The way I treat others is the measure of my character.
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The way I treat those who suffer is the measure of my humanity.
The way I treat those who oppose me is the measure of my maturity.
The way I treat those in authority over me is the measure of my humility.
John 19:28-29
8 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” 29 A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put
Israel: wilderness
a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.
All four gospels tell us that they offered Jesus sour wine to drink. Only John records Jesus’ words,
“I am thirsty.”
And only John draws attention to a scripture from the OT, the book of Psalms which, in some sense, he says, is being fulfilled here.
After everything that has already happened to Jesus, to highlight his thirst is almost jarringly trivial. Why mention it? It could be that the offer of sour wine, the common drink of soldiers and the lower classes, reminded all the gospel writers of the Psalm that John specifically draws attention to. The parallels are, indeed, uncanny.
I have lived in Eastern Europe where it is common for people to make their own wine. It is also common that the wine they make is of poor quality – sour to the point of tasting like vinegar. It makes you more thirsty.
In Psalm 69:21 the writer says,
“They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Who did that? Why would they? This psalm is about a righteous person who is being persecuted mercilessly. He says, “Save me, O God… I am weary with crying, my throat is parched, my eyes grow dim…. Many are those who would destroy me.”
There are two main types of Psalms: Praises and Laments. This is a lament. Psalms of lament, with only one exception, all end with a glimmer of hope. The writer, even in agony and pain, is able to imagine a future in which God has heard his cry, and has acted to save him. So he imagines himself offering praise to God in some future time, after he has been restored.
This Psalm says
“I will praise the name of God with a song. I will magnify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull… for the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own that are in bonds.” (Psalm 69:30)
Why does he make the point that songs of praise are as good as, maybe better than the animal sacrifices that the law of Moses requires? Because the only place sacrifice can be offered is at the temple, but in this moment, there is no temple. It has been destroyed. The psalm ends with the hope that God will rebuild the cities of Judah. They too have been destroyed. This is the time of exile. The writer is in the bonds of captivity in Babylon. His enemies are those who have conquered Jerusalem. His defeat is their victory. His pain is their pleasure. They give him vinegar to drink, mocking his parched thirst.
So Jesus, from the cross, identifies with the lament of the righteous sufferer of Psalm 69 who believes that even in his suffering, God is still present.
statue: Galilee, Israel
God can hear his cries. God can bring a future with hope.
On the cross, Jesus suffers as a righteous person, unjustly persecuted. In this way he fulfills the agony and the hope of the righteous sufferer of the Psalm. In this moment, Jesus feels the pain of all who are persecuted unjustly. Jesus knows the suffering of all whose pain is caused by others.
In this moment Jesus knows the pain of the battered wife and the despair of the girl who has been trafficked.
In his cry,
“I am thirsty.”
Jesus understands the agony of those who sit in prisons without being charged, without defense, and without hope for justice.
Jesus knows the pain of the victim of the predator and the victim of torture.
Jesus identifies with the suffering of the refugee, the collaterally damaged, and the pain of a family who buries a son, whose crime for which he died, can only be explained by the the neighborhood watcher who killed him.
“Blessed,” Jesus had said, “are those who hunger and thirst” for a world without victims.
Who thirst for a world without the tears of those who gather around crosses looking up at the innocent.
Blessed are those whose thirst is met not by the sour wine of soldiers, but by the sweet wine of the Kingdom.
Blessed are those who offer that wine of healing, restorative justice to the victims of senseless suffering, in the name of the one who said,
““I am thirsty.”
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It’s Holy Week, and I’m reading Jurgen Moltmann’s “The Crucified God”. Here is what struck me as so poignant for today (it’s hard to remember that he wrote this in 1974, almost 30 years ago).
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“Faith is fearful and defensive when it begins to die inwardly, struggling to maintain itself and reaching out for security and guarantees. In so doing, it removes itself from the hand of the one who has promised to maintain it, and its own manipulations bring it to ruin. This pusillanimous faith usually occurs in the form of an orthodoxy which feels threatened and is therefore more rigid than ever. It occurs wherever, in the face of the immorality of the present age, the gospel of creative love for the abandoned is replaced by the law of what is supposed to be Christian morality, and by penal law. He who is of little faith looks for support and protection for his faith, because it is preyed upon by fear. Such faith tries to protect it ‘most sacred things’, God, Christ, doctrine, and morality because it clearly no longer believes that these are sufficiently powerful to maintain themselves. When the ‘religion of fear’ finds its way into the Christian church, those who regard themselves as the most vigilant guardians of the faith do violence to faith and smother it.” p. 19
“Anyone who reads the ‘signs of the time’ with the eyes of his own existential anxiety reads them falsely. If they can be read at all, they can be read by Christians only with the eyes of hope in the future of Christ.” p. 21
Brian McLaren has just posted three video versions and the text, in Latin and English of Lauridsen’s Magnum Mysterium, maybe the prettiest songs ever written – and he is a living composer. You need soft lights, quiet – or good headphones, and an open heart.
Merry Christmas
The Fellowship of Presbyterians has published online a document it calls a “Draft of the Theology of the Fellowship of Presbyterians and the New Reformed Body,” posted on Dec. 7, 2011 for review. They are inviting feedback, acknowledging that this is a draft form. These are not initial thoughts. They have been reviewed by “25 first readers who offered thoughtful critique as this draft developed.” So I would like to weigh in on a part of the draft dealing with scripture.
The document says:
“The spirit will never prompt our conscience to conclusions that are at odds with the scriptures that he has inspired.”
I know some of the people whose theological positions line up with the Fellowship’s views. I know them to be smart, thoughtful, careful, scholarly, and deeply committed Christians. That is why it frustrates me when statements like the one above are put out that are far more nuanced than they appear. People without the benefit of theological study (formal or not) usually read such statements in their simple form and think they mean things that the ones writing them know that they do not mean. I do not believe anyone is trying to hoodwink anybody, nevertheless, our churches are full of faithful believers who have no idea how complex we know that interpreting scripture is. Those of us who have had the blessing of time and resources to study know, for example, how nuanced the word “inspired” is. A person could spend years reading everything written on that one word alone. But the complexity goes way beyond that one word. Having written the sentence above, the authors have thought long and hard about issues that scripture speaks to that they feel no qualms of conscience being “at odds with.” The list of such issues, to limit it to the New Testament for the moment, could include:
Women being silent in the church, not teaching men, hair length, hair style (braids) and head coverings, jewelry restrictions (gold and pearls), family structure (submission of wives to husbands, calling them “Lord”), slavery (no problem), divorce (the various perspectives of Jesus, Paul, Micah, Genesis, Deuteronomy, and the current issues like spouse abuse), not to mention figures of speech (pluck out eyes, etc.).
But it goes even deeper. Consider the issue of violence in the bible.
Should we not be “at odds with” and even horrified by the baby-killing, head-smashing, bloody rocks of Spirit-inspired Psalm 137? How is this sentiment of utter brutal vengeance compatible with the blessed life our Lord Jesus taught us to live? How can this be an example of “the merciful” who will “be shown mercy”? How can it exemplify the actions of “the meek” who will “inherit the earth”? How can it be the goal of “the peacemakers” who will be called “the children of God”? Even if all this vengeance is a understood as a pain-cry for justice (at least, justice in the sense of “an even score”), how can it be the satisfaction of a “hunger and thirst for justice/righteousness”? Is it not rather a demand for “turnabout” as “fair-play” rather than justice as righteousness (dikaiosune) which, if anything, cannot create the conditions for future vengeance, as this Psalm certainly does?
Psalm 18 was the morning lectionary Psalm which I read the day I first saw the Fellowship’s theological statement. The Psalmist praises God our Rock who comes to our rescue. That much we can embrace. But the psalm goes into dark places from which decent people should keep their distance. The Psalmist praises the God he prays to for helping him in specific ways:
34 He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
35 You have given me the shield of your salvation,
and your right hand has supported me;
your help has made me great.
36 You gave me a wide place for my steps under me,
and my feet did not slip.
To what effect was all of this divine help?
37 I pursued my enemies and overtook them;
and did not turn back until they were consumed.
38 I struck them down, so that they were not able to rise;
they fell under my feet.
39 For you girded me with strength for the battle;
you made my assailants sink under me.
40 You made my enemies turn their backs to me,
and those who hated me I destroyed.
Who can read this without remembering the words of our Lord, that those who live by the sword will die by it as well? This psalm prays for the exact opposite of mercy, meekness and peacemaking. Even the enemy’s cry for help from our God, from YHWH, is unanswered – he gets stones for bread; snakes instead of fish for the asking.
41 They cried for help, but there was no one to save them
they cried to the LORD, but he did not answer them.
42 I beat them fine, like dust before the wind;
I cast them out like the mire of the streets.
It is right and good for us to sing the praise of the next verse:
46 The LORD lives! Blessed be my rock,
and exalted be the God of my salvation,
until the following verse comes; the verse that knows and tells why it is that God is so valuable and praise-worthy:
47 the God who gave me vengeance
and subdued peoples under me;
48 who delivered me from my enemies;
indeed, you exalted me above my adversaries;
“Vengeance is mine,” says the Psalmist, as he thanks God, for the help. The one who ends up in the exalted position, high and lifted up, turns out to be the one whose vengeance was successfully accomplished.
Were these the sentiments of the barbaric days in which violence was mistaken for goodness and brutal vengeance for justice? It would be easy to think so. It would be convenient to believe that these brutes of the ancient Near East simply had not achieved the level of civilization that we have attained. It would be nice to think that their entire perspective on violence as a means was far removed from ours. It would be convenient to believe that, but not possible, as we come to the very last line in this Psalm. It is a final line of praise, a final acknowledgement of God’s role in this bloody reprisal:
“you delivered me from the violent.”
From whom is God credited with providing deliverance? From the evil? From the wicked? From “the fool who says in his heart that there is no God”? No. The deliverance God is finally praised for is from “the violent.” From the ones who use violence as a means. Obviously, God would want to save me from such people as “the violent.” And how should he accomplish this great salvation? By authorizing my violence? By making me successful in my violent reprisals on my enemy?
The whole psalm collapses here under the weight of its own moral indignation. In those ancient, barbaric times, they understood full well that violence as a means was characteristic of the kind of people one needed God’s help against. “you delivered me from the violent.” “The violent” were the bad guys. That was understood back then, by the people who celebrated God’s assistance with their violence.
What do we do with these Psalms? Everybody concerned with theological statements is familiar enough with the bible to know that this Psalm is not an outlier, in fact it is characteristic of a perspective about violence we find frequently in the Old Testament. We have all read Joshua and Judges. We all hope that the Levite’s concubine was was already dead before he cut her up into twelve pieces, but the narrator of Judges 19 leaves us guessing. We all hope that there is a morally acceptable way to read of the world’s first mass genocide, the flood narrative; after all, there is a rainbow at the end of the story. Of course this kind of litany could be extended indefinitely. My point is only this: that I, as a believing Christian who wants to, and needs to hear God speaking through the written word, and everyone else in my shoes, has a huge amount of work to do to reconcile these texts with my/our understanding of the nature of God that we believe comes most completely from his incarnate Word-made-flesh, Jesus. And he was the one who taught us what the “blessed” life consists of, which is exactly the reason we have so much trouble these “texts of terror.”
So, it seems to me that making a short, pithy theological statement about how “The Spirit will never prompt our conscience to conclusions that are at odds with the scriptures that he has inspired” just implodes on itself.
How does the Spirit prompt our consciences? I pray that the Spirit would always and constantly prompt my conscience. My fear is that I am no better than anybody else in my sensitivity to the Spirit’s prompts. I am not at all sanguine about the fact that so many of my ancestors-in-faith were anti-Semitic, owned slaves, thought nothing at all of patriarchy, justified innumerable wars of aggression and expansion, up to an including the dispossession of the natives of the land I live in today. Every river around me still bears a native-American name. What sins, even gross horrors am I blind to that my descendants will see? I find no reason to think my generation will have any better track record than any of my predecessors’. I wish that the Spirit would prompt me to every single conclusion that is at odds with God’s perfect will. But my experience is that the Spirit’s work looks like (not is like, but appears to be) like the famous “moral arc of the universe” in that it is bent towards justice, but only in a long, slow, agonizingly inscrutable manner. It simply does not do anybody any good to say “The Spirit will never prompt our conscience to conclusions that are at odds with the scriptures that he has inspired”. I wish it were so simple. It isn’t simple at all.
By now, several people like Mark Noll have written extensively about the arguments for and against slavery in America. The people who wanted to justify slavery from the bible had a much easier time than those who believed the bible led them to oppose it. Both sides knew and used scripture in their arguments. The pro-slavery group had an easy time finding places in the bible in which people owned slaves without reproach, and where slaves were assumed and even regulated in the context of Torah. In fact nowhere in all of the bible, Old and New Testaments is slavery ever condemned. Rather, it appears as though a runaway slave, Onesimus is returned to his master (in Philemon – though I am aware of the current dispute about this reading of the situation). Unquestionably, the “house codes” in Ephesians and Colossians assume and regulate the institution of slavery in the Christian household. Paul even advises slaves in Corinth not to try to gain their freedom. The pro-slavery group had no problem finding support for their position in the bible.
Remarkably, the whole situation is reversed today. I know of no one who would argue in favor of the institution of slavery anymore. And yet, during the civil war era, those who argued against it had a tougher case to make. Their arguments were about the general sweep of the bible and the teachings of Jesus that seemed to be incompatible with slave-owning. Today, we would use the word “trajectory” to describe that same arc-like development of thought that leads to a conclusion far down the line from its point of origin, but in a manner totally consistent with the direction. Some people (probably most people) believe that the civil rights movement in America was simply following the same trajectory that the abolitionist were on in their day. We Presbyterians believe that the issue of the role of women in the church is similar. There are verses that say “no!” but we say “yes.” Are we at odds with the Spirit who inspired the scriptures? Or have we adopted a carefully nuanced understanding of the very nature of scripture that is able to affirm its “inspired” character and yet consider the historical horizon over which it could not see and the cultural horizon behind which it sat – as we all do still, though in a different time and place?
I am quite aware of the issues of the day in our church, especially abortion and homosexuality. My friends who share the perspective of the Fellowship take the conservative position opposing both abortion and homosexuality. I believe that their positions are totally sincere. I also believe that framing a doctrine of scripture the way the Fellowship draft does leads people to support their view. It seems so categorically true. How could the same Spirit who inspired the scriptures ever prompt a person to believe something at odds with scripture? And clearly scripture condemns homosexuality and abortion, right (well abortion, as it turns out, needs more than just the bible because, well, it’s quite complicated, as anybody my age is well aware, especially those who have read Randall Balmer’s Thy Kingdom Come: an Evangelical’s Lament. Balmer recounts the meetings of evangelical leaders that he was a part of in which in which the abortion issue was selected for its usefulness in pushing the conservative political agenda, in spite of the paucity of biblical material on the subject and over the objections of some who questioned its relevance.).
It is one thing for a casual church-attender to think that the church’s position on critical issues is simply cut-and-dried, black-or-white, either-or. But it is quite another thing for church leaders to present their highly nuanced, carefully constructed conclusions that take into consideration vast areas of difficulty as if they were the settled results of simple “prompts” of the Spirit. None of us has moral problems with braided hair in spite of clear New Testament prohibitions. What’s up with that? None of us is ready to condemn as unbiblical a prayer posture that does not include lifting up holy hands; on what basis? Culture? Really? The bible is so clear on these issues, right?
I want desperately to believe and practice what Jesus leads me to believe and practice. So I do my best to try to read and understand Jesus in the scriptures. I’m sure I miss more than I catch. But it seems to me that he frequently tried to get people to think in moral, not just biblical categories. He had no problem with his disciples plucking grain as they strolled across a field on the Sabbath. Were they “working on the Sabbath,” thus breaking one of the ten commandments? Jesus challenged his opponents to think about the Sabbath in moral terms: why was there such a thing as a Sabbath law? Was it not meant as a benefit to humans – who had been slaves of Pharaoh who never gave them a day of rest? Could we not say that people were not made for the Sabbath but the Sabbath for people? And the same reasoning is behind healing on the Sabbath which our Lord seemed to do quite a bit.
The Spirit inspired the bible, but that does not mean the bible is flat. Jesus is able to see the “weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith” which he takes as more significant than the regulations about spices, mint, dill and cumin. The question “who is my neighbor” in the vision of Jesus becomes “who was a neighbor to him?” All of the law and the prophets can be summed up by the golden rule: do to others as you would have others do to you.” Does not our Lord teach us to think theologically and morally beyond the “words on a page” way that his interlocutors approached scripture? Is the divorce issue settled just because there are verses in Deuteronomy that regulate it? Or is the whole question deeper than mere citations, requiring us to think past verses on a page to the whole point of human sexual bonding?
Here is the issue: the twenty-five people that reviewed the Fellowship’s theological draft, in addition to the ones who carefully wrote it, already know all of this. I did not feel the need to supply verse references for all of the biblical quotes and allusions in this response because I know that the Fellowship folks know exactly the texts I refer to; it’s their world. It’s my world too. It’s a complex world. It is a world that deserves forthright, nuanced statements about how people like us, living in our world today, need, benefit from and use scripture. Speaking of simple “prompts” of the Spirit is school-boy talk. Does the Spirit prompt all of us to divest from Fidelity Investments because they profit from Petro-China’s investments in Sudan’s genocidal government? The Board of Pensions doesn’t feel so prompted. What does that tell us? “Jesus is Jesus; but business is business?” Where does that leave us? Sheep or goats? It’s serious, but it’s not uncomplicated.
Here is my plea to the Fellowship: you may think, as I understand you to think, that the PCUSA has lost her way; that she has abandoned her center in favor of the spirit of the age, abandoned her faith in God’s word in favor of man’s opinions; that she has rejected faithfulness to the text of scripture, in favor of coziness with the agenda of the American liberal left. That is a conversation that needs to be conducted. Others will be anxious to know whether the other major spirit of the age, the spirit of the American political right, the spirit of stepping over the moral hazard of indolent Lazarus lying at the gate, is not at least as likely a temptation and at least as nefarious to faith in the God revealed in Jesus. But the test of whether or not either of those spirits have been followed is not whether we can all agree that “The spirit will never prompt our conscience to conclusions that are at odds with the scriptures that he has inspired.” Our women cut their hair, wear braids, pearls, gold, speak in church, even teach, even teach men who they do not call Lord, and who do not pray with hands upraised and who may wear their hair long. And nowhere in scripture is there a footnote or a flag saying “now this bit is just cultural so you can feel free to let it go later on.” The way it works in practice, for all of us, is that we believe the Spirit regularly prompts us to believe and practice things that are indeed at odds with the scriptures that he inspired. This is how it works for all of us, not some of us.
Sincerely,
Rev. Steven D. Kurtz
Gulf Shores, AL
P.s. Joe Small just published an open letter in The Presbyterian Outlook on his role in the theology draft, clarifying that he is not in favor of or a part of any schism that may be coming.
| http://www.pres-outlook.com/component/jomcomment/trackback/12075/com_content.html |
Why I Give to the church
Every stewardship season I review why I give to the church. I would like to share these reasons with you.
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True enough, but the future is in God’s hands, and therefore I will not fear. Mammon says, “Prices are rising.” True enough, but God is faithful, and so I will trust him. Mammon says, “Just this month, you need it.” True enough, I always can find reasons for “needing it” – I have a mortgage, a child in college, an adolescent at home, and auto-repair expenses. Yes, and next month I’ll have similar reasons, and the next month after that the same. But I will believe that God can and will provide for me this month, so I will reject Mammon’s temptation to withhold. There are a million little tricks Mammon tries to play with my my heart and my mind. For the sake of my own spiritual life, for the sake of my faith in God who is the only and the true source of my security, I will give.
“The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
God expects us to “sow bountifully.” It sounds to me as if a tithe would be the minimum of “bountifully.” I believe God expects me to tithe, so out of obedience, I do. As with every other way in which we have opportunities to obey God, I believe that blessings follow obedience. But that is not why we obey – to get blessed. We obey because God is God; the blessing is simply icing on the cake.
There are some ideas that are NOT reasons I support the church.
“They eye never has enough of seeing….” (Eccl 1:8)
No Regrets
There are many things I have regretted spending my money on. There are the things that didn’t work as they were advertised to, or that broke quickly, or became obsolete when the new model arrived. There were the things that were supposed to be fulfilling or thrilling or meaningful that turned out not to be. There were the things that were great while they lasted, but did not last too long compared to the price I paid. There were the things that I didn’t really need and didn’t end up using. There were the dumb mistakes, the impulse purchases, the “good money after bad” expenditures. There have been a lot of things I regret spending money on. But I have never regretted supporting the church. My stewardship has not always been what it should. There have been times of failure on my part. I regret them. But I have never regretted the times I have been responsible, faithful and obedient. I have never lacked anything essential. I have never gone hungry or homeless. I have been blessed.
Matthew 22:15-22 ; Mark 12:13-17; Lk 20:20-26
The coin Jesus asked to seeCoin of Tiberius princeps AD 14 - AD 37
TI.CAESAR.DIVI.AVG.F…
“Tiberius Caesar son of the divine Augustus”
http://cliojournal.wikispaces.com/Roman+Empire+coins
NT Wright: JVG, p. 502
“The coin bore an image and superscription which were, from a strict Jewish point of view, blasphemous. The image was prohibited [by Torah] (even the cynical Antipas, as we say, had stopped short of using an image of himself on his coins [out of deference to Jewish scruples, substituting instead a wheat stalk]), and the superscription proclaimed Caesar in divine terms, specifically as the son of a god. Jesus’ questioners were thus themselves already heavily compromised by possessing such an object.” p. 503
According to Wright, Jesus is intentionally echoing the closing line of a speech by the great leader of the Maccabean hero Mattathias. His dying words to his sons who took up his cause and won the revolt, establishing Israel’s independent state were, “Pay back the Gentile in full, and obey the commands of the law.” I Macc. 2:68
Wright:
“I propose that Jesus’ cryptic saying should be understood as a coded and subversive echo of Mattathias’ last words.” p. 504
“Jesus says, in effect, ‘Well then, you’d better pay Caesar back as he deserves!’” p. 505
Meaning what? Wright continues,
“Had he told them to revolt? Had he told them to pay the tax? He had done neither. He had done both. Nobody could deny that the saying was revolutionary, but nor could anyone say that Jesus had forbidden payment of the tax.” p. 505
“But in context, when Jesus is faced with a coin bearing a blasphemous inscription, [he is saying] ‘give to YHWH, and to him alone, the divine honour claimed blasphemously by Caesar.” p. 506
“If Tiberius Caesar is, according to the coin, the son of the divine Augustus, Israel is, according to scripture, the son of the creator God YHWH” [citing Exod. 4:22] p. 506
“ Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD: Israel is my firstborn son.”
“The real revolution would not come about through the non-payment of taxes and the resulting violent confrontation. It would be a matter of total obedience to, and imitation of, Israel’s god; this would rule out violent revolution , as Matthew 5 makes clear.” p. 507
from Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: a Sociopolitical and Religious Reading” (Orbis, 2000)
“Since Roman occupation in 63 B.C.E., Judea paid tribute (Josephus, JW 1.154; Ant 14:74). Tribute was a means of subjugation, of establishing authority (1 Macc. 1:29)…. Judas the Galilean [a failed Jewish revolutionary] had in 6-9 C.E. exhorted the nonpayment of tribute to Rome since not Rome but “God with their Lord” [citing Josephus again], a viewpoint apparently revived by his son Mehahem in the 66-70 war [which resulted in the Roman’s destruction of the Jewish temple and state]. Josephus has Agrippa tell the people in revolt against Florus (66 C.E.) that not paying the tribute is ‘an act of war’ against Rome (JW 2.403-4).” p. 439
See also:
Jesus and the Politics of His Day
By Ernst Bammel, C. F. D. Moule
Today I participated in the vigil in Mobile, marking yet another execution in Alabama. There were not many of us: we are a nation, it seems, in
Vigil in Mobile
which the
overwhelming popular vote goes to killing our enemies as a solution to our problems. We barely got over the glee we felt at killing Bin Laden, and now we can rejoice over another death of another killer. Killing is wrong, so we kill those who kill.
We are a majority Christian country – certainly Alabama is a majority Christian State. But reading the comments on the web-version of every article about those who have been or will soon be executed, you would think we were all back in the days of Joshua in the Old Testament, ready to slaughter every Canaanite in sight, with justice and joy. Comments went like this:
“use the same gun he used. remember he killed four human beings,so shoot him at least four times.”
Have we learned anything at all since the days of the ancient Near East?
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“Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.” (Joshua 6:21)
Yesterday’s lectionary daily reading was from Luke 6
27“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.
There is precious little spirit for giving those words a hearing these days.
Later, at the supper table, my son and I got into a discussion of the question: do
...
the ends ever justify the means? It seems that many people have heard the phrase, “the ends justifies the means” and think that because it is common, it is also correct. Nothing is more clearly incorrect. If the end goal is justifiable, then justify it – out of necessity, or moral imperative, or some other criteria. But the goal we want to achieve is just that, a goal; it is not an argument for the way in which we decide to accomplish the goal. It may be a good, justifiable goal to have peaceful streets and quiet cities, but that worthy goal does not justify shooting protesters in the streets as they are doing today in Syria. Ends do not justify means. If the means are justifiable, then let’s hear the arguments that justify them.
How do we justify the purposeful taking of human life? How do Christians justify it in the face of Jesus’ teachings?
Today, at the vigil we read John 8, the story of the attempted execution that Jesus was present for. What did he do? He stopped it. It was the case of the woman caught in adultery. They were ready to stone her. Their scriptures (the Old Testament) said they should. They wanted to. Probably they felt the glee coming on. Jesus told them:
“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7)
We just don’t look at it that way here in Alabama.
...
Sometimes you read something that catches you off guard and makes you think twice. That just happened as I read Alyce M. McKenzie’s post in Patheos’ EDGY EXEGESIS: Jesus the Good Shepherd: Reflections on John 10:1-18 – which is the gospel text for this Sunday. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. What is that about, for us? All comfort, rainbows and butterflies? Alyce says:
“I’m fine with Jesus as a Good Shepherd who lays down his life for us. But if I’m to find my identity in him, doesn’t that mean that
The Good Shepherd who...
sacrifice for others will be required of me? The “I am” sayings promise to meet my basic needs. But their deeper message is that my most basic spiritual need is to give my life for something bigger than my life. And for that I need to hear Jesus say “I am the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.”
I was caught by:
“my most basic spiritual need is to give my life for something bigger than my life”
That’s a “gotcha” if there ever was one. My most basic spiritual need is not about me and my growth, my needs, my fulfillment? She is so right.
Graham jr.
The reason I often grow weary of politics in general is that it is so often filled with insincerity. People say things they know are not true because they have an agenda. They cite numbers they know come from dubious sources when proposing budgets. They proclaim certain consequences (“this will create/kill jobs”) that are utterly speculative. They rarely answer the questions they are asked. Both parties do this; no one can claim clean hands. It’s politics.
One of the reasons many people have grown weary of the church these days, is that they believe it has become too political. It is almost as if some denominations have become the religious branch of a particular party, blessing its platform, uncritically endorsing its candidates. When the church becomes enmeshed in a system that we all know is regularly insincere in its presentation of “truth” then people are right to stop listening.
But it is, for me, especially disappointing when religious leaders who have large public followings and long-standing reputations as “men of God” fall prey to the lowest level of insincere political rhetoric.
Today, finally, even though no reason has ever been produced to need it, the White House released the “long form” of the president’s birth certificate. No one ever produced any alternative birth certificate. No one in a position of responsibility in any hospital or government office ever disputed the president’s birth in America. It was only and exclusively that people with a political agenda kept asking the question, even after sufficient evidence was produced long ago, that the question existed. This is the height (or rather, depth) of insincerity.
I can understand Lou Dobbs asking the question as if it were unanswered – he had a political axe to grind and grind it into the dust, he did. I can understand Trump asking the question again – as if he did not know the answer; he has a political axe to grind with a lot of self-interest at stake.
But as recently as the Easter Sunday broadcast of Christiane Amanpour’s “This Week” program on ABC, none other than Rev. Franklin Graham spoke of the president’s birth certificate as one of the issues he had to yet resolve.
Now either Graham did his homework about this issue or he spoke off the cuff. But if he did his homework (as he should have done before speaking) he would have known that this was a farce concocted by political enemies.
If he did not do his homework (and I am hoping he did not – to give him the benefit of the doubt) then he spoke of something he has no solid information about.
Either way, here is a “man of God” being interviewed on national television (and the internet) making an allegation that has no basis in fact; whether he knew it (the depth of insincerity) or not (pontificating out of ignorance) either way, “the church” takes another one on the chin. Franklin has clearly identified with one political agenda – and has done so in an embarrassing manner. Yes, of course this scandalizes people and gives them another reason to reject the church, when “men of God” speak the insincere rhetoric of politics.
