is missing. As indicated by the two parts of the text marked “D” stacked directly one on top of the other, the text converges at a “center”. That center, heretofore not revealed, lies precisely between the two lines of information about the diseases that Jesus healed among the people. As a result of that healing of human diseases,

“his fame spread throughout all Syria”

or, “a report about him went out into all Syria” (v. 24).

This is, structurally, the central phrase of the text; therein also lies the text’s central meaning.

What might that meaning be? And what might it say about our understanding of evangelism?

Jesus is the model evangelist. “His fame” or “the report about him” spread seemingly independently of his person, or perhaps—in light of other gospel stories—in the opposite direction of his own intentions. Jesus did not show up on the scene, in “Galilee”, going about “teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming” himself—even though he was, in the words of the Christ hymn (Php 2:5-11), “in the form of God.” On the contrary, he “went about proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.” He did not consider that the kingdom was his own, but that it was the domain of his “Father in heaven” (Mt. 6:9). In other words, he “did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped”, but took upon himself the diseases of the people, having “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave”, a servant of the people. It was thus his compassion for the people, his passion with them, perhaps expressed most concretely in his ministry of healing (but also through his teaching and preaching)—not his exalting himself above them—that drew people to him. “The report about him spread” as a result of his “suffering with.” Forsaking pride or the praise of human beings, he gained their praise. Seeking first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, everything else was added to him as well (Mt. 6:33).

This does not imply, on the other hand, that everyone who came to him—“the great crowds that followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan”—were drawn to his suffering. Many must have come with other motives; they were lured by the report of his power, perhaps wanting it for themselves, not to the source of his power. They desired the manifestations of his relationship to God rather than that obedient connection itself. They wanted the exaltation without the humility, the glory without the suffering, the resurrection without the cross. Knowing their hearts, “he taught them” (Mt. 5:1). Indeed, the “report about him”, “his fame”, which brought to him “great crowds of followers”, gives way directly, from three short verses at the close of chapter 4, to three full chapters—“the sermon on the mount”—of teaching his disciples and the crowds (5:1; 7:28) about the life of the kingdom.

If Jesus himself—true God and true man—prepares for us the way we are to follow, evangelism will take the course of:

teaching and preaching the good news of the kingdom, not ourselves or our churches. In our time, the good news of the kingdom means also the person of Jesus himself, since the Father’s intention was that “his fame” would go out into all the world—the Messenger has become the Message, the Evangelist the Evangel.
compassion, passion or suffering with others, not isolation from or exalting oneself above. It is our “suffering with” that also leads to healing of diseases of both spirit and flesh.
ministries of word and deed, spiritual and physical. Sometimes the language of evangelism is synonymous with the language of “missions”, as if both terms signify proclamation in word. Sometimes, the language of “mission” goes along with evangelism as a corrective, in order to broaden the understanding of evangelism. In this sense, “mission” is meant to encompass ministries of deed, for example, in the direction of “relief and development” work. Neither pairing seems quite right in light of such texts as the present one. In the structure of the text, Jesus’ “good news of the kingdom” is literally between “preaching” and “healing”, therefore also holding together as one the world of the spirit and the world of the flesh.
discipleship. Teaching about the way of Jesus or the kingdom of God should not be reserved for some later time in the life of a believer; all the words of Jesus have the power to both draw and instruct people. There are no evangelism texts, on the one hand, and discipleship texts, on the other. Neither is evangelism training in order to do narrow proclamation, nor discipleship training in how to do evangelism in the mode of narrow proclamation. Rather, evangelism-discipleship is, from the earliest stage, instruction in learning to follow Jesus/be led by his Spirit.

For the sake of the discussion . . .

-Joe

saving faith

2010-11-06T07:34:00.001-07:00

Luke 17:11-19, the story of the ten lepers, is a text which has proved relevant to us repeatedly over the last two years—most recently, at last week’s discipleship class. As we studied the story together, one young man connected its meaning to a sermon I had preached in the church last month. Just as there are “three tenses” of salvation in the biblical witness, so in this text there are perhaps “three stages” of salvation. These three stages correspond to, or rather may be derived from, three distinct words in the Greek, translated “cleansed” (v. 14), “healed” (v. 15), and “saved” (“made well”, NRSV) (v. 19). That is, after the ten lepers cried out to Jesus for mercy, Jesus sent them to the priests, on the way to whom “they were made clean” (v. 14); seeing that “he was healed”, “one of them turned back, praising God with a loud voice, prostrated at Jesus’ feet” (v. 16); this one, because he returned to give thanks to Jesus for his cleansing and healing, was also pronounced “saved” (v. 19).

What this summary shows is that there is both a close relationship of meaning between the words “cleanse,” “heal”, and “save” and a distinction between the three. Their unity lies within the merciful will of God as revealed in Jesus, that is, that cleansing of the skin and healing of the body is within the salvation that God intends for God’s creation. Indeed, the cleansing and healing of the leper were critical factors resulting in his salvation; physical cleansing and healing are not separate from salvation but within it. Consequently, any “salvation” that undermines the needs of the body is not the salvation that Jesus brings.

Even so, the very emphasis of the unity of cleansing, healing, and salvation reveals their diversity. Indeed, though cleansing may lead to healing which leads to salvation—that they are parts of one process—that very “leading to” prioritizes “salvation” as something more than the body—even if not exclusive of. The distinction is as important as the unity. This is so because the goodness of God cannot be limited to the health of the flesh. In other words, the faith to live, the declaration of God’s goodness to and love for his creatures, continues in spite of the suffering of the flesh. Though Job was stricken, yet he said, “I know that my Redeemer lives” (19:25). Or Habakkuk:

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation” (3:17-18).

In spite of suffering in the flesh and famine in the physical world, these prophets perceived that life with God continues. “In the valley of the shadow of death” they perceived that they were not dead yet—that death was only that: a shadow (Psa 23:4). As long as they had breath, they had the love of God.

If the life that remained in the prophets in spite of suffering was enough to maintain hope in God, the life that remains for us in the resurrected Christ is surely enough to sustain us. Though the presence of suffering tests our hope no less than it did Job, we have the story even he did not. Even the flesh that died has been raised immortal, imperishable, incorruptible (1 Cor 15).

Just as the Samaritan leper kept the faith--thanking Jesus for his mercy--and so experienced salvation, so our faith of the same order will keep us for eternity.

-Joe

"Feed my sheep (don't count them)"

2010-11-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

Though I have no way of verifying it, my memory tells me that I have heard a number of Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders over the past several years quote from--of all books--1 and 2 Chronicles. Aside from that, another observation of said church leaders is their obsession with numerical growth. They want to preside over a "big church", have so and so many new congregations planted by such and such a date, and have a new "3,000 seater" building built by such and such a date. Something else I suspect--more through second-hand reports than firsthand experience--is that the conception of discipleship that accompanies such goals is training people who "get saved" to themselves do basic evangelistic work. This basic evangelistic work, focused on "getting people saved", means giving a short presentation of the gospel of a sinful humanity redeemed by Christ's death and offering others an invitation to repent of their sin and welcome Jesus through a formulaic prayer. In other words, in this conception, discipleship is not, first and foremost, training in the life and words of Jesus, but grounding in a particular method of salvation.

This whole schema has been rehearsed and critiqued time and time again, and probably sounds familiar to those reading it here. Consequently, I do not wish to again offer that same tired critique--if only it were truly tired. It seems, however, based on the endurance of this conventional Christian understanding of salvation, that some words of alternative wisdom still need to be said. Which brings me to--of all places--1 Chronicles 21.

Pastor Ntapo recently referred to the story there, another version of which also appears in 2 Samuel 24, as evidence that what seems to be the prevailing ethos of Charismatic Christianity in southern Africa is out-of-step with a biblical faith centered in Jesus Christ. In the story, David, in the waning days of his reign over Israel, is "incited by Satan to count the people of Israel" (as an aside, it is interesting that in the narrative of 2 Samuel, it is God, not Satan, who is the subject who "incites" David) (1 Chr. 21:1//2 Sam. 24:1). Both versions of the story, in spite of their differences, condemn the action of David in counting his people. Indeed, it is David--the shepherd whom God appointed to lead God's "sheep" (v. 17)--upon whom responsibility rests for the sin of counting the people. It is David, the leader, the "pastor" of the flock, whose obsession with numbers leads to disaster for the sheep: "seventy thousand persons fell in Israel", casualties of the "pestilence" God sent as punishment for David's sin (21:12, 14).

If David was not to count the people, what should he have done? And if an obsession with numbers leads ultimately to destruction, what kind of an orientation leads to life?

Perhaps David might have remembered Gideon, that judge who preceded him in the history of Israel, with whom the troops of his charge were "too many" to fight God's battles; rather, it was with "300", down from an original 32,000, that God delivered Israel from the Midianites (Jdg. 7). Perhaps David might have remembered his earlier life, he who found discomfort in the sophisticated armor and weaponry of Saul, choosing instead "five smooth stones and a sling"--by which he triumphed over a giant and put an entire army to flight (1 Sam. 17:38ff). Perhaps he might have "looked forward", as did his forefather Abraham (Jn. 8:56; Heb. 11:17-19), to the Christ who was crucified, rejected by the crowds for his refusal to fight with the weapons of flesh and blood--but exalted by his Father for "enduring to the end" (Mt. 24:13).

All this is not to say that numbers are a sign of unfaithfulness. It is to say that the seeking of numbers bears little resemblance to ministry in the mode of Christ. God will count the sheep; let us feed them with the words of eternal life (Jn 6:63, 68, 21:15-19).

-Joe

God’s justice, humans’ faith

2010-10-30T07:32:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-12T00:59:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-11T02:29:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-07T01:32:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-05T07:09:00.001-07:00

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

of water and spirit

2010-09-23T04:55:00.001-07:00

One of the great treasures of cross-cultural encounter, one of my particular interests, is how my brothers and sisters interpret the Bible and what texts they use. On Sunday, for example, Pastor Ntapo made use of a puzzling text from one of the New Testament’s oft-neglected books, the letter of Jude.

“But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’ (Jude 1:9)

Pastor Ntapo’s particular interest in this verse, on this particular occasion, was not how it fit within the flow of Jude’s argument, but what information it might offer about the spiritual world which is hidden from human eyes. The former interpretive sensibility, that of reading verses within their literary contexts, is of primary importance for me. Pastor Ntapo, likewise, has demonstrated an ability to read the Bible that way. Nevertheless, our concern to read texts in context should not necessarily preclude our ability to glean other insights from individual verses’ particular words and phrases. In fact, there are many different contexts from which a person might see a verse: not only from a literary or historical perspective but also from the perspective of one’s personal experience of the things of God within a particular culture’s worldview. It may be, in fact, that understanding a particular living culture, being more of the worldview as those of the writers of certain biblical books, is the key to unlocking the meaning of obscure texts which strain the abilities of other interpretive methods.

Another interpretive method, however, which must be in play to evaluate a person’s use of texts is the canonical. Does the way in which a person uses a text, does the message he or she draws from it, accord with the witness of scripture as a whole, that is, with the canon of scripture? My assumption is that there is a main-track, a common vein, running throughout the otherwise diverse writings of the Bible. And for me that common vein, taking as authoritative what Jesus took as authoritative, is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and your neighbor as yourself” (Deut. 6:4; Lev. 19:18; Mt. 22:34-40//Mk. 12:28-34//Lk. 10:25-37).

So what, then, of Pastor Ntapo’s use of Jude 1:9?

Initially, for Pastor Ntapo, the verse seemed to reveal an order for what happens to a person at his or her death. Just as the archangel Michael and the devil disputed over the body of Moses upon his death, so at our deaths two spiritual forces, one of God and one of the devil, will contend with one another for our very beings. And just as Michael had to rebuke the devil in order to secure Moses, so God’s rebuke of the devil will be the determining factor in our own entrance to heaven. If this all seems too speculative, however, the reason given for why our bodies must, like Moses’, hang in the balance at all, is only too relevant. Because Moses sinned, Pastor Ntapo explained, the devil, like God, had a claim on Moses’ life. To illustrate the nature of Moses’ sin—indeed our sin—Pastor Ntapo reminded us of the story of Moses’ disobedience with regard to securing water for his people in the wilderness (Num. 20:1-13). Moses’ sin was his failure to act, in the words of the pastor, “like God.” Whereas God told him to “command the rock before their eyes to yield its water,” Moses “lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff; water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their livestock drank” (20:8, 11).

In this case, it seems to me, the way in which Moses was supposed to be “like God” is not the same as the way in which, according to the serpent’s words, Adam and Eve would become “like God” (Gen. 3:5). Indeed, in the latter, becoming “like God” was a sin against God, the attempt of human beings to live not according to the design of their creator—“by every word that comes from the mouth of God”—but “by bread alone”—by their own methods of provision (Deut. 8:3; Mt. 4:4). Those methods of provision, Pastor Ntapo was implying, consist of using human strength, physical force, to secure blessings; like Moses, only striking the rock will bring water. By contrast, the power of God is through God’s Word—the power Moses might also have known had he spoken, by God’s command, to the rock. So, yes, though even Moses’ human strength brought forth water, it was not the water “from which one might drink and never thirst again” (Jn. 4:13-14).

In the end, what began as Pastor Ntapo’s interest to understand the hidden world became a clear exhortation for faithful living for his congregation. Just as the dispute over Moses’ body was the result of his own sin, so the patterns we set in life follow us into death. On the same principle, then, by God’s grace, through Jesus, by the peculiar power of his Word, we can drink even now the “water gushing up to eternal life” (Jn. 4:14).

-Joe

compassion in the story

2010-09-17T04:42:00.000-07:00

Here is my latest column for the Anabaptist Network in South Africa.

-Joe

knowing and not knowing

2010-09-15T06:22:00.001-07:00

The Friday session at last month’s conference at Bethany Bible School was on sexuality. For our inductive Bible study, we focused on Genesis 38:1-26, the story of Judah and Tamar.

A key verse in the story, bringing together a number of its key words and themes, is v. 16, Judah’s words to Tamar followed by the author’s explanation: “ ‘Come, let me come in to you,’ for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.”

Judah solicited Tamar, his “daughter-in-law”, for sex because he thought she was a prostitute, because “he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.” Though this might seem like the text’s absolution of Judah, a justification for his “going in” to his daughter-in-law, it is, in fact, an indictment of him. Indeed, for even if Judah would not, as the text implies, have solicited his own daughter-in-law for sex, his hiring of a prostitute is a solicitation of someone else’s daughter for the same.

Indeed, the use of the title “daughter” or “daughter-in-law” is frequent in the text. The first usage of “daughter” occurs in v. 2, where Judah “saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; he married her and went in to her.” This last comment, that Judah “went in to her”, is the same approach that he takes later on, in v. 16, with his daughter-in-law (“Come, let me come in to you”), also described by the author in v. 19 (“So he gave them to her, and went in to her . . .”). In other words, just as Judah, as a younger man, once approached a “certain Canaanite’s daughter”, so he now, as an older man, approaches his own “daughter-in-law.” And, although he would never dream of defiling his own daughter-in-law—she who belongs to him, and he to her—he, by hiring a prostitute, is quite willing to defile someone else’s. Judah, in fact, makes his opinion quite clear as to what should happen to daughters who “play the whore” (v. 24); when he is told that Tamar is pregnant through prostitution, he wishes her to be “brought out and burned” (v. 24). Yet he does not see—until Tamar’s well-conceived scheme exposes his guilt—that it is he who is responsible for disgracing her, taking away her life. As a result, he is more worthy of the fire than she, as he himself is finally forced to admit: “she is more in the right than I” (v. 26).

To Judah’s credit, his admission of guilt leads to a change in behavior. After being exposed, the text states that “he did not lie with [Tamar] again, literally (Hebrew), that “he did not know her again” (v. 26). Judah’s “not knowing” of Tamar at the end of the story brings to mind both his previous “not-knowing” of her in the middle (v. 16) and that which Judah’s late son, Onan, knew with regard to Tamar. Onan, that is, knew, according to the levirate law of the Israelites (Deut. 25:5-10), that the children born to Tamar through his seed would not be his own; instead they would belong to his late brother, Er, who had first married Tamar but died before giving her children. The children would not honor the name "Onan” but “Er”. Therefore, though it was the responsibility of Onan, the next-of-kin to the deceased, to raise up children for his brother’s widow (to give her, just as Judah once gave the daughter of Shua her own “Er”, “Protector”), he “spilled his semen on the ground whenever he went in to his brother’s wife” (v. 9). Though it was what Onan “knew” that led him to “spoil his seed”, it did not prevent him from “knowing” his brother’s widow. Though the purpose of him marrying her was to produce children, he engaged in the act of procreation without allowing it. He used the widow for sex without allowing her to enjoy its fruits.

Onan’s knowing of Tamar led directly to Tamar’s being disowned. For, after “the Lord killed him” because “the thing that he did was displeasing to the Lord” (v. 10), Judah begins to fear that the source of Onan’s death, like his brother Er before him, is Tamar, the one whom they both married. Though the text is certain that the brothers died because of their own sin, Judah fears that his sons have died because of Tamar. As a result, though he owes Tamar his next-born, Shelah, he sends Tamar away from his household—though through marriage she now belongs to Judah’s family—and back to her “father’s house” to “sit as a widow” (vv. 11-12). Though, through marriage to his sons, Judah once claimed Tamar as his daughter, he now sends her back to where she came from. Judah once knew her as his daughter; his dismissal of her, though veiled with the excuse that Shelah is not yet of age, is really to say, “I never knew you.” Realizing that Judah has never intended to give her Shelah, Tamar moves from “sitting” as a widow to “sitting” on the road to Timnah as a prostitute when she hears that her father-in-law will be going that way (v. 14); she is desperate to produce children for Judah’s line. It is here that Judah meets her and asks her for sex—for “he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law” (v. 16). Thus the cycle is complete: what the son set in motion by knowing the father completes by not-knowing—the disowning of Tamar.

Yet even here, at their moment of greatest disgrace, does the redemption of Judah and Tamar begin. For the conception of their proscribed union exposes the sin of her father-in-law and restores to her her dignity as his daughter. Ashamed of his actions, Judah pronounces the one he once assumed guilty for the death of his sons now “more righteous than I.” He also “does not know her again” and, therefore, knows her again as his daughter.

-Joe

for the sake of joy

2010-09-13T03:07:00.001-07:00

For our discipleship class with Harvest Time Ministries last Wednesday, we studied Matthew 13:44-46, two illustrations-parables Jesus used to describe what “the kingdom of heaven is like” (vv. 44, 45). In gathering the basic information from the text, the line “in his joy” emerged as a key to unlocking the message for the day. “In his joy” refers to a human being who, after finding and hiding a treasure in a field, “in his joy” went and sold “all that he had and bought it” (v. 44). Because the human being, exactly like the “merchant” in the second illustration in Jesus’ pairing, sold “all that he had” in order to get the “treasure”—or, as in the second illustration, the “one pearl of great value”—we the readers/listeners are left to wonder what was so significant about that treasure or that one pearl of great value. Why did the human being, why did the merchant, sell “all that he had” in order to acquire only “one” thing? Indeed, it seems that the human being had many things, perhaps many of them also of great value. Why then did he forsake such great treasure for the treasure he did not yet have?

It seems that the answer is because of “his joy”. Though he had many things, the sale of which was enough to acquire a thing of “great value”, the many things did not bring him joy. Though many is more than one, the many things he possessed could not bring him the joy that the one thing he “found” did. Therefore, “in his joy”, he went and sold “all that he had.”

“The kingdom of heaven is like this.”

When we “find” it, when we experience the presence of God, through his Word, in Jesus, the glory of earthly possessions begins to fade. Their value is not “great” in light of God’s value. The joy they bring is not joy in light of God’s joy. For that joy, the human being will sell all that he has.

Who then are disciples? First and foremost, disciples are people of joy, people who have an all-consuming passion, love, hunger for God and his righteousness—no matter the cost (cf. Mt. 5:6, 6:33; Heb. 12:2).

-Joe

giving up, giving back

2010-09-08T05:54:00.001-07:00

Luke 14:25-33 contains some of the truly “hard sayings” of Jesus. In particular I note two parallel statements in three sentences which frame the stories Jesus tells to illustrate the meaning of following him (discipleship). Those statements, two sentences at the beginning and one at the end of the text, are:

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (vv. 26-27).

“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions (v. 33).

The main reason for seeing these statements as parallel, of course, is that they both pronounce requirements for following Jesus, framed in the negative. “Whoever . . . does not hate father and mother . . .”, “Whoever does not carry the cross . . . cannot be . . .”, “ . . . none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up . . ..” What one cannot be, of course, without doing what Jesus commands is—in all three sentences—his “disciple.”

If, therefore, we see them as parallel, then we also begin to see the connection between those different “things” which Jesus tells the “large crowds traveling with him” (v. 25) that they must forsake. In other words, there is some connection between “hating” family members and “giving up” possessions. Indeed, though we may more readily accept—in theory if not in practice—that we should give up material possessions on which we have become dependent to our destruction, we are less likely to regard our beloved family members as possessions to be given up. We are very likely, in fact, to see our loving duty as precisely not to give them up, to keep them close, to protect them at all costs. In other words, even if we do not regard family members as possessions, we are inclined to treat them as such. We treat “father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself” as possessions. We regard our relationships with others as things to be possessed, held on to, maintained at all costs. Jesus calls us to “give them up”, release them, set them free.

Good relationships progress because they are free. The best relationships are those which we did not expect, those in which we found ourselves loving a person we did not set out to love. This does not mean that we set out not to love them; it simply means that we had no intention for the relationship itself, no expectations of where it might lead. We began to relate to a person free of requirements, pressures molding the relationship into a preconceived form. The moment we awake, however, to the goodness of relationship, is the moment we begin to possess it. The experience of love creates the desire to love more, and the desire to love more—beyond where we have even now loved—becomes the expectation toward which we strive to steer the relationship. The relationship becomes a thing possessed, an object of our control.

Because the goodness of relationship is the gift of God—pure grace, that which we did not expect, that which we could not create—our attempts to control it will destroy it. That which is created free cannot live possessed. Jesus says we must “give it up”, release it from our control, forfeit our expectations of it. The good news, however, is that our “giving it up” is really “giving it back”—into the hands of the loving God. God wants us, like Abraham with Isaac, to give up that which is most precious; God knows that is the only way we will remain in love.

-Joe

“a little cloud”

2010-08-23T08:17:00.001-07:00

In his parting words last week to three churches which had gathered for a weekend of study and fellowship in the Northern Cape, Pastor Ntapo of Harvest Time Ministries in Mthatha referenced the story of Elijah following his showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18). At Elijah’s command, his servant finally spots rising from the sea “a little cloud no bigger than a person’s hand” (1 Kings 18:44). It was, of course, from that same “little” cloud that “the heavens grew black with clouds and wind; there was a heavy rain” (18:45). The cloud was, for Pastor Ntapo, a sign of the way in which godly relationships grow—starting small, they grow to bring refreshing rain to a drought-stricken land. Whether or not that word was signifying a growing cloud of relationship between the three specific churches gathered on that day, it does signify for Pastor Ntapo the relationship that has been forged over the last four years between his congregation and Mennonites, represented by us. That relationship, like the cloud, at first seemed insignificant—scarcely visible to those outside and growing beyond the comprehension of those within—but is now above the horizon. Like Elijah, we have heard the “sound of rushing rain” (18:41), and we’re trusting God to bring the “heavy rain” in God’s own time.

-Joe

salvation with fear

2010-08-03T05:04:00.001-07:00

This past weekend our church hosted special services on the occasion of a visit from another church which has a member who has found fellowship with our congregation while he works in Mthatha. Pastor Ntapo picked the theme for the weekend: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”—Paul’s words to the Philippians (2:12).

I preached at the first service on Saturday. I chose to focus on how the two key words in Paul’s sentence—salvation and fear—are related. What does salvation have to do with fear, and especially since Paul, in other places, seems to contrast the two? If salvation is freedom from fear, as it appears to be, for example, in Galatians 4-5, then how does fear help one “work out salvation”?

Paul often talked about salvation as freedom from the law (Rom. 8). By this, however, Paul did not mean the end of all law but of that law which restricts one’s ability to love God and neighbor as one’s self (Gal 5:14). Indeed, Paul, as well as other New Testament writers (and Jesus), continued to conceive of that which Christ brought in terms of law—“a new commandment”, “fulfillment of the law, not abolishment”, “the law of Christ” (Jn. 13:34, 15:12; Mt. 5:17; Gal. 6:2; Rom. 8:2). The freedom from the law of which Paul spoke was from human interpretations of law in the cause of oppression.

Consequently, just as there are two kinds of law—that which God has revealed for the sake of God’s love and human interpretation of that law for the sake of self-interest—there are two kinds of fear. There is the fear of punishment for disobeying the prescription of human interpretation, and there is the fear of God. There is the fear of humans and the fear of God.

Perhaps a third fear arises from this tension. It is the fear of being scorned, ostracized, punished by one’s fellow human beings for obeying the law of God. This fear is the fear of humans because humans fear rejection, isolation, death. This fear is also the fear of God because obedience to God’s love for the sake of all leads to rejection by some. It’s the fear of Jesus who healed on the sabbath, delighting the weak, infuriating the powerful. It’s the fear of a young African mother who forgoes costly rituals for her deceased mother, infuriating her uncles, in order to provide for her small child.

In order to “endure such scorn from evil men” (Heb. 12:3), to exercise freedom in the den of bondage, one needs the experience of God working within—of God’s Spirit working with our spirit, “working out our own salvation with fear and trembling” (Rom. 8:16; Php. 2:12).

-Joe

mercy’s victory

2010-07-27T08:53:00.001-07:00

On Sunday I preached on 2 Kings 6:8-23, the story of the prophet Elisha’s showdown with the army of Aram. This was not a story, upon coming upon it several years ago, that I remembered from my childhood Bible story books. Yet it deserves to be better-known than it seems to be.

The story seems to express in narrative form what the Psalmist proclaimed: “A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great strength it cannot save” (Ps. 33:16-17).

Indeed, the text makes much of horses, chariots, and armies. Two of the appearances of these in the text have to do with weapons of “blood and flesh”, to borrow the language of Ephesians 6. A third has to do with the weapons of the spirit—the “horses and chariots of fire” which the servant of Elisha saw were “more” than “the army with horses and chariots” which surrounded the Israelite city of Dothan.

The king of Aram is keen to use the horses and chariots of flesh; the prophet Elisha fights with the “sword of the spirit”—prayer. When Elisha repeatedly foils the king of Aram’s plans to attack Israel, the king of Aram responds by escalating his military escapades. Even though the king’s earlier military strategies have failed because of Elisha’s interventions in the spirit—his officers tell him that “it is Elisha, the prophet in Israel, who tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber”—the king is not deterred from attempting to take Elisha by force. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, the king does not consider that more military might will not now bring his enemies under his feet. He dispatches “horses and chariots and a great army” to Dothan to put an end to Elisha’s prophesying.

As before, his latest attempt is foiled. Elisha prays. The Aramean army is struck blind. Elisha leads them to Samaria, the seat of power in the Northern Israelite kingdom. He prays again. The Lord opens their eyes, “and they saw that they were inside Samaria.” By his might the king of Aram had hoped to put his enemies under his feet; now his army finds itself within the grasp of his adversary, the king of Israel.

If the Arameans expected the king of Israel to do unto them as they did unto others, this indeed would have been a time for fear. If they had understood, however, that the God of Israel is not a man, they might have expected that mercy which they received through the words of the prophet.

“Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink; and let them go to their master" (v. 22).

“The war horse was a vain hope for victory” for the king of Aram. Far from victory, in fact, it was his defeat. Only the God who led him there, against whom his plans were laid, could bring his army out—by mercy, for the sake of God’s merciful name (see Ex. 34:5-6).

-Joe

Glory of glories

2010-07-14T00:26:00.001-07:00

More than a year ago, I recorded some discoveries I had made on the transfiguration story from the gospels (Mk. 9:2-8; Mt. 17:1-8; Lk. 9:28-36) in conversation with African traditional religion. That entry reflected preparation I had done for teaching the story at Bethany Bible School. Finally, in May, that opportunity came to pass. I used the story as the Bible Study text for my lesson on the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

The story is a good one for getting at some of the thematic differences between the gospels. Taking Mark as the narrative baseline for the synoptic tradition in general, one can see through the transfiguration story the distinct ways in which Matthew and Luke built upon the story. Matthew, for example, adds to Mark’s account the description of Jesus coming to the disciples, touching them, and telling them not to fear after they have witnessed the dramatic scene, entered the cloud, and heard the voice. Jesus comforts the disciples because they have fallen “on their faces” in response to the cloud and the voice. This is the second usage of “face” in the text; the first occurs at the outset of the story when Jesus’ “face” begins to shine a brilliant white. Whereas in Mark it is Jesus’ clothes which turn white, Matthew adds also that Jesus’ face shines. In doing so, Matthew intensifies the comparison between Jesus and his prophetic predecessor, Moses, whose face also used to shine when communing directly with God. Matthew’s intensification of the comparison between Jesus and Moses is commensurate with his gospel’s broader emphasis of Jesus the Law Giver/Teacher who gives the new law which fulfills the law that was given to Moses.

Luke’s account, on the other hand, reveals his own emphases. Jesus is transfigured while he is “praying”, something he did regularly according to Luke. Moreover, the city of “Jerusalem” again figures in this story as it does throughout Luke. Luke alone informs the reader of what specifically Moses and Elijah were talking about with Jesus: the exodus that he was about to accomplish “from Jerusalem.”

It is also from Luke that I was able to make my major connection between the world of the text and the traditional thought-world of my Xhosa audience. As pointed out in my earlier entry, an African reader might quickly notice in this story what a westerner might not, namely, that Jesus is communicating with his dead ancestors. Traditional African Religion was/is based upon communication with the ancestors. The story then might be read as a justification of communication with the dead.

It is not always or perhaps often appropriate to make comparisons between Jewish religion pre-Christ and African religion pre-Christ. There are significant differences, the main one being that Jewish faith was oriented toward the one God, Yahweh, to the exclusion of other gods, whereas African religion was oriented functionally toward many spiritual mediators or “gods” in spite of the fact that a concept of the one Creator God did also exist. Still, for the purpose of proclaiming a text, in this case the transfiguration story, it works to place Moses and Elijah in place of the ancestors of African traditions. Indeed, in this story, Moses and Elijah appear personally to the disciples whom Jesus had led with him up the mountain--as a deceased African grandfather might appear to his progeny in a dream. Peter’s response to the sight, likewise, is functionally equivalent to the decisions many African Christians have made with Christ—put him alongside, not necessarily in place of or even higher than, the other spiritual authorities in one’s life (we must also say that westerners have not often placed Christ in a superior position to the particular “powers and principalities” of their cultures).

But back to Luke. What of his contribution to the story? Luke, alone among the synoptic evangelists, dwells with suspense upon the characters that turn out to be Moses and Elijah. That is, Luke initially does not say, as Matthew and Mark do, that “there appeared with him Moses with Elijah” but rather, simply, “two men”. Who are these two men? Only then does Luke answer: Moses and Elijah. Going on: “they appeared in glory and were speaking about his exodus which he was about to accomplish from Jerusalem”. Luke returns to the appearance of glory once more thereafter: “Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep, but because they stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.” Whereas in the first appearance of glory to the disciples, glory includes three—Moses, Elijah, and Jesus—in the second appearance of glory only one remains. He alone is glorious; Moses and Elijah are again, merely, “men.”

Of course, this is also how all of the synoptic evangelists conclude the narrative. The voice with the cloud acclaims “my beloved Son; listen to him” after which only one—"Jesus alone”—remains.

The ancestors used to look glorious to our eyes. But when Jesus came, we saw true glory.

-Joe

if and are

2010-07-06T03:46:00.001-07:00

I’ve had opportunity recently to revisit the story of Jesus’ temptation (Lk. 4:1-13).

In particular, I noticed the manner in which the devil approaches Jesus in the temptation story in comparison to the way in which the “voice from heaven” approaches him at his baptism, the story which directly precedes the temptation in the gospel tradition.

The “voice” says to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Lk. 3:21). The devil says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God”, followed by a series of requests he makes of Jesus.

God says “You are.” The devil says “If you are.”

God says “you are” my child. The devil says “If you are” God’s child, you must prove yourself according to a certain set of criteria.

The criteria which the tempter says we must fulfill in order to be a child of God comes from outside the child of God. They come from the expectations and demands that others have for us. Such expectations and demands may be the right course for us—if, and only if, they are confirmation of what the Spirit of God has already, beforehand, prior to, said to us. You are a child of God because of what God has put in you.

-Joe

the forbearance of God

2010-05-31T23:59:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-20T23:08:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-20T00:10:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-14T01:12:00.000-07:00

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"

2010-05-12T02:52:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-02T02:43:00.000-07:00

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

streaming up the mountain

2010-04-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of preaching the sermon at Grace Community Church in Philipstown, Northern Cape, on Sunday. I chose Isaiah 2:2-4 to complement the themes of our weekend seminars on the church as the community of Christ's peace.

As I warmed up, I began to relish the metaphors in the text, specifically, the image of the nations "streaming"--"like a river that runs down to the sea and never stops" is how I put it--to "the Lord's house" (v. 2). Afterward, our colleagues pointed out to me a tantalizing paradox in the image--the nations streaming like a river up the high mountain on which the Lord's house stands.

Can a river flow up a mountain? A geological impossibility is paired with a theological certainty. The nations at war with one another will beat their weapons into agricultural tools. In our day, as well as in the days of Isaiah and, 800 years later, the early church (whose leaders cited this scripture in their writings more than any other), peace may seem as much an impossibility as a river flowing up.

Yet the "God of Jacob" is there. He himself "will teach us his ways that we may walk in his paths" (v. 3). "He himself is our peace", as Paul later put it, "who has made the two one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between us" (Eph. 2:14). He did this "in his flesh", that is, through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead (Eph 2:14, see also 1:20), another impossibility made certain.

What is impossible for humans is possible for God (Mk. 10:27; 11:23-24).

-Joe

on following

2010-04-19T00:51:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite songs sung in the South African independent-church context is Somlandela, "We will follow Jesus". A second verse to the tune is the dialogue between Jesus and Peter in John 21:15ff. Simon nikaYona, uyandithanda na?/Ewe Nkosi yam, ndiyakuthanda, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?/Yes, Lord, I love you". I enjoyed the opportunity yesterday to join the preaching of that text to the song.

Jesus' third resurrection appearance to his disciples, recorded in John 21, is, in my reading, a story about a crossroads in the disciple's life (here represented by Simon Peter) between the old life (before Christ) and the new (in Christ). In reading the text this week, a pivotal revelation for me was the fleeting quality of Jesus' resurrection appearances to his disciples. After his resurrection from the dead, he did not simply stay with his disciples; rather he appeared, disappeared, and reappeared to them over the course of forty days leading up to his ascension (Acts 1:3). His time with them was broken. As a result, in between appearances, his disciples must have yet been prone to doubt whether they had in fact seen the risen Jesus or, as Luke puts it, merely "a ghost" (24:37). Was Jesus' resurrection appearance a unique experience within the disciples' spiritual worldview, or did it fit established categories? The fleeting quality of the resurrection appearances left room for the disciples to question whether Jesus was uniquely alive--in a quality different from others who had died--despite having had "many convincing proofs" that he was indeed the "firstborn from among the dead" (Acts 1:3; Rev. 1:5).

This, then, is the critical context for the story--the disciples lingering doubt. From there, we see the options open to Peter. How will he live with his doubt? Will Peter continue to go the way of Jesus, the way he began after his encounter with Jesus three years earlier by the Sea of Galilee (Lk. 5:1-11)? Or will he go back to his pre-Jesus life?

Peter, perhaps fed up with this fleeting Jesus, weary from the emotional swings of friendship lost and regained, chooses his pre-Jesus existence. "I am going fishing", he announces to his companion disciples. "We will go with you," they say. Without their former leader, the disciples will follow Peter. They will follow him into the old way of living. No more "fishers of people" (Mk. 1:17); fishers again only of fish. Except that, just as the first time Peter met Jesus, no fish were forthcoming (Lk. 5:5). "They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing" (v. 3).

This is the perfect set-up for Jesus to reappear to the disciples. He stands "on the beach" and calls to the disciples on the sea. He tells them, as he did when they first met, where to cast the net in order that they might catch some fish. Again an overwhelming catch ensues. The disciples would be truly dim indeed if they did not now recognize the man on the beach as their Lord.

Peter, to his credit, recognizes Jesus and makes his move back toward him. First he puts on some clothes in order to swim back to land to meet Jesus--"for he was naked".

This has long bemused me. Why would one put on their clothes in order to swim? Why also was Peter naked in the boat?

I asked the congregation. Pastor Ntapo: "I can guess that Peter was naked in the old life." Peter, having decided to again seek security apart from this fleeting, seemingly undependable Jesus, ironically finds himself more exposed. He will put on his clothes and go back to Jesus. He will "clothe himself with the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 13:14; Gal. 3:27; Col. 3:10) So too will those who have chosen to follow Peter from new to old and back again. They row back to land "in the boat".

When they return, they find that a meal has been prepared for them. A charcoal fire is there with fish on it and some bread. This is not the fish the disciples have just caught; it is already on the fire for them. The disciples will simply add to the fire what Jesus has already put there. The "fleeting Jesus" is still who he always was: Israel's Provider, giving bread and meat to his beloved in the desert.

But Jesus' love for his disciples is a tough love; Peter feels "hurt" because Jesus has asked him three times whether he loves him. As Jesus was being condemned to death, Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus now wants to know--three times--whether Peter truly loves him. And "yes" alone will not do; Peter must feed Jesus' sheep. Peter has other disciples willing to follow him wherever he goes.

"I am going fishing." "We will go with you". "I am going back to the old life." "We will go with you."

Does Peter love Jesus enough to care for his sheep? Jesus says, "Follow me" (v. 19). "Do as I do". "Feed my sheep".

There is a danger in singing songs of extreme commitment--"Somlandel', Somlandel' UYesu/Somlandel' yonke iindawo, "We will follow, We will follow Jesus/We will follow everywhere [he goes]--if we do not intend to take the steps.

Jesus told Peter, "When you were younger you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go" (v. 18).

Persecutions and trouble, trials and tribulations are bound to come. Suffering is in the world. Our lives are not our own. Going alone, "going fishing" again, is no recipe for success. We are slaves--either to the world or to Christ. If anything is sure, it is that someone else "will take you where you do not wish to go". But only in Christ is the slavery freedom (Rom. 6:16ff., compare with Gal. 4-5; Mt. 6:24).

I'm still working on that one.

-Joe

"hidden from our eyes" (Luke 19:42)

2010-04-03T06:40:00.000-07:00

As I read, and then eventually preached, the story of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem (Luke 19:28-44), I became interested in the characterization of the disciples. Though it might be argued that they do not appear as dim-witted as they do in Mark's gospel, in Luke the disciples do, nonetheless, in the words of my pastoral colleague, "say things that they do not understand." To this we might also add that they often "do things that they do not understand." In this text, for example:

the disciples must not have imagined what their simple act of obedience to Jesus' command instigated. Indeed, they seem to need assurance that the thing which they are about to do can in fact be done; Jesus anticipates their doubt that they will find a colt tied up precisely as he tells them and that they will be allowed to acquire it. Thus he arms them with a response to any who would hinder them: "Just say this, 'the Lord needs it' (v. 31). At least having a plan--however audacious that plan may seem--is enough to send the disciples on their way ahead of Jesus. This, in this text, is their first act of trust in him.
the disciples' trust in Jesus is rewarded beyond any doubts. First, they "found [the colt] as he had told them" (v. 32). Second, the anticipated scenario likewise goes exactly "as he had told them": the disciples are asked for a reason for their course of action to which they utter the instructed response. Third, "the Lord needs it" works. The text does not mention any further dispute, no ensuing haggling with the colt's owners. Immediately, they simply "brought [the colt] to Jesus" (v. 35). Their initial act of faith in Jesus has been rewarded.
Confidence booming, they act on their own, apart from any explicit command from their lord. They "throw their cloaks on the colt"; "they set Jesus on it." Next, "as he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road" (v. 36). Could the disciples have imagined that their initial decision to act on their faith in Jesus, to trust him, to take him at his word, would yield similar acts from an entire "multitude of disciples" (v. 37), now "spreading their cloaks on the road" before Jesus? Here again in the gospel narrative appears something of the dynamic of the so-called "messianic secret". Jesus explicitly instructs his disciples or would-be followers to say nothing of his marvelous acts or his true identity, yet they are unable to keep quiet (cf. Mark 1:40-45). Here he is simply silent, yet his disciples pick him up, "set Jesus on [the colt]"--they literally exalt him. Their doing so opens the way for others to acclaim him "king" (v. 38).
All this does not mean, however, that the disciples now understand Jesus, that they now perceive his significance. Luke, it would seem, illustrates their knowing in part, as "in a glass darkly" (1 Cor 13:12), through his juxtaposition of the "multitude's" acclamation of Jesus at the beginning of his earthly life and now at its end. That is, when the heavenly "multitude" appears to Judean shepherds with the news of Christ's birth, they proclaim "on earth peace" (2:14). The earthly "multitude", upon his entry into Jerusalem, proclaim "Peace in heaven" (19:38). Does the earthly multitude understand the heavenly acclamation? Do they know "the things that make for peace"? (v. 42) Do they believe that the peace of heaven is intended for earth?

They do not. For this reason Jesus is weeping for them--for us (v. 41).

-Joe

mob justice and the justice of God

2010-03-25T23:44:00.000-07:00

See this reflection on siyahamba.

-Joe

"The Father and I are one"

2010-03-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

I preached last Sunday, as doubtless did many preachers around the world, on the parable of "the prodigal son", Luke 15:11-32. It has been pointed out that the parable is misnamed. In the first place, Jesus introduces the parable with the line "there was a man who had two sons" (v. 11). The story is not simply about the youngest son who goes to a distant country and squanders his inheritance; it is also about his older brother who stays home. In the second place, and perhaps more importantly, the common title to the parable is misleading because the parable itself makes central the role of the father. The parable is not summed up by the son's sin but by the father's mercy (admittedly, one cannot have one without the other). I make the following observations on the activity and identity of the father in the parable.

1. The response of the father is the center of the text. The father's action is narrated directly between the critical, twofold repetition in the text, the plea of the younger son. First, after he has exhausted his portion of mercy in the "distant country", the younger son rehearses the words which he has resolved to say in going back to his father.

"Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands" (v. 19).

Second, after he has come back to his father, the younger son says to him,

"Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son" (v. 21).

The two statements, of course, are identical--with one exception: the younger son is not able to finish what he had rehearsed; he never says to the father, "treat me like one of your hired hands". The absence of the rehearsed ending in the actual confession is not, however, the son's omission. The father does not need to hear any more. His response, in effect, cuts off the son's confession. Instead of a hired hand, the father treats the son like a king.

Put the best robe on him. Put a ring on his finger. Put sandals on his feet. Make a feast. Let's celebrate (vv. 22-24).

These actions complete the father's earlier action upon seeing his son for the first time since he had left home with his inheritance. That is, "while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him" (v. 20). This is the climax of the story, the turning point of the text. The reader, previously in suspense, now knows that the father will not count the son "unworthy to be called his son". The father welcomes him home as his son.

2. The father's love is not human love. It is not, for example, the love of the younger son, who asked for the inheritance that would be his, that is, after his father had died, while his father was still alive. Likewise, it is not the love of the older son, who was angry that his father would have compassion on his younger brother. The only love in the story is the father's own.

3. The father is Jesus. The parable is the third in a succession of three which Jesus tells in response to the complaint of the "Pharisees and scribes" that Jesus "welcomes sinners and eats with them" (Lk. 15:2). The parable is a near-exact match for reality: the "older son" Pharisees and scribes complain about the mercy shown to their "younger son" sinners and "tax collectors" (15:1). In the parable, the older son complains to his father. In reality, the Pharisees and scribes complain to Jesus. They do not perceive that he is their father.

-Joe

prophetic desperation

2010-03-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

My last entry, on prophetic loneliness, ended by introducing another characteristic of the prophets--desperation.

I came to this realization in the course of teaching the topic last month. As I was desperately trying to communicate my message (as always, across vast language and cultural barriers), I sensed how the words and actions of the biblical prophets also reflected desperation.

For the small group activity, I had asked the students to find examples from the prophetic books that fit four categories of prophetic communication that I had identified from my own reading.

They are:

1. Analysis and Truth-telling. The prophet looks around at the world and observes that it is not as God designed it to be. Then the prophet tells the truth about the world. I think here of Amos, for example, in chapter 8:4-6. He identified the social situation of his time and decried it as it was.

2. Prophetic Displays/Dramatizations. The prophet enacts before the people the message he is trying to communicate to them. The prophet Hosea, for example, married a prostitute in order to show Israel that they were prostituting themselves with gods who were not God, with gods who neither loved Israel nor had married her (as Yahweh had) (Hosea 1-3).

3. Parables and Allegories. We think of parables in the ministry of Jesus, who certainly continued the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament. One of my favorite parables is that which Nathan told to David after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband (2 Sam. 12)

4. Visions. The prophets saw visions and reported them. I chose to highlight Isaiah 6.

In the course of proclaiming again these texts, I realized a common thread: God is persistent in trying to reach God's people. God is desperate to turn the people back to himself. Consequently, God uses the prophets in many and various ways. If simple analysis and truth-telling does not get through, God will dramatize the people's sin before their very eyes; the prophet performs a drama. Where words cannot communicate, perhaps actions stand a chance. On the other hand, perhaps the limits do not lie with words but with the manner of words; not analysis but imaginative portrayal will get through. In desperate times--but not only desperate--only story, parable, hits home. Still, If even parable will not do, perhaps a vision of the Holy Itself will convince one of his sin. In the case of Isaiah, "a man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips", purification begins with the prophet.

There are doubtless many ways to tackle a subject as big as the prophets. For this time and place, this was mine.

-Joe

prophetic loneliness

2010-02-25T00:37:00.001-08:00

I have an excess of material in my heart and mind from studying in preparation for teaching a lesson on "the prophets" for Bethany Bible School earlier this month. I gave a shortened version of what I did at BBS for our Tuesday evening fellowship group this week. The last two Sundays at Mandela Park I preached on the experience of two different prophets, Elijah and Isaiah. In the case of Elijah I focused on his showdown with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). In the case of Isaiah I found myself preaching on his call vision of the Lord in chapter 6.

Perhaps the unifying theme of the stories of Elijah and Isaiah is their loneliness. As people called to stand for their God, to speak his words to a rebellious people, they experience widespread, nearly total, rejection.

"To be a prophet is to be alone"--this is how I put it.

It is, therefore, precisely in their loneliness that the prophets embody the faithfulness that God intends for all his people. Standing for God, the prophets can no more rely for support on a people who have rejected God. The only thing, the only one, left for the prophet is the One. The prophet's support has been reduced to God. The prophet's only dependence is God. The prophet thus is privileged to know in his or her own person or very being that which is fundamentally true: that God is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of the universe. "There is no other", as God put it through Isaiah (Isa. 45:5).

One of the biggest dangers for my noble faith tradition, the Anabaptist, is mistaking the God who holds our life for the human community. Our language sometimes suggests that the community of the church is God. "We discern together," we say, "in the gathered community of believers". We speak as if this in itself is a safeguard against sin and the running amok of injustice, a balance of powers of sorts not unlike the set-up of the democracy in the land in which I have heard these words (America, the land of my earthly citizenship). We forget, however, that the early Anabaptists from whom we have inherited were not so much in their beginning an established faith community as they were a coming together of convicted individuals rebelling each in his own sphere against the rebellion of the established church. The Anabaptists were first and foremost lonely individuals, rejected at large by the culture in which they were born, eventually coming together to form an alternative community in the world. In the land of my birth, that alternative community is no longer alternative; it is dominant. The community has triumphed over the individual alone before her God.

The irony of all this is that the health of the community is dependent upon the holy loneliness of every one of its members. Every person needs to face that place in which they are rejected, in which the only one they have to go to is God. Each person needs to confront that one nagging fear, the avoidance of which has become his dependence, his security, his god. Only then, having found himself alone, does one discover that he is not alone. He is with his God. She is with her God.

In this light the cross of Jesus is the witness of prophetic loneliness par excellence. The crucifixion is the final cycle of prophetic loneliness opening up to holy communion. Jesus experiences on the cross that which he experienced numerous times on the way to the cross. Alone with the tempter in the desert, eventually finding strength in the Word of God. Deserted by companions in Gethsemane, persevering in prayer to his "Abba". Finally, on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" ends in "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Mk. 15:34; Lk. 23:46). The final experience of human loneliness is God's fullest embrace. Loneliness and communion are two sides of the same coin in the life of God.

The prophet knows that life, and he is desperate for others to know what he knows.

-Joe

"more to be desired"

2010-02-15T02:43:00.000-08:00

Three weeks ago, the pastor phoned me before church to say that some mutual friends of ours had lost one of their adult children. I said we would be coming to church, and that we could talk about the matter following the service. In the end, the news meant that I would be preaching twice on this day; the pastor and I agreed that we should seize the moment and head out to the bereaved family's homestead directly after our regular service.

I have been to a bereavement such as this before. It is tradition in Xhosa culture for friends and relatives to visit the family at their home immediately following the death of a loved one. Some form of service inevitably ensues.

Nevertheless, when the pastor and I arrived, I was taken aback by the sight of a rondavel filled, as is typical, with men on one side and women on the other. I knew that we would soon be on. The people were singing as we arrived, and soon they would be expecting the words of comfort for which the visitors had been sent.

Psalm 19 was on my mind, for it was the text I had just preached on that morning in Mandela Park. Now I would have to find its significance for a different occasion.

In the church service, I had focused in on the line "more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb" (v. 10, NRSV). That which is "to be desired", of course, is what the text calls variously "the law of the Lord", "the decrees of the Lord", "the precepts of the Lord", "the commandment of the Lord", "the fear of the Lord", and "the ordinances of the Lord" (vv. 7-9). These or this--shall we say simply "the word of God"--are/is, according to the Psalmist, the most desirable "thing" in human experience. Nothing, in fact, within the creation is finer or sweeter. Neither gold--the most expensive thing--nor honey--the tastiest thing--appeals to the senses as the word of God.

"It is good that God made us to desire him," I said, "for even if we should lose a beloved child, hope is not lost." Though all the things of creation--humans and plants and animals--should pass away, God and God's Word remain for those left behind.

I don't know whether that sounds trite. I do know that, as I go into situations in which I must speak, I am reduced only to that which is already in my heart, which I already understand. I am made more simple. I am reduced to trusting in the moment the very God I proclaim. I am reduced to trusting that the words and the love which he has already deposited in me are sufficient for the day. That I have found to be true.

-Joe

persistent waiting

2010-02-14T23:07:00.000-08:00

A number of weeks ago I preached on John 2:1-11, or Jesus' "first sign" which he performed at the wedding at Cana. It came on a Sunday within the new year in which the church in Mandela Park, usually high in children and youth, contained but one adult (aside from Anna, me, and the pastor).

"It looks as though we are ministering to the youth," the pastor said to me as it came time for the sermon.

I found myself focusing in this text on the role of "the mother of Jesus". Indeed, her importance is emphasized, for John introduces the setting with reference to her. "On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there." The reader's curiosity is thus piqued regarding her; what role will she play in the unfolding drama?

She plays, in fact, the pivotal role in the story. It is she who tells Jesus that the wine has run out at the party. When he responds that his "hour has not yet come", she refuses to take his "no" for an answer. She presses Jesus until his "no" becomes a "yes."

How? She springs into action. "Do whatever he tells you," she instructs the servants at the wedding. Put in an uncomfortable position, all eyes presumably fixed upon Jesus, Jesus must act. He springs into action. The six stone water jugs are filled. The water is drawn. The water tastes like wine. The wine is the best wine--usually served at the beginning, now reserved for the end. As a result, "his disciples"--who had also "been invited to the wedding" along with Jesus and his mother--"believed in him".

Had the mother of Jesus not acted, not persisted, not insisted that Jesus "hour" had in fact "come", Jesus would not have "revealed his glory" nor his disciples "believed."

The mother of Jesus is, here in John, akin to the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-18, she whose refusal to take "no" for an answer from the "unjust judge" is given as a model to Jesus' disciples for approaching the "just judge", God. Such an approach may be summed up simply as persistence, perseverance, the disciple's determination to trust that God is good despite experience to the contrary. Such persistence will be rewarded. In fact, it finds in store at the end, whenever that end might be, a much better wine than one might have tasted at the start. It finds, in fact, a wine that makes all other wine forgettable, undesirable, useless. It leads to thanksgiving to the God who withheld from us wine for a time in order that we might taste the truly good wine which God has "kept until now."

So what might this story have to say to youth?

In any culture, and particularly South Africa, waiting for the good wine is quite literally a matter of life and death. If the wine is sex, waiting for a trustworthy companion in life, sealed by marriage, may be the difference between contracting or not contracting a deadly virus. Waiting can be the difference in a context of great need between the lure of illusory wealth in the present or lasting stability through the completion of education. For example, in South Africa we have "Mbeki babies", babies born to young women in order to secure government child grants which constitute their only reliable source of income (so named after the former state president, Thabo Mbeki).

More basically, for youth or whomever, waiting is the task of life. Waiting is faith, not of the passive nature which accepts the world as it is, but the persistent kind--that of the mother of Jesus--which demands the action of a seemingly distant but Just Judge to make right the desperate situations of our world.

-Joe

faith of our fathers

2010-01-16T01:51:00.000-08:00

Perhaps an alternative title to this blog should be "conversations with Pastor Ntapo", as so many of my insights into African culture and biblical interpretation come in give and take with him. Let that be preface to today's entry.

After a separation of several weeks over the holidays, we met back up in our Bible School office last Thursday. He filled me in on one of the sermons he had preached on a recent Sunday.

He tracked for his people the journey of Abram in Genesis 11-12. Abram, he recalled, left Ur of the Chaldeans with his father Terah, who died on the way to Canaan in the land of Haran (11:31-32). From there, God summoned Abram to continue on his father's journey into "the land that I will show you" (12:1). Later, Pastor Ntapo, continued, "Abram went down to Egypt" (12:10).

His point: Abraham's feet touched down in every place where his descendants would go; his journey anticipated theirs.

Indeed, the Israelites came out of slavery in Egypt to Canaan, and back also to the land of the Chaldeans, to captivity under the Babylonians. And just as Abraham would also go up from Egypt (Gen. 13:1),and later his descendants, so also, in centuries later, his descendants would come back from Babylon. From slavery to freedom. From freedom to slavery. And back again.

As Pastor Ntapo recounted the story, I remembered that Jesus too, went down to Egypt and back up again. "Out of Egypt I called my son," wrote Matthew, applying the words of the prophet Hosea to the boy Jesus (Mt. 2:15; Hos. 11:1). "I also touched on that," said the pastor when I brought up Jesus' journey. "Jesus did the same thing [as Abraham] on the other side."

Thus I observed, as I had in previous encounters, the importance to my African brothers in the faith of the reality that the way which we walk has been prepared beforehand for us by our ancestors. Their experience then is ours now; their suffering, ours; their redemption, ours. More than that, in the words of another pastor at Bethany Bible School when recalling one of last year's lessons on the Israelites' wilderness wandering, "the God who helped them is the same God today."

Because of the story--of Abram and Sarai, Moses and Miriam, of Jesus--"I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us" (Rom. 8:18). The story is hope. Without it there is naught.

-Joe

"Who then is this?"

2009-12-27T01:28:00.000-08:00

Our November conference topic at Bethany Bible School was the Lord's Supper. Based on five key repeated words in the text, Mark 14:12-25, I made five points.

1. The Supper is the Lord's. The possessive pronoun "my" in relation to Jesus is prominent in the text.

2. The Supper is for disciples. The word "disciples" makes four appearances, all but one in explicit relation to Jesus through the use of the possessive "his" or "my", depending on the speaker. In addition, the text makes two references to "the twelve", a synonymous term.

3. The Supper requires preparation. Variations on the verb "prepare" number five in the text.

4. The central act of the Supper is eating. Variations on the verb "eat" number four.

5. The Supper was a Passover meal. The noun "Passover" likewise makes four appearances.

I learned much by studying and teaching this text. Above all, the text confronted me again--in the manner of Mark's gospel--with the question of Jesus' true identity.

How? The character of Jesus inspires wonder. He is direct, unequivocal; for that very reason he is mysterious. Ordinary people do not speak as Jesus speaks.

He calls ordinary bread "my body." He takes a cup and says "this is my blood." Earlier, he instructs the disciples to go into the city where they will meet a man carrying a jar of water. As they are to follow that man, Jesus tells the disciples to enter "wherever he enters" and "say to the owner of the house, " 'The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples' " (14:14). It is there, in that guest room--"a large room upstairs whose furnishings have been fully prepared"--that the disciples will prepare the Passover.

Though the disciples will prepare the Passover, however, they find that preparations have already been made for them. At the beginning of the text, they do not know where they will observe the Passover: "Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?" (14:12); their Teacher has known all along. His word has gone before, preparing their way. Or perhaps he has foreseen the man carrying water, the owner of the house, the upper room. Regardless, the guest room, like the bread and the cup, are his--"my room"; "my body"; "my blood."

Earlier in Mark, the disciples "were filled with great awe" at him who calmed the storm: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (4:41) Similarly, we might ask, "Who is this, who calls bread "my body" and a cup "my blood"? This is not only a looking forward, that is, to his crucifixion--"my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many" (though it is surely that); this is a looking back, to the beginning. Before the disciples mixed the flour and formed the cakes, before the grapes were gleaned and pressed for drink, someone made the sun to shine and the rain to fall. Someone grew the grain and ripened the fruit.

"Who then is this, who says, 'Creation is mine' ?"

This is Jesus, the giver of life, the Lord of creation.

-Joe

"the good confession"

2009-12-05T05:36:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, Pastor Ntapo preached a short message based on John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

The preacher's point was that Jesus came in order that we might know God, and indeed that the purpose of human life on this earth is to know God. Consequently, he admonished his people to know God before they die.

This probably sounds too typical, another example of standard preaching-for-conversion. Except that it wasn't.

The pastor's message was not accompanied by the question "Where will you go when you die?", the stereotypical warning of revivalism, but "What will you confess at the end of your life?"

He said that many of "our people confess when they die that they have killed so and so through witchcraft"; instead of a confession of evil-doing, he urged his people to do good in order that they could confess it in the end.

Obviously, the pastor thought that having nothing good to confess at the end of one's life is punishment enough--and motivation enough for his people to walk now in the way of Jesus, growing in the knowledge of God.

That the pastor might not accomplish the purpose for which he was placed on this earth is, in fact, his greatest fear. I have heard him say on several occasions that "the cemetery is very rich because of all the people buried there who never used up what God deposited in them."

"When I die," he says, "I want to be empty."

And that is why he presses on, amidst formidable obstacles, to teach a young congregation the way of God. "I was born for that," he testifies, citing Jesus' words before Pilate (Jn. 18:37). It will likewise be his "good confession" when he dies (1 Tim. 6:13).

-Joe

of Pilate and the poor

2009-12-02T23:13:00.000-08:00

Since re-reading it a couple of weeks ago, Jesus' conversation with Pilate (John 18:33-38) has been on my mind.

Some observations:

1. Pilate acts here as any worldly king does, ultimately disinterested in the plight of the poor in his kingdom. This is obvious from his lack of effort in distinguishing Jesus from the people who have handed him over. Those who handed him over, of course, were Jesus' own people, in the words of Pilate to Jesus "your own nation and the chief priests" (v. 35). Also by implication these are simply what the text calls "the Jews", for Pilate is perturbed that Jesus insinuates that Pilate might be able to tell for himself whether Jesus is truly or not "King of the Jews." "I am not a Jew, am I", Pilate retorts, aghast that he might be associated on any level with the subjects of his rule. In effect Pilate is saying, "I don't know them, I can't know them, indeed I do not want to know them." It is unthinkable that a man of his power shares anything in common with the subjects of his kingdom. Because of this attitude, it is not surprising that Pilate is surprised that Jesus' own people would hand him over; the impassible king does not sense that conflict rages within and among the subjected peoples of his reign. He can only ask,"What have you done?", implying an act of offense great enough to warrant a request for crucifixion, because he sees no reason otherwise why the Jews should be at war among themselves. This is not because Pilate regards the Jews as exceptionally good people, immune to conflict, but simply because he does not care whether they are typically human enough to have passion, disagreement, conflict. To Pilate they are "only" Jews, the subjects of his rule, objects to be moved or crushed for his political gain. In Pilate's eyes, the only conflict of the Jews is that between them and him; they are all out to get him because everyone and everything must always be about the king.

2. Jesus, on the other hand, is not out to get the king, at least not in the manner that Pilate fears. Jesus, rather, contra Pilate, is only concerned with the plight of the poor, his own people (which is to say, and not with Pilate). Jesus knows that the fight which Pilate fears from the Jews is not the fight that will free them. He will not permit them to fight, and see, as he explains to Pilate, his followers do not fight "to keep me from being handed over to the Jews" (v. 36). Rather, Jesus' people will be free on account of their trust in another kingdom--one "not from this world"--and another king. The sign of that trust will be their refusal to fight in the manner of Pilate, with the weapons of blood and flesh. The sign will be that they will "be handed over", but they will hand no one over. It is the sign that distinguishes Jew from Jew, the sign also Pilate might have seen if he had eyes to sees.

3. The question remains whether the sons and daughters of Pilate will ever see. The historical record is not good (At this moment Barack Obama has handed over 30,000 more U.S. troops to a war in Afghanistan). We have little reason to doubt whether the kingdoms of the world have not really been "given over" to Satan (Lk. 4:6), and whether therefore the poor are not more worthy of our attention in the hope of a better world.

-Joe

old and new

2009-11-03T06:47:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday at church, we had a service of blessing for a new marriage. Afterwards, we enjoyed the standard meal: meat, sugar beans and mealies, and potato salad, washed down with Coca-Cola. After that, one of the servers set down at our table a plate of uncooked, red cow livers.

"Can we eat it like this?" the pastor said. "No, I think we must braai [cook over the fire/barbecue] this."

He continued, "Some of our people eat it just like this. They just sprinkle a little salt on it."

"Do you ever eat it raw?" our guest visiting from North America chimed in, asking the pastor.

"I used to," he said, "before I got saved. After I got saved, I read in the Bible that we are not supposed to eat meat with the blood still in it, because it says that the life is in the blood" (Lev. 17:10ff).

The pastor's comments illustrate how the Old Testament, from which the above reference is drawn, can be good news--gospel--to people from traditional cultures. Set against many of his culture's practices, the Old Testament's dietary laws and admonitions against consulting the spirits of the dead, for example, constitute an alternative way of living in the world--one that leads away from death and towards life (Deut 30:19).

Consequently, although the pastor "got saved" in the name of Jesus, the central figure of the New Testament, he experiences the Old also as Jesus' story.

-Joe

the manly calling

2009-10-19T02:43:00.000-07:00

Again, I've linked an entry which fits thematically on both of the blogs we maintain (the manly calling).

-Joe

outside the law

2009-10-19T02:36:00.000-07:00

I've posted a reflection on our other blog. You can access it at http://joeannasawatzky.blogspot.com/2009/10/outside-law.html

-Joe

two-edged mirror

2009-09-11T01:33:00.000-07:00

We belong to a Bible Study/fellowship group which meets on Tuesday nights. The majority of members on any given meeting come as expatriates working in Mthatha as missionaries or in NGOs, both in long and short-term stints. The people come from "mainline" churches, Anglican and Presbyterian primarily. We hold down--or is it hold up?--the Anabaptist wing of the Church. For the past two years or so, we have been using the readings from the lectionary to guide our conversations.

As we read James 1:17-27 recently, one of our members gave expression to my own thoughts in her puzzlement over James's analogy of a mirror in vv. 23-24. We never really attempted to answer her query that evening; the conversation quickly took another turn. But as I continued to read James through the week, culminating in a sermon the next Sunday, I decided that the mirror was analogous to the word of God (see previous post on James's teaching about the word).

James says that those who hear the word but do not do it "are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like" (v. 24).

My initial puzzlement was around the assumption that we should want to look at ourselves in the mirror and then try to remember what we looked like. It seemed narcissistic. Why would James be encouraging us to spend time in front of the mirror for the purpose of dwelling in the image of ourselves? Why should we be so keen to remember our appearance?

If, on the other hand, the mirror stands for the word of God, that which it reflects back at us is not strictly a picture of our appearance. It is rather like the "two-edged sword" which the writer of Hebrews used to describe the word (Heb. 4:12). It sends back to us a picture of ourselves in comparison to that which it describes: God's will for human life, revealed to us in its stories and commandments fulfilled in Jesus, the very Word made flesh (Jn. 1:14). The mirror is not one-to-one; it is one-to-two. The word reflects our image as we are--marred by sin and imperfection--and the image of God. In light of God's image, it shows us who we are, what we will be, and how we might get there.

If the mirror's reflection is not of our own but in the light of Jesus, then truly the appearance of ourselves is not a thing to be forgotten. We must not forget what we look like, for we look like Jesus. To forget is to remain in sin. To remember is to become like him.

-Joe

the word is the work

2009-09-09T01:50:00.000-07:00

I've been enjoying reading through the book of James, coming up as it has in the lectionary over the past three weeks. I also had the privilege of preaching on James 1:17-27, thereby stepping into a well-established tradition on the African continent; through his research, Philip Jenkins, the respected scholar of global Christianity, has noted that the book of James has long been an orienting point for the worship and witness of African churches.

A few observations:

It is well-known that Martin Luther relegated James to a subordinate status in his translation of the Bible, dubbing it "the epistle of straw" for its insistence that "faith apart from works is dead" (2:17ff), a perceived challenge, of course, to his teaching that salvation is by "faith alone." In the ensuing years, the church came to accept uncritically Luther's original dichotomy, and came to line up on opposing sides, not only "faith" and "works" but also "word" and "deed". It is not hard to see what lined up with what: faith and word were one side, works and deeds the other.

James, of course, did make a distinction: "Be doers of the word," he told his people, "and not merely hearers" (1:22). However, that distinction, contra to how the church has arranged things, was not between word and deed, but between hearing and doing. In James, the force that unites hearing and doing is itself the word; a higher regard for the word in no other book can be found. Indeed, it is "the word of truth" which "gave us birth", the "implanted word that has the power to save your souls" (1:18, 21). In light of this, it is entirely obvious why James spilled so much ink on the subject of that from which the word emanates: the vehicle of speech, the tongue. He counsels his audience to "bridle their tongues" (1:26) because, as he later explains, "the tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity", an "untameable" source of "deadly poison" with which the human being "curses those who are made in the likeness of God" (3:6-9).

Yet, as James says, "this ought not to be so" (3:10). The corollary of the spoken word's great power for destruction is its great power for life. Indeed, we do not only "curse" with the tongue; "from the same mouth also comes blessing". James calls for a bridle, not a screw. He calls not for the cessation of words, but the channeling of right words. He calls for the words that build up the people of God, not the words that ridicule, deride, tear down the poor of the earth.

The word is the work. If we hear it, let us do it. That is "pure religion" (1:26-27).

-Joe

Philip Jenkins's comments can be found in The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006), pp. 60-62.

the beginning of wisdom

2009-09-03T01:56:00.000-07:00

Because I may be called upon to preach whenever we attend Harvest Time Ministries, a small Pentecostal congregation in Mandela Park in Mthatha, I keep myself immersed in scripture by following the Revised Common Lectionary. We also read these--four readings per week--every morning at breakfast before the boys go to school and we go to our office.

The readings from the lectionary may not be appropriate for some Sundays in Mandela Park; I need to keep myself free to speak a word from wherever in the Bible the Spirit might direct me. More commonly, however, the work of the Spirit is in making connections between my preparation in certain texts and the particular needs of a Sunday morning.

One such example comes from two weeks ago. The pastor had informed me in the week leading up to that Sunday that two special events were to occupy the service: a church blessing for a newly married couple and the welcoming of another young couple into positions of leadership in the ministry. I was assigned the marriage blessing; the pastor would do the welcome. However, when the newlyweds did not show, the pastor gave me the other assignment. I had to switch from something I was preparing in my heart from Ephesians 5 to--well, I didn't know what. But what came to me was what I had been reading that week from the lectionary: 1 Kings 3:3-14.

It so happens that 1 Kings 3:3-14 is a most appropriate text for exhorting new leaders; it describes something of a divine commissioning of Solomon to leadership of Israel. The commissioning comes in the form of a test set in a dream of Solomon.

God asks Solomon to ask God what God should give him. Solomon assumes a humble posture in response to the revelation of God, acknowledging God's "steadfast love" in the past, that is, to his father David, and his own inability for so great a task as "leading the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted" (v. 8).

Solomon's request pleases God. Solomon asks "only" for the wisdom to "discern between good and evil" in the cause of leading God's great people. Solomon's request for wisdom to do the good and shun the evil is significant in the text in light of that to which it is in opposition--"long life or riches" or "the life of your enemies." God does not want a leader for God's people who looks first to external things, to the things outside oneself, but internally, within his own heart. That is, as in words ascribed to Solomon's very father, David, the leader of Israel, God wants someone who asks God,

"search me and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Ps. 139:23-24).

The enemy which God's appointed leader seeks to slay lurks not without but within. The enemies from outside are not the greatest danger to God's people; danger attacks from within.

The leader cannot buy "long life and riches"--prosperity--for the people. Neither can the leader protect the nation through the forcible removal of its enemies. Rather, the leader provides and protects by being who God has called the leader to be.

When confronted by the greatness of the God who "alone is good" (Mk. 10:18), the humble leader, like Solomon in the text, sees himself as he is: "a child", lacking in understanding ("I do not know how to go out or come in", v. 7), in need of the higher wisdom in order to do the good. In the piercing light of perfect love, complete knowledge (omniscience), and total capability (omnipotence), the humble leader rightly fears, for he now sees that perfect love and light cannot abide the bitterness and darkness within his own heart; "God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all" (1 Jn. 1:5). The leader either submits to the God who can cleanse her, thereby saving her life, or clings to her desire for wealth and the life of her enemies, thereby subjecting herself to the destructive cycle of greed and jealousy with those very enemies who seek her life. The leader has only two options: fear God or fear humans.

The latter is the way of mutual destruction. The former is "the beginning of wisdom", the way of peace for the people of God (Ps. 111:10).

-Joe

to him

2009-08-17T06:12:00.000-07:00

In two different settings recently, the story of Jesus' encounter with the Sadducees has occupied the center of my message. One was at a funeral in which it was appropriate to speak about the destiny of the dead. The other was last week at our Bible conference, in which we discussed that same topic under the broader category of eschatology.

Though I probably preached a synthesis of the three versions of the story, appearing as it does in Matthew (22:23-33), Mark (12:18-27), and Luke (20:27-40), it was a line unique to Luke which proved critical.

"To him all of them are alive." This was the line Jesus used to sum up his defense of the resurrection to the Sadducees, "those who say there is no resurrection" (20:27). It came following Jesus' brilliant recontextualization of Exodus 3, "the story about the bush" (20:37), for an audience, that is, the Sadducees themselves, which accepted only the five books of Moses (of which Exodus is one) as scripture. Other Hebrew texts, for example, Isaiah (26:14, 19) and Daniel (12:2) had taught more explicitly the resurrection of the dead; these, however, were not authoritative for the Sadducees, though they were for both Jesus and other Jewish groups such as the Pharisees. As a result, Jesus did not base his response to the Sadducees on texts which were not to them scripture; he made his point from their (and, yes, also his) scripture. He selected the story of God's self-revelation to Moses in the wilderness, in the burning bush.

In that story, God had revealed Godself in relation to God's people; God is God because God is God to someone, in this case, "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob", three men who yielded their lives, not each to his self, but to God. When they died--and they had been dead for centuries by the time Moses appeared on the scene--their lives remained in the presence of their God who is, the "I am who I am" (Ex. 3:14). Or, as Jesus implied, God did not say of Godself in relation to the dead ones, "I was", but "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

In other words, "he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive" (20:38).

Jesus' logic in this story had always perplexed me. Approaching it from an academic point-of-view, his logic seemed more like an affirmation of the existence of the person between biological death and the resurrection of the dead--the so-called intermediate state--than it did the resurrection of the dead, the actual issue at hand in his encounter with the Sadducees. That is, it was not obvious to me that the continuation of personhood after death for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob automatically proved their coming resurrection on the last day; the only "proof" of that was Jesus' appearances to his disciples following his own death, a unique mode-of-being within the corpus of post-death experience available to us from the scriptures, a resurrection promised also to us who "have been united with him in a death like his" (Rom. 6:5).

However, preaching the story, that is, approaching it with a pastoral intent, introduced different questions and, in turn, yielded different answers.

The specific Africans in whose presence I proclaim the Word of God do not, like the Sadducees, have a difficult time accepting the continuation of life for the dead. Quite the contrary, the dead are all too alive for them! The dead still demand attention, still receive care--and this at the great expense of the living. In such a setting, the key question and answer comes from Luke.

To whom are "all of them" alive? "To him all of them are alive."

The dead are not alive to us, their living descendants. The dead are alive to God, their and our living Creator. God remembers the dead. God loves the dead. God cares for the dead. God judges the dead. If the dead receive such good care from an all-powerful God--if to him all of them are alive--what more can we give them? What more do they need from us?

We do not honor the dead by seeking their favor, or fearing their wrath. We honor them by seeking the God who holds them in his care.

-Joe

a satisfactory word

2009-08-12T01:06:00.000-07:00

It was a model of its kind, the most brilliant of scriptural insights: attentive to the narrative, creative, culturally-relevant, pastoral, transformative.

Pastor Ntapo stood at the front with five other students, reporting on what their respective small groups had discussed in this August session of Bethany Bible School. The text: 1 Samuel 28:8-19.

I had chosen the text because it was a potentially explosive text for our students' real-life context. Saul, in a time of crisis as leader of the people Israel, goes against the will of God to seek advice from the dead through a diviner, or a sangoma (Zulu), an igqirha (Xhosa). He disguised himself and went by night to a woman who could call up the spirits of the dead. Against her own wishes--"you know what Saul has done, how he cut off from the land all the wizards and diviners"--she agrees to call up for Saul the one whom he names. Saul is seeking the counsel of his old prophet, now dead, Samuel.

The woman, of course, succeeds in calling up Samuel. She lets out a great cry when she sees him, for she recognizes him as the one who in life was associated with Saul--the very one who has cut off her kind from the land. "Why have you deceived me--you are Saul", she says. Saul, now identified for the first time in the text as "'the king", encourages her to carry on. "Do not fear; what do you see?"

From what she saw, Pastor Ntapo reported on what he sees. "First," he said, "we see that Samuel was wrapped in a robe. From that we take that Samuel was a priest. This shows that one is identified in death by what he was in life. If you were a tsotsi [a gangster, a criminal], you would come back in tsotsi's clothes. This goes to show that the dead don't need anything from us. They are already clothed, so they don't need us to give them a blanket."

I remembered what Pastor Ntapo had explained to me many months earlier. When a Xhosa person sees, much like the woman saw Samuel, "an old man" in his/her dreams, one of the most common cultural assumptions is that the dead ancestor is cold. He is appearing now to his living descendants to serve notice of his discomfort. In response, the living will slaughter a goat for the dead and leave its coat on the floor beside the bed; there the ancestor will sleep in the warmth of the goatskin. But, as the text peers into the spiritual world, it sees that such costly sacrifices are unnecessary, for the dead person is yet provided for in the clothes which he donned in life; he has no need of more. Since the dead person has no need of more, the old cultural assumption is a lie. On the contrary, the dead want to rest as they are, just as Samuel scolded Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?" Consequently, it is for that reason also that Pastor Ntapo does not attribute visitations to the living from the ancestral spirits to the ancestors themselves. Rather, they are "from Satan", pictures of loved ones sent by the Deceiver in order to take sacrifices for himself.

"That is a blue lie," the pastor has said to me on mulitple occasions. "You will find that whenever they do that [sacrifice in response to such a vision], a death will soon follow." People may sacrifice innocently, out of ignorance and even genuine concern for their dead, but the Evil One only wants to take more. Satan will never be satisfied.

God, on the other hand, has given us his word, and God is satisfied in it. Thanks be to God for interpreters like Pastor Ntapo who open that clear word for others in order that it might become flesh in the lives of God's people.

-Joe

an interpretive stone

2009-08-11T06:42:00.001-07:00

Another Bible conference. Another obscure reference to Absalom.

Last May, you might remember, one man had asked about the kiss of Absalom.http://joeannasawatzky.blogspot.com/2009/05/two-kisses.html On Saturday, in the reports of small groups to the general assembly, a young woman unveiled Absalom's stone (2 Sam 18:18).

If you don't get the pun, you don't live in this part of South Africa. The woman's "unveiling" of an obscure part of scripture for me came precisely in the context of her using that verse as a justification for her cultural practice of "unveiling tombstones" for deceased loved ones. Although I think it can happen at the same time as the funeral, tombstone unveilings commonly occur some months to a year after the person's death. As many families do not have enough money for both the funeral and the stone, the stone often follows at a later date. At that time, the family will again hold some kind of service (one of our Committee members in the Bible School assures me that an unveiling is strictly a family event, just a small event, and need not involve the broader community or the church. In reality, people often do make a big deal of it).

At any rate, the young woman's comment irritated me. The topic for the day was eschatology, or the theology of "last things." Because most of our students are fixated not on eschatology in its sense as the goal of history/creation but as the destiny of their dead loved ones, I too chose to focus the lesson on its personal dimensions, that is, on so-called "personal eschatology". Closing the first session leading into small group discussion, I had left students with the question, "What is our responsibility toward the dead?" Now I was getting the answers from this young woman. First, "we bury them." Then, "we unveil tombstones". Both answers, of course, came not on their own but with a scripture verse thrown in for support. And therein lies my irritation.

If there is a scriptural justification for tombstone unveilings, this was not it. First, Absalom was not setting up a stone for a loved one; he was setting it up for himself, worried that he would die without a son to remember him. Second, who is Absalom, and why should we follow him? The young woman's answer showed little concern for these considerations. In the end, Absalom's practice in this verse has no more to do with the woman's own than the stone. And that, it seems to me, is no rock on which to build the house of God.

-Joe

gleanings on gleaning

2009-08-02T02:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my wife preached, by request, on the topic "the responsibility of mothers in building up the church". She chose as her primary example the story of Ruth, in which Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi orchestrate a plan to provide for their own security.

After the service, while commenting on the sermon, the pastor remarked that "this Jewish culture [in the biblical text, the story of Ruth] is so much like our [Xhosa, and in particular, Pondo] own." The example he went on to cite from Ruth was the part in which she, in her economically-disadvantaged status as a widow, gleans grain behind Boaz's workers at the harvest (Ruth 2). This, of course, is a narrative example of Jewish law, in which provision in this manner was written in on behalf of the poor (Lev. 19:9-10). The pastor said, "it was just like that in the village where I grew up. The poor people would follow behind the harvesters collecting mealies."

I do not know whether there was a prescriptive dimension to this practice in Pondoland, whether the haves were sanctioned to leave what fell for the have-nots (if so, the law in this case was "only" oral). Regardless, the stories of the Bible read as a close descriptive parallel to many African cultures, and therefore also contain great power.

On the other hand, "these practices are no more there [in his boyhood village]," says the pastor. Because the pastor was born in 1973, it seems to reason that his memories of gleaning would date from at least into the early-mid 1980s. It also indicates how rapid was the erosion of such practices: from a fact of life to nonexistent in 25 years. An entire generation of children, though rural, has grown up ignorant of the old agrarian ways. In that case, a new generation of Africans will perhaps also have to listen harder for the voice of God in ancient texts whose relevance was once so overtly obvious to their mothers and fathers.

-Joe

the joy of learning

2009-07-27T02:36:00.000-07:00

from danger to danger

2009-07-17T03:06:00.000-07:00

One of the purest joys in my life is the act of preaching. In particular, this joy is the product of moments of unexpected creativity. In the flow of retelling a Bible story, words find me, flashing across my mind seconds before they leave my mouth.

Several weeks ago, I was taking my time in preaching the story of Moses. I came to the part in the story in which Moses' mother places him in a basket in the river in order to hide him from Pharaoh's campaign of slaughter of Hebrew boys (Ex. 1-2). In the concern of making the story exceedingly clear for my audience, I realized that it didn't make sense for me: why exactly would a mother think that putting her baby in a river, however pitched the basket and however watched by the baby's sister, is a situation more conducive to the child's survival than hiding him away in a house somewhere? Feeling my way through this dilemma, I suggested that the river was surely infested with hungry crocodiles. Then another scripture came to mind. In response to evildoers who proclaimed the coming of "the Day of the Lord", the prophet Amos had declared that "Day" not light but darkness. It was to be a day of judgment, and not one in which the perpetrators of justice would find comfort. Amos likened it to someone "who fled from a lion and was met by a bear", or "rested a hand against the wall and was bitten by a snake" (Amos 5:18-20). Taking up the imagery, I suggested that Moses adrift on the Nile was akin to going "from danger to danger."

From danger to danger. It was simply a phrase coined to find a way through a telling on my way to a broader point. It was, in the end, the phrase that one listener had filed in his memory bank, the phrase which he recounted to me weeks later upon our next meeting; the phrase had gone with him as the presence of God for weeks and weeks.

Why? I wondered. I do not know exactly, but I suspect that it has something to do with the reality that this brother's life is a going about "from danger to danger." A tempestuous marriage. A physically abusive wife (yes, contrary to the dominant pattern in South Africa, the domestic abuse in this situation runs the opposite way and, by the way, the wife is much bigger than the husband). Sporadic "piece" jobs. Wandering through town, dependent upon the generosity of acquaintances to provide for daily bread. Scrapping to pay school fees for four children.

If his life is not danger to danger, it is hardship to hardship, stress to stress, insecurity to insecurity.

"How are things?" I ask my friend. "It is better to have hope than not to have hope," he replies, reduced to one of the "three things that will remain" (1 Cor. 13:13).

"God is taking us somewhere", he also testifies to me. For my friend perceives that "from danger to danger" has a flip-side. The weight of suffering now is preparing him for "an eternal weight of glory", a "yoke that is easy and a burden that is light" (2 Cor. 4:17; Mt. 11:30).

"From danger to danger" is one side; "from glory to glory" is the other (2 Cor. 3:18).

-Joe

of knowledge and power

2009-06-24T00:07:00.000-07:00

A woman pastor in the Bible School was reporting to me of the funeral she conducted on Saturday. She said she used 2 Kings 5, the story of the cleansing of Naaman. Two years earlier, I heard another woman preach this text to a group of young women. Both women made similar points. They focused on the role of the slave girl of Naaman's wife in the process of Naaman's cleansing.

Though the girl was a person of lowly status, they said, she had the knowledge Naaman did not. She knew where cleansing could be found, and she did not keep that knowledge to herself.

The text does indeed seem to draw a comparison between Naaman and the girl. She is "young," she is a "girl", she is a foreigner, a "captive" taken from Israel to Aram during one of the Arameans' raids. By contrast, Naaman is "commander of the army of the king of Aram", "a great man and in high favor with his master", one by whom "the Lord had given victory to Aram", and "a mighty warrior" (vv. 1-2). It is as if Naaman can do no wrong. Naaman has no weaknesses.

Except that "though a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy" (v. 1). The text seems to anticipate that this should come as a surprise to the reader. Persons such as Naaman are not sick. Yet he "suffered from leprosy."

The preacher used these details to make a point about the status of women in her own culture, indeed, in the church. Though regarded as the inferiors of men, God's Spirit chooses women to make God's purposes known. In fact, she preached the text under the suspicious glares of male pastors in attendance who were jealous of the honor of leading the funeral. Throughout the service, they kept looking, hoping, for the woman to make a mistake, to do something out of the time-honored order. Yet she conducted the service, beginning to end, flawlessly, beautifully, powerfully. "They were so surprised," she reports.

We talked on. We spoke of certain leaders adept in the evil arts of obfuscation, of secrecy, of hiding information from their people, of using power bestowed to hoard benefits. "That is the leprosy," the pastor said.

The affliction of Naaman was more than a disease of the skin. It was also more than the mere possession of power. Against the backdrop of the one who gave what she had for the sake of another, is the power of selfishness exposed. Only in light of the slave girl, or of a crucified Christ, might we turn and be healed (Isa 6:10).

-Joe

the Gift and the gifts

2009-06-10T01:17:00.000-07:00

When thinking about the overarching theme of the Bible School, the mission that we want to be about, we have returned again and again to Ephesians 4. Specifically, verse 13: "until all of us come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ" (NRSV).

This sentence fragment includes both the mission and the vision. Through acquiring "knowledge of the Son of God" through the corporate study of his Story, we find ourselves growing into "the full stature of Christ".

What is the life that "the full stature of Christ" entails? How do we realize our vision?

When reading Ephesians 4, I have often puzzled over vv. 9-10. In the flow of the text, it seems tangential, a diversion from the flow of Paul's exhortation. The NRSV, in fact, encourages such a sentiment, for it supplies parentheses around the verses. As is often the case with interpretation, however, precisely that part of the text which seems out of place is key to the meaning of the whole. And so it is with Ephesians 4:1-16.

The text reveals a movement from one to many. There is one Body, one Spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father (vv. 4-6). Singularity soon gives way to plurality: some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers (v. 11).

What lies between the one and the many? How do we get from one to the other?

The text locates "Christ's gift" between the two. Christ's gift (singular) is the fountainhead of the gifts (plural) "he gave to his people" (v. 8b), namely, "that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers" (v. 11).

The gift of the one conditions the gifts of the many. If we want to understand our own gifts, we must know Christ's. What is the character of his gift?

Here the text speaks of Christ's ascension. "When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people" (v. 8). There is something necessary about Christ's ascension--his departure as a flesh and blood reality from this earth to "the right hand of God", the "heavenly" seat of all power in the universe--for our own empowerment.

Yet the ascension is previously conditioned.

Translated parenthetically, Paul actually makes the main point. The One who ascended did so only by first descending; "he who descended is the same one who ascended" (vv. 9-10).

What is Christ's gift, the Gift according to which we also receive our gifts?

It is none other than God's descent in Christ. The Word becoming flesh in Jesus' birth. Jesus' descent beneath the waters of baptism (an event itself blessed by the descent of the Spirit). Jesus stooping down to wash his disciples' feet. And finally, one dramatic descent, fraught with irony: the Son of Man "lifted up" on the cross in his descent to the dead.

What is the quality of Christ's gift? It is God's own self, the love of the One given for the many.

And what, then, in turn, are the qualities of our gifts? Whatever the differences implied within the various tasks of the so-called "five-fold ministry" (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers), there is still one ministry: the descent, the humility, the self-giving love operative in those who have joined themselves to Christ's Body.

As the One, so the many. As the Gift, so the gifts.

We see, then, that the movement of the text is not, after all, one-way. The many give themselves back to God, which is to say, also to one another.

" . . . until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ" (v. 13).

-Joe

the curse of ignorance

2009-05-28T02:41:00.000-07:00

While promoting Bethany Bible School last week, the vice-chairperson offered the following interpretation of Luke 23:34, one of Jesus' oft-quoted words from the cross, "Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."

"The first sin that Jesus cursed from the cross was the sin of not knowing," he said.

His point? Not knowing, or ignorance, is an offense to God, a sin which carries a curse for those guilty of it. The reverse is equally true: knowledge of God is God's will for his creatures, a relationship which carries a blessing for those who remain within it.

The interpretation was novel to me for its shifting the accent of Jesus' words to the sin rather than that which overcomes the sin, the declaration of forgiveness. In my understanding, the accent of Jesus' words fell always upon the forgiveness, on his letting us off the hook, as though our not-knowing was sufficient grounds for our innocence before God.

Perhaps, then, the vice-chairperson's interpretation has exposed the extent to which the "cheap grace" narrative has infected my interpretation of well-known texts. Indeed, in his interpretation, Jesus' words are not so much a declaration as they are a lament, a plea for knowledge for those who have none. In Pauline terms, they are not words "declaring" one just/righteous in spite of one's sin; they are words "making" just/righteous from sin. Jesus does indeed give us love while we are sinners, powerless, ignorant (Rom. 5:6-8); yet he leaves it to us to integrate his gift into our lives.

Our ignorance, therefore, is not a source of blessing, the cause by which God decides to save us. Rather, our not-knowing is the cause of Jesus' reminder to our Father that all is not right with the creation--yet could again be if only we "knew the things that make for peace" (Lk. 19:42).

-Joe

things above

2009-05-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

For me, some of the most fascinating features of African spirituality are dreams and visions (North Americans also have them, yet our dominant worldview is largely closed to their reality).

I have recently experienced a close convergence between something I have been reading about in a book about African "religious thought" and an experience as related to me by a pastor friend.

The book was explaining a certain Congolese Christian evangelist's experiences of an "underground world", accessed via water, inhabited by witches and sorcerers who convene to plot evil against the inhabitants of the earth. The authors describe these worlds, as described by the Africans who experience them, as "contain[ing] the same features as the material world, but in malign forms that are inversions or perversions of their visible representations" (Ellis and Ter Haar, 50).

We might recognize this same characterization in the pastor's account.

He described to me the story of a certain man whom he knows. One day, studying in his university's library, the man looked up to notice a number of children from his home, rural village entering the library. He thought the sight most strange, conceiving of no reason why such children should suddenly appear at his institution of study. Suddenly, accompanied by the children, the man found himself in a location "beside the sea". He then witnessed a most gruesome scene: people from all sorts of ethnic groups--"black, white, Indian" [some of the prominent groupings of South African society]--"drinking one another's blood" at the behest of certain witches who held them captive. One of the witches took a knife and, giving it to the man, ordered him to cut out the heart of a white man there hanging by his feet from a tree. The man first refused; yet under duress, he complied. "I will never forget the screams of that white man," the man would later tell the pastor. To make a long story short, the witches also tried to cut the man himself. However, when one thrust the knife into his belly, it bounced back as if repelled by strong rubber. Another witch chided the other, "I told you we are unable to do anything to people who have been washed in the blood of that man." "They [the witches] do not even like to say the name of Jesus," the pastor explained to me. Following this, the man woke up in the hospital in Mthatha.

Just as the authors, in their analyses of certain accounts from the continent, describe an alternative world that "contains the same features of the material world", so we notice that, according to the pastor's telling, the man experienced things more real than we would commonly ascribe to dreams. He really felt himself to be "by the sea"; felt the knife twist into the white man's flesh; heard his screams; felt the knife bounce off his own flesh.

And just as the authors describe that world as an "malign inversion" of the visible world, so the invisible world is dominated by witches, ostracized evildoers in the visible world. The invisible world in the pastor's story, similarly characterized by the authors, is also a "perversion"; the atrocities committed there are the utmost extremities of human discord in the visible world. As such--extremely perverse, extremely painful--the invisible world is, in a sense, more real than the "real" world, for it exposes the pain common to many--yet known by few--in the visible world. Though humans are not often literally seen to consume one another's blood, we actually do whenever we curse, abuse, and kill one another.

Yet the malign "underworld" is not the only invisible world; neither is it the most real.

When a certain man named John "was in the Spirit on the Lord's day", he saw, perhaps like the man in the pastor's story, "a great multitude which no one could number from every tribe and people and language." These, however, were not those who drink the blood of one another; "these are those who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Rev. 1:10, 7:9, 14).

"But I do not like to tell my people such stories," the pastor says to me, closing the book on his acquaintance's encounter with witches. "Jesus is more powerful."

The world below does not determine life on this earth; the world above does (Col. 3:1-4; Eph. 2:1-7).

-Joe

The work cited above is Stephen Ellis and Gerrie Ter Haar, Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2004.

two kisses

2009-05-11T08:27:00.000-07:00

I've posted a reflection on our other blog, which can be accessed at http://joeannasawatzky.blogspot.com/2009/05/two-kisses.html

-Joe

more than conquerors

2009-05-06T00:31:00.000-07:00

"By this sign, conquer."

"See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered."

These two statements, representing two visions, formed the heart of our exploration at Bethany Bible School on the topic of the History of Christianity.

The first vision, seen by Constantine on the eve of the battle by which he would take control of the Roman Empire, forever muddied, in the course of Christian history, the clarion call of the second vision--that seen by John, a prisoner of the empire--some 200 years earlier.

Constantine's vision of a fiery cross in the sky, accompanied by the words "by this sign, conquer", captivated the students at BBS. I had used the story--from the year 312--as part of my telling of the change of meaning of Christian faith initiated by Constantine's patronage. Now legal, and increasingly privileged, by will of the Emperor, the Christian religion soon became coterminous with power conceived as violence.

The original Christian vision, however, shows power in a different light.

John, greatly weeping because no one was found worthy to open the book and break its seals, hears that a Lion--of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David--has conquered. When John actually looks, however, he sees not a Lion but a Lamb--"standing as if it had been slaughtered." Already identified according to the flesh--as Judah's descendant and David's heir to the throne--the King's true identity, according to the Spirit, is now revealed: not slayer but slain; prey, not predator; not conqueror, but conquered.

Except that the King has conquered, and precisely because of his playing the Lamb. "Worthy are you," sings the heavenly choir, "because you were slaughtered."

"So," I asked. "Are these two visions--Constantine's and John's--the same vision? Or are they different?"

"I think they are different," said Pastor Mgodeli. "Constantine was told to conquer; the Lamb already has conquered."

I was looking for something even more explicit, that is, how the Lamb conquered: by giving his own life rather than taking the lives of his enemies (I did, in fact, add this point). Yet Pastor Mgodeli's answer, while implying mine, also ensures that the text's pitch of hope remains high, thereby empowering our perseverance in love in the face of evil. Because our Lamb has already conquered, we don't have to.

"We are", in fact, "more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Rom 8:37).

5, 2, and 1

2009-04-28T00:40:00.000-07:00

How would you summarize the message of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible?

For our February teaching at Bethany Bible School on the theme of "Law", I chose five words.

1. Liberation. God rescued a people from slavery.

2. Provision. God led the people in the desert. God fed the people in the desert.

3. Covenant. God made a covenant with Israel, an agreement of mutual faithfulness.

4. Law. God gave Israel instruction on how to remain faithful to God.

5. Holiness. God set Israel apart as a witness before the nations.

I then summarized these five in two words.

1. Grace. God chose Israel, not because of its righteousness but because of God's love.

2. Justice. Israel responds to God's grace by practicing justice in all of its relationships.

And finally, one word:

Love. Israel's life flows from and is characterized by God's love.

Much more could be said. But this is one framework for telling the story.

-Joe

"peace be with you"

2009-04-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

In the course of preaching the story of the risen Jesus' appearance to his disciples from John 20:19-31, I found what was for me a new interpretation.

The text begins with the disciples' fear. They have locked themselves inside the house "for fear of the Jews."

Suddenly, however, Jesus--not one of the Jewish authorities whom they fear--comes and stands among them. At this same point in Luke's gospel, we read that it was indeed the sight of Jesus that caused them to fear, thinking that they were seeing a ghost (Lk 24:37). John, however, while not including this editorial note, implies the same with the use of Jesus' greeting to the disciples, "Peace be with you."

Until he comes, the disciples are at enmity with their teacher. One, now dead, had betrayed him. Another, Peter, had denied him--three times. All had deserted him.

Now he comes to them, a ghost perhaps, bent on vengeance.

"Peace be with you," he says.

They thought they were seeing a ghost; they touched a flesh and blood human being (Lk 24:39).

They were expecting an enemy; they received a friend.

They feared wrath; they got peace.

As if the words of Jesus were too good to be true, he proceeds to show them his hands and his side, the marks of his crucifixion--and the bitter reminder of their having abandoned him to his enemies. If this is not cause for fear for the disciples--and in truth now they "rejoiced when they saw the Lord"--might it be a rallying cry to vengeance against the enemies of Israel?

Yet again they hear, a second time, "Peace be with you."

Having received his "peace" in his word, they now receive his Spirit through his breath, by which the disciples in turn become agents of peace to all the world: "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

Having been forgiven much, they forgive. Their sin having been canceled, will they hold on to the sins of others?

"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe" the gospel of peace.

-Joe

three tents or the tent?

2009-04-02T06:25:00.000-07:00

"But Jesus talked to his ancestors."

I once heard a former missionary in Africa narrate this response of members of an independent church.

The story, of course, that they had in mind was the transfiguration of Jesus (Mk. 9:2-8; Mt. 17:1-8; Lk. 9:28-36).

It seems a compelling point.

The gospel texts, however, do not exactly state that Jesus was talking with his ancestors, in the case of the story, Elijah and Moses. On the contrary, as Mark puts it, "there appeared to them Elijah with Moses talking with Jesus." That is, the action in the narrative flows from the great Jewish forefathers toward Jesus; they appear with him; he does not appear with them. The distinction is so subtle as to escape notice, yet may prove significant.

Regardless, what is of first significance in the gospel witness is not who appears alongside Jesus but to whom the vision appears.

"And there appeared to them . . ." It was to them, that is, to Peter, James, and John--Jesus' disciples--that Moses and Elijah appeared alongside Jesus. Moreover, it is to their response that the gospel witness clings.

Peter, for his part, musters a response to the revelation on behalf of those with whom--James and John--he is "terrified."

"Rabbi [or "Lord": Mt.: "Master": Lk.], it is good for us to be here; Let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."

Even if, however, Peter, according to Mark and Luke (though not Matthew), "did not know what he was saying", he nonetheless stumbles upon the critical issue--though not the solution.

Peter is right: the revelation of Jesus "in glory" (Lk. 9:31, 33) with Moses and Elijah has everything to do with tents.

Surely, for example, the appearance of Moses alongside Jesus only confirmed for Peter that which it immediately succeeds: the change--the transfiguration--of Jesus' appearance, his face, as Matthew puts it, "shining like the sun, his clothes as white as the light."

For Peter, the appearance of Moses quite naturally seals the transfiguration of Jesus, for the face of Moses also used to shine "whenever he went in before the Lord to speak with him" (Ex. 34:29-35). Originally, of course, Moses' encounter with God on behalf of Israel took place on Mt. Sinai. Subsequently, however, the presence of God would descend "outside" the place wherever the wandering Israelites had encamped, to the Tent of Meeting where Moses would go to speak "face to face" with the Lord (Ex. 33:7-11).

Far from irrational, therefore, Peter's comments are more than rational. He sees the shining light in the face of Jesus. He sees Moses. He knows that God has descended upon the mountain. He offers, like Israel in the desert and later in Jerusalem, to set up a tent of meeting--a temple--wherein the presence of God might regularly speak for the sake of the people.

On the other hand, Peter is not yet convinced that God is really for the people; he, and the others with him, "are terrified." They, like their ancestors in the desert, cry to Moses, "you speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die" (Ex. 20:19). For Peter, the presence of God is mediated through holy men in holy places.

As a result, when a cloud--and from the cloud a voice--overshadows them as Peter is still speaking, it is more rebuke than interruption: not more holy men (three, as Peter would have it) are needed, but One Mediator; not more holy places, but One Tent of Meeting.

"This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him."

But who is "this"? Who is "him"?

Until the cloud overshadows them, three men are visible to the disciples. One, Moses, established the pattern of prophethood in Israel. Of him it was once said, "I will raise up a prophet like you from among your own people. Listen to him" (Dt. 18:15). If, however, Moses was the original, Elijah could lay claim to the fulfillment; on him was bestowed a status not even Moses enjoyed: translation to heaven apart from death (2 Kgs. 2:11).

Yet neither of these is "the Beloved Son."

"Suddenly when [the disciples] looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but Jesus alone."

Jesus is the "prophet like Moses" whom God would "raise up"--though Moses could not have guessed how literally true that would prove. Jesus is the prophet unlike Elijah, if for the very reason prophesied by Moses: he would be "raised", that is, from--not apart from--the dead.

Thus we see, as the disciples before us, that Jesus did not approach Moses and Elijah. Moses and Elijah pointed to him.

Even the ancestors cry, "listen to him."

-Joe

"great suffering" (Matthew 24:1-31)

2009-03-30T23:53:00.000-07:00

This post reflects my thinking in preparation for an upcoming lesson at the Bible school on eschatology, or "last things." A pastor friend here recently told me that "Israel is our clock." In other words, according to him, events that occur within the present-day nation of Israel hasten the day and hour of Jesus' coming again. Through a close study of such texts as Matthew 24:1-31, however, I hope to switch the emphasis--as I believe Jesus did--from the "when" in his disciples' original question to the "what": not "when" will these things be but "what" is the sign. Even that "what", however, was not what the disciples--still enamored of the temple (v. 1) and expectant of a messiah who would "suddenly come to his temple", increasing its splendor (Mal. 3:1; Hag. 2:9)--expected.

"When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?"
(Mt. 24:3)

So the disciples asked Jesus.

Earlier he had told the scribes and Pharisees that "a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign" (Mt. 12:38-39).

Now his disciples ask for a sign.

Jesus, in his response, speaks of wars and rumors of wars, famine, earthquakes. He speaks of betrayal and the love of many growing cold (vv. 6, 7, 10, 12).

He also warns of false prophets and false christs (v. 11, 24).

It is his discussion around these false prophets that introduces the key words in the text.

First, the false prophets are those who "produce great signs" (v. 24). That is, the false prophets are those who produce the very thing that the disciples ask Jesus to give them.

Second, the false prophets perform their signs with the intent of "leading astray, if possible, even the elect" (v. 24). That is, those who have asked Jesus for a sign are themselves vulnerable to the deceitful signs of false prophets.

Third, as opposed to the false prophets who produce great signs, the disciples will experience great suffering, "such as has not been since the beginning of the world and never will be again" (v. 21). That is, just as the suffering of the Son of Man who, like Jonah in the belly of the sea monster, will be in the earth three days and nights, so the only sign given to the disciples is their inevitable suffering (Mt. 12:39-40).

Their great suffering (Greek: thlipsis, vv. 9, 21, 29) is not, however, pointless; it is for the sake of righteousness; it is the sign of blessedness (Mt. 5:10-11). In fact, "the one who perseveres to the end will be saved" (v. 13).

The disciples will be handed over to suffering and they will be killed, but for their sake--"for the sake of the elect"--"those days will be cut short" (v. 22). Moreover, just "after the suffering of those days," after "the sign of the Son of Man has appeared in heaven", "he will send out his angels to gather his elect" (vv. 29-31).

Though suffering is their lot, their mark, their sign, the Son of Man is coming for his own. "And remember," he says, "I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Mt. 28:20).

"Let the reader understand" (v. 15) what then is the cost--and the hope--of discipleship.

-Joe

our great high priest

2009-03-11T05:50:00.000-07:00

This is the summary content of the Bible Study portion of our February teaching at Bethany Bible School.

Leviticus 14:1-9 details the cleansing of one who is to be cleansed of his leprosy. He will be "brought to the priest", who will "go outside the camp" to "make an examination" to determine whether the "stroke of leprosy is healed" in the person. If the disease has indeed abated, the priest will command that two birds, cedarwood, two red cords, and hyssop be brought to him. Then the priest will slaughter one of the birds over a clay vessel filled with clean water. The blood of the slaughtered will mix with the water. Then the priest will take the living bird, together with the cedarwood, the cords, and the hyssop, and dip them in the mixture of blood and water. With the latter elements he will dash the mixture seven times upon the one who is to be cleansed of his leprosy. The living bird, carrying the blood of its slaughtered counterpart, he will release to the open field. Following this, the one who is to be cleansed will shave off all his hair, wash his clothes, and bathe his body. Then he can reenter the camp.

Upon reentry, however, the law dictates that he will "stay outside his tent" for seven days. On the seventh day, he will again shave, wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh, after which he shall be definitively, finally, clean.

Mark 1:40-45 also describes a scenario involving one who is to be cleansed of his leprosy. For his cleansing--"that which Moses commanded"--he was instructed to "show himself to the priest." The one who gave him such an instruction, however, had already cleansed him.

"If you want," the leper, begging and bending the knee, says to Jesus, "you are able to make me clean." "Moved with compassion and stretching out his hand to the leper," Jesus responds: "I do want, be made clean." "Immediately the leprosy left him."

Ignoring through his joy Jesus' warning to him not to tell anyone but to "show himself to the priest as a testimony to them", the cleansed one embarks to spread the word broadly, to the effect that Jesus is no longer able to move about freely in the city, so great is the demand on his time by the many who seek healing for their afflictions. Instead, Jesus finds himself "outside, in the desert place."

Taking upon himself the disease of the afflicted, the one who was so able to make the afflicted one clean, is himself now unable, cast outside of respectable society to dwell in the desert place. Like the bird contaminated by the blood of its slaughtered counterpart, Jesus is expelled to the field carrying the diseases of the people. In fact, like the bird which was slaughtered, Jesus too will be crucified outside the city, with the consent of the chief priests of his religion.

Yet the one who was cleansed will no more be able to return to the priests of his religion, so complete is his healing by the compassionate touch and loving words of the One who is able to make him clean.

For his sake--for ours--the Able One has been disabled. The Healthy One has become sick. The Just One has become a sinner: "God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us in order that we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21).

-Joe

the snake of God

2009-02-17T01:53:00.000-08:00

I was reflecting on Paul's line to the Corinthians that "knowledge puffs up, but love builds up."

It occurred to me that in South Africa we have a very poisonous snake: the puff adder. When provoked, it puffs up.

Did Paul have a snake in mind when he turned that phrase? After all, it was precisely a kind of "knowledge" that the snake offered the woman in Genesis 3.

When the woman was given to the man as his helper, the text says that they were "naked together and unashamed." Following the snake's deception, however, the woman and the man sew clothes as a barrier between them. Moreover, the helper becomes a subject to a husband who will act as lord over her. Nakedness turns to hiddenness, intimacy to estrangement, mutuality to dominance.

But God is more clever than the snake. God uses the snake to accomplish God's purposes. When a deadly plague of poisonous snakes broke out against the Israelites in the wilderness, God commanded Moses to make a snake of bronze. Whenever anyone who had been bitten looked upon the snake, they were healed. Jesus applied the story to himself. "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up so that all who believe in him might have eternal life." And just as Aaron's staff-turned-snake swallowed up those of Pharaoh's magicians, so the knowledge of Christ overcomes the knowledge of the world.

Consuming the knowledge of the world breeds selfishness. The man and the woman, different one from the other according to the Creator's design, willingly enter into covenant as one flesh. "For this reason," for the sake of being joined to another in love, "a man shall leave his father and mother." Together they are naked, sharing all things. But confronted with the knowledge of the world, they seek to satisfy desires peculiar to their creatureliness. "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired in order to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate." As each pursues his or her own desires, the woman and the man erect between themselves a "dividing wall of hostility", sew "clothes of fig leaves" to hide from one another.

What can return two human beings, infected with the venom of divisiveness, sated on the desires of the self, "puffed up" with the knowledge of the world, to their primal nakedness?

Perhaps it is the sight of One who was lifted up from the earth, naked before the world on a cross: the vision of One who has not withheld, but given himself for love of another.

-Joe

Texts referred to or quoted in this entry: 1 Cor 8:1; Gen 2:25; Gen 3:7; Gen 2:18ff., 3:16; Num 21:4-9; Jn 3:14-15; Ex 7:8-12; Gen 2:24; Gen 3:6; Eph 2:14

living the story: culmination

2009-01-27T05:01:00.000-08:00

This is the final of a four-part series in which I narrate how I have sensed recent events in my life reenacting the story of the Bible, particularly around the relationship between the primary commitments of God, family, and ministry.

If I have been recently tested as to whether my commitment to family is indeed before ministry, I had not yet undergone the trial of God before family. Many people, I suppose, confuse the commitment to God with that to ministry; so what might a distinction between the two actually look like?

It looks like Genesis 22, the story of Abraham's "sacrifice" of Isaac, "his beloved son."

I also have a beloved son named Isaac.

Throughout our time in Africa, I have been particularly worried about how Isaac--not his two younger brothers--is doing in relation to our ministry. My worries about how he might react to some of our more intense efforts to engage with the local population have prevented me from pursuing some of those "ministry" relationships as much as I might otherwise. Still we often wondered whether God did not want us to do something more radical in reaching out to the people with whom we work: move to a rural area, for example, where we would have no choice but to use more of the Xhosa language, thereby deepening relationships. We had no clear word regarding this matter; we resolved to stay put until we had an unmistakable revelation.

That revelation came in the form of an eviction from our home of three years. Yet it did not result in the scenario I have outlined above.

When our landlord informed us last December that she would not be renewing our lease, we thought that maybe this was the door we needed to move out of town. We pursued the decision with our church in Mandela Park, a former informal settlement outside Mthatha--just the kind of place to which we had an itch to move.

We told them our sad story. The pastor said, "Must we find a place for you?"

"Please," I replied, "even in Mandela Park."

That was a big moment for me. I had never been able to express to that point my willingness to move to such a place. I still had too many fears--founded or not--related to my children.

The morning after, we went to the beach with the children of the church. The pastor said that one of the members had already found us a place. It was in Southridge Park--decidedly not a place like Mandela Park.

We checked the place out. I was convinced that it was the place God had prepared for us. Anna had doubts.

On Sunday I told the people that we "were serious when we said we could live in Mandela Park."

"We can do it," I pleaded, giving them another chance to find us a place among them. "Do you believe we can?"

Heads shook around the room.

"I have a response to that," said the pastor. "Because we also love you, we will not let you live here. The crime of this place is too bad, and it is a burden that only we of this place must bear."

After a week of intense anxiety, forced to make a decision about living arrangements in a city with few options, I was relieved simply to have clarity. We would take the place God--and indeed the local church--had given us. Yet we did not take it before God had tested me.

Like Abraham, I had to decide whether God was more faithful than my fears, wiser than my wisdom. Did God love the beloved son more than I did? God was waiting for me to say so.

In that moment, when "even Mandela Park" rolled off my tongue, I laid Isaac bound upon the altar.

And God gave Isaac back. With more blessings to follow.

-Joe

living the story, part three

2009-01-26T04:10:00.000-08:00

Speaking of the threefold hierarchy: God first, family second, ministry third, my conviction about its importance coincides with that of the pastor with whom I am currently working.

He recently made the following confession before his little congregation.

Many years ago, as a very young evangelist, he and his wife conceived and she bore their first child. As he kept up a heavy slate of revivals under the authority of another minister, his young child became quite ill. His wife needed him at home. His overseeing minister told him that the child would be fine; God would heal him because his father was doing the work of the Lord.

The child died.

Following this, the union was blessed with three healthy sons.

Years later, the pastor was working again under the authority of another traveling preacher. This overseer actively encouraged his protege to take other women, even as the overseer himself attempted to woo his protege's wife. A period of separation resulted between the pastor and his wife. Various friends intervened to help the couple clarify the confusion, untangle motives, and eventually, to reunite.

Then a confession, first to his wife more than a year ago, then to his congregation just two weeks ago: during the period of their separation, the pastor had conceived a child with another woman.

He feared the worst. His wife forgave him. Now he was asking the church to do the same.

It was a powerful story, followed by powerful exegesis.

"When it says in Genesis that the man and his wife were naked together, it does not mean simply that they were not wearing clothes," the pastor explained. "It means that there was nothing between them. They were completely naked to each other."

He went on. "We Mpondos [one of the large clans in this area of South Africa] are under a curse we inherited from our forefathers: our fathers did not go along with our mamas. Even in the church, we pastors have not had our wives by our side."

Two weeks before this was revealed, I had a dream.

Anna and I approached a house. Alone inside, eating supper at a dining room table, was the pastor's wife. She was distraught. We asked her what was wrong. Through tears she said, "Tata has not come home from work. It has been two days now."

I awoke troubled.

The next day was a Sunday. The pastor was at church, but he was ill. I did not want to tell him the dream so as to trouble him further in his tired state. A week or so later, I was prompted to share the dream in the presence of both pastor and wife.

"Enkosi, Tata," "Thank you, father," he said, taking my hand and giving me a knowing glance.

After the confession on a subsequent Sunday, the dream suddenly became clear to me. Mama Mfundisi (the pastor's wife) had been through far more than we had imagined: the death of a child early on in their marriage, the confusion related to her husband's overseer, her husband's indiscretion, the revelation of a half-sibling to her own sons. She was still harboring fears about their relationship, doubts as to whether he would remain faithful, doubts perhaps as to whether he would leave her behind for the sake of his work--his ever-growing call to ministry.

"Tata has not come home. It has been two days . . . "

"It is like that," the pastor confided in me within the following week. "Mama has said recently that it feels like I was running from her."

"But I know now that if I have to stay late at work, loading that truck," he says, pointing to the vehicle he drives for his day-job, "that I must call my wife and tell her exactly where I am. And I practice that."

"When Jesus comes back," he told his congregation, "he will not ask me 'Where is the church.' He will say to me, 'Where is your family.' The wife of Jesus is the church. I must first care for my wife.

living the story, part two

2009-01-24T03:28:00.000-08:00

I associate a second "attack" with the first for, in the absence of any other uniting evidence, its coming upon the heels of a sermon I preached on the same theme of servant-leadership.

On the Monday after this sermon, our family left for a two-day vacation to celebrate Anna's birthday on our favorite spot on the Wild Coast. We had a great time. Then we packed up to return to Mthatha.

On the way home, as we pulled back into the city limits, we stopped at Steers to pick up lunch. I left the family in the car as I went inside. While I was waiting at the counter having placed my order, I removed my ball cap, rubbed my disheveled hair and eyes tired from the drive, and probably let out a deep sigh or two. From the left I heard a voice say once, and then a second time to get my attention, "you need to relax, man."

"Where are you from?" the man behind the voice continued.

I knew what he was looking for. Having been identified as a foreigner, I chose to cut to the chase and just say "America". "But I live in Mthatha now," I added.

He proceeded to educate me on a number of subjects: "We don't cut people's hearts out and eat them like they do in Rwanda. This is South Africa. You've got to draw the line somewhere."

He proceeded to berate the young woman working behind the counter.

"Where's my friend's order? If you want to get anything here, you have to ask for it," he said, coming back at me. He badgered the woman still more.

He raises his eyebrows at me. He throws some glances at the woman, who, thankfully, at this point is paying him no attention. "The dark meat, that's where it's at. Every one who smiles at you, take her."

"I don't operate that way," I insisted. "I'm married."

"So am I," he said incredulously. "It doesn't matter. Can't you give this man some ice cream," he returned to the young woman, "for his wife."

I could not wait to get out of there. Now my order really was taking its precious time.

I had not been in the mood from the start, when this drunk had approached me with what felt very much like an accusation: "You need to relax, man."

I pride myself on being relaxed. And I take other people's criticisms seriously. But I was not going to take too seriously this particular guy's "counsel". I finally got our food. I wished him well, we shook hands. I was relieved to leave. I was also disturbed by the encounter.

As I relayed it to Anna, it dawned on me that this was another attack: a demon of sorts who had met me upon my return from the wilderness in order to gain some kind of upper hand over me.

"You need to relax, man."

"I know who you are."

I would never pretend to be in the place of Jesus; yet I had been perceiving, as I preached his words from the gospels, that his Spirit was leading me. Whatever possessing spirit--not the man himself--recognized that.

I do need to relax: this I know. It is in fact why I have been preaching about leadership in the first place; pastors must not feel that they have to do everything, that they bear the burden of saving the world. A prior responsibility to ministry is to relax with one's wife and children, to delight in one's primary relationships. As a result, "you need to relax" on the lips of this man was not a word of prophecy for me; it was a (vain) attempt to derail me in the priorities I had set for myself: God first, family second, ministry third. These are not commitments to relax.

living the story, part one

2009-01-24T00:02:00.000-08:00

My time in Africa is teaching me that, in terms of work, I am as much preacher as anything else. And as I ply that trade, I find myself increasingly accountable to the words I utter in the midst of the congregation; I sense increasingly that God wants to re-enact the story of scripture in my own life. I experience this as a privilege and yet a fearful thing.

I have observed that, just after I am close to a breakthrough in communication, I receive an inexplicable "attack." The first one came last May.

I had just delivered a passionate teaching about servant-leadership in the Bible school. Specifically, I had called for pastors to share the load of ministry, not to hoard responsibility for the sake of glory. The model, of course, is Jesus, whose ministry lasted but three years in order that we might take it up through the power of his Holy Spirit.

The next day, resting in the confidence of a successful teaching even as the level of my having been drained tempered my joy, I heard a knock on our door. There stood one of our neighbors. His face was grim.

"I'm going to be straight with you, Joe. Did I see you teasing my dogs."

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. But the depth of his consternation induced a deep guilt nonetheless.

As it turns out, my shock and earnest confusion quickly convinced him that he had not seen what he thought he had. The heaviness in his face gave way to the lightness of a smile. We exchanged polite conversation for the next two or three minutes even as my head continued to spin in the confusion of the original accusation.

After he left I came to a realization of what he might have seen. A few boys from the neighborhood had earlier asked to borrow our pump for their soccer ball. I walked up the lane by the neighbor's house, past the ever incessantly barking dogs, pump in hand to where some other boys were waiting with the ball. They pumped up their ball. I returned the same way pump in hand past the dogs. What the neighbor thought he saw was me teasing his dogs with a "stick" of sorts.

I decided to go to our neighbor and clarify that he had indeed probably seen me, that the stick was the ball pump, but that there was no intention of teasing the dogs; indeed I did not even know that it could have appeared that I may have been swinging the pump as I wandered down the lane. His heaviness returned. Yet he "assured" me that "I'll do what Jesus would do and forgive you." My clarification was now apology; I was guilty. But I would have to be content with the guilt/absolution equation worked out for me.

One line from the original encounter kept haunting me. "Teasing the dogs," was unacceptable because "I believe that we need to be the leaders of the country."

What in common had I with this man? Who together were "we"? And as opposed to whom were "we"?

I was being tested to confront in myself what I had just proclaimed to others. Was I to seize the mantle of leadership, perpetuating in the sphere of my own relationships, the status quo of privilege along lines of ethnicity, age, or gender? The words spoken by my neighbor held out this option.

Or was I to persist in the laborious task of convincing an historically disempowered people that it was they--and not simply those whom they had always viewed as masters (literally "boss")--whom God, in love, had entrusted the responsibility of leadership. The words of the One whom I call "Lord" hold out this.

Beneath the glare of the gospel, there are deficiences in the leadership models operative in the various divisions of South African society. As God holds my life accountable to the words I preach, may others be drawn to give their lives so that all may truly live.

-Joe

how great the father's love: lot and the visitors revisited

2008-12-01T04:58:00.000-08:00

"According to the text, is Lot a righteous man or not?"

This was one of the questions we asked students at our Bible school's oral examinations last month.

Not unlike our initial study of the text together last February, most answered in the affirmative: Lot was righteous.

Why?

"God saw him among all the people in Sodom", said one old man.

That seeing, within such a great sea of humanity, must attest to something of Lot's righteousness.

"Lot would do anything to protect his visitors," said another man. "He proved he was righteous by giving his daughters in place of the two men to the men of Sodom."

This answer took me aback a bit, for it is the opposite of what I had argued in the original lesson. Yet this man did make a compelling association in support of his position: Lot's offer of his daughters was like that of Abraham to Isaac, the one whom the story in Genesis 22 introduces as "your only son, whom you love." Thus, rather than an act betraying the daughters' worthlessness in their father's eyes, Lot's offering was likewise of the "beloved".

Another woman was less convincing. In her judgment also, Lot was righteous. However, when pressed, she, unlike other students, did not modify her stance to admit that Lot may have been wrong at least in his willingness "to bring out" his daughters to evil men.

"Lot knew that God was going to rescue him and his family anyway. That is why he offered his daughters."

Although her reasoning is not unlike that which the author of Hebrews offers up with regard--again--to Abraham when he "offered up Isaac" because he "considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead", it elicits one critical objection.

"If he knew," said I, "why then did he not simply give the men his visitors?"

Though through hesitation, her answer amounted to the belief that visitors are more important than daughters--actually, than anyone. That is why Lot would not think of bringing them out.

It is true that visitors are particularly vulnerable people; they can navigate neither the space nor the conventions of a place as its residents, and are therefore at the mercy of the residents. This is, in fact, Lot's primary claim to righteousness in the text: he, as a resident alien among resident Sodomites, alone shows hospitality to the visitors who come to the gates of the city.

Yet there is something else, I believe, that the text invites us to consider.

Guests are not only those who come, but those who are. Long before the two angels arrived in Sodom, Lot the father had charge of guests, whether he deemed them so or not. That he would bring them--his daughters--out for rape is not as much a thing exposed by Lot's righteous impulse to protect those who have come as it exposes his failure to care for those who are daily in his midst.

Lot's dilemma may also reveal an African caveat in the text. Izithunywa, the Xhosa word for messengers--the two angels who come to Sodom--often stands in the context of mediums who divine causes for human misfortune via spiritual messengers, the ancestors. And, not unlike the daughters and the men who have come under the shelter of Lot's roof, the spirits of the dead "compete" with one's living dependents for the attention of present-day Lots, those African fathers and mothers heading households.

"This is the way of keeping us poor," says a young, Xhosa pastor.

How? In a context of poverty, people cannot afford to hold extravagant, expensive feasts in honor of deceased elders (a typical response if one dreams of a given ancestor). Already there is not enough to support the daily, adequate nourishment, not to mention education, of many children.

"Where will that money come from?" says the pastor. "Yet you will find that there is always money for that thing."

There are always children to sacrifice for the sake of important visitors.

"So what do you think Jesus would have done if he were Lot? we asked the students.

"I think he would have offered himself", one brother replied.

How great this Father's love for us, his children.

Therein lies the righteousness in the text.

-Joe

Texts referred to or quoted in this entry: Gen 19:1-14; Gen 22:2; Heb. 11:17-19; 1 Jn 3:1

certain signs

2008-11-25T00:59:00.000-08:00

"A Certain Jew", Apollos by name, once went down to Ephesus.

So begins the story recorded in Acts 18:24-19:7.

There he burned by the spirit when he spoke, and taught the things about Jesus "accurately", though he knew only "the baptism of John."

Later, when Paul came to Ephesus, he found "certain disciples". They too had been baptized--into "the baptism of John."

The "certain disciples" lacked, however, one important thing: the Holy Spirit. Like the "certain Jew", they needed a Paul, a la Priscilla and Aquila, to take them aside and explain the way of God "more accurately."

This "more accurate" explanation is the difference between speaking by the spirit and being filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit accompanies the "more accurate" message about Jesus--the one testified by John.

The text does not tell us much about the message about Jesus that Paul told to the certain disciples at Ephesus. Paul reports only that John told the people to "believe in the one who was coming after him, that is, Jesus, who would baptize them with the Holy Spirit." But beyond this we can infer the gospel story of Jesus' baptism by John in the Jordan.

Jesus' own baptism was also an anointing of the Holy Spirit. It also sealed his royal status, as Israel's Messiah-King. Just as the son of Jesse, whom Samuel anointed king of Israel some 1000 years earlier, the Spirit of God "rested upon" Jesus "from that day forward" (which is not to say, from the gospel perspective, that the Spirit was not present in some way with Jesus before his baptism).

More importantly, Jesus' anointing at baptism signified what kind of king he would be. Matthew's account, for example, highlights Jesus' humility. Though John testifies that he himself should be baptized by Jesus, Jesus insists that his own baptism "is proper in order to fulfill all righteousness." And so the sinless Son of God embraces a baptism of repentance at the hands of a sinner, one not worthy to untie the thongs of Jesus' sandals. Humility personified.

If there were any doubt as to the measure of his humility, the next scene finds Jesus tempted to embrace dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth if he will only bow down and worship the devil. He refuses: "Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only." Such service to God, in the mouth and in the steps of the Messiah, amounts not to bowing before Satan but before fellow brothers and sisters, even as Jesus has already humbled himself before John. Or as Luke puts it in a scene following directly upon those of baptism and temptation, "the Spirit of the Lord that is upon" Jesus "has anointed him" precisely for a ministry with the broken and suffering children of God: "good news to the poor," "recovery of sight to the blind", "release of the captives". The Messiah's rule will not consist of sumptuous dining in the courts of the rich, waited on hand and foot by inferiors. This Son of Man has come "not to be served but to serve"; this Son of Man has come "to be counted among the trangressors" in his death on a cross, "to give his life as a ransom for many."

This story is of the utmost significance for human life anywhere on the planet, and particularly so in my experience working with so-called independent or spiritual churches and Pentecostals in South Africa. Concern for access to the Holy Spirit is primary; understanding as to the specific life demanded by that Spirit is suspect.

That specific life, as Priscilla and Aquila once proclaimed to a "certain Jew" named Apollos, is Jesus, the Christ. Although he knew "accurately the things about Jesus", this one who burned by the spirit when he spoke had need of "more accurate" knowledge of the way of God. Similarly, when church members testify before the congregation "I am saved" because "Jesus died for me", they are "accurate" but have need of "more."

A young Pentecostal pastor has recognized this tendency. He testified before his congregation one Sunday last month.

"There are certain churches whose members do not even say 'I am saved', because the community must tell them if they are saved. They must know we are saved because they can see that we have good works."

When such "certain members" by their fellows are anointed such, no longer are they "certain disciples". Rather, they have become, as those whom Paul found at Ephesus, "the twelve", Jesus' own disciples, they who speak and walk by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Again Pastor Ntapo:

"I am not greedy for numbers. God wants people who are willing to be thoroughly taught by Jesus."

And with characteristic humility, as if "disbelieving in his joy", he exclaims, "How I wish I really believed the things that I am talking about!"

So be it for us all.

-Joe

Texts referred to or quoted in this entry: Acts 18:24-19:7; 1 Sam 16; Matt. 3-4; Lk. 4; Isa 53:12; Mk. 10:45; Lk. 24:41

there's peace in the blood

2008-09-30T01:29:00.000-07:00

At the heart of Ephesians 2:11-22, we find two parallel statements which express agency.

A divided humanity, whom the text calls "the circumcised" and "the uncircumcised", the "near" and the "far", and "aliens" and "citizens", has become one "by the blood of Christ." This "one new humanity in place of the two" was likewise united "through the cross." "By the blood" and "through the cross" are the synonymous means from which the text makes its central claim: "hostility"--that which divided humanity--has been "broken down" or "put to death", the end result being "peace."

It seems indeed a peculiar thing that "the blood" and "the cross" would break down hostility and make peace, for it is precisely that problematic, divisive hostility that finds substantial expression in the shed blood of a Roman death instrument, the cross. In what sense, then, are the blood and the cross peace?

They are so, according to the text, because of whose they are. The cross is not Rome's, and the blood is not specifically that which was shed; the blood is Christ's, the one who "himself is our peace", who has made the two one "in his flesh", who has "put to death hostility through the cross". The text does not say that the cross has put to death hostility; it says that "he has put to death that hostility" by means of the cross.

So what is the difference?

As we were studying this text together last May, I was led toward this distinction between the cross and the blood as hostility and the cross and the blood as peace. The students again were looking for repetitions in the text, the same method we had used to find the meaning in Genesis 19:1-14 (see previous entries). Quite naturally, then, we came to "hostility" and "peace."

"How does the text say the hostility was broken down?" I asked the students.

Eventually, it came to the answers posited above: "by the blood of Christ" and "through the cross."

The large, mud church hall where we were meeting in a rural area outside Lusikisiki was supported by wooden beams from the floor to the ceiling. I approached the beam nearest me.

Having turned my back on the students, I began with my right hand to pound my left into the wood. "Does this blood make peace?" I asked.

Heads nodded affirmatively around the room.

"Really?", I said.

Facing the students, I leaned my back against the beam, arms outstretched. Again I made the hammering motion while maintaining my position against the beam. "Or is it this blood?"

Murmurs of growing recognition scattered among the people.

"How can this be peace?" I said, returning to the pounding action. "Is this not hostility? Is this not murder?"

In a sudden burst of conviction, I remembered the language of the text. "Hostility is far and peace is near, and the two have no part one in the other."

I exhaled.

"But this blood," I said, returning to the outstretched posture and wiping the palms of my hands, "this blood is peace."

"At the same time that Jesus' enemies are taking his blood, he's giving them his. At the same time they're cursing him, he's blessing them. At the same time they're hating him, he's loving them. 'Bawo Baxolele', 'Father forgive them.' "

Seemingly every Sunday, the small, Pentecostal church with which we often worship sings "lona linamandla igazi lemvana", "the blood of the lamb has power." Or, even more emphatic were the words we heard there just last week. Igazi likaYesu, asoze la phela amandla, "the blood of Jesus will never lose its power."

Why will the blood of Jesus never lose its power? The first answer, of course, is the peace Jesus maintained on the cross in face of hostility's cruelest test. John was right in his first letter when he declared that "the blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin." Yet before that blood could become for us healing balm, it itself had to withstand our greatest evil--the murder of the cross--precisely because the evil from which we must be cleansed is ours. Our blood, contaminated and shed in the spirit of hostility, had itself to be cleansed by the peace in the blood itself infused with the life of the Spirit. That, of course, is the work that was truly "finished" in Jesus' dying breath.

Yet it does not explain how the power in his blood gets from his cross--one moment in time--to us--in every time and place. To receive his peace, we will need to know that the "flesh in which he has made us one", from which poured out his blood, life, and Spirit, has indeed been raised to the "right hand of Power." And to us he says, "Touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." Upon us he also breathes, saying, "Peace be with you, receive the Holy Spirit."

Yes, surely, he is more than us: "the first human being became a living being, the last human being became a life-giving Spirit." Yet his difference does not negate our (us with him) fundamental unity. "For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being." And again, "since the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things . . .. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham."

Because he is both us and more, he can help us. Because his blood is both ours and the Spirit's, it can turn our hostility to peace.

But how specifically do we receive his blood? I suppose it has something to do with asking, seeking, knocking. And going. Which will include preaching. And listening. And water. And teaching. And obeying "all that he has commanded." Which includes remembering. In bread. And wine. Or juice, depending.

More to come.

-Joe

Texts referred to or quoted in this entry: Eph. 2:11-22; Lk. 23:34; 1 Jn. 1:7; Mk 14:62; Lk 24:39; Jn. 20:19-23; 1 Cor. 15:45,21; Heb. 2:14-16; Mt. 7:7, 28:19-20; 1 Cor 11:23-26