Jesus and Zacchaeus

          He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He
          was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account
          of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature.  So he ran on ahead and climbed up
          into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.  And when Jesus came to the
          place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your
          house today.”  So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.  And when they saw it,
          they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”  And Zacchaeus
          stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have
          defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”  And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has
          come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to
          save the lost.”
The story of Zacchaeus is a story full of ironies, full of things one does not expect.  First we learn that Jesus is passing through Jericho, which gives us our first bit of textual irony.  In Jericho, the City of Palms, the city of desolation and curses about whom it was written,  "Cursed before the Lord be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho.  At the cost of his firstborn shall he lay its foundation, and at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates.”  In the city of cursing, Jesus finds one whom others call a notorious sinner, and his house finds salvation.  Long ago, Rahab the harlot was such a one as this, and she found salvation for her house as well, though all others were destroyed.
    But Jesus goes to the cursed city on his way to Jerusalem, the city of David, the city of those who inherit the promise.  In Jericho, Jesus stops to restore a sinner to life and to bring salvation to his house, but in Jerusalem, despite the procession of joyful hosannas, he stops only to weep over the city, saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”  In Jericho, the word of salvation is preached, in Jerusalem, a word of condemnation.
     Zacchaeus himself hardly looks like the model convert.  He seems to be unfaithful to the Jewish nation in every possible way.  He takes a Greek name though he lives in the heart of Palestine.  He is a tax collector, a Roman collaborator in the employ of the Empire.  He is chief of the tax collectors, and has become rich because of it--rich because he has unrighteously harvested from the labor of men less fortunate than himself.  Perhaps he has taken bread from the mouth of the poor, and one would be likely to think that the God of justice would reckon Zacchaeus his enemy.
    But, somehow, Zacchaeus really is the model convert.  His is the heart that both shows receptivity to the gospel, and the "fruits in keeping with repentance."  His is the good ground upon which the seed is sown, where that seed grows and blossoms into a true harvest of righteousness.  How can such a thing be, in the midst of such obvious sin?  Why is Zacchaeus' heart not irrevocably closed to the Lord?  Why does he greet Jesus with great joy where the Pharisees only envy and conspire to kill him?  Why is the tax collector more righteous than the Pharisee?
    Sin can do one of two things: it can break the heart or it can harden the heart.  Sometimes, in the Providence of God, God lets a sin go on and on in the human heart, not that the human heart be lost forever, but to break that heart, to humble that heart, to prepare that heart to receive grace and mercy and salvation.  As Jesus says, only those who are sick go to the doctor.  Sometimes it is only by sinning, or by being lost in a sin, that a human being comes to know she is lost and in need of healing and salvation.  It is hard to think too well of ourselves when our sins are very obvious, so the sin of greed might in fact be a kind of proof against the sin of pride.  Other times, of course, sin can be a hardening, a blindness that does not lead one to God.  But the tax collectors and prostitutes were public sinners--their sin was public, communal, universally condemned.  It is harder for them to be so proud as to not consider themselves in need of help, redemption, healing.
  Not so the Pharisee.  The Pharisee has spent his entire life in being instructed in the Law.  He has either learned to keep the parts of the Law that can be observed from a real zeal and a real moral strength, or else he has learned to fake it, or else he has learned a deeper form of humility: he has learned that it is impossible always to love one's neighbor as oneself and love God with everything one has.  Having failed, the Pharisee will find that true righteousness consists only in faith and repentance, not in perfectly keeping all the inward and outward works of the Law.  But how easy it is to be deceived!  And how tempting to protect and perhaps to promote one's reputation for holiness, for moral strength!  How easy to sidle past true Biblical righteousness into a real self-deception, into very dangerous pride, vanity, vain-glory, self-righteousness.  If the tax collector is going to think well of himself, he will probably glory in his ability to have power over someone else, but he isn't too likely to be securely deluded that he is a good person.  In this way, greed and graft can be less dangerous than pride and vanity.  He has the power of a rich man, but not the power of a rich man upon which society dotes its approval.  I am not sure that the prostitute has much to glory in, he or she will find it perhaps in a successful rebellion against society.
    Against, then, what we might imagine, Zacchaeus' heart is open, wide open to the chance of salvation.  He must have heard of Jesus before, must have wondered about him, wondered whether he would ever actually see him with his eyes.  So when he hears of the crowd and hears of Jesus' coming, he runs ahead to better see Jesus.  Running--an undignified pastime for a respectable man in the Ancient Near East, but Zacchaeus does not care about this at all.  If running isn't respectable, I imagine climbing a tree must be far more disreputable, but Zacchaeus is up and away.  He doesn't try to overpower the crowd, he doesn't posture or threaten or use his position as leverage to get ahead in seeing Jesus.  Rather, he employs his wits so he can just get a glimpse of the Lord.
   And then, curiously, he doesn't say a word.  He doesn't try to get Jesus' attention, he just watches.  Maybe he thinks Jesus won't notice--maybe he even hopes no one notices him up in that tree.  But then Jesus looks up to him and knows his heart.  He knows his heart and speaks words of impossible welcome and blessing: "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today."
   Why "hurry" and why "must"?  Why must Zacchaeus hurry and why must Jesus stay with him?  Salvation is the thing at stake and no time must be wasted: and Zacchaeus' response is perfect obedience.  Jesus says, "Hurry, and come down," and thus Zacchaeus' hurries and comes down joyfully receiving Jesus' word.  He is the perfect disciple who does not question his master's word, he only obeys and does so with joy.  "All of them," everyone, grumbles, everyone speaks against the Lord's visitation to this sinner.  No one speaks for Zacchaeus, not a one considers he might be a worthy man, that there might be some treasure for the Lord to harvest.
   But there is such a treasure.  This small man, this sinner, has his heart lit on fire by Jesus' taking notice of him.  God sees Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus knows he is known by God, and knows he is given a gift of the presence of God and the beginning of the kingdom, and he also knows what the proper response to all of this is.  Repentance.  Zacchaeus is a sinner, and the mean of his sin has helped him see his own need for salvation, and to see Jesus and his Gospel as the means and end of that salvation.  He sees his own sin, and takes on the character of his Lord instead.  In following the Lord of Jubilee, he restores not only what he has taken unrighteously, he also has mercy on the poor.  He sees in himself what the Pharisees do not see in themselves, and this sinner in the city of destruction finds salvation that they do not find.   For all that the Pharisees live in the city of kings and priests and that the Law and the Prophets are their inheritance, they do not see Jesus and they do not receive him with joy.
   The Son of Man is the Good Shepherd who seeks and saves the lost, who is perfectly able to restore sinners to repentance and amendment of life, to reconcile those sinners to God, and to give them a new life.  Part of the good news is believing that God is capable of restoring, in his own ways and in his own timing, absolutely anyone whom the Lord goes out to bring home.  Ours is the part to have faith in the Lord's goodness and hope for all to come to repentance and newness of life.  It is also our part to understand how small we are.  Not that human beings are insignificant: we aren't insignificant to God and that's the only measure of significance worth having.  But we are small--we don't have much strength or power or intelligence or goodness of our own.  The angels excel us in every way, and our sacred history starts with humans beings deceived and naive, fragile and mortal.  Our lives are gifts of grace that are in God's hands, not our own.  We are, like Zacchaeus, quite small.  But we are loved and we are imprinted with the image of God, which is a great dignity.  There is something to being mindful of what we lack and how we fall short as a protection against the greater evils of thinking we have no need of any help or saving.

Herod and the Heart of the World, Part 1

Matthew 14:1-12

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Death of John the Baptist

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus, and he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.” For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, because John had been saying to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.”  And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people, because they held him to be a prophet.  But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and pleased Herod, so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.  Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.”  And the king was sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he commanded it to be given.  He sent and had John beheaded in the prison, and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother.  And his disciples came and took the body and buried it, and they went and told Jesus.

The Word of the Lord,

  Thanks be to God

In so many ways, this passage is a fantastic portraiture of worldliness.  Herod exemplifies a person caught in the heart of the world--in the center of loves, motivations, and actions that stem out of a heart caught up not in God but rather in the "world".   By "world" here I am using the biblical language that refers to the evil system of corporate humanity in the throes of its opposition to God.  This is perhaps put best by Paul in Ephesians 6 when he describes the sort of warfare in which Christians really ought to be engaged, "For we do not wrestle against the rulers,against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual froces of evil in the heavenly places."  That is worldliness--the evil spiritual powers at work with and in human beings rioting against the plan and purpose of God. 

      Unfortunately, the thing about human beings is that we are often blind to this conflict.  It is the presence and power of the God of light that ennables us to actually see this darkness, this worldliness, and we spend much of our lives being blind and numb to all this spiritual violence.  And our blindness signifies our "caughtness" in the heart of the world.  The less we percieve, the more "caught" we are.  The more we are aware of this spiritual conflict in and around us, the closer we are to freedom.  But Herod in our passage today is caught fast in the heart of the world.

      The word "fame" here we see so close to the beginning of the passage is telling.  Herod knows of Jesus' fame--and ironically, this is the fame of the world, not fame in the sense of good report and being known by God.  Everyone is talking about Jesus because Jesus is one of those miracle workers.  And fame tends to be wordly because it is vacuous, it lacks content.  One could be infamous just as well as famous, and you get the impression from Herod in the passage that he's the sort of person who would be just as interested in infamy as he is in fame.  In any case, whatever "knowledge" Herod has gathered about Jesus isn't true knowledge, it is closer to the "demonic knowledge" that James describes in chapter 2 of his epistle when he says, "You believe that God is one; you do well [that's sarcasm, folks].  Even the demons believe--and shudder!"  Herod's knowledge of Jesus probably ought not even be called that, because this is a knowledge that never results in obedience, just as Herod's knowledge of John the Baptist before Jesus never results in obedience to John's message.  On the contrary, all of Herod's knowledge ultimately leads him to further rebellion against (or indifference to) God and the kingdom of God.

     And for what?  Why?  If Herod knows both John and Jesus, and seems to know on the most superficial of levels that John and Jesus are holy, miracle-working men . . . why not have some good ole-Proverb like fear of the Lord?  What is it that stands in the way of Herod fearing God enough to revere God's work being done through the lives and ministries of John and Jesus?  How on earth does Herod even have the chutzpah to put John to death?  Especially if his first response to hearing about Jesus' ministry is, "This is John raised from the dead."  

    Well, luckily for us, this passage in Matthew (and the corresponding passage in Mark 6:14) nicely chronicles Herod's actions and give us some insights into the motivations and concerns that accompany those actions.  We learn that Herod "seized" John--potent language--and put him in prison "for the sake of Herodias".  The Markan passage expounds on this more, saying that Herodias in particular "had a grudge" against John and desired his death.  In an odd way, the Mark passage paints Herod with some very different strokes.  Though Herodias wants to see John killed, Herod is willing to defy her enough to keep John sake.  Mark tells us, "for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly."  Pushing back against this picture of a slightly nobler Herod, the Matthew passage says Herod wants to keep John alive because "he feared the people."  In other words, Herod's motivated by self-interest and crowd control.  It's a tumultuous time in Jewish history--they can't really afford any more social unrest than they presently have, and killing John is one way that would really incite the populace.  Herod's not willing to do that out of both common sense and self-preservation . . . but not necessarily out of fear of the Lord.
      Herod, then, is a bit of a mixed-bag.  He clearly recognizes John's holiness and righteousness--but this doesn't actually result in Herod living anything like a godly life in reponse to John's teaching.  This whole story is reminescent (though not necessarily identical to) the cycle of stories in Kings about Ahab and Jezebel.  King Ahab's not a nice guy and he never really is enough of a sympathetic character that you actually come close to feeling sorry for him, but you get the feeling that Jezebel is quite a bit further along in evil than he is.  Ahab, like Herod, fears the prophets (partly because he's an Israelite and Jezebel isn't), and fears God enough that in the light of some confrontations, he actually backs down from doing all the evil he could, while Jezebel goes out of her way to persecute the prophets.  Herod, too, is not willing to take evil to the extremes that Herodias is--he doesn't want to kill John for his sake, but for Herodias'.  However, when push comes to shove, he is willing to do great evil for sake of pleasing someone he loves and for maintaining his own pride and authority in the public setting.
   Which takes us to the next bit of our story: the celebration of Herod's birthday and his unfortunate oath to Herodias' daughter.  Herodias takes the opportunity to wreak vengeance in the way only a petty tyrant can: by killing people who have humiliated you by telling the truth.  We learn that Herod is "sorry" about "having" to keep his word to Herodias and her daughter, but he ain't about to back down.  He's not going to lose face, he's not going to bow to morality or common sense . . . instead he is going to trade the life of a holy man for saving face and staying in the good graces of a manipulative, power-hungry, selfish, and vain woman who is willing to instigate the murder of someone in order to have a false sense of vindication.  Charming.
   A cursory reading of Mark's gospel might leave you with the impression that the gospel writer wants you to sympathize with Herod for being caught between a rock and a hard place because Herod "was exceedingly sorry" and originally had heard John with great joy.  I don't really think that's the case.  While on the one hand, it is certainly grevious that a person who had once heard the word of the Lord with joy now disobeys that word with such impunity and for no real good (and certainly with no real moral dilemma).  On the contrary, I think what we have here is, as I said earlier, a portraiture of worldliness--and of the kind of wordliness in particular that is described in the Parable of the Sower.
     There are different kinds of ground in the Parable of the Sower, but the one that interests us is the "rocky ground, where they [the seeds] did not have much soil, and immediatly they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched.  And since they had no root, they withered away."  Jesus even explains what this means for us: "As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately recieves it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and with tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away." (Matthew 13:5-6, 20-21)
   To put it bluntly, Herod is rocky ground.  Herodias is more like the seed sown along the path--the word comes, she doesn't understand it, she doesn't even care because she doesn't understand it, and the enemy successfully "snatches away what was sown in the heart."  That is what happens with John's rebuke in her case.  Herod hears with joy initially--but at the first sign of real resistence in his life, when he might actually have to give something up in order to be a follower of John's teaching, he bails.  He immediately falls away.
     I find it interesting that the Parable of the Sower distinguishes between "rocky ground" and "thorny ground".  Both are undesireable, but you rather get the feeling that it is better--though perhaps not by much--to have thorny ground in the soul than rocky ground.  At least something survives in thorny ground, and maybe some weeding will get done eventually so the good seed can survive.  But you get the feeling that "rocky ground" is a place where there was only the appearance of hope--but there was no real chance for the seed to survive there.  To me, that's a little scary.  To be able to hear the word of God at all with joy seems like a good thing--it's disturbing to think this can be a cheat.  
       And why this cheat?  "Because he has no root in himself."  Interesting that Jesus did not say, "has no root in me," but rather, "has no root in himself."  The description of the thorny ground is one of the "cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful."  That is your typical portraiture of worldliness.  That is a picture of a person embroiled in conflicting desires, desires for obedience and life with God being overwhelmed by other kinds of things and being decieved . . . and how easy it is to be deceived!  But the person who has no root in himself . . . well, you should probably go to your friendly neighborhood commentary for a better researched answer to this question, but I wonder if isn't about having a sense of personal integrity.  Having a sense of a personal moral compass.  Having some sort of commitment to something that makes one a deep enough person to have a capacity to recieve what is profound . . . instead of being "all surface", so to speak, all thin soil sitting a top of infertile bedrock where nothing can grow.  To put it harshly, sometimes people completely "sell out" to the world around them and are completely abandonded to whatever comes their way, with no real capacity to either stand firm in themselves or to say "no" to those things that come their way.  They all like a"wave driven by the wind and tossed."  No rootedness, so solidity, no character, no integrity--because the beginning of integrity is the ability to say "yes" or "no" to the things that come your way out of some sense of self, identity, ethics--something.
   Sometimes the Parable of the Sower is used as spiritual fortune-telling or doomsaying: once diagnosed rocky ground, always rocky ground.  I don't think that is Jesus' point, because prophetic utterance, however "judgmental" it may sound, is always God's invitation into real life with him.  Temporal judgment is invitation.  Hence also, Jesus's words, "He who has ears, let him hear."  Firstly, this means "everyone", and secondly it means you--the one hearing Jesus' words right now.  His words aren't for someone else, they're for me and they're for you.  All of them.  All the time.  So, take them to heart.
    These are parables of the kingdom, and this case is at the very least an explanation for why God's word doesn't seem to bear fruit in so many lives.  They are a spiritual paradigm that we can use to understand the patterns of sin in ourselves and in the world.  And they may be used for the purposes of convicting ourselves and our neighbors--but never for condemning them.  While they're alive on this earth, God's words are an invitation.
    But Herod I think was a man who was not willing to stand for anything.  And  paraphrasing Chesterton, "Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything."  It's so sad that these folks often fall for the worst that the world has to offer, and this case, that's exactly what Herod does.  Not being willing to stand for anything--in this case he's quite unwilling to stand to protect the saints of God--he falls for all of Herodias' evil scheming and falls right into the hands of the devil, and even becomes part of the devil's schemes to kill the saints of God.  It's tragic, really, to move from joy in God's word, to participation in first the murder of John, and later, the murder of Jesus.  We don't get to see the end of Herod's days--the Herod who is so ingloriously "eaten by worms" in Acts 12 is actually this Herod's successor--but the trajectory doesn't look good.
      Herod was a man hopelessly captured by the heart and love of the world.  So much so that he doesn't even hesitate to betray his own principles . . . which isn't hard to do when you have no committments to your own principles . . . when they only exist as momentary and passing likes and dislikes, pleasures and pains.   
     But my question is, what does it mean to be like Herod?  How are we like Herod?  How are we caught in the heart of the world?  Or, can we read this passage or the Parable of the Sower "sectionally"?  One of the best sermons I have ever heard on the Parable of the Sower was a very short homily that invited us to view our hearts as possessing all the kinds of ground, and to examine to see what's going on in our hearts.  But more on all of that next time. 

"The Mystery of Iniquity" a Reflection on the Events on December 14th, 2012

After reading a little bit about the Connecticut shooting today and trying to find a way to pray about it, I ran across this article in The Onion: "Fuck Everything, Nation Reports". As long as profanity isn't something that gets you terribly upset, I think it is worth the read. One of the most interesting parts of the article to me is the following excerpt:

"“Seriously, what the hell is this? What’s even going on anymore? Why do things like this keep happening?”
Continued McEllis, before covering her face with her hands, “Why?”
Despairing sources confirmed that the gunman, armed with a semiautomatic assault rifle—a fucking combat rifle, Jesus—walked into a classroom full of goddamned children where his mother was a teacher and, good God, if this is what the world is becoming, then how about we just pack it in and fucking give up, because this is no way to live.
I mean, honestly, all 315 million Americans confirmed."

I can't really blame anyone for feeling this way. When I was driving to work today, I heard about the shooting in Connecticut about the same time as I heard about another shooting in Florida (which, as one might expect, ended up being interracial again) . . . but I didn't hear any of the details of the former case. It wasn't until I talked with my mom after dinner this evening that she told me 20 children had died. 20 children. And this after the gunman killed his own mother at her house, and then went off to her workplace to kill her coworkers and students.

I don't know why any of this happened. Frankly, even if we ever are to learn exactly why Adam Lanza did any of those things, it won't really matter. God knows, I am sure, but I don't think knowledge will really mitigate any of the horror of what happened. Either he was insane, or he was demon-possessed, or he was evil of his own choosing. Does it really matter which one? When the facts of the matter are that the world really is this broken by evil and malice and madness, and things like this keep happening in relatively prosperous America as they have always happened in other times and places . . . does it matter why so and so did thus and such? I don't think so. And I doubt it is a real comfort to the families of the victims for them to know why. They don't care why right now--they just want their children back.

This is why Paul described the prevalent forces of evil in the world as the "mystery of iniquity" and this is why God included the book of Job in the Canon of Scripture. We rarely know why, the "reasons why" are themselves irrational and full of hate, malice, envy, rage that make no sense. The "why" does not help us. Wisdom has its limits. Sometimes you just need miracle.

Discovering the roots of evil is no real comfort to us. Even if we, as readers of Job and readers of the story of Scripture and readers of the story of the history of the world that unfolds before us, even if we readers know as God knows that there is a supernatural Enemy behind all of these things that eggs on evil in the world, that pursues us with malice, that is ever and always out to destroy us . . . well, that's not a comfort, is it? It might help us a little with perspective, but if anything, that knowledge that tempt us to despair--as Theoden King said in The Two Towers, "So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?"

The answer for Theoden was "get rescued out of it". He and all his men would have died if it weren't for Gandalf and the aide that he brought with it. And the real lesson of the book of Job is that people absolutely need divine intervention. Although it did not appear so to Job, God had actually put a limit on the activities of the accuser. In this case, he would not let the enemy destroy Job's life--and apparently God would not let the enemy touch Job's wife either. Finally, in the end, God personally appears to Job, speaks to him, and overturns all the evil that Job had suffered with blessing: "And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job . . . and after this Job lived 140 years, and Job died, an old man, full of days."

I guess it would have taken at least 50 years to get over the tragic loss of his first family. Perhaps 140 years of blessing would have healed the devastation of Job's heart. 140 years of the Lord's love and favor and comfort lavished upon him.

I imagine the griefs I have suffered in my own life have been very small. I have never lost anyone close to me through death, much less a tragic death. I have loved a lot of different people and it seems like I am forever having to let go of someone or grieving the grief of a friend or loved one lost to this or that thing, though physical death has yet to be the cause. Love hurts and loving people who are bent on destroying themselves hurts, but I imagine death hurts more. I have however, got to watch and listen a little bit to people who have suffered. I have listened to some of my African brothers talk about the horrible losses endured in war-torn homelands. I have listened to the stories of women in prison who have lost everything and possess nothing except little shreds of hope in God. I have probably seen God more clearly present in jail and among the addicted than anywhere except the community gathered by and united in the Eucharistic meal and worship. God is with those who suffer and those who have nothing except hope in him.

The Onion said, "fuck everything" because, it isn't "as if the same fucking bullshit isn't going to keep happening again and again and fucking again before people finally decide it's time to change the way we live, so what's the point? What the hell is the goddamned point?" The authors concluded the article by saying that they had nothing to say. The latter is certainly appropriate: Job's comforters could have improved some by remaining silent, as difficult as that is to do. But I say, though not to those whose own loss it was, but to all the rest of us who look on their grief and try a little bit to grieve with them. Instead of "fuck everything", how about, "Love one another, as Christ has loved you." We can't stop all the madness right now. We don't have the power. But God does, and he has promised that he will bring an end to this madness. He will bring an end to this madness and then there will be such joy undiminished by sorrow for endless ages upon endless ages that we won't remember such horrible things as this.

I always used to cringe a little at the end of Job because I thought it was a fairy-tale ending stuck on the end of a tragic story. It only made sense to me as a picture of what the Gospel story is all about. It only made sense if Job was a little story that foreshadowed the real story about Jesus defeating death, ushering in the Resurrected life, and promising his children that he would be coming back for them, and coming back to do away with evil once and for all. And then telling those same children to tell this message to all the world, and to prove that this message is true by how they loved. We do need to change the way we live . . . but not because we have power in ourselves to overturn all the evil in the world--but rather that our witness is powerful to the One who does have the power to overturn all the evil in the world. (If we had the power to tackle evil by ourselves, we would have beaten it by now.) Our Gospel is pretty useless without Jesus coming back to set things right once and for all. He is often about the business of setting right smaller things, but one day he will come and set to right all things.

And what do we say to the people who are intimately suffering such horrible things as the shooting in Connecticut right now? Probably, you say nothing. Probably, you remain silent and love them in your presence and not by your speech. Probably you do everything in your power to love them by your service and by your presence and by your devotion to them and you let God speak to them. Probably you just suffer alongside them and maybe a day will come down the road where they will want to hear something, where they will want hope and encouragement, and want to hear a story about Somebody who loved them enough to taste and suffer death so that it might be sanctified for us, and one day banished altogether, and who is coming back as a Conquering King to set things right forever.  But that day, the day to speak, is not always today.

Ecclesiology Begins in the Heart of Love

Aristotle thought that young people (under the age of 30) shouldn't study philosophy because they could not be wise or practiced in the virtues.  When I first learned that as an undergraduate studying philosophy, I at first thought that terribly unfair, and I generally countered his thought with this verse from Psalm 119: "I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.  I understand more than the elders, for I keep your precepts."  And of course Paul told Timothy, "Let no one despise you because of your youth."  It never occurred to me that the Psalmist's words and St. Paul's words were rarely applicable.  For a long time I believed everyone surely must love wisdom . . . they just aren't very good at it, that's all!

Also in college I learned that some students of theology were irritating and perhaps Aristotle had met young people like them, and that was why he thought the young should not study grave subjects.  These young people were irritating to me for very particular reasons: they were more interested in the way in which advanced-sounding subjects like "systematic theology" made them appear intelligent than they were in actual learning.  They were more in love with their egos than they were in love with the study of God.  I found this very difficult to understand--for although I was no stranger to love of ego, it seemed stupid to study theology to show-off.  Why not study something less important?  The love and study of God seemed too important to trifle with.

It occurs to me even now that we can all study theology or write theology or advocate for theology for all the wrong reasons.  We can do it with something other than love in mind.  We can study our books and write our papers and have nothing of real value in mind--we can completely miss the service of the Church and of God in favor of something else.  What a waste that would be.

I was praying the other day and decided to do something I hadn't done in a little while: use some Ignatian methods of prayer with imagination.  As I often do, I "imagined" Jesus with me and waited for him to say or do something.  To my surprise, he didn't do any of the things I normally expect from him, instead he just sat there, slumped over, and clearly sad.  I waited for a moment, and I think I said something like, "So . . . what's up?"  His response was, "I'm sad about my church.  I am sad about the brokenness of my church."

I couldn't really think of anything to say in response.  Of course Jesus is sad about the brokenness of his church.  One would have to be a fool not to be sad, at least on some level, about the brokenness of the church.  But on that particular day, I wasn't feeling terribly sad about the denominational aspect of the church's brokenness, so I was a bit surprised that He said something about it.

It took me the course of the day to realize that Jesus wasn't really talking about the divisions between denominations--as heartbreaking as that is.  He was actually talking about the kind of brokenness that means people shut out the love of God.  While I hadn't been doing very much reflecting lately about ecumenical issues in the church, I had been consumed with thought--and some grief--about the ways in which people don't want to be loved.  How much some people (Christians) don't want to be loved.  How much they ignore or turn away from God's provision of love, or his own outstretched arms of love.  How much they would rather have things other than love.  How much they are consumed by idolatrous desires for approval, for acceptance, for importance in the eyes of their brothers and sisters in Christ or of the world, and how much they simply are not able to believe and receive the gifts God wants to give them.  How often are our hearts cold and hard because we don't want the good things God has for us?  We'd rather play around with our addictions and diseases and our own death than be healed and forgiven and accepted and loved.  We play in death all the time.  And that makes Jesus sad, yet we do this all the time and the adherence to saying the Nicene rather than the Apostle's Creed will not compel you otherwise.

So . . . it occurred to me that in all my thoughts about ecumenism, I had really forgotten about something the same way my college irritants had forgotten that they were studying theology because God is beautiful and worthy to be loved and adored.  They had forgotten that worship is at the heart of all theology, and I had forgotten or never quite knew that love is at the heart of ecclesiology and ecumenism.  Theologians occasionally differ (peaceably I think) as to whether they say that the Church was born out of the blood and water which came when Christ's heart was pierced by the spear or whether she was born when the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost.  Either way, the Church is born when the love of God is poured out for us, the Holy Spirit is Love, and the blood poured out for us at Calvary is love.  The Church is born of Love, of the Bridegroom for the future Bride, and our meditations both on the nature of the church and on the ecumenical call to peace and reconciliation must begin with the identity of the Church as She who is Loved, the Beloved of God, the loved one in the Song of Songs.

I was thinking about ways in which I wish the ACNA would structure its conversations on the controversial matter of the ordination of women.  What I would really like to see is our Church come together about our identity first.  And I would like to see us come together in a way that is real and tangible, not just paying lip service to things we are supposed to believe.  I would like to have us have theological conversations in a matter befitting to Christians.  I would like to see them begin and end in love--knowing that the Church exists as living witness and proof of God's love, born out of his love, and born to the great purpose of one day being united to him in perfect wholeness, perfect peace, and perfect joy.  I would like to see a celebration of the nature of the Church as one loved by God, in which we are all striving to do what we can to show that love to one another.  And I would like to see us commit to love one another deeply from the heart, and to stop having theological conversations until we have done the first duty of loving our neighbors.  How can we reason about the things of God if we will not obey him?  And if we hate and resent our brothers and sisters about such small things, and intend to quarrel about power and doctrine, what good is it to pretend to talk to one another?  I want us to love one another first, and settle questions of theology later.  Maybe that means a lot of healing and reconciliation first, I imagine it means growth in trusting God to settle things rather than giving into our own fears and anxieties about what will happen if someone else does something or believes something we think is wrong or unjust.  I would like to see Jesus Heal in our Church, and offer that healing to our world.  I would like to see us awake to our identity in Christ and offer the world an escape from worshiping dead idols.

Love, real love, is heartbreaking.  It is hard and difficult and looks like the Cross and not like the Hallmark channel.  I think really learning how to love our neighbors as ourselves--or perhaps just beginning to love our neighbors as ourselves means the destruction of a whole lot of the "person" I think I am--the false identity, the false refuge of self I have created for myself in which I can hide.  Love will break you down and break you apart and overturn everything that seems right to you (Jesus died and the apostles didn't understand it at all), but Love turns the kingdoms of the world upside down and puts the right Man on the throne.  I really hope that the ACNA takes up the mantle of calling Anglican Christians and especially Anglican Christian leaders to the humble, patient, inglorious calling of love rather than to whatever thing the Episcopal church was seeking after for the last fifty years.  Was she searching for acceptance for the world, for recognition, for power, for relevance?  I don't really know, but I think her face was turned to the world and away from God.  If she had sought those things in God, she might have been weak and despised in the ways of the world, but strong and mighty to the casting down of strongholds in the name and power and will of God.  I hope we have the courage to embrace the latter destiny rather than the former.  I hope we have the courage to embrace shame and distress and irrelevance and smallness because we are so sure of ourselves in God, and so sure we are loved by Him, and chosen, and called according to his purposes.  We certainly can't do it without his love.  And if we don't know we are possessed by the God who is Love, we don't really have anything, and we don't really know anything, and we have forfeited our identity and mission as the Church.

Why not enact an ecclesiology and a call to unity and a call to theological conversation based on 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."  The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live out these things in fullness and in perfection and impart their bounty to us: we need to be about the business of receiving all that God is, so we may give him away to every one we meet.

Judges 9--The Word of Prophecy, Part 1

Examination and Reflection on Judges 9:1-21. You'll want to read the passage first or at least have it open with you as you read this two part reflection. (My reflection is based on the ESV translation.)

Verses 1-7

Abimelech is the son of a concubine, so he is really the least fit man to rule. He is the one, of Jerubbaal’s sons, who has least “right” to be in charge, and is not even closely connected with the family. But he appeals to the people of Shechem, who, as the previous chapter informs us, are not really appreciate of Gideons’ house at all and basically says to them, because I am your relative—closer to you and not as foreign as the rest of Gideon’s sons—you should let me have the power and be king instead of them ruling in whatever fashion they rule. So, basically he wants to use their own desire for power to manipulate them into accepting them as king. It is pure self-interest and they conveniently forget everything that Gideon’s house has done for them. They should have been loyal to all the sons of Gideon, but instead because “he is our brother” (v. 3) they want to empower Abimelech and so empower themselves. Pure power mongering, no justice here. The slaughter of the children of Gideon (Jerubbaal) is simply treacherous.

Consider the prophetic voice as shown in verses 7-20, but showcased in v. 7. What he says is interesting: listen to me that God may listen to you. This suggests that unless we listen to God, he will not listen to us . . . which makes sense of course, because unless our speech toward him is informed by what he wants to reveal and share with us. How else will it be anything other than babbling and vain conversations because on our own, we don't actually know how to talk to God?

Here is the parable of kingship (verses 8-15). There are trees—which are the leaders of Shechem. The place where Jotham is standing is significant—Mt. Gerizim is only mentioned four times in the Bible (unless it has another name, too). And it is first mentioned as the place where the Deuteronomic blessings are given—Mt. Ebal is where the Deuteronomic curses are given. The only times in the Scripture where Mt Gerizim is even mentioned is Deut 11:29; 27: 12; Josh 8:33, and here in Judges 9:7. In each time subsequent to the first (other than this time in Judges) it is mentioned that Mt. Gerizim is the place where blessing is proclaimed to the people—if they follow and obey everything that is in the covenant. But the people of Shechem have already broken the covenant by being Baal-worshippers. They have also just broken a covenant with the sons of Gideon by killing them all. Now they are about to implicitly break the covenant with God by rejecting him as king and anointing someone else over him. But still, God is so merciful that he sends his prophet of sorts and he is standing on the mountain of blessing, not the mountain of cursing. I think one should be surprised that Jotham isn’t standing on Mt. Ebal!

Back to the rest of the parable—so they go to the olive tree, the fig tree, and the vine—all of which are symbols of Israel throughout the old testament, probably in this case symbols of legitimacy. All the legitimate rulers of Israel who were appointed by God—including Gideon and his sons refused the kingship and it was a good thing for them to do. There are two reasons generally why the olive tree, the fig, and the vine refuse—because it would mean leaving the good things they have in order to have power over men, which they think is a raw deal. There is this term "hold sway" which I should like to research in the original language. and there is a contrast of abundance, sweetness, good fruit, a thing that cheers--basically the picture is abandoning all the good blessings that pleases both God and men to do something that pleases nobody, but increases somebody in power and prestige.

Finally, there is the character of the bramble who is illegitimate. A bramble is useless for doing much of anything except for being kindling in a fire: in other words, brambles are a nuisance and all they do is cause trouble, which at the end of the day, when the story is said and done, is all that Abimelech has managed to accomplish. The bramble is worthless enough—and has no joy, inheritance, etc, has nothing to lose, so of course it accepts what would otherwise be a raw deal for any other self-respecting person . . . or plant . . . .

Here is the chango-presto –it doesn’t seem like Abimelech actually says the last third of verse 15. Here's the diagologue of the bramble in the last part of Jotham's parable: "If in good faith you are anointing me kin gover you, then come and take refuge in my shade, but if not let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon." Jotham puts this in the mouth of the bramble so the word of rebuke may be uttered to the people of Shechem. That word is not a word of judgment until the people disobey (just as the law and covenant is not a word of judgment until the people abandon and betray it). “Let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.” This is all the bramble is actually good for, although Jotham does leave it open as a possibility that the people may truly want to take refuge in its shade. So, it is just possible that the leaders of Shechem have perfectly good motives for making Abimelech king . . . but Jotham doesn't think so.

It is interesting that Jotham calls the leaders of Shechem the cedars of Lebanon. At first, this may seem like an unqualified, good description . . . except for the fact that tall things in the Bible are often metaphors for proud things, which is probably what is going on here. The cedars of Lebanon are majestic and beautiful, and powerful, but also proud. I wonder if this image also suggests that they too, unlike the bramble, have a lot to lose--but they are so proud that they are apt to be stupid, like the bramble, and regardless of their majesty can be destroyed in the same fire as the bramble. It also seems like it is a shame that the cedars of Lebanon would submit to the brambles. It is probably also significant that there is a shift in nomenclature only in v. 15--elsewhere these cedars are simply called trees. Trees are no doubt better than a bramble, but here there is a name shift--perhaps these are simply trees who are only "the cedars of Lebanon" in their own eyes. The change in nomenclature alone accentuates the pride motif at the climax of the parable, and perhaps also reveals that this name is chosen for dramatic or ironic (sarcastic) purposes.

This is known as the prophetic “whammy”. The technique is, "Let me tell you all the ways I think you suck, but if I am wrong, go ahead on." The irony is at least trebled by Jotham giving the “if” that seems pretty darn sarcastic to me. They know well and good what they’ve done, but Jotham is giving them room to recognize it in themselves, confess, repent, and change, or just go ahead on in their path to destruction.

It is sad and ironic that Jotham talks about the people rejoicing in Abimelech (v. 19) —that is what one could have done in a legit ruler—especially one with the heroic background of Gideon’s family. But now they can’t, and their families and all the people of Shechem will only have ruinous sorrow to inherit for generations to come. Joy is exactly what they forfeited.

This is the word of prophecy turned to judgment that God honors, because it sets the stage for the rest of the ninth chapter. The fire of greed and ambition and envy engulfs all three parties. The following story of Abimelech’s downfall gives rise to the verse of Scripture, "'Vengeance is mine,' says the Lord, 'I alone will repay.'" God always honors his word, and in this case, perfect retribution arises from the prophetic word.