The text from the Epistles suggested for today is Galatians 5:1, 13-25.  It is a beautiful passage.  It begins: For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Starting at the 13^th verse Paul waxes eloquent in talking about freedom – not license to anything anyone wants to do – but how through love people within the community become slaves to one another.  Like Jesus before him, Paul quotes Leviticus 19:18 “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”.  He ends the passage with a listing of the fruit of the Spirit.  He writes:  the fruit of the Spirit There is no law against such things.

And, he makes it clear that exhibiting these attributes can’t be manufactured, fabricated. The text reads  ²⁴And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Well, he says it better than can I:  ²⁵If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Obviously I’ve turned the passage around abit because earlier he wrote: ¹⁹Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness,²⁰idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, ²¹envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  It’s interesting that these are the very things the Law was supposed to help us avoid –And he had just said: ¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. You could imagine that being free of the law we are free to live unbridled lives.  No longer is the Law our chaperone – it is by belonging to Christ, having, as Paul wrote: crucified the flesh with its passions and desires that our lives will exhibit the Spirit’s fruit and that we will know in ourselves love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,²³gentleness, and self-control.

In verse two through twelve Paul loses some of the ‘self control’ of which he had just spoken.  There was a real issue– one group within the churches of Galatia were adamant that Jewish rites of initiation were required of Gentiles.  Paul thought that in his discussion with the leaders of the Jerusalem church issue had been resolved but here it was again, legalism, raising its ugly head, confusing, frustrating and dividing the Galatians.  His words to those who demanded following the Law rather than following the Spirit were, well, cutting.  ²Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. ³Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. ⁴You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. ⁵For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. ⁶For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything ⁷You were running well; who prevented you from obeying the truth? ⁸Such persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. ⁹A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough. ¹⁰I am confident about you in the Lord that you will not think otherwise. But whoever it is that is confusing you will pay the penalty. ¹¹But my friends, why am I still being persecuted if I am still preaching circumcision? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed.¹²I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!

Now that is pretty rough, to say the least.  But there, beneath Paul’s broadside against those who demand compliance to their set of rules we find an absolute jewel.  Paul writes: “…the only thing that counts is faith working through love.” It is almost breath taking.  “…the only thing that counts is faith working through love.”

From our perspective, 2,000 years into the age of the church, does that still apply? What about things like the Apostle’s Creed, which legend holds, on the day of Pentecost the 12 Apostles contributed one line each to this statement of faith.  Scholarship asserts that it was a confessional statement from the second half of the 5^th century in southern Gaul.  The Catholic Encyclopedia says that it wasn’t in Gaul but in Rome that the creed assumed its final shape.

What about the Creed from the Council of Nicea?  On the 19^th of June in the year 325, Emperor Constantine opened the first Ecumenical Council making his entry into this gathering of Bishops wearing a gold oriental robe covered with precious stones, made an address expressing his will that religious peace should be established and the theological rancor cease and took his place in a golden chair.  Politically driven the church devised a new creedal statement, exiled the Bishops who wouldn’t agree, resolved the controversy over the date of Easter,  and burned the books of Arius.

Well, for Quakers, would Paul’s sentence cover the Richmond Declaration of Faith?  What about George Fox’s letter to Barbados, the list of our Yearly Meeting’s core values or what Britain Yearly Meeting considers the essentials of Quakerism?  It seems that Paul encouraged the Christians of Galatia to set aside things which by their very nature divide.  His line was “…the only things that counts is faith working through love.”

It reminds me of the movie City Slicker. Curly the quintessential cowboy asks: Do you know what the secret of life is?  The city slicker Mitch answers “No. What”.  “This” Curly replies simply holding up his index finger. To which Mitch responds “Your finger?”  Then Curly says: “One thing.  Just one thing.  You stick to that and everything don’t mean ‘nuthen’.”  “That’s great” Mitch replies. “But what’s the one thing?”  Curly says “That’s what you’ve gotta figure out.”

Paul figured it out for the church.  It is faith working through love.

Last week we discussed what Paul meant by faith.  Faith is not mental assent to a set of beliefs.  Faith is not being a strong spiritual warrior resisting the darts of temptation, that’s Old Testament faithfulness. For Paul ‘the faith’ of Christ means trusting God in a very radical and absolute way.  When we are tempted to trust anything other than God that’s idolatry.  That means placing our trust in the political process or free enterprise or even in our own efforts because we know that no one will do what ever needs to be done right, at least according to Paul, we have stepped outside of our relationship with God.  But even this faith, the faith, this trusting God can’t exist in the abstract.  Paul actually addresses two distinct graces.  There may be intense faith without love.

Paul says the one thing that is important is that our trusting God becomes real through love.  For Paul a good understanding of love was crucial for a Christian life. Love is the atmosphere within which faith should be exhibited.  Paul rarely spoke of a believer giving love to God, but a concrete response toward others is significantly mentioned.  In Paul’s writings loving God means loving others.  Paul wrote that the command of God was to love others.  Paul wrote that a theology of love was faith in Christ and love for others.  The very source of love is a believer’s faith in Christ, so Christ was the source of believer’s love.  Love is not an attained virtue in itself, but is part of a life transformed, filled with the spirit of God and united with the body of Christ.

In Paul’s day some within the faith community had determined that the life and death and resurrection of Jesus meant that God had done all that was necessary for their salvation. That meant that no one had to try to earn their salvation by any kind of works—how freeing.  But as in most cases where people get a taste of freedom for the first time, they have a hard time figuring out what it means to be truly free.  I’ve got stories from my family about after emancipation when people who had been slaves were released from their bondage.  Violence and the economy had left the plantation in ruins.  After a few weeks of freedom, when those who had title to the land could hardly feed themselves, those who had been slaves returned seeking shelter, food and work.  Under the rules of reconstruction they had to be turned away.  Freedom makes great demands.

The true meaning of love is found in the freedom to give yourself away. True freedom is what you get when you live your life in loving service to others. But I would say that it’s not so much a vicious circle as it is a paradox. The only way to truly find freedom is to give yourself away in love, and the only way to truly give yourself away in love is when you are free.. Augustine said it this way: “love, and do what you will.”[7] I think he was saying that if you truly love God and truly love others, then you are free to do whatever you want, because what you want will be—in so far as it is humanly possible—an expression of love toward God and others. And as St. Paul said it, there is no law against that!

What the Apostle Paul wanted the people of his day and ours to know is that it is only our relationship with Christ that enables us to explore what it means to have the freedom to love others in a community of people who are also free to live and to love.  That’s the one thing or has Paul puts it “…the only thing that counts is faith working through love.”

Peter Kreeft, a Roman Catholic scholar says that one of the tragic ironies of Christian history is that the deepest split in the history of the Church, and the one that has occasioned the most persecution, hatred, and bloody wars on both sides, from the Peasants’ War of Luther’s day through the Thirty Years’ War, which claimed a larger percentage of the population of many parts of central Europe than any other war in history, including the two world wars, to the present-day agony in Northern Ireland — this split between Protestant and Catholic originated in a misunderstanding.  It certainly doesn’t look like a misunderstanding. It looks like a flat-out contradiction: the Catholic Church taught that we are saved by faith and good works, while Luther taught that we are saved by faith alone (sola fide).

For one thing, even if the two sides did disagree about the relationship between faith and works, they both agreed that faith is absolutely necessary for salvation and that we are absolutely commanded by God to do good works. Both these two points are unmistakably clear in Scripture.

When terms are ambiguous, the two sides may really agree when they seem to disagree because they agree on the concept but not the word or the two sides may really disagree when they seem to agree because they agree only on the word, not the concept.  Kreeft’s argument is that when Luther taught that we are saved by faith alone, he meant only the initial step, justification, being put right with God. But when the Council of Trent said we are saved by good works as well as faith, they meant the whole process by which God brings us to our eternal destiny and that process includes repentance, faith, hope, and charity, the works of love.

For that reason it may be important to see it we can get a handle on what Paul meant in Galatians 3:23-29  when five times he uses Greek words all of which we translate as ‘faith’.  Galatians 3:23-29 ²³Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. ²⁴Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.²⁵But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, ²⁶for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. ²⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

The whole of Galatians has often been called “the Magna Carta of Christian liberty” and most especially these few verses have the character of liberation about them.  When in 1215 the King of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta we are led to believe that it was about freeing the people. That’s backward.  It was about limiting the powers of the King. I’ve found it interesting how many of those who have commented on this book, in the name of Christian Liberty, declared how it establishes a new rule of law, a discipline for the Christian community.

Martin Luther wrote: “The Law enforces good behavior, at least outwardly. We obey the Law because if we don’t we will be punished. Our obedience is inspired by fear. We obey under duress and we do it resentfully. Now what kind of righteousness is this when we refrain from evil out of fear of punishment? Hence, the righteousness of the Law is at bottom nothing but love of sin and hatred of righteousness.”  Paul characterizes living under law as an incarceration. He says … before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.

Paul begins speaking about the position of the true children of God before the coming of Christ.  He illustrates it by saying it was like living in bondage to the Law. And this bondage was like the watchful love of their Heavenly Father, who provides shelter and guidance just like an earthly father places his weak, inexperienced and young children under the charge of household servants.

There is no English equivalent for the word Paul uses to describe this entity. Less like a schoolmaster or tutor the word comes closer to that of a Spanish duenna or chaperone. This person doesn’t instruct, isn’t invested with authority to control – this person was a slave to a young master.  The appointment was to attend the child, to safeguard, to report to the child’s father disorderly or immoral conduct on which the father might find it necessary to place a check.  So the Law for the Israelites existed to regulate outward habits, enforce order and decency and maintain a certain standard of morality.   The Law didn’t address itself to the consciences, like did the Prophets, nor did it claim spiritual authority over the person but to impose a check on open tyranny of evil, to enforce on the community a higher standard of morals, and so foster indirectly the growth of spiritual life.  He said  ²⁴Therefore the law was our disciplinarian, our chaperone,  until Christ came.”

He speaks of a time  “before faith came” and  “until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith” and then he says “now that faith has come”.  Unfortunately most of our English translations of this passage fail to pay attention to the article preceding the word we translate as ‘faith’. Faith has been around for an awfully long time. It didn’t just show up with Jesus.  It was and still is the most conspicuous virtue of the Jewish religion and Abraham is the first of many splendid examples. But this isn’t just ‘faith’ to which Paul points – he speaks of ‘the faith’.  There is a huge difference between faith in the abstract and what Paul details as – the Faith of Christ.

In the context of a person’s relationship to God the verb form of ‘faith’ always implies personal conviction and trust arising within direct personal relationship.  In the New Testament there are two aspects to faith exercised.  It is confident reliance on God.  It is the act by which one lays hold on God’s offered resources and becoming obedient to what God prescribes, and, abandoning all self interest and self-reliance, trusting God completely.  This is the meaning Paul implies for the noun ‘faith’. This isn’t Old Testament faithfulness – where one who exercises faith is made firm and reliable. That is relying on one’s own determination which, interestingly enough could be seen as ‘good works’.  Faith is utter reliance on God.

When the children of Rome reached a certain age they graduated from toga praetexta for the toga virilis and were then considered a citizen.  This is the change of dress to which Paul points in the 27^th verse of this passage.  At the turn of the last century, iIn our own country, young boys wore short pants most of the time.  Even in winter they wore short pants.  They were called ‘knickers’. It was a big deal when you got long pants.  In Catholic families you got your long pants when your Baptism was confirmed.  Having long pants meant you were grown up.  You were a “man.” In Greek culture, through family gatherings and religious rites, a great deal was made of this occasion when the youth put on the clothing of an adult. Once subject to domestic rule now the person was admitted to the rights and responsibilities of citizen and took their place beside their parent in the councils of the family.

So Paul employs the practice the rite of passage of a dependent to the independence of the grown up to describe maturity in the life of faith.  Paul speaks of being clothed with Christ – a spiritual coming of age before which we had been bound to obey the rules fulfill definite duties.  In our new status we are set free to learn God’s will from the inward voice of the Spirit and discharge the heavier obligations incumbent on a citizen of the Kingdom of God.  This, according to Paul is the passage to spiritual maturity, spiritual adulthood, It is emancipation from bondage to an outward law. It is enfranchisement!

All distinctions of creed, race or gender are incompatible with membership in Christ’s kingdom.  Legal and social barriers which separated slave from owner, natural divisions of gender and family,  distinctions between orthodox and heterodox disappear in the presence of the all-absorbing unity of the body of Christ.  The Galatians were a living witness to the power of the Gospel to make of all people one in Christ.  Their meetings were gathered out of the most diverse elements, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female.  Each contributed to the composition of the body of Christ. People who had been aliens and adversaries to each other and, like Paul himself, once a firebrand in opposition to the people of God, are wonderfully transformed into members of Christ.

²⁵But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, ²⁶for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. ²⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 

We are all robed in Christ and drawn together into oneness. That oneness doesn’t take away our differences, it means a new way of seeing and behaving. Baptized into Christ, as Paul says, makes us one and gives us the potential of seeing one another, regardless of differences, as brothers and sisters, all baptized into Christ. We all live in Christ, and Christ lives in us all. I found it fascinating that one non-Quakercommentator wrote: “’The Christ in thee meets the Christ in me,’ the Quakers say.”  What changes would happen in us individually, in our meeting, even in our Yearly Meeting if we really let ourselves see that way?

Christ will not be divided, and as we draw closer to the heart of Christ, we begin to feel Christ’s own longing for unity. We who live in Christ learn that we belong together, and there is an ache in our hearts whenever we are separated from one another. To know the truth of oneness, to long for unity is painful. It is tempting to retreat to our cliques of people who are just like us, where we can be safe and comfortable. But Gal 3:28 compels us to be together, to live as one with those who are most radically different from us, even those we believe to be most distant from God’s embrace. Living that oneness in Christ is not just doing what is politically correct, nor is it practicing the non-discrimination that the law requires; rather, it is to have a change of heart. Living that oneness means confessing that we are sometimes the barrier builders and the weapon wielders. It sometimes means allowing ourselves to get close to those who are most difficult for us to love. It sometimes means bearing the consequences of the pain of those who were relegated to the outside. It sometimes means listening and listening and waiting and waiting until trust can be restored. It means entering into the hard work of reconciliation.

If we were to allow ourselves to feel Christ’s own longing for unity, Christ’s own aching over our separations and divisions, what difference would it make in the way we behave toward one another?

Living with oneness in Christ leads to working for more unity in the world. This is how Christians find themselves standing in solidarity with those who are most vulnerable or least powerful. This is how Christians find themselves becoming advocates for those who are oppressed or shut out. This is how Christians find themselves exposed to the attacks of the world for living with integrity, living as mature citizens of the Kingdom of God.

In the patriarchal world of the Book of Numbers women had virtually no property rights. Widows didn’t inherit from their husbands but were dependent on their sons or the generosity of other heirs. Childless widows were the legal responsibility of their husband’s oldest brother—if he had one.

This is why I said last week that when someone in the Bible is describe as a “widow” we are to understand that this person is one of the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, one of the ‘least of these’.  A widow was outside the traditional system of household economy.  They were the object of pity, and hopefully charity.

All of us, but women most especially, have suffered huge consequences for the failure of the Hebrew Bible to have a considered discourse on the dynamics and implications of human sexuality.  Unfortunately this vacuum has been filled by Hellenistic ideas of dualism, cultic theories of sacrifice and Rabbinic notions of paternalism.  These have had an enormous impact on the development of Western religion and civilization which has continued well into our day. In a discussion of 18^th century women’s property rights there was one line, one bright spot, I’d like to share with you.  It reported that British and American Quakers were unique in that among them women were equals.

In Biblical law, like in ancient Near Eastern social policy, a woman’s subordination to the dominant male in her life is simply assumed. Legal concerns about women’s sexual activity primarily had to do with relations between men. In Leviticus for instance a man is executed for having intercourse with another’s wife not because he violated the woman but because he has committed a crime of theft against another man.  In Deuteronomy we are told that it is not a crime that a man rapes a virgin.  It is a question of what man “owned” the rights to the women’s sexuality.  At most the culprit is expected to pay a bride-price to the father.

Despite that the Bible makes it quite clear that God is especially concerned with those who are powerless, indigent and oppressed.  Through Elijah in the ninth century BC and through Jesus in the first century we have two demonstrations of God’s desire to save the most marginalized of ancient peoples, including the widows of the world.

The women in both our stories today are found to be in a worse condition than being dead. I’m reminded of two tee shirts our girls had years ago.  One said “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”  the other said “Better to stay home and raise cats than marry a worthless man”.  Those sentiments may speak our minds today but they would not have fit in either the ninth century B.C. or the first of the Christian era

Let’s look at Elijah’s story first.  You’ll recall from last week that in a time of severe drought God sent Elijah to the home of a Lebanese widow who kept him alive until the drought broke.  This is the same widow in today’s reading. 1^st Kings 17:17

After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. ¹⁸She then said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!” ¹⁹But he said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. ²⁰He cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” ²¹Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” ²²The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived.²³Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” ²⁴So the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

Elijah is accosted by this widow when after providing him hospitality her son dies.  According to best estimates she wouldn’t have been more than 33 years old.  Her son became so terribly ill that there was no breath left in him, that it, he was dead.  In her grief she shouts at Elijah that he had entered her house not to help her at all, but to “bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son”.  She imagines that something she did earlier in her life was such an awful deed that the death of her son was the consequence.  What a monstrous notion. Unfortunately we can still hear it echoed today.

And things get even more twisted.  Elijah takes the child’s body and, this time shouting at God, prays:  “O YHWH, my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying by killing her son?”  What’s he saying: “Look, God. You sent me to this widow in the first place, and now she blames me for this child’s death when in fact it is you who have killed him?”  God spends divine time evaluating human behaviors and doling out nasty punishments even to the death of innocent children? No.

Stretching himself on the dead child three times Elijah demands that God bring the child back from the dead. And God obliges.  The prophet announces to the widow, “Look! Your son is alive”. And the widow in response to the miracle adds her benediction to this theological mess. “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of God in your mouth is truth”.  By bringing the child back from death Elijah has proven himself to be a man of God and all he utters can be trusted to be true.  The story and the characters in it haven’t told the truth about God.

They have created a characterization of God that needs to be rejected completely. This isn’t a God I recognize.  God is not in the business of finding ways of punishing human sin by slaughtering loved ones. God doesn’t send messengers to announce such terrible claims.  It is far past time for us to give up these absurd notions about a God who rewards and punishes our human actions in cruel and sadistic ways. Too many have gone down that road.  It is a road that leads only to needless pain and useless explanations about the difficulties of our human lives.

The Common Lectionary suggests a somewhat parallel story in Luke. It’s important for us to see the difference.  Elijah in Jewish tradition is supposed to return to usher in the messianic period. Matthew and Mark both identify him with John the Baptist. Luke drops the link between Elijah and the Baptist and shows Jesus fulfilling Elijah’s role.

Luke tells us that Jesus and a large retinue are entering the city of Nain.  As they do they encounter a large funeral procession trying to leave the city through the same gate.  This makes for a rather large crowd of witnesses made up of a pilgrimage of life and a procession of death.

¹¹Soon afterwards he (Jesus) went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. ¹²As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. ¹³When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” ¹⁴Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!”¹⁵The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. ¹⁶Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” ¹⁷This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country. Luke 7:11-17

Widows were the victims of a cruel economic system which provides them few ways to survive. According to Biblical law a widow finds herself at the mercy of her neighbors. Certainly, she grieves the loss of her child.  But in our story today Jesus confronts the economic systems of his own time and provides an unexpected kind of healing. As I read this story it occurred to me that Jesus sees in this woman his own mother who in the death of Joseph was left a widow.  He understands.  The text says ‘His heart went out to her’. No one asks Jesus to do anything.  She doesn’t beg for Jesus’ intercession.  The text just says that Jesus was moved to compassion.  Anticipation heightens for us as we read that Jesus says to her, “Do not weep.” Then he comes forward and touches the bier while the bearers stop in there trek to the place of burial.

Disappointing to some is the fact that there is no discussion about the widow’s faith or belief.  “Young man” Jesus says speaking up to the platform on which the boy is laying, “I say to you arise.”  Jesus restored him to his mother.  This is simply and clearly a story of resurrection – not just of the son but of the widow.  In that culture she was dead – and everyone in that funeral procession knew it to be so.  In this event she is restored to life.

She is the one that is healed in this story; she is the one that is brought back to life. Jesus reaches out to her in her sorrow. and hopelessness.  He sees in the widow’s tears a cry of anguish God has long promised to heed, and boldly brings her from death into life. For Luke resurrection is not just the resuscitation of a dead body it is awaking us in our faith community to God’s call to righteousness and justice.

It makes me wonder how we treat the so-called “deserving” poor. About the ways people in poverty are expected to jump over our hurdles and negotiate our obstacles, fail means tests while we demand drug tests before releasing their welfare checks or propose cutting supplemental nutritional assistance to families whose children aren’t succeeding in school.

A recent Pew poll revealed that four in ten households rely primarily on the income of women. On one hand this is good news. New opportunities are allowing women to be the primary bread-winners.  Maybe our efforts toward gender equality are bearing fruit. On the other hand a significant majority of those women whose households rely primarily on their income are single mother households living in poverty or near-poverty.  What if Jesus were to encounter today not a grieving widow but a single mother on the edge of poverty courageously leading a family? What life-giving message might he share with her? We have the evangelist’s mandate as the followers of Christ to embrace compassionate ministry to the poor in Jesus’ name.

Resurrection, the restoration to life is a mark of the Messiah’s coming, a necessary piece of the Kingdom of God.  It can be witnessed in small acts of compassion.

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.