worthy are the children

I heard a hastily prepared sermon today on the Bible's teaching about children.

The preacher was obviously wrestling with Jesus' approach to children, struggling to reconcile how the kingdom of God could "belong to such as these" with the commandment to children to "honor your father and mother" (Mk 10:13-16; Ex 20:12).  He seemed to ultimately settle on the idea that children can teach adults about the kingdom of God only insofar as they honor their parents--not that children might have something unique to children that epitomizes the life of God.

Such a conclusion would seem to deny the evidence of the gospel story, however, since the situation that occasioned Jesus' rebuke to his disciples cannot imply obedient children.  If Jesus had to say, quite against the desires of those who were hindering children, "Let them come to me", what was it about those children that made the disciples so scornful of them?  If the children had been children who constantly towed the line of their parents' wishes (if they had parents at all), then surely they would have gone unnoticed or not been objectionable to those who wanted Jesus' attention for themselves.  In other words, might it not be precisely the children's excitement, their uninhibited curiosity, even their unruliness in trying to see Jesus, that Jesus commends?  Is the other side of the coin not then an implicit condemnation of an adult tendency to maintain the appearance of control rather than admit the childlike emotion of joy in the presence of the Christ who bids all to come to him?

What if the inherent worth of children is not at all tied to their mere functionality, to the services that they can render to adults, but to the fact that they are God's--indeed that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these?

That was a sentiment far too scarce in the sermon, and far too reflective of the actual practice of adults toward children in many quarters of society.

Jesus and the Children from Jesus Mafa

-Joe

curiosity that saves

On Sunday evening we read the story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) as a family.  We finished our Bible study with the question, What do you learn about what kind of a person Jesus is from this story? 

I learned that Jesus is someone who only needs a small gesture of interest from a person in order to bring about what Luke calls “salvation” (which is tied in this text to economic justice)(vv. 8-10).  The text seems to emphasize Zacchaeus’s curiosity.

“He was trying to see who Jesus was” (v. 3).

“So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him . . .” (v. 4).

“So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him” (v. 6).

Though Zacchaeus was a “sinner”, one despised by others (v. 7), he is the one who shows exceptional interest in Jesus.  It is that curiosity which Jesus recognizes—and which sets in motion the process of restitution, probable reconciliation (we don’t know how the crowd responded to Zacchaeus’s pledge to repay those he had defrauded), indeed salvation.  In the midst of all that are Jesus’ words of welcome to Zacchaeus—“Hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today”.  It is a welcome that Zacchaeus is only too eager to return (v. 6).  And it all began with Zacchaeus’s visible spark of interest in Jesus.

I take from the story encouragement for the work of ministry.  Jesus works with us, not because our resume is perfect (if that were the case, who could stand before the Lord?), but because he sees something in us with which he can work.  And, if this story is to be believed, that which Jesus sees may be nothing more than our desire to make a start with him.

-Joe

individual, community, God: the church at peace

Two weeks ago, I participated in a pastoral ordination for one of our members of Mennonite World Conference.  The event had been on our calendar for the entire year—it was much anticipated.  Because I had been asked to give leadership to the ordination, I did a lot of research on the practice of ordination within the Mennonite Church, trying to get my head around how to relate a structure or process for ordination within my sending denomination (MCUSA) to a much less-defined practice within the church in this case.  In the end, I think we managed something that could be deemed a success—a blending of practices, roles, and personalities that marked one pastor’s identity as a servant of God to the people to whom he has been called.

In my own preparation for the event, the text that grabbed my attention was 1 Timothy 4:12-5:2, a text in which the three participants named above—the pastor, God, and the people—are clearly visible.
The text is marked by a frame of implicit conflict or potential conflict within the church.  Such conflict is acknowledged in Paul’s exhortation to Timothy, “Let no one despise your youth” (4:12), and in his counsel to Timothy, “Do not speak harshly to an older man” [Greek: presbyter] (5:1).  In other words, at the beginning and end of this unit of scripture, conflict or the potential for conflict in the church is assumed.  If it was not so, why then does Paul deem it worthy to affirm Timothy’s calling in the face of those who would “despise his youth”?  Likewise, if the potential of young leaders such as Timothy to deride older leaders were not present, why then do we find Paul warning Timothy not to “speak harshly to an older man” (5:1)?  Indeed, the text acknowledges that conflict is close at hand.

But if the context of the text is conflict, then the substance of the text pertains to how Timothy—the addressee of this epistle (1 Tim 1:2)—might conduct himself within that conflict.  And though Christ is nowhere mentioned in this unit, we might not be surprised to learn that the method Paul lays down for Timothy for dealing with conflict has Christ written all over it.  To those who would despise his youth, Timothy should—rather than returning derision in the form of speaking harshly to an older man—“set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (4:12b).  Timothy is not to concern himself with the insults of others, becoming fixated on them, but to “give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching” (4:13).  These are the things—the things of God and not the things of human beings (Mk 8:33)—that Timothy should “put into practice”, “devote [himself] to”, “continue in” (4:15, 16).  Timothy’s responsibility is to the scripture, the teaching of scripture, and his own integrity to that scripture-shaped life in the presence of others.  Indeed, Timothy is to “pay close attention to [himself] and to [his] teaching” (4:15).  As far as it concerns Timothy, the pastor for others, the scripture judges him before it judges his flock. 

The conduct of a Christian leader, therefore, is self-reflection, humility, and submission to God rather than the presumption to be like God.  The leader sets an example (4:12) of dependence on God which the people can follow—not with regard to the leader but to the leader’s Leader.  The goal of the church is not to play “follow the leader”; the church follows the leader in following God.

As implicit in the text as the conflict is the power of the example of “love, faith, and purity” to overcome the conflict.  It is entirely possible, even likely, that for a time the example will be despised by those who love darkness more than light (Jn 3:19).  That does not mean, however, that the example of love is not ultimately efficacious, for it is the power of God for all who have faith and even now are victorious precisely in keeping their purity in love in the midst of derision.  In the best of times, by God’s grace, the example of enduring love (which is Jesus Christ himself) will even win the derisive.  The example of “love, faith, and purity” always leaves open the door to redemption, the cessation of hostility and the embrace of peace—and that is why Paul commends it to Timothy.  Indeed, Paul insists that the example “will save both [Timothy] and [his] hearers (4:16).

At the very heart of the text is an image of the “saved” church.  It is an image of the people of God, so to speak, “in the beginning”, perhaps before the despising of youth and cruelty to the old had become a threat to genuine peace.  Paul reconstructs the memory for Timothy.  “Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders” (4:14).  The memory of what the people of God once were points to the reality of what the people of God will be.  Before it forgot its true calling, the community recognized the gift of God to individuals among them and acclaimed God’s gift by a show of support in the presence of all.  That which was given to one “through prophecy”, God’s Word breaking in to human experience, was affirmed by the many “with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. [Greek: presbytery].”  He who would deride those who called him, and those who would despise the one they called, are themselves called to remember who they really are in Christ.

-Joe

more from funerals

In my last post I chronicled the message of the preacher and some of the cultural dynamics at play in a funeral I attended recently.  Yet there are more insights I could share from such an experience.

1.  The event was actually a double-funeral.  The old man from the Bible School was buried alongside his twenty-something grandson. The deaths were said to be interrelated. The stress of hearing that his grandson had been stabbed to death by some of his gangster mates was too much for the old man.  Consequently, the other major dynamic at play in the preacher's message was the predicament of youth in modern South African culture.  This was not the first funeral we have attended for a young man who met a violent end; to my memory we have attended three other such funerals and have known of several other like incidents.  Youth violence among peers thus was the context for the preacher's admonition by way of the text not to look for Jesus "among one's relatives and friends".  "Friends may give you drugs," he said, referring to the known habit of the grandson to smoke dagga (marijuana) with his friends.

2.  The event also included a "tombstone unveiling" for a previously deceased member of the family.  Typically tombstone unveilings among the Xhosa are events separate from the burial of the dead, occurring perhaps a year or more later.  The tombstone unveiling on this day was quite literally an aside, performed in one corner of the large field where the funeral-goers were gathered for the burial, out of sight and earshot for many.  Still, I was able to get some explanation for the procedure.  The biblical justification for the tombstone unveiling was taken from Joshua 24:26-27, in which Joshua sets up a "large stone" as a witness against Israel should they forsake their pledge to "put away the gods that their ancestors served" and "serve the Lord" (24:14ff.).  Previously, I have seen church leaders base the practice on Genesis 35:20, in which Jacob "sets up a pillar" at the grave of his beloved Rachel, or 2 Samuel 18:18, in which Absalom sets up a pillar of remembrance prior to his own death because he had no son to do it for him.  What each of these texts has in common, it seems, is reference to a stone--and that in itself seemingly is enough to justify the practice of unveiling a stone for the dead in the name of being "biblical".

In my own cultural context for funerals, I don't ever recall the setting up of tombstones as something requiring special rationale; I suppose it is taken very much by the religious communities in which I grew up to be a stone of remembrance for the dead.  In the Xhosa context, however, it is clear that church leaders--if they have concerns that the event might be misconstrued by those attending--do feel pressure to explain the practice.  Thus, in this case, the attending bishop explained that "this is not a sin, we are not worshiping.  This is just a stone for remembrance."  He then proceeded by way of Joshua to locate the practice in the Bible, and also added the scriptural reference to Jesus Christ as the true "cornerstone."  I assume that the leader meant to guard against conceiving of the tombstone as a place where power could be conferred upon the dead person's living relatives, such as in the case of another pastor who once told the grandchildren at an unveiling for their grandfather that "now you have a place to come back to.  You can kneel here and be healed."  And so, while I still puzzle over how the stone of Israel's covenant with Yahweh is directly analogous to a stone of remembrance for a family's deceased, some rationale in the direction of memorial over magic is likely better than none.

3.  Xhosa funerals always include elaborate narratives from the person who most nearly attended or "nursed" the deceased in his or her last days or hours.  One of our students divulged to me that these narratives sometimes lend themselves to insinuating blame on others for the death of the person.  It has oft been noted that death in African traditional religion is not due to "natural causes"; there is a human agent of ill-will behind the death of a person.  Thus what in former times may have more commonly been ascribed to a witch (usually an old woman) plotting evil somewhere in the shadows (not that the days of fear of witchcraft have passed) has become in the present the fault of "some old woman who doesn't know how to drive" (my student's example), if the cause of death, for example, had been a car accident. The tendency to assign blame can easily drift into the call for vengeance (we found ourselves in the midst of such a situation at a funeral last year).  No such call was issued at this funeral, and the nearest blame for the death of the grandson was assigned to the grandson himself for not "listening to his parents"--a common complaint in the conflict between generations which deserves its own post.

Funerals are a treasure trove of cultural knowledge.  I am grateful to those African companions who enable me to reach some level of understanding.

-Joe

searching for Jesus

I had the privilege of hearing one of my students preach last Saturday at a funeral for another member of the Bible School.  I liked what he did with his chosen text, Luke 2:41-49.

The preacher fastened on two key lines in the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus' journey with his parents for the Passover in Jerusalem (2:41).  First, the preacher fixed on the fact that, when his parents departed Jerusalem after the festival not knowing that Jesus was not with them, "they started to look for him among their relatives and friends" (2:44).  Second, the preacher emphasized the "anxiety" of the parents when they could not find Jesus; "Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety", his mother says to Jesus after they have found him in the temple (2:48, 46).  The preacher's point was that, in his words, "Life is very painful outside of Jesus", and that the pain of life without Jesus cannot be quelled even among one's relatives and friends.  Rather, the deliverance from the anguish of life comes only in the persistent "search" for Jesus, just as his parents continued to look for him when he was not to be found in the company of their relatives and friends (2:44, 45).  It was only in that persistent search that they "found him" (2:46).

Jesus Among the Teachers, from the Jesus Mafa Collection

The implications of such a message were not lost on the preacher's Xhosa audience, which hung on his every word, many among them encouraging him on with whoops and hollers.  I suspect that the impact of the sermon, the preacher's gospel meeting the people's context, had a lot to do with the continuing tension between loyalty to one's blood family (the text's "relatives and friends") and allegiance to Jesus.  True believers often find themselves having to choose between participating in family rituals that invoke spirits other than or alongside Jesus or hold their ground in the name of an exclusive loyalty to Jesus.  Many Xhosa Christians have found the satisfaction of life with Jesus in a way that was unavailable to them in the traditions of their elders.  The overall persona of the preacher as he spoke about life "outside of Jesus" exhibited an intensity seemingly impossible for one in whom the struggle to honor Jesus above relatives is not real.

Other elements in the proceedings also attested the side-by-side existence of Christian and non-Christian approaches to the challenges of life among those gathered.  Hence, while Christianity and/or the culture of the church has in important senses clearly won the day in this society, one family member of the deceased who made an announcement near the close of the funeral had no compunction about saying that, with the spate of death that had befallen that family recently, he would recommend that they go consult a sangoma (traditional diviner) for a remedy.  This announcement came--and I don't think with any confrontation intended--even after the preacher's clear counsel that Jesus is the answer to life's questions.

Perhaps we can only say that, given the spiritual competitors still vying for our loyalty in this world, our search for Jesus goes on.  Where can he be found?

In details not particularly emphasized by the preacher, Luke's story of the boy Jesus leaves us not without direction.  Indeed, those who were searching for him found him "in the temple", in Jesus' own words, "in my Father's house", "sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions" (2:46, 49).  It is noted that Luke's writings (the gospel and the book of Acts) are perhaps more favorably disposed toward the temple than those of the other evangelists.  Indeed, his gospel ends with the disciples of the ascended Jesus in Jerusalem, "continually in the temple blessing God" (Lk 24:53).  Similarly, the Pentecost community (see previous post) "spent much time together in the temple" (Acts 2:46).  Nevertheless, Luke also records Jesus' pronouncement of judgment against the temple in response to the disciples' adoration of it, and is thereby consistent with the united witness of the New Testament that in Jesus the Messiah, "something greater than the temple is here" (Mt 12:6; Lk 21:5-6).  In the end, the New Testament, both gospel and epistle, relativized place of worship in light of a people which worships "in spirit and truth" (Jn 4:24).  The community of Christ, the church, is the temple, "the dwelling place for God" (Eph 2:20-22; 1 Pet 2:4-5).

It is in that context, therefore, that we might, like his parents, find Jesus "in the temple" (2:46).  Indeed, he is there, "sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions" (2:46).  He is with us, sitting among us and asking us questions, wherever "two or three are gathered in his name", around the story of which he is Lord (Mt 18:20).

-Joe  

the baptized life

Over the weekend I taught on the subject of ecclesiology, the theology of the church, at Bethany Bible School.

I studied and selected several texts for the lesson, one of which was Acts 2:41-47.

Acts 2:41-47 is framed by two statements which speak of people being "added" to the number of the apostles.  First, after Peter's Pentecost Day sermon, about "three thousand people were added" (2:41). Finally, after descriptions of the early life of the apostolic community, the text states that "the Lord added day by day to them those who were being saved" (2:47).  These parallel statements about "addition" also invite comparison between those who were being added.  In the first instance, those who were added were those who "welcomed [Peter's] word and were baptized" (2:41).  In the second place, those who were added were those who were "being saved."  The text begins with addition through baptism and ends with addition by salvation.  One wonders, therefore, how baptism and salvation are related.  

A possible explanation of the connection between baptism and salvation may be found in the description that falls between the bookends of verses 41 and 47.  Verses 42-46 are exclusively about what happened to those who were baptized, those who, like others after them, "were being saved."  After being added upon baptism, the text states that they "continued in the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread and fellowship, and the prayers" (2:42).  These activities find an echo later in the description that they "broke bread from house to house", the centerpiece of a life of daily worship in the temple, "sharing food with glad and generous hearts, praising God, and having the goodwill of the people" (2:46-47).  Between these parallel descriptions are two other statements which each feature a couplet--the first "wonders and signs" (2:43) and the second "possessions and goods" (2:45).  The first statement says simply that "many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles" while the second specifically enumerates the activities of the early church: "they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need."  The structural parallelism in the text invites the reader to consider whether the "wonders and signs" of the apostles were not in fact the "possessions and goods" which they sold to meet human need.  Finally, in between all of these statements is the summary of the apostolic community: "All who believed were together and had all things in common" (2:44).  Everything else in the text is an illustration of this basic apostolic unity.

It is equally true, of course, that the central unity of the church in the text, around which everything else gathers, is itself the product of the distinct practices in the text which surround that center.  The unity of the church was forged by those who were baptized being devoted to "the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread, fellowship, and the prayers."  Unity was forged by generosity and mutual aid, the fulfilling of human need.  Those who welcomed Peter's word about Jesus "continued" in that word, in word and deed.  It is that continuity with the message and ministry of Jesus that enabled those were baptized to become truly a church--a community devoted to one another under Christ in service to the world.  And it is those who continue in the baptized life to which the text points who are "being saved."

-Joe

looking again at "born again"

The well-known text of John 3 came up in the lectionary last week, and I had the chance to preach on it on Sunday.

Aside from verse 16, John 3 is conspicuous for its introduction of the "born again" theme in Christian thought. Certainly in South Africa, the "born again" label is in coinage.  Christians of the Pentecostal and Charismatic stripes self-identity as "born agains", and their insistence on being "born again" sometimes makes Christians of the "mainline" churches--Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Catholic--distance themselves from the term.  Because we are in the position of having regular fellowship with both mainline and Charismatic Christians, we can neither completely deny the claims of one nor ignore the complaints of the other.

The text itself, John 3:1-10, is a dialogue between two "teachers".  The first teacher is Jesus, whom Nicodemus, his visitor "by night", calls a "teacher who has come from God" (3:2).  At the end of the text, Jesus refers to Nicodemus as a "teacher", albeit in a prodding manner--"Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?" (3:10).

The "these things" that the two "teachers" are discussing and which Nicodemus has "not understood" is the meaning of "birth".  Jesus himself makes two statements about birth in response to Nicodemus.  "No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above" and "No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit" (3:3, 5).  A third statement is like the first, "Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above'" (3:7).

I do prefer the NRSV's rendering of the Greek word anothen, "from above" (3:3, 7), for, although the Greek may be rendered as either "from above" or "again", context suggests it is not Jesus who begins speaking about being "born again".  It is Nicodemus, in response to Jesus, who elaborates on the meaning of birth from his own understanding as "a person entering into his mother's womb a second time", that is, "again" (3:4).  And it is as a result of Nicodemus's misinterpretation of Jesus' words about being born anothen that Jesus must clarify that he is talking about being "born of water and Spirit" (3:5).  It is because Nicodemus wishes to talk about being born "a second time" or "again" that Jesus needs to talk about "water and Spirit" as a synonym for being born "from above."  And it is because of Nicodemus's preoccupation with the subject of being "born again" that he fails to grasp the meaning of being "born from above" and does not "understand these things" even though he is "a teacher of Israel."

For a "teacher of Israel", being born "from above" has everything to do with knowing the story of Israel, with "setting one's mind on things above" (Col 3:2).  The story of Israel which Nicodemus "the teacher of Israel" might have taught was a story of "water and Spirit" and of Israel's God thwarting human wisdom by the wisdom "from above."  If Nicodemus had known his story, he would have seen that the earth was created "through waters" by the "spirit of God" (Gen 1:3).  He would have remembered that Israel became Israel, a people saved from slavery to foreign powers, by God's mercy through the cloud and fire of his spirit through the waters of the Red Sea (Ex 14:19ff.; see also 1 Pet 2:10).  He would have seen that Israel's was a story of God's ways above human ways, of battles won by downsizing at the riverside (Jdg 7), of anointing through humility (1 Sam 16), of cleansing in waters beautiful not to human eyes but in which God's Spirit chose to dwell (2 Kgs 5).

A teacher of Israel knows that to be born "of water and spirit" is to be born "from above".  A teacher of Israel knows that being born of God means to abide in the wisdom of God's "higher ways" (Isa 55:8-9).  A teacher of Israel knows not to "be conformed to the pattern of this world" but to "be transformed by the renewing of the mind" (Rom 12:2).

What then can we say about the "born again" debate within contemporary Christianity?

If being born "from above" or "by water and Spirit" has priority over being "born again", and if being born "from above" is something like being born into the world-confounding wisdom of God, then Christians will neither,

1) demand of individuals certain prescribed experiences in the world of the spirit which in and of themselves, apart from the "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal 5:22), are evidences of God's presence within a person's life; nor

2) reject the category of spirit as antithetical to a reasonable faith.

Rather, those who are "born of God" (Jn 1:13) will look for an ethics of the Spirit as the sign of God's presence in the world.  Wherever lives conform to the story of Israel fulfilled in Jesus, the Christ, there on earth is the kingdom of God which has come "from above."

-Joe