The Prophet and the Widow

Today’s text focuses on two ordinary people who are challenged by God to do extraordinary things against ridiculous odds.  Ahab became King of Israel in the 9^th century BC.  1 Kings 16 summarizes his reign by saying:  “Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him.” He was a wicked king; and on top of everything else, he married the legendary Jezebel, an evil and idolatrous woman, whose father was the King of Sidon–a region north of Israel in what is now Lebanon.  Jezebel and her whole family were committed to Baal worship and Ahab soon embraced this idolatrous faith.

The first time that we meet the prophet Elijah in the Bible, he is being sent to warn Ahab that what he is doing was destructive to the heart and soul and culture of Israel.  This was no doubt a tough assignment for the inexperienced prophet from the backwoods of Gilead.  Elijah wasn’t from a powerful family, he wasn’t wealthy, he wasn’t even a priest. He had no credentials to cause the King to listen to what he had to say.  On his first visit with Ahab Elijah tells the king that because his evil behavior it wouldn’t rain again until Elijah said so.  After that Elijah disappears into the mountainous wilderness of Gilead.

The spring rains didn’t come as expected that year.  And as summer came it was evident that a drought was upon them.  And as the drought deepened, everything became more serious.  The crops didn’t grow.  People became hungry.  And Ahab began to look for the young upstart Prophet of Yahweh named Elijah. He literally puts out an arrest warrant for the Prophet.

In his hideout beside a mountain stream Elijah was fed by food dropped by a flock of scavenger ravens. But eventually even Elijah’s stream dries up and the ravens stop coming.  God tells Elijah to go to a new place, Zarephath, 100 miles away, in the heart of Gentile territory  and just eight miles from Jezebel’s hometown.  I can only imagine Elijah’s conversation with God and his fear as left the security of his mountain retreat.

Ist Kings 17:8-16

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to him (Elijah), saying, ⁹“Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” ¹⁰So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” ¹¹As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” ¹²But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” ¹³Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son.¹⁴For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” ¹⁵She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. ¹⁶The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

The story introduces us to a gentile widow living at a time of a severe drought when people were literally starving to death.  She is a Lebanese widowed single mom who experiences the miracle of the bottomless flower jar and oil jug, as she provides food for the prophet Elijah at a time when she herself had nothing to spare.  When we read the word “widow” in the Bible our minds treat us with a host of images: Vulnerable. Without power. Outside the traditional system of household economy. Object of pity, and hopefully charity. ”Widow” often serves as a scriptural shorthand for “the least of these.” The Hebrew script for “widow” resembles the word meaning “to be mute.” The connection suggests that widowhood creates a sort of social muteness. But this widow is anything but voiceless. She stands up for herself. She makes her needs known. She becomes an active agent in her own life.

So here comes Elijah, expecting hospitality from this woman God had told him about.  He asks her for food. We just kind of expect that the widow will drop everything and prepare food for this foreign Holy man wanted by the authorities.  But she doesn’t do that.  She offers Elijah a drink of water.  But in terms of sustenance she protests.  She has nothing to share.  She has only enough for one final bitter, poignant meal, before hunger steals their lives from both she and her son.  It is a heart-rending scene.

Think about the position he is putting her in. To accommodate the prophet of God she would have to give away the very substance of her and her son’s livelihood and become a traitor to the King, which I am sure, was punishable by death.  She is being asked to put her and her son’s life at risk for God.

Our tradition holds up civil disobedience, conscientious objection, as the right thing to do. To stand with the oppressed or to take a stand in opposition to an unjust law, because human law takes a second seat to God desires for creation.  Finding living examples however is becoming increasingly difficult.  It’s getting a little late to ask those who went through the civil rights era, who put at risk their lives and their future for the cause of ending discrimination and institutional racism.  We have to turn to the movies to be reminded of those in Nazi Germany who hid Jews, Roman Catholics, homosexuals, or many others that were on Hitler’s political enemy list in the basements of their homes. They risked their own lives and the lives of their family members to do what is right in the sight of God. And some of them actually lost their lives as they were found out.

The thing is this, if the widow had given in to her basic instincts and had gone against her conscience, neither she, her son nor the Prophet Elijah would have survived the drought. What an unusual Gentile woman God picked out for this particular assignment.  She could have called the law on this Prophet from Israel, had him arrested and maybe have even received a reward for his capture.  But evidently she was able to do what her conscience, I’m sure directed by the Spirit of God, told her what was right.

The danger is that we know the rest of the story–that in the end God richly rewarded the widow and her son; they did not go hungry for the rest of the time of the draught.  A little later on in the same chapter, we read how Elijah is used by God to restore to the widow her deceased son.  And we want to believe that God always stands up for us, if we stand up for God.  God provides for those who obey God and do what is right.  I’d certainly like to assure you of that.  But I can’t.  At least not is this life.  When you or I chose to challenge the authorities or the prevailing opinions in our neighborhood or nation over a matter of injustice or oppression what we must be prepared to accept is rejection and punishment to the full extent of the law.  Otherwise it’s not a risk.

Our story is about two people.  The first is a valiant young and inexperienced person called to be a Prophet of God – his very name means Yahweh is my God.  He faces up to his call to challenge unrighteousness at the highest level at the risk of his life.

How about us this morning? What kind of decisions do we face in everyday life?  Are we struggling with what is God’s will?  My guess is that deep down, when you ask your own conscience, you already know what the right decision is.  Perhaps we can get inspired this morning by the example of the faithful widow. Most likely, our decisions aren’t even as difficult as hers, so let’s take courage this morning and let’s take joy in standing up for what is good and right in the sight of the Lord.  Amen.

Lord God, you are the God of history and you are the God of our lives.  We pray that you would help us to be attentive to the daily acts of obedience, to the small steps of faithfulness so that we, like the widow of Zarephath in helping Elijah, can be utilized in your hands.  Use us, we pray, use all of our little daily actions and weave them together in the way that only you can into the mighty tapestry of history.  And as we journey together, we will be grateful people.  In the name of Jesus Christ we pray.  Amen.

Finding Faith in Capernaum

After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. ²A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. ³When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. ⁴When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, ⁵for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.” ⁶And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; ⁷therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. ⁸For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” ⁹When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” ¹⁰When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.  Luke 7:1-10

I’ve always looked at this little story of Jesus’ coming home to Capernaum as being about Jesus, the Roman Centurion and his highly valued slave.  It has always had this wonderful quality of the expressed faith of a gentile requesting and receiving the healing grace of Jesus for one of his household.  I think I’ve somehow passed over the fact that Jesus never comes face to face with the Centurion though it was always clear that the servant was restored to health remotely.

So maybe it’s a story demonstrating Jesus’ great power to heal, even at a distance without even seeing much less touching the beneficiary of his power.  And yes it is about Jesus’ capacity to heal but it has always been about the Roman officer’s degree of faith in the abilities of a Jewish Rabbi.  It was so much so the text tells us that “Jesus ‘marveled’ (thaumazo) at the centurion’s faith. More often thaumazo is used to express the awestruckness of others as they witness the mighty deeds of Jesus. Here it is Jesus who marvels and was amazed and astonished.”  So the story must be about how even a shegetz, a goyim, the military leader of an occupying force, a gentile can have faith, faith enough to cause even Jesus to marvel.

But this time something different caught my eye.  In order for the Centurion and his slave to keep their distance, it meant that some people had to carry the concerns and the needs of the Centurion to Jesus.  The story says that first the Centurion sends Elders of the Capernaum Jewish community to Jesus to plead for the healing of his slave.  But they did even more – they shared with Jesus what a great fellow this military official was. How did the text have it? “He is worthy of having you do this for him, ⁵for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.”  Were it not for that group of Elders who take this concern to Jesus we wouldn’t have a story at all.

Later in the text we read that even more friends of the Centurion met Jesus while on the road to the Centurion’s home.  They carry the story of the Centurion’s faith to Jesus– how he understands what it means to be a person in authority.

The Capernaum Elders and the Centurion’s friends have gotten over looked in our retelling of this story of faithfulness.  This isn’t a story of the Centurion and Jesus – it is a story of a faithful community, people who are willing to carry the hopes and prayers of those in need to Jesus.  It is a community of faithfulness who connects you and me by caring for the needs of one another.

I’ve known times in my life and I’m guessing you have too when I knew that my needs and my story were being carried to Jesus by my friends.  And interestingly enough those weren’t times of my great faith or faithfulness,  they were times when my faith was shaky at best, when like the Centurion I felt remote from Jesus.  It was that beloved community who held me in prayer and carried my needs to Jesus.

So I guess we can conclude that this story in Luke is about great faith but it is mostly a story of the faithfulness of a caring community.  Even this man whose faith astonished Jesus relied on members of his community.

There are times when we are like the Centurion, held connected to Jesus by the prayers of our friends.  And then there are times when it falls to us to be one of the Elders and friends who carry the responsibility to hold another and their needs in the light of Christ. As Quakers we like to think of ourselves as Friends of Jesus – but times come when we need to be friends of one like the Centurion. But you know as well as I that praying for one who is our enemy, as in fact that Centurion was, can be difficult.  And he was not only an enemy he was an alien, different in every aspect of his life than the Jews.  And how hard it can be to hold such folks as that on our hearts.

And one last thing. It is found in the last verse of our text.  Luke writes: ¹⁰When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.  It was those same ones who carried to Jesus the needs of the valued servant and the Centurion who shared witness to answered prayer.  Can you see  yourself in this story?  Can you imagine yourself a friend of the slave owner who carries to Jesus the needs of another?  Can you see yourself as the Centurion, or even his slave, with great need and dependent on the prayers of others?  Can you imagine yourself a witness to the power of God in your life and in the lives of others?  What does it mean to be part of the community of faith?

Pentecost II

I’ve got a brother ten years younger than myself.  Our sister was five  years older than me.  There were things that took place in my family before my brother was born, things that I know about and my sister knew about, knowledge of a shared experiences.  But with my parents and my sister gone I am the sole repository of those memories. And, of course the same could be said of each of us and all those who have peopled human history. 

Susan and I have been married for forty six years.  Books couldn’t hold all the experiences that we’ve shared.  Sometimes what she recalls doesn’t always exactly fit my recollection but quite likely, more times than not, she is more correct than me.

The question of Pilate recorded in John 18 has yet to die: “What is truth?” Pilate asked of those who sought to prosecuted Jesus.

Just last week it fell to an ABC White House reporter to eat crow from having said he had “obtained” and “reviewed” emails that proved that the Administration intended to mis-lead the nation about the attack on Americans in Benghazi.  If you recall, his story set off a political firestorm.  It wasn’t true. After CNN rebutted his allegations the reporter for ABC conceded he had only been told about the emails by a source from the political opposition who claimed to have “reviewed the original documents ….” One journalism professor said of the reporter that he “…has dragged the entire news division at ABC into his self-dug pit. He got played.” So much for truth.

Truth presents huge problems, the biggest one, of course, at least for that ABC reporter, is finding a trustworthy source.  In our text for today Jesus said: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…”  (John 16:12-13).  The Greek word for Truth is Aleithia. It means unhidden or unforgotten.  Soren Kierkegaard  said that “The truth is a snare: you cannot have it without being caught. You cannot have the truth in such a way as to catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you.”

One section of John, Jesus, and History, a scholarly book aimed at including the Gospel of John in the “quest for the historical Jesus”(the principal editor being our own Paul Anderson) is entitled: Memory Holds The Key.  In the article John Painter supports the long held thought that the Gospel of John was written by the ‘beloved disciple’ when, as an old man, John was living in Ephesus, thus the only Gospel written by an eyewitness.  Quoting Craig Blomberg, Painter suggests that in contrast to the other three canonical gospels John weaves his sources together so thoroughly that they are shrouded behind the completed document. Blomberg is further quoted to say that “John (in his Gospel) has taken more sermonic liberties” in his portrayal of Jesus. Painter himself says: “I have come to the conclusion that, even if the author was a disciple of Jesus, he shows great freedom in the interpretation of the tradition.”  The point is that by including small nuggets of synoptic material John draws on both historical tradition as well as his own experience.

For the biblical scholar it gets richer still.  Painter says that at significant points the Evangelist deals with growth in understanding in relation to the phenomenon of memory.  Memory is more complex than we generally think.   Does a person’s memory of another person or an event change in the light of later experiences?  In Painter’s conclusion he says that it is clear to him that John goes to great lengths to make clear how certain events have transformed the memory of Jesus.  For John, the real Jesus is revealed through resurrection, glorification and departure and through the inspiring presence of the Spirit of Truth.  And certain elements concerning the historical Jesus, the Jesus of the past, remain essential to his memory, even though the inspired memory of the risen Lord has transformed his understanding.

To add to the complexity it is strongly suggested that the Gospel of John was written over several generations after Jesus’ earthly ministry with more than one hand involved.  And since the church was then facing new challenges to which Jesus did not speak, the community needed a theology that was not based solely on the past traditions about Jesus, they needed to have some way of understanding the things that Jesus never told them. And so they develop a theology of the Spirit that opens them to the on-going revelation of God that extends beyond the earthly ministry of Jesus. Shifting the emphasis of that verse from John 12 it reads: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (12: 13).

This perspective present us with a theology that moves us beyond a constricted biblicism. To be “Biblical” implies a dynamic, forever changing theology. To be “biblicist” is to freeze the streams that flow through the Bible and life, to settle for the stagnant air of unbending dogmatism instead of the Wind who blows where the Wind wills (John 3: 8). That Wind is the very Spirit to whom John appeals in today’s reading. To be Biblical in our understanding of our faith requires a willingness to reinterpret the nature of God and God’s relationship to humanity according to our own peculiar historical circumstances under the guidance of the Spirit of Truth.

Earlham School of Religion’s newest mailout told of a group of seminarians going to China.  They found that protestant Christianity in China has found it necessary to reinvent itself under a broad umbrella and discarding narrow denominationalism.  The church has been about that since the very beginning.  Today we hear a lot about new forms the Christian faith is taking within what is called a post Christian age.

If the Greeks were right about the meaning of truth and if Jesus was right about the gift of the Spirit of Truth and its work in our lives we are all the more appreciative of Keirkegaard’s understanding that it isn’t that we go trolling for truth, looking under every rock and critiquing every philosopher or theologian.  He said that we don’t grab hold of truth, it grabs us.  We can only have it as it snares us and makes of us its captive.  Truth isn’t an idea, a notion, an hypothesis or a creed.  It is being loving held hostage by Christ’s own spirit and our allowing that Spirit to fill all the empty places in our lives.  It scrubs out the residue of our less than inspired behaviors and acquisitions and then replaces in those places of our lives which we’ve conveniently filled with stuff extraneous to living a spirit led life, until we are completely filled by the love of Christ.

John 16:7-13

Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹about sin, because they do not believe in me; ¹⁰about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; ¹¹about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. ¹²“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Pentecost 2013

On Facebook this week someone posted a note from Johnny Cash.  In his own hand he had written: “I’m learning to meditate. Meditate: the listening half of prayer.  It’s neat.”

I loved it.  Not what I’d expect from Johnny Cash.

For me one of the most important verse in the whole Bible is the 22^nd verse of the 20^th Chapter of the Gospel of John.  It reads: “Then he breathed on them, saying ‘Receive the Holy Spirit!”  In the verse which precedes it Jesus says: “Peace be with you’, and then says, “As the Father sent me, so I send you.”  First it is an anointing, then a commissioning. The verse which follows it lays an awesome responsibility on each of us for it says: “If you forgive any man’s sins, they stand forgiven; if you pronounce them unforgiven, unforgiven they remain.”

The Gospel reading for today, Pentecost Sunday, is from the 14^th Chapter of John.  It includes the promise of this anointing of the followers of Jesus and by extension us to continue the spirit empowered ministry of God’s work in the world as begun by Jesus. You can hardly separate these twenty verses from the flow of John 13:31 through the end of the 17^th Chapter.  These are the very tender farewell conversations Jesus has with his closest followers bracketed by Judas leaving the gathering as night falls and Jesus’ own departure to the garden of Gethsemane to await is arrest, trial and execution.

Roger Cotton, an Assemblies of God Old Testament professor writes that the Hebrew word for the verb to anoint is the root of messiah, which means “anointed one.” Anointing was used as a symbolic act for officially designating and setting apart a person for a certain public leadership function in the community. Ancient Israel anointed three kinds of leaders: Priests, Kings and Prophets.  A major difference between Israel and the other nations was that when God had someone anointed or authorized for leadership God also provided the empowering of the Holy Spirit to do the job.

1^st John 2:20 reads “You…are among the anointed; this is the gift of the Holy One, and by it you all have knowledge”. And the 27^th verse reads: “But as for you, the anointing which you received from him stays with you; you need no other teacher, but learn all you need to know from his anointing, which is real and no illusion. As he taught you, then, dwell in him.”  Paul, in 2^nd Corinthians 1: writes: “…and if you and we belong to Christ, guaranteed as his and anointed, it is all God’s doing; it is God also who has set his seal upon us, and as a pledge of what is to come has given the Spirit to dwell in our hearts.”  According to Roger Cotton all Christians are anointed and thus are authorized and empowered agents of God. We all have direct access to God and God’s truth; we have the Spirit within who will lead us into all truth, in Christ and enable us to be His witnesses.

Thus, the anointing is not something that comes and goes. What changes is the experience of the demonstration of the results of God’s anointing by the Holy Spirit through an individual, according to the need and God’s purposes in a situation. But the biblical concept of anointing is that all Christians are anointed, meaning all are authorized and empowered agents of God. All have the Spirit within and thus the power of God can be released through any of us at any time that God’s chooses and to the extent that the person is yielding.

Eckhart Tolle, a Christian Scientist, reminds us that anything is possible — for anyone. But he wasn’t talking about living a life of leisure filled with expensive cars, beach homes, and extravagant vacations, but an experience brimming with the kind of spiritual insights that not only make this life worth living but decidedly more fulfilling. The problem is, whenever you say “spiritual insight” there’s often the assumption that you’re talking about something too ethereal to be practical or too elusive to be achieved in this lifetime.  Tolle said: “Some people awaken spiritually without ever coming into contact with any meditation technique or any spiritual teaching. They may waken simply because they can’t stand the suffering anymore.” He cited examples of those who have either been told that they have a short time to live or have been given an exceptionally long prison sentence. In both cases, any thought of a future has been effectively dashed, forcing these individuals into what Tolle describes as “an intense awareness” that there is only the present moment with “no more future to escape into mentally.”  And what’s the result? A lot less suffering:  “That is the real spiritual awakening, when something emerges from within you that is deeper than who you thought you were. So, the person is still there, but one could almost say that something more powerful shines through the person.”

The good news, according to Mr. Tolle, is that in order to experience this awakening, “you don’t have to wait for the diagnosis by the doctor or to be put in prison… nor do you have to do 30,000 hours of meditation or live in an ashram for 20 years. Once you get a glimpse of it you can invite it into your daily life.”

But where do these insights come from? Is it simply a matter of wishful thinking? Or is it perhaps something more reliable, more effective than that?  “Jesus said ‘the kingdom of heaven is within you,'” observed Mr. Tolle, implying that this health-inducing understanding may be lot closer than we thought: And then Jesus said — when they asked him, ‘Where is the kingdom of heaven and when is it going to come?’ — he said, ‘The kingdom of heaven does not come with signs to be perceived. You cannot say, ah, it’s over here or look, it’s over there, for I tell you the kingdom of heaven is within you.'”

How nice it is to be reminded that the proverbial “kingdom of heaven” we’ve been hearing about for at least two millennia — this “dimension of spaciousness” or what I might characterize as the understanding of our true spiritual identity — is “within you.” Within us all. Here and now.  He adds: I suppose all that remains is the willingness — and the humility — to put this insight into practice.

Now I thought that was pretty great, to find a Christian Science practitioner and an Assembly of God seminary professor saying very much the same thing.

So here is the promise:

John 14:8-27

⁸Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”⁹Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.¹¹Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.

¹²Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

¹⁵”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

¹⁸”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” ²²Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” ²³Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. ²⁴Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

²⁵”I have said these things to you while I am still with you. ²⁶But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.²⁷Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

As Gospel stories go, this one is truly odd. It tells of Jesus leaving Galilee and walking to what is present day Lebanon. So, I asked myself,  why on earth would a Galilean Jew make the trip to Tyre? First, it was a long way to walk.  Depending on the route Jesus choose the trip would have been about 85 miles one way. Tyre could not have been more different than rural Galilee.  It was a booming seaport city with two harbors serving strong economic forces in the region.  Among other things Tyre was known for a much sought after scarlet-purple dye that it produced and glassware and was a leader in shipbuilding. They even minted their own coin. Before a causeway was built, Tyre was an island sitting a half mile out into the Mediterranean.   It was home to a Roman hippodrome that seated 20,000 spectators, a huge triple-bay triumphal arch, an aqueduct and Roman gymnasiums and baths.  It was a center of Canaanite paganism with temples to Astarte and other deities. It was a vacation destination.  It was a pagan play ground and known to be heathen by the Jews.  So why on earth would this itinerant rabbi choose to go there?

Mark’s Gospel tells us what led up to this odd story.  Jesus had only recently learned that Herod had executed his  cousin and mentor, John the Baptist.  Jesus had gained notoriety as a traveling miracle worker.  Following his feeding the five thousand wherever he went people laid out their sick  and begged him to let them simply touch the edge of his cloak. And it adds,  “and all who touched him were cured.”  Evidently seeking to combat the growing popularity of this miracle worker a group of Pharisees and religious lawyers encounter him.  Instead of being struck by the greatness of Jesus’ ministry they point to the fact that  his followers didn’t wash their hands before eating.  He told them that it was what came out of a person, not what went in that defiled  Maybe they were mostly interested in protecting their belief system from the disruptive view of this itinerant upstart. Or maybe they were more interested in following their own traditions than living in obedience to the commandment of God.  Jesus tells them it’s not the dirt on your hands that defile you. It is what comes out of you, not what goes in,  that defiles you. Mark has it right.  He called them hypocrites.

He could deal with the people misunderstanding his ministry, he was trying to deal with his grief over the death of John and the attacks of the religious leaders of his day were to be expected.  But for Jesus it got even worse.  When, alone with his disciples they too challenged what he had said.  After all this time with his disciples, after sending them out two by two in ministry, disheartened he ask: “Are you as dull as the rest?”  He spells it out for them.  It is from inside, out of a person’s heart from which come evil thoughts, acts of fornication, theft, murder, adultery, ruthless greed, malice, fraud, indecency, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. “…evil things all come from inside and they defile the man”.  The next line in Mark is ‘Then he left….’  I can’t blame him.  This is where our text takes up… Mark 7:24-37

²⁴From there he (Jesus) set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, ²⁵but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. ²⁶Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁸But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” ²⁹Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

³¹Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³²They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. ³³He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. ³⁴Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” ³⁵And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. ³⁶Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. ³⁷They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Mark says Jesus went away to Tyre and found a house to stay in and he did not want to be recognized.  I really have to wonder who accompanied him?  Did he go alone?  Traveling with his usual entourage, his disciples or even a select few would have been counter to his intended anonymity.  According to Luke and Mark, long before Jesus ventured to Tyre the people there knew about him and the things he did because some had experienced the healing grace he had offered and then returned home.

Probably the biggest issue for us is how to deal with  palpable rudeness of Jesus in this story.  It is so contradictory to our understanding of his character.  Nowhere else does he refuse a direct request to heal someone. Nowhere else does he respond to one seeking aid with a bald insult, calling her and her afflicted daughter “dogs.” Is he categorizing these people as unclean gentiles? Are they “dogs” because they are wealthy? Was it because the Syrians and Phoenicians had historically not been Israel’s nicest neighbors? Is he lumping the mother and daughter in with other Tyrians who had recently oppressed the local Jewish population?  Although Jesus’ motives are not clear, the thrust of his refusal is. And it is entirely out of character with our usual image of his being generously compassionate.

Somewhere along the line I’ve probably made the argument that Jesus’ initial denial was uttered with a playful gleam in his eye, that he’s giving the woman a chance to express the faith he knows dwells within her before he gladly heals her daughter. This would make the story unique within Mark, and make the woman the only person who has to endure a derogatory slur before receiving Jesus’ mercy. I don’t think I can support the idea that Jesus was making her pass a test before he ministered to her and her daughter.

I guess if you get really literal in his saying “Let the children be fed first,” Jesus is implying that the time is not right. Blessings may come to gentiles, in time, but for now his work is on behalf of Jews. His answer is not  “Absolutely not,” rather  “Not just yet.” It’s the strange lack of compassion or imagination on Jesus’ part that makes us resist such a reading. For some of us it is our reluctance to believe that a divine Jesus might be persuaded to change his mind.

But perhaps Jesus means what he says and has no intention of expelling a demon from the Syrophoenician girl. Given that interpretation it is all about this mother arguing with Jesus until she wins.

She doesn’t demand to be treated as one of the “children.” Look, Mister, I’m not asking for a seat at the table. My daughter is suffering. All I need from you is a crumb or two. I know that will do the job. But I’m going to need it right now. Parents of really sick children don’t respond well to told to wait.

The text says that Jesus expels the demon dia touton ton logon — “because of this reasoning”  thatthe woman puts forward. It’s because of her logos, her statement that “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Her argument. Her logic.

It’s not simply that she cleverly reconfigures Jesus’ metaphors of crumbs and canines to fit her desires. Her words contain tremendous theological insight. She recognizes the potency of this “food”.  She recognizes — somehow — a certain abundance about what Jesus brings.  Go ahead, children, eat all you want. But what if your table can’t contain all the food Jesus brings?  The excess must therefore start spilling to the floor — even now.

In any case, on leaving Tyre, Jesus’ work is changed. He cures a man who cannot hear and can barely speak, then feeds 4,000 people. Those events occur in the Decapolis, a region of intentional refuge mainly populated by gentiles. Although Mark doesn’t call attention to the ethnic identity of these people, it seems Jesus has taken this Syrophoenician mother’s wisdom to heart. The timeline has been accelerated; gentiles receive blessings, too, even now. The woman’s persistence benefits more than just one little girl.  Her persistence persuades Jesus to do new things in his ministry.

So thanks be to God for this tenacious Syrophoenician theologian and mother. But don’t lose track of the simplicity of it all. Her theology doesn’t originate in books and study; it’s an expression of painfully experienced need and fierce motherly love.

Jesus commends the woman’s logos (“reasoning”) and says nothing about pistis (“faith”)  and that is strange indeed in light of other the many passages in Mark that connect faith to receiving blessings.   For some interpreters, this makes the Syrophoenician mother mostly a model of determination or verbal dexterity rather than faith.  I rather think she makes us rethink what  “faith” means. Did you notice her persistent efforts, refusing to go away until she gets what she came for,  her hopeful insight by refusing to believe even a tiny speck of grace isn’t out of reach and knowing just a scrap can make the difference for her, and — in the end — her trusting acceptance, her willingness to take Jesus at his word and journey home alone to confirm her daughter’s healing.

Faith is hardly about getting Jesus’ name or titles right, its not about reciting the right creed or articulating proper doctrine. Faith is about clinging to Christ and expecting Christ  to heal, to restore, to save. It’s about demanding Christ do what Christ says Christ comes to do.   Let her faith compel all of us to recognize new implications in a truly abundant gospel.

Reflecting the Elephant in the Meeting Room

A Message Shared by Kitty D. Benedixen-Park in

Meeting for Worship at Spokane Friends

May 5, 2013

Elephants have very sophisticated hearing, and incredible infrasound, which is very low-frequency sound that can travel long distances. Elephants can communicate in voices we never hear. They grieve deeply for their loved ones, shed tears, and suffer depression. They also have compassion that projects beyond their own kind to others in distress.

I recently emailed a short musing on the parable about six blind men touching the elephant to a few friends for their enjoyment. And, it ended up being intercepted by an elder who asked me to share it with you. It’s entitled Reflecting the Elephant in the Meeting Room. Now for those of us unfamiliar with the ancient parable, I will summarize it and then read my reflections and finally, since my husband says everything I write needs to be deconstructed, expound more fully on it.

There are many versions of the parable, but generally six blind men touch an elephant to see what it is like. Each feels a different part of the pachyderm and then they compare notes. In some versions, they stop talking, start listening and then begin collaborating in order to “see” the full elephant. In one version each asserts their own views and come to blows over whose view is right. I think the 19^th century poem by John Godfrey Saxe is amusing and begins with this stanza:

It was six men of Indostan to learning much inclined,

Who went to see the Elephant (though all of them were blind),

That each by observation might satisfy his mind.

They conclude the elephant is like a wall, snake, spear, tree, fan, or rope depending upon where they touch. The last stanza, in Saxe’s version, the conflict is never resolved.

So oft in theologic wars the disputant, I ween,

rail on in utter ignorance of what each other mean,

and prate about an elephant, not one of them has seen.

Reflecting the Elephant in our Meeting Room

Once we agree the elephant in the Meeting room exists, then what? It seems appropriate to begin by acknowledging our ignorance of the elephant? For we all know a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Once our sensory experience provides us with a scrap of data, it’s just all too easy to get puffed up and intolerant about it. Like the six blind men in the ancient Indian parable, we are certain we have touched the entirety of the elephant. And while the acquisition of a little experiential knowledge has indeed awakened us, are we not risking a greater blindness by denouncing others’ experiences of the elephant? The Gospel of John warns against such declarations of full sightedness. It is because we claim to see that our sin remains (9:41).

But journeying forth, we soon discover we have failed to see other parts. We have merely touched a lofty peak of what is an expansive mountain range. The elephant is fuller, grander and more hidden than our sense perception allowed. Like Paul, “we see through the mirror (to esoptron) dimly.” We experience truth but only in an unfinalized, imperfect form. And while we have come to some measure (metron) of understanding through personal reflection, the face in the mirror remains strangely our own. Our personal filters have determined both the questions we raised and the conclusions we reached. Though created with an inner capacity to recognize the elephant (Rom 1:18-32), our confirmation bias distorts this knowledge (Rom 1:28) and we find ourselves worshiping “dark mirrors” of our own creation. Our insights into eternal mysteries do indeed grow “strangely dim.” And like the the six blind men, our blindness now becomes an opportunity for humility. We have learned how our situatedness shapes all our apprehensions. And somehow thoughtful uncertainty holds more integrity for us now than over-reaching credulity. Like the blind men touching the elephant, we were right in what we affirmed, yet wrong in what we denied (Niebuhr). If others experience the elephant differently, please be gentle with them in the midst such ambiguity, for we may be touching the tusk or ear of the same elephant. Let’s not be found quenching the Spirit at work in others! After all, we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor 5:7). The parable exhorts all spiritual seekers to learn the discipline of “dark mirrors” for we see now only reflections, not “face to face” (1 Cor 13:12). Our vision is not yet 20/20. Our limited and indirect glimpses of eternal truths require full honesty about the nature of our blindness, especially in the gathered presence of the Holy. Apophatic vision, what words cannot say, necessitates a lexicon of humility in light of the “evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1).

As we grow in our quest for truth, we don’t have to throw out earlier experiences and understandings in favor of new found insights. If we learn anything from the parable of the blind men, we learn this is not always necessary or wise. We may, after all, be discarding the tail because we have just touched the leg for the first time. Learning to value and appreciate previous understandings as well as new insights of continuing revelation is a vital part of spiritual journeying. Yet, our individual finitude requires collective discernment. We will never be able to contain or grasp the entirety of the Holy One who far exceeds human understanding. Experiential knowledge eludes human formulations because it is always incomplete and incalculable, requiring thoughtful and faithful weighing of all things (1 Cor 14:29).

It’s what we do with our experiences of God that matters most. If we find competing experiences compelling, we don’t have to randomly choose between them. We can wait till there is a motive for preferring one over the other. If we linger longer still, we may even discover they are but different sides of a true paradox, or the tusk and the ear of the same elephant. We may never fully be able to integrate or reconcile our disparate experiences. We may have to learn to be at peace with the tension of paradox, where rules prove less useful. Parker Palmer suggests we “live the contradictions” rather than settle for simple either/or solutions. And it just may be that this is the place where spiritual transformation happens: on the boundaries and at the thresholds. For the goal was never to possess the truth but merely to seek the truth. Religion always involves us in a grasping, but faith is being grasped (Barth). The author of Mark’s gospel describes spiritual journeying as an intentional movement of following Jesus on the way. It is dynamic, actively moving toward and seeking that “hidden wholeness” that is part of the unity of all things. We may never discover how all the parts cohere, how everything fits together. We are asked only to be en route. But take care, for each and every glimpse of God’s truth is so momentary and precious a gift that we dare not discount or dismiss any along the way.

The first axiom of systematic theology is that all our beliefs must fit logically and consistently together. As a Quaker, I reject this whole thesis. I have sensed both the mystery and mercy of God’s grace at the threshold of ambiguity, among life’s many conflicting and contradictory experiences. Why should I reduce my experiences to one set of beliefs, one particular history of interpretation of the biblical text or even a single metaphor? As I open myself more and more to experiencing different aspects of God, I am less enthusiastic about butchering the elephant in order to gain a few tusks. We each have experiences of God that others have overlooked. Why not let all the various parts reflect each other? Let each experience, every insight, hold counsel with every other, though we may never reach any approximation of consensus. There are some experiences of God, some insights, some truths that simply require the use of different metaphors to express. It is difficult to give an accurate account of the elephant’s tusk with metaphors derived from touching its ear. Anyway, why should I choose between a tail, an ear or a tusk? Each is a framework through which I gain perspectives that I might otherwise miss, each a metaphor foregrounding certain things. I can hold them all in creative tension through the discipline of dark mirrors. I don’t have to favor one metaphor over others or call one right to the exclusion of others. In the presence of the tacit immensity of the Holy, it is better to be inclusive rather than exclusive and also more humble.

Kitty D. Bendixen-park 4/16/2013

Explication:

It takes a great deal of humility to acknowledge the nature of our blindness. And it’s not just about the reflected nature of all truth. We’re created with the ability to recognize God (Rom 1:18-21), but we each distort this knowledge. We prefer the “dark mirrors” (ainigma, = enigma, riddle, dim, obscure) of our own creation rather than the transcendent realities they reflect. We know from modern science that every measurement inevitably distorts the reality that is being measured. So, we live by faith that the reflected images to which we have access contain a measure of truth.

But then, Paul says, we even exchange the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25). Claiming to be wise, we become fools (Rom 1:22). Whenever we make idols of our interpretations and absolutize our partial truths, we begin to lie, Paul says, and suppress the truth of what we have done. We begin to deceive ourselves, pretending to be something we’re not (2 Cor 3:18; Gal 6:3-5). We conceal the truth from ourselves because we want to appear blameless in our own eyes, we want to be justified on the basis of our own efforts (Rom 10:2-3; Phil 3:3-9).

Daniel Goleman, studying the psychology of self-deception, writes that the roots of self-deception seem to lie in the mind’s ability to allay or put off anxiety by distorting awareness. Simply put, denial soothes. This pattern of self-deception, in both individuals and groups, is in keeping with Paul’s view of the power of idolatrous images to prevent a vision of the truth.

At his conversion, Paul discovered to his great shock his own self-deception. Prior to this, he had been worshiping the mirror of religious law. This led him to oppose Christianity. But when truth revealed itself in a new and unexpected manner, in an iconoclastic Galilean peasant, Paul the Pharisee, abandoned his interpretive schemas and idols. The appearance of the risen Christ meant that he had been looking at life in a distorted manner, even if religious. Paul learned that because of God’s unconditional love and extravagant grace, he could live with his own dark, cracked mirrors. Paul learned to accept himself as a limited creature whose knowledge and prophecy were “in part” and he encouraged his communities to collectively evaluate all things in light of the Christ-event. Even if God’s will is glimpsed by inspired people, it still has to be weighed. All of us are called to ascertain what is the will of God (Rom 12:2). The discipline of dark mirrors requires the collective assessment and insight from all of our varied members in order to guard against the kind of human self-deception that always distorts the truth.

Paul’s understanding of self-deception is congruent with what is known as confirmation bias. We all filter, select, and remember information that confirms what we already think. We all tend to favor, listen to ideas, and read books that agree with what we already believe. We love people who affirm our partial truths we suspect those who don’t. We suppress contrary information and interpret inconclusive evidence as supporting our existing positions. This is why our diversity is so important, because it helps rectify our partial knowledge and biases. Without our diversity our insights into eternal mysteries would indeed grow strangely dim.

You see, we need each other, especially those with whom we disagree. I need you, I need this community, for you can tell me things about myself that I am unaware of, you can see parts of me that I try to filter out and distort. You can see the negative space around me, I don’t have that vantage point. You are a lens reflecting back to me my own blindness, the partiality of my own truth. And I am that for you. And together we’re learning to mirror each other hopefully in loving and gentle ways even as our limitations and partialities are being painfully exposed.

“So what are we supposed to do?” someone asked me. Well, I can think of many things. For one, if you are inclined to judge or tell people they are going to hell because they don’t believe the way you do, Stop it. We don’t know that. That is up to God. And God says “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Rom 9:15). We look at people through the dark mirrors of external appearances, but thankfully, God sees and knows our inner hearts.

Also, we can learn to be more gentle with others through times of change, for many are afraid of new ideas and approaches to faith. Many simply don’t want to touch different parts of the elephant. So as we continue to share our feelings and experiences, let’s do so with humility, kindness, and with the knowledge that change and newness might actually be giving us all an opportunity to grow, to glimpse a part of God that we have never touched before or even thought possible. These are precious gifts that offer us insight into ourselves and into a larger experience of the truth about God.

We can also expand our musical canon so that our music speaks to the diverse needs and experiences of our whole Meeting. Introducing new music is not “wrong,” but neither is it complete. Likewise, quiet, reflective music or even choruses are not wrong but neither are they complete. All music was new at one time, even our favorite hymns.

Remaining open to new experiences and aspects of God does not mean we believe everything or prefer nothing. It simply means that we remember that no one person or group’s experience of God encompasses all there is to know about God’s thoughts and ways.

How we conduct ourselves inside our Meeting is important, but it doesn’t end there. Even with our partial knowledge, God is still kicking us out the door to share our experiences with others….not because we are right and they’re wrong, but because the more we share, the bigger and fuller our understandings of the things of God become.

Admitting our partial knowledge is important in social and political discussions as well. There is nothing wrong with feeling strongly about an issue, but it will not get resolved without the kind of humility that knows our ways are not God’s. Maybe all sides could use their partial truths to help create something much greater and wider by combining and sharing and collaborating.

So what are we supposed to do? These are some ideas. You can think of your own. Now let me share what I’m learning as I try faithfully to reflect my experiences of God. For the last two years, my journey has taken me to a place of unknowing. It has been a path more about my own ignorance than one of ecstasy. I have had to travel by ways in which, I am not, and know not, in order to be present for people whose memories are not. Whose identities are both living and dead. It is a place where deeper communion is accomplished more often without words, beyond the life of the mind that I so cherish. But I am also an artist and so I know how to feel my way about in the dark, to intuit, to test the many waters beyond sense and notion. And what I thought I went for is not at all what I’ve found. It’s so much more. There are other places where I could reflect God’s loving acceptance, but this is the place for me right now in an adult family home for dementia. I am not there to fix, verify, instruct, or save. I am there to kneel before God whose ineffable presence abounds in their midst; to pray in a place where experience moves me beyond the power of words, to a deeper union and fuller communion.

As my mother’s memories depart, part of me is going with her. But as I live in the present moment with her, affirming her identity, she is being born again in me, in living memories for my future. We are traveling together through an unknown and unremembered gate, and I abide with her so that she may never have to say “my God my God, why have you forsaken me.” So I try to reflect value and love to her, here, now, in her present moments, beyond cognition if need be. I do this in remembrance of her. And, because of God’s tender mercies, I continue to experience new parts of the elephant, parts not known, because not looked for, but found in the stillness and silence beyond words. I try to be a Christ-light, communicating love through touch, feeling, and intuition with people whose dementia is costing them not less than everything. Leaving Christ for Christ, I continue to experience new aspects of God in the least of these, incarnate in their human condition and they in mine. And I am so thankful, and so grateful, that the elephant in that house, and in our Meeting room, and in our world, never forgets.

So what are we supposed to do? We are reflected in each other. Encourage one another, then, to speak their own truth about God. Each person’s truth is important and needs to be shared. And as we humbly share our experiences of God with others, our own blinders will be removed, the scales will fall more and more from our eyes, because others will be sharing with us their own understandings as well.

God allows all of us, even in our blindness to come and touch….just as Jesus let Thomas put his hands on his side and grasp his feet. We can share with the world our experiences of touching a part of the Holy One, who indeed has become our living Lord.

Jesus asks “For which of these (works) are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy’”.  It wasn’t the Messianic implications that whips them into a murderous rage.   They were enraged by Jesus’ claim to be “one with the Father.”

John 10:22-38

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, ²³and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. ²⁴So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” ²⁵Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; ²⁶but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. ²⁷My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. ³⁰The Father and I are one.” ³¹The Jews took up stones again to stone him. ³²Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” ³³The Jews answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” ³⁴Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? ³⁵If those to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’ —and the scripture cannot be annulled— ³⁶can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? ³⁷If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. ³⁸But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

It was the Festival of Dedication, a celebration of the dedication of the Temple and a commemoration of Israel’s deliverance.  Now days the Jews call it Hanukah. John tells us that Jesus was walking in the place where the King would declare his judgments and exercise justice for those who were brought before him. This is the place where justice was meted out – no place could have been more appropriate for this conversation with the leaders of the faith community.  Justice is something for which Jesus’ life and teachings were all about.  The leaders had Messiah on their minds and given the timing Jesus’ walk on the Solomon’s portico was loaded with Messianic implications.  Of course, this was not the man they had in mind for the job. The presenting question put to him by the religious leaders, huddled from the wind at the south east end of the outer court of the Temple that cold winter day was understandable though a bit less than sincere.  What they wanted to know was whether the power Jesus was displaying in the work of his ministry was of God or of some other power in the universe.

“If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly” (10:24).  Jesus points to the works he has been doing as testimony to his messiah-ship. “My works are your answer but you don’t want to see what is right in front of your eyes.”  According to New Testament scholar John Ashton, there was no inherent blasphemy in Jesus claiming to be the Messiah. In Jesus day there were innumerable pretenders to Messiahship. Of the other messianic pretenders were accused of blasphemy.  Why were they already picking up stones to stone him? Jesus asks “For which of these (works) are you going to stone me?” ³³The Jews answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy”  It wasn’t the Messianic implications that whips them into a murderous rage.   They were enraged by Jesus’ claim to be “one with the Father.”

In the Gospel of John the title Son of God constitutes a claim to divinity. This is the claim that was blasphemous to the Jewish leaders. That they didn’t stone him on the spot is a miracle that the text doesn’t explain.  He responds to them by quoting from Psalm 82.  The fragment in John is of the 6^th verse alone.  It’s helpful to read the whole passage.

¹God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: ²“How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah ³Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. ⁴Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” ⁵They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk around in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. ⁶I say, “You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you; ⁷nevertheless, you shall die like mortals, and fall like any prince.” ⁸Rise up, O God, judge the earth; for all the nations belong to you!

On Solomon’s porch, the place where justice is meted out, Jesus calls to the minds of the religious elite this passage from the Psalms which establishes the fact that they too must own divinity and thus responsibility. That to which he lays claim is something to which they too should embrace. “You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you” the Psalmist penned.  The chord struck home:  they had not given justice to the weak and the orphan.  They had not maintained the rights of the most vulnerable and destitute among them.  Rather than rescuing the weak and the needy they were responsible for delivering them into the hands of the wicked.  I’m not sure whether it comes as good news at all that we, all of us, are children, sons and daughters of God,  that is members of the divine family.  With that comes a huge responsibility.

Did no one ever tell you?  Do you know it?  You are a child of God, just as much as was Jesus and those of his opposition, and as part of the divine family you are given an important role in this world, to care for those who can’t care for themselves. Maybe like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day it’s something you’d prefer to deny.  In avoiding our responsibility do we abdicate our heritage. Jesus pushes them and us to create a culture of accountability. Sure it’s a challenge to each of us is to own rather than disown our birthright.  Are you a child of God?  And the answer is yes, by virtue of your very being.  The challenge is to grow into the fullness of that identity – which in simple terms means becoming more Christ-like.

A little good news here. We aren’t left to work this out alone.  We have the whole of Judeo-Christian tradition and the Law as a school master.  We have the Gospels that give us a portrait of Jesus, what being Christ-like looks like.  We have the gift of Christ’s own spirit that blows through us, blowing away the garbage of our minimalist ideas of self hood and stirring that spark of life that lies within us.  We have a community of others on the same pilgrimage to wholeness to encourage us.

James Dobbins wrote that: When we speak of the divinization of our soul, and that’s what we are talking about – our being divine, we speak of a doctrine that has been held by the Church since the very beginning. Prominent spiritual fathers have written about it but too few Christians are familiar with it.  A Franciscan priest said that in seminary they spent three years studying this in a course series on mystical theology. However, they were advised not to devote much time to teaching it to their congregations because it is not something which can be covered in a fifteen minutes, requires a series of classes in an adult education setting, and many adults are not interested in a series. The assumption is that people are more interested in the quick sound bite kind of education than in something that takes meaningful reflection. That is obviously a generalization, but a sign of the times.  Jean Corbon, in his book The Liturgy Lived connects our divinity to the experience of worship.  He wrote: “If we consent in prayer to be flooded by the river of life, our entire being will be transformed; we will become trees of life and be increasingly able to produce the fruit of the Spirit: we will love with the very Love that is our God. It is necessary at every moment to insist on this radical consent, this decision of the heart by which our will submits unconditionally to the energy of the Holy Spirit; otherwise we shall remain subject to the illusion created by mere knowledge of God and talk about him and shall in fact remain apart from him in brokenness and death. To this transformative power of the river of life that permeates the entire being (person and nature), the undivided tradition of the Churches gives an astonishing name that sums up the mystery of the lived liturgy: theosis or divinization. Through the baptism and of the Holy Spirit we become as we find in 2^nd Peter “sharers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4).

A couple of years ago Phyllis Tickle wrote of this 82^nd  Psalm saying that she had never understood the Psalms.  She wrote: I saw God seated in the center and highest seat, lording over the lesser gods who ranged from unattractive to beautiful beyond measure, but all of whom did Him obeisance, even as I knew they should. Years later, as I matured, the opening scenes of Job made perfect sense to me, for I was already in love with that mighty council of God and the powers and the gods.  But then I grew up, which for a Christian child means that I wandered—or was led, perhaps—away from the inexplicable toward the Gospels.  In our passage of John 10:34-36  the people are about to stone Jesus. The stones are, in fact, in their hands, when he asks them for which of his actions they desire to kill him. Not for his deeds, they tell him, but because he dares to claim himself as God. And his answer?  “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “you are gods”’? If those to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’– and the scripture cannot be annulled—can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Ahh… there it hinges, does it not? All of christology and, deliciously enough, all of anthropology, as well. Who are we? Who was he as one of us?

Was Jesus self defense convincing or just clever?  Did he just want to embarrass them or is there really something to what is in Psalm 82.  This Psalm not only showed that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah, it also had a very pointed message to those who had rejected Him and were attempting to put Him to death and to us.  Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? (John 10:34).

The relevance of Psalm 82 to the people of our Lord’s day is all too obvious.  It would be easier if what is at stake is how the people of Jesus’ day must ascertain the person and character of the Righteous Judge.  And yes, even today, we must make the same decision. But beyond that this psalm reminds us of our true heritage,  that we too are children of God and we are called to exercise our God-given power consistent with God’s character and commands in caring for what God created.

I’ve got this nagging suspicion that we prefer to see ourselves like the stuff that tides deposits on the sea shore – irresponsibly floating where currents take us.  And then we let God be God, to intervene or not in the huge matters of righteousness and justice and peace.  We abdicate our true character.  As the Psalmist says and as Jesus quotes; “you are gods” and with divinity comes accountability.

Waylaid On the Road to Righteousness.

A Japanese Christian wrote of the experience of his country before and then a precisely 8:16 on the morning of August 6^th, 1945.  In 1941 the Emperor of Japan declared war on the United States and its allies.  At first the war effort made of Japan a bee hive of economic activity.  Next it endured an inferno of unrelenting of bombings.  And then, in a flash of a hundred suns, everything stopped.  He went on to write that an unexpected halt is a religious experience if it occasions a discontinuity between who a person thinks themselves and who they think themselves to be become; a moment of crisis, a moment of truth.

I am indebted to Eric Barreto to see how Luke introduces to us Saul of Tarsus.  When first we hear of him Luke tells us that he was standing guard over the coats of those who  stoned Stephen and not as a merely passive witness. No, he “approved of their killing him”. Saul’s reputation grows to that of the arch-persecutor intent on “ravaging the church … dragging off both men and women,” to prison and even death. Acts, as we know, was written by a Christian for other Christians. That is, Luke’s readers know the story of Saul and how the movie ends! But by introducing him in this way, Luke establishes the dramatic halt and the discontinuity that redirects Saul’s life.  This is foundational how we understand God’s graceful but not always subtle or easy pull on our lives.

Acts 9:1-20

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest ²and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. ³Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. ⁴He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” ⁵He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. ⁶But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” ⁷The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. ⁸Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.⁹For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

¹⁰Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” ¹¹The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, ¹²and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” ¹³But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; ¹⁴and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” ¹⁵But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; ¹⁶I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” ¹⁷So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” ¹⁸And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, ¹⁹and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, ²⁰and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”

To see this as a simple account of Saul’s conversion is to miss half the story. Saul does not just turn away from a previous way of life; more importantly, he is called, commissioned to walk in a wholly new “Way” like the experience of Isaiah or one of the twelve.  The point is emphasized by the fact that within this story there is another calling.

In Damascus there was a follower of the way named Ananias. Ananias is spoken to by the voice of the Lord and is called to visit a house where the feared man from Tarsus named Saul had taken lodging.   I think it would be fair to characterize Ananias’ response to God’s call on his life as:  “You’ve got to be kidding.  I’ve heard about this man and all the harm he’s done to your people…” The risk of even being in Saul’s presence could be a death sentence!  It reminded me of a photo I saw on Facebook of a chicken walking by a Kentucky Fried Chicken sign.  The caption read “Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” But the Lord is unrelenting and reveals to Ananias in one brief sentence the nature of Saul’s call and the form Paul’s ministry will take in the remaining chapters of Acts. Luke says “He will bring the gospel to kings and Gentiles alike. And he will suffer for the sake of the gospel.”  He also reveals what is central to the gospel. The good news is expansive and broad. It reaches to the widest edges of the world seeking the lost, but God also turns to the powerful of the world and demands justice, grace, and peace. Regardless I can’t help but imagine Ananias praying the 23^rd Psalm as he approached the where Saul was said to be staying.

It will be much later, in Antioch, before the faithful followers are first called “Christians.” Prior to this time the movement was known as followers of “The Way.” “The Way” is a powerful metaphor for the early church and for us. Instead of being identified by a set of beliefs, these faithful communities were known by their character in the world. Christian faith was a way of life and one that impelled individuals and communities to leave the safe confines of home and places of worship to walk on the road God had set out. “The Way” suggests that faith is a living, active way of life.

As Saul travels the 150 miles from Jerusalem toward Damascus he is struck by a heavenly light and addressed by a heavenly voice. This voice belongs to none other than Jesus. What an excellent reminder that Jesus is never absent from our lives. Jesus asks Saul why he has sought to persecute him. Jesus’ instructions to Saul are specific yet ambiguous. Go into the city, and there you will discover what you need to do.

We do not simply “know” about our vocation as we would an itinerary on a travel schedule. Much less do we choose it! Instead vocation is something that happens to us. It is an experience, an uninvited breaking in that upsets all our plans and expectations. There are four things common to God’s call on people’s lives. First, the idea of a call implies an agent outside of ourselves. We do not simply “choose” a course of action, rather we respond to a summons.  Second, the summons is often counter to our idea of what we want to  about. Abraham doubted that God’s covenant with him could be fulfilled. Moses complained that the Israelites, to whom he was sent by God, had never listened to him. Jeremiah not only resisted his call, but continued to complain that God had overpowered him and placed him in an impossibly difficult circumstance, even protesting that God’s call had made him “like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter”. Jonah fled in the opposite direction from Nineveh and Jesus prayed to be delivered from his ‘cup’.

A calling, in almost every case, involves hardships.  Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Paul all found themselves under threat of death by their community. In Jesus’ case it was carried out. He called others to follow the way of the cross. Paul’s vocation is accompanied by physical ailments, imprisonment, beatings, and exile.  And finally, from the point of view of answering the summons, the greatest danger appears not in willful resistance, but in the possibility of being diverted or distracted from the goal. The last petition in Jesus’ model prayer is an acknowledgement of the power of distraction.  He prayed, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Imagine for a moment that this is the week of Saul’s arrival at Damascus. By this time Saul’s reputation as the ringleader of the movement to make Christianity extinct has preceded him. A devout Hellenistic Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, Saul was a member of the Pharisees and was taught by none other than Gamaliel.  But Saul did not agree with his teacher on how “followers of the way” should be treated.  Merely arresting, convicting and punishing those in Jerusalem wouldn’t satisfy; he wanted to rid the earth of this movement and its followers.  As a missionary of righteousness Saul went to other cities where he sought to arrest the followers of Jesus and return them to Jerusalem for punishment. Damascus was only one such city. Word was out that Saul would soon be arriving.

Suppose you were one of those followers of this new path and had just arrived in Damascus, and you had learned the whereabouts of a group of believers.  Prompted by the news that Saul was soon to arrive, with the authorization of the chief priests and the Sanhedrin to arrest and extradite the followers of The Way this Meeting of Friends of Jesus had gathered for a time of prayer.  For what do you imagine they would have prayed at this special prayer meeting?  Do you imagine anyone prayed that this Saul might be converted? I could believe someone might have prayed that Saul be somehow divinely “terminated.” I can imagine that those who gathered to pray would have prayed for the protection of the church in Damascus and for the safety of individuals and the most visible Christians. No one, it would seem, was even thinking of what God was about to do.

And quite likely there would have been another group meeting on the evening before Saul arrived in Damascus—those who did not believe in Jesus as their Messiah, and who eagerly sought the eradication of the church in their city. They may have been compiling a list of suspected followers of the Way.

What a shock Saul’s conversion must have been to both groups! To the church, Saul turned out to be a friend, a fellow-believer, in fact, a flaming evangelist, who proclaimed Christ more clearly and powerfully than anyone had previously done in Damascus. And the second group, who were waiting for Saul to come and help them deal with the followers of “the Way,” were about to discover that Saul had changed sides, perhaps bringing other members of the opposition along with him. Saul’s arrival took the wind out of their sails by his response to God.

Understanding the significance of the call of Christ on one’s life is of great importance. Luke repeats Paul’s story three times in the rest of Acts. It is a story not just of what Christians know about the early days of the church but how this and other stories can enlighten our understanding of how God recruits and directs God’s work in the world. Are we reminded not to exclude our supposed enemies from the work God might do in the world? How might these stories of the call on a dusty road to Damascus or from the safety of a caring community open us to new ministries and challenge people to consider if their zeal for righteousness, like Saul’s, has been misdirected and even destructive. Does it encourage us to expect God to call us to do difficult things and go to unexpected and risky places? As Christ called Saul and Ananias, is there a possibility that you too are resisting that voice in your own life?

Resurrection faith came slow to most of the disciples. But when it did come it changed everything.  They recognized the incredible scope and enormous implications of the biblical witness that when God raised Jesus from the dead God was creating a new reality; overthrowing death, sin, and all that would oppress us; and declaring once and for all that life is more powerful than death and love more enduring that tragedy. The Christian faith isn’t an evidence based practice. It can’t be proven. It can’t be documented or tabulated.

John ‘s Easter Narrative:

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ²So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid  him.” ³Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. ⁴The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; ⁹for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰Then the disciples returned to their homes.

Luke’s Easter Narrative
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they went in, they did not find the body. ⁴While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. ⁵The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. ⁶Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, ⁷that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” ⁸Then they remembered his words, ⁹and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. ¹⁰Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. ¹²But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

One of the common elements of the resurrection story shared by all the Gospels is that even though Jesus predicted his death and resurrection, several times, no one expects the resurrection. No one greets the news that God has raised Jesus from the grave and defeated death and the devil by saying, “Praise God!” When they hear that their friend and Lord has been raised to life no one shouts “Hallelujah”. Upon hearing the news that death itself could not hold captive the Lord of Glory, absolutely no one says, “I knew it – just like he said!”

No one expects resurrection and no one, quite frankly, believes it, at first. In Luke the women come to the tomb expecting to anoint Jesus’ dead body. That is, they have no expectation that he has been raised. In fact, only when they are reminded by the “two men in dazzling clothes,” do they recall Jesus’ promise.  They run back to tell the rest of the disciples…who greet their tale with utter skepticism. In fact, Luke says that those who received the testimony of the women regarded their message as an “idle tale.” That’s actually a very gentle translation of the Greek work leros. That word, you see, is the root of our word “delirious.” So in short, they thought what the women said was crazy, nuts, utter nonsense.

And, quite frankly, who could blame them? I mean, resurrection isn’t simply a claim that Jesus’ body was resuscitated; it’s the claim that God invaded human history in order to create an entirely new reality. Which, quite frankly, can be frightening.  Someone once said “if the dead don’t stay dead, what can you count on?” Resurrection, seen this way, breaks all the rules, and while most of us will admit that the old rules aren’t perfect – and sometimes are downright awful – at least we know them. In their predictability they are at least comforting. And resurrection upsets all of that.

It throws us off balance, upsets our apple cart, and convulses our neat and orderly lives into irrationality. Which is why I think that if you don’t find resurrection at least a little hard to believe, most likely you aren’t taking it very seriously!

I suspect that most of us have heard the Easter story so often it hardly makes us blink, let alone quake with wonder and surprise. Which is rather sad, when you think about it, because this promise, as difficult as it may be to believe is huge, and when it sinks in and lays hold of you, absolutely everything looks a little different. For those of us who simply accept the resurrection as a piece of our faith but without really thinking about it, I’d like to encourage you to allow the wonder of God’s activity in the resurrection to break in upon you in a new way. Spend some time reflecting on the incredible nature of resurrection. It could provide a powerful experience for you.

But I also want to say that when you think seriously about the resurrection, and you find it a little hard to believe, you are in really good company.  You have that in common with all of Jesus’ closest followers. Which means that maybe we should admit that we in the church have mischaracterized the nature of religious faith. While we may want to leave the impression that perfect faith conquers all doubt, biblical authors believed that faith and doubt are actually woven quite closely together. Doubt, questions, even downright skepticism – these aren’t the opposite of faith, but rather an essential ingredient. Faith, after all, isn’t knowledge and it’s not proof. Faith, as the author to the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1). And perhaps Easter Sunday is as good a time as any to give God thanks for the gift of faith, the ability not to understand the mystery of the resurrection but to be inspired to hope and believe that it is true.

What makes believing in the resurrection difficult for you? We’ve never experienced anything like it in our lifetime. What about the natural order? We all say that the two givens in life are death and taxes.  What hampers belief for you and me were also the reasons why Jesus’ disciples from that first Easter sunrise have had good reason to wonder and even doubt.  But try asking yourself what would be possible if it were true, like: Death does not have the final word. Love and life are stronger than fear and death. We can expect to see again those we’ve loved and lost. God has a future in store for each and all of us. Anything is possible with God.

I saw something that was new to me in re-reading the Resurrection narratives. In each of the Gospels we learn of a very special place,  the house where Jesus commemorated the Passover with his followers and what we’ve general accepted as the large upper room where Jesus broke bread and shared the fruit of the vine with those gathered.  According to John this is where Jesus washed his disciples feet and voices what we’ve come to know as his high priestly prayer. Tradition tells us that it was to that room to which Jesus followers fled after the crucifixion ‘behind locked doors, for fear of the Jews’.  How fearful they all were.

In John’s Gospel Simon Peter and John were called from the security of that gathering of fearful followers by Mary Magdalene.  In Luke’s version it was Peter who went to the tomb after hearing the report of the women. In both instances after their experience of the empty tomb they did not return to the upper room.  The text says they went to their own homes. There is no mention in the text of Peter or John being among those who remained cloistered out of fear in the upper room.  The resurrected Jesus came and stood among them. He countered their fear by saying – twice- “Peace be with you!”  He empowered with his own Spirit and then commissioned them to go fearlessly into the world with his message of forgiveness.

Resurrection faith came slow to most of the disciples. But when it did come it changed everything.  They recognized the incredible scope and enormous implications of the biblical witness that when God raised Jesus from the dead God was creating a new reality; overthrowing death, sin, and all that would oppress us; and declaring once and for all that life is more powerful than death and love more enduring that tragedy. The Christian faith isn’t an evidence based practice. It can’t be proven. It can’t be documented or tabulated.

After four unsuccessful years of seeking spiritual guidance George Fox received the opening from the Lord that ‘to be bred at Oxford or Cambridge’ was not sufficient to fit a man to be a minister of Christ…,” and he heard a voice which said “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.” And when he heard it he wrote that his ‘heart did leap for joy’.

Nothing can free us from that awful fear that drains the joy out of our lives except our own experience of meeting the living Christ.  As much as we may love and proclaim our belief in this old story it stays that, a much loved story that fails to address our timidity and fear.  It is only the experience of Mary and the women, and the men on the road to Emmaus and that of Peter and John and those emancipated from the fear filled upper room who dared to trust what they had experienced of Jesus that allows us to break out of our fearfulness and carry Jesus’ message of forgiveness into the world.

Celebrate

It was big show biz news this last week — Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill are returning for ‘Star Wars: Episode 7’. In how many of our memories resides the fantastic flight of Luke Skywalker, who with the help of Hans Solo, and without computer assistance releases his proton torpedos so that just before the Death Star can fire its’ planet annilihilating ray it is blown to smithereens and thus freeing the rebel alliance from the domination of the Galactic Empire! That was in Star Wars Episode IV, the first one, which was released in May of 1977.  Remember how at the end of the movie the countless rows of warriors, the triumphant remnant of the brave rebellion force, were standing at attention in a great cathedral like hall while the heroes are honored by the princess and the great celebration that followed?

In 1979 Robert Jewett wrote a piece that said that that scene celebrated a theme that unites popular entertainment and popular religion. He pointed out that in both popular religion and popular entertainment such a grand celebration can occur only after the apocalyptic battle is won.

One of the most enduring images indelibly stamped in the minds of most Christians is Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”.  It is a somber and formal painting of six male disciples with various expressions on their faces sitting on either side of Jesus.  In most churches where I have observed the Eucharist being served it is similarly a solemn, somber and to some degree guilt ridden liturgical rite.  What is noticeably missing is the joyous atmosphere of early Christianity which continued the sometimes raucous celebrations of Jesus and his disciples. Jesus’ followers connected God’s kingdom with a feast.  The image of the banquet connects Jesus with the words of the prophet Isaiah.  Isaiah 25:6-8.

6On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. 7And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. 8Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

In Jesus’ life and ministry the thing that seemed to outraged people the most was that in opposition to the popular religion of his time, and ours, Jesus brought the banquet described by Isaiah wherever he went, most interestingly into the homes of two people on opposite sides of a very divided Israel: Simon the Pharisee and Zacchaeus the tax collector.  As a result he was accused of being a glutton, a drunkard and a friend to tax collectors and sinners.  He was asked why his followers didn’t fast.  For the Pharisees and for John the Baptist fasting was to atone for the sins of Israel that had brought destruction and degradation.  The idea was that if by repenting the wrath of God could be avoided then the messianic age might begin in which God would vanquish their enemies and the fasting could turn to feasting and celebration.  But to celebrate now, before the victory, was presumptuous and subversive.  Jesus’ strategy was simple but profound: celebrate God’s presence now in the messianic banquet, prior to the destruction of evil, and evil will be transformed by the celebration itself.

Jesus said to the Roman soldier in Matthew 8  “Not even in Israel have I found such faith.  I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.  The enemy peoples from the ends of the earth, previously excluded from eating with the Jews because of legal restrictions and a long tradition of enmity, would be invited to the messianic table.  The messianic banquet was to be a feast of enemies.  The feast is for ‘all peoples’.  The sheet spread over all nations, the shroud cast over all peoples is the wall of nationalism, a barrier to understanding which separates people from neighbors and from God.  Once eliminated communion results around the Messiah’s table.  Given the rich foods and wines prophesied by Isaiah it would make for quite a party.

Look at what Jesus did as told Luke 7.  For what ever reason Jesus accepted the invitation to the home of Simon the Pharisee.  We often miss the point that the story isn’t about the immoral woman who anoints Jesus with precious oil, wetted his feet with her penitential tears and kissed them and dried them with her hair as outrageous a spectacle  as that was.  It is about Simon the Pharisee who had been less than hospitable to Jesus as a guest in his home. Pharisees, to give the Jewish people a sense of God in their daily lives, developed a series of rules to interpret the Torah in the context of changing situations.  They developed a clear cut norm for every situation in life.  But, according to Jesus their many rules and demand for strict adherence to them ruined the spirit of the law.   One rabbinic saying representative of first-century Judaism is: Joy in this world is not perfect; but in the future our joy will be perfect.”  That is, when the Messiah has vanquished his enemies and ours, (which to the Pharisees meant run the Romans out of their country) then unreserved celebration will be possible.  Another statement from the same time is: “ It is joy before God when those who anger Him vanish from the world.”

Look at what Jesus did as told in Luke 19.  He didn’t denounce Zacchaeus or support the Zealot’s campaign of ritual assassination for him and his family.  No.  He invited himself into the rich man’s home for the messianic banquet. Of course the crowd murmured at his accepting this sinner who by collaborating with the Romans he was considered a traitor. The popular approach was to first destroy evil in a military campaign and then plan a victory celebration.  With Zacchaeus, Jesus’ approach enabled a voluntary transformation that military might could never have achieved. Feeling unconditionally accepted and assured a place among the people of God Zacchaeus’ defenses collapsed and he began a life of caring for his previously exploited fellow countrymen.  Jesus’ strategy was simple but profound: celebrate God’s presence now in the messianic banquet, prior to the destruction of evil, and evil will be transformed by the celebration itself.

Instead of stirring up the populace through prophetic demonstrations and apocalyptic proclamations to gain a following as did messianic pretenders, Jesus took a very different approach to calling his disciples.  It was different from the master-pupil relationship preferred by the rabbis. Rather than simply attracting followers from whom brilliant students could be selected as the Pharisee masters did, Jesus chose his disciples.  He called them, one by one.  When you look carefully at who Jesus called to be at the center of his ministry you would be hard put to not see that his intention was to guarantee that the celebration of the messianic banquet would be a genuine feast of enemies.

A more contentious group could be hardly imagined.  Matthew, identified as Levi, was a tax collector and collaborator with the Roman provincial administration; the four fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James and John were of the working class so called ‘people of the land’ viewed by the religious establishment as sinners and by the bureaucrats as troublemakers.  Two were associated with the Zealots, Simon the Canannaean, a technical term for revolutionary and that other one with the strange sounding second name ‘sicarius’ meaning assassin. There was the disciple who came from a family with Hellenistic aspirations that’s why they gave him the Greek surname Philip.  And finally there were Thomas and Thaddaeus both identified with Judas the son of James and Bartholomew, an upstanding middle class figure most likely referred to in John 1:45.

The groups from which these men came hated each other.  The Zealots and the bureaucrats were engaged in a brutal struggle of assassination, purge and ambush.  It is likely that the ‘middle of the roaders’ despised the extremists on both sides.  One thing is certain: people who were representatives of these groups would never have voluntarily joined with one another in common meals or common causes.  They had to be called, impelled, to risk crossing the walls of exclusion.  Their very selection by Jesus bears the distinctive stamp of his idea about how the Isaiah 25 prophecy would be fulfilled.  He wanted a truly inclusive feast bringing together mortal enemies around a single table emblematic of the reconciliation that marks the Kingdom of God.

Celebration brakes down the inhibitions imposed by piety.  Unconditional acceptance was experienced with all its shocking power.  They ate together.  They shared a common purse.  And this unlikely group traveled from town to town in an amazing pilgrimage.  One day they would eat with sinners and outcasts, the next with Pharisees and the next with wealthy members of the political establishment.  They went to weddings feasts and shared simple meals on the hillside.

The real miracle is that even after Jesus’ arrest, trial and crucifixion – before that first Easter sunrise – they had reconvened. A spirit of unconditional acceptance and forgiveness that was greater than all their differences had taken hold of them.  And we are them today.  It is not our similarities that holds us together.  It is not our common pilgrimage.  It is that we each have been chosen by Christ,. called to join in this unmistakable feast of enemies.  Jesus’ strategy is simple but profound: celebrate God’s presence now in the messianic banquet, prior to the destruction of evil, and evil will be transformed by the celebration itself.