from nakedness to clothed

Several weeks ago I was given the opportunity to address the teenage children of a school hostel in Cradock.  Every Sunday evening, Lawrence Coetzee, our friend and pastor of MWC-member Grace Community Church, organizes a service for the students.  He usually invites pastors from the community to speak and, because we were visiting, he invited me to share the word.

I had been studying the book of Ephesians a lot in the previous months (I taught a course on it in June), and so it was in the forefront of my mind as I pondered what I might say.  I chose to focus on the well-known armor of God passage (Eph 6:10-17), and found myself preaching on clothing as a motif for the proclamation of the gospel message.

Since armor is a type of clothing, and since Paul exhorts the Ephesians to "Put on the whole armor of God", it follows that the goal of the Christian life is to be dressed (6:11, 13).  That might sound unremarkable, except that in the Genesis account of creation, human beings in their state of primal "goodness" are depicted as naked: "the man and the woman were naked together and unashamed" (Gen 2:25).  If the original intention was nakedness, how can the final intention be a state of being clothed?

The tension between clothed and unclothed as both expressions of the will of God gives rise to the insight that our state of blessedness or goodness as human beings consists not in returning to a previous state of our existence but in going forward to the place where God's Spirit is leading us.  We cannot return to Eden; we can only go forward to the New Jerusalem.  We cannot recover the goodness of the first human being, unmarred before the sin of disobedience to the will of the Creator; we can only receive the goodness of the second human being, Jesus Christ, and allow his righteousness to overcome our sin.  We cannot go back to our original nakedness; we can "put on the whole armor of God" and "be clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom 13:14).

Such a view of salvation, of being not returned but being transformed, frees us from the weight of striving to retrieve that which we find impossible to retrieve, though we often struggle precisely to put back into place that which was.  A friend once related a story to me of a "saved person", a born-again Christian, who reasoned on the basis of his faith that his old life of sin was of no consequence, and thus he has cut all ties with the child who was born to him out of wedlock.  The implicit view of salvation in such a strategy would seem to be a going back to the life one had before the act of which one is ashamed, since the man's present "peace" consists in pretending that he is in some sense as he was before--not a father to the child he "fathered".  In the biblical canon, such a strategy for dealing with regret was represented by Ezra and Nehemiah, who demanded after the return from exile in Babylon that the Jews "put away the foreign wives" whom they had married (Ez 10:3, 11, 44).  Ezra and Nehemiah espoused salvation as return to an idealized past before a time of foreign contamination of the covenant community.  In the Old Testament, books such as Ruth would seem to counter such a perspective; the blood of a Moabite woman, Ruth, mixes with Boaz to produce the line of Israel's greatest king.

The good news of Jesus Christ, likewise, accepts the consequences of behavior as a point of departure toward greater things, not abandoning the fallen or eliminating the foreign but incorporating them into the body of Christ.  Within his body, things do not look as they were before nor are they left as they are; rather, "there is a new creation" (2 Cor 5:17).  That new creation is very much a matter of clothing the naked.  It covers the shame of sin, not by undoing what has been done (which no one can do!), but with a shirt of righteousness; a belt of truth; shoes of peace; a hat of salvation; a shield of faith; and a sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.  Christ himself transforms us as we "put him on."

-Joe

praying forgiveness

Within the span of a week I've had two opportunities to share some insights on the Lord's Prayer (Mt 6:9-13). Here's what I've found:

The prayer defines its addressee in the first line, "Our Father, the one who is in the heavens".  While it may seem obvious to some Christians that we would address God in prayer, the fact that Jesus specifies only God as the recipient of our prayers cuts against the grain of some traditions in which other spiritual authorities are also invoked.  Within the Lord's Prayer there is no mention of the saints or ancestors of human religion/culture.

The prayer features seven verbs.  The first three verbs are pleas for the Father to do something for the Father's own sake.  These accompany nouns with possessive pronouns in the second person singular.  I call this "a pattern of possession or belonging to the second person" who is, in this case, God.    The three verb-noun combinations then are:

May it be kept holy/sanctified--your name
May it come--your kingdom
May it be done--your will

All are pleas pertaining to God.  Disciples pray, as Jesus taught us, for God to guard/protect/keep God's own prerogatives as the creator of the world.  While human beings can participate in the glorifying of God's name, the coming of God's kingdom, and the doing of God's will, all are ultimately the work of the Father himself.  Only the Father can protect his name, kingdom, and will from the humans who inevitably fail to honor God.  Our shortcomings simply expose the need to pray to the Creator, and reveal why we should begin in prayer with pleas that pertain to God for God's sake.  It is upon God's heavenly name, kingdom, and will that the same might be established on earth, and so we address the only One who can bring about these realities.  We plea to God not to give up on the establishment of God's name, kingdom, and will upon the earth in the face of our sin.

After we have put first things first, the things upon which everything else is founded, then we begin to pray to God about the things that belong uniquely to us as frail human beings.  Here come the next four verb-noun combinations.

Give us today--our daily bread
Forgive us--our debts
Do not bring--us into temptation
Deliver--us from the evil one

If in the "pattern of possession or belonging to the second person", that is, "to God", the pronoun was "your", the final four verbs pertain to "our" or "us".  In other words, the second set of verb-noun combinations forms a "pattern of possession or belonging to the first person plural", "to us".  After we have asked God to do some things for God's own sake, upon which our own survival also depends, now we begin to plea for God to do some things for us.  Give us daily bread.  Forgive us our debts.  Do not bring us into temptation.  Deliver us from the evil one.  All four pleas refer to situations unique to the human condition.  We are the ones in need of bread--not God.  We are the ones who have debts (or sins or trespasses)--God has none.  We are tempted--God is not.  We must be delivered--Satan poses no threat to God.  All of these predicaments are truly ours.  And thus, as before, we speak to the only One who can help us.

Now, regardless of whether the pattern is "your" (to God) or "our" (to us), each verb is a plea for God to do something.  God is the subject of doing, whether it be for God's own sake or for ours.  That is the case--with one exception.  Only one verb of the seven appears twice--to "forgive."  If we have prayed for God to forgive us our sins, we must also pray that "we forgive those who sin against us".  If we have prayed for God to forgive our debts, we also pray that "we forgive our debtors".  The two, in fact, are dependent one upon the other.  It is in the act of forgiveness alone that our agency and God's overlap.  God forgives us as we forgive one another.  We express our "godliness", our "god-likeness", through forgiveness.  We "are perfect as our heavenly father is perfect" (Mt 5:48) in no other way but as we extend love without condition to our fellow human beings.  We "complete" the love of an already "complete" God as "we love one another" (1 Jn 4:12).

If therefore we do, as Jesus commanded, "pray then in this way", forgiveness will be the spirituality of our lives; reconciliation its fruit; and peace the kingdom come--"on earth as it is in heaven".

-Joe

the grace of sheer silence

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

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

“perfected in us”

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

trust that this is true

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

as the head, so the body

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

God’s justice, humans’ faith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Joe

Peter, not James

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

-Joe

fear and fears

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

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

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

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

"What is the significance of the sea?"

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

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

"How?" I inquired.

"It is sort of scary."

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Joe