Nearly every morning since we moved into our new house last July, I have arisen a great while before day so that I could finish prayers in time to see the sun rise. I walk up our street, turn the corner, and enter a bike path that goes due east over a highway and into the fields beyond. On the very clearest mornings I see something I first experienced at sunrise on Lake Michigan: the horizon where the sun will first appear gets intensely clear. In Chicago I could see individual waves miles from shore; in Iowa each distant tassel of corn becomes clear and sharp. Then suddenly there is a sharp flash of light, and a new day has begun.
Some of the clearest mornings come after a storm has passed through, when the clouds have been swept away and all that is left is the wet land. The sun is more welcome on such days, brighter, more intense. Those are the days I think of when I read in the First Book of Samuel, “One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on a grassy land.” A just ruler brings brightness and clarity to the people, the brightness of God.
Few, if any, rulers fulfill that promise. Those in whom we may put our faith at one time (such as Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan), we later come to doubt. Many of our Presidents have undoubtedly ruled in the fear of God, but even those who say that they are led by God find that what they have done creates more murkiness than clarity. It just isn’t that easy. The “last words of David” found in Samuel’s book are more hope than reality.
That is why we put our hope in Jesus Christ. Only in Jesus do we find that sharply revealing light, the sword that divides soul from spirit, joint from marrow (to mix metaphors). That is why the writers of the New Testament saw Jesus as the ideal and final king, and why many Christian churches celebrate Christ the King Sunday on the last Sunday of the Pentecost season.
It some circles it is no longer fashionable to speak of Christ the King; it is too imperialist, or undemocratic, or whatever. These same circles choose not to interpret the Hebrew Bible in the same way that the first Christians did, seeing glimmers and foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus. I do have some sympathy with that; Jews have been interpreting their Scriptures longer than Christians have, and we need to honor that. But what Christian hears in Psalm 132 “A son, the fruit of your body will I set upon your throne” and does not quickly move past Solomon to think of a messianic king, he whose appearance is foretold in those same Hebrew Scriptures? Who does not think of the Messiah revealed to us as Jesus Christ?
Only Jesus can rule as God would rule, with the utter clarity of the sun rising on a cloudless morning. Only Jesus can illuminate the smallest movements within our souls, bringing them to light. Only Jesus can testify to the truth that comes from God. “To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
Last Pentecost: 2 Samuel 23:1-7; Psalm 132; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Thrown Down Stones
This week’s lectionary brings us two stories of distress, one personal and one corporate. The childless Hannah is mocked by her husband’s second and fertile wife. Jesus speaks of an approaching period of widespread destruction. Hannah’s story at least has a happy ending when Samuel is born.
I’ll pass over the Bible’s “family value” of Elkanah having two wives. What strikes me most about the Hannah story is how much attention is drawn to Hannah’s distress. I realize that her barrenness is heightened to magnify the miraculous nature of the prophet Samuel’s birth, but still – fifteen verses describe her bitterness and only two the happy outcome of her prayers. I’m glad that we’ll sing the Canticle of Hannah instead of a psalm on Sunday; such great grief deserves an equally great outpouring of joy.
Hannah’s unhappiness is clearly described. “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly… ‘O Lord of hosts, if only you will look favorably on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant…’” R and I have not known this misery of unwanted childlessness, thank God, but it seems to me that Hannah speaks eloquently for those who have, who not only are without child but may feel forgotten by God. God answers Hannah’s prayer. What do we say to those who do not have their prayers answered?
The discourse of Jesus takes us beyond personal misery to an overthrow of religious, political, and natural order. When a slack-jawed Galilean disciple-tourist is overawed by the beauty of the Jerusalem temple, Jesus lets him have it. “Do you see these large buildings?” he says. “Not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” Prophets in the past were killed for saying things like that, and the fearful disciples want to know more in private. Instead of reassuring words, they hear even worse news. There will be wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines. And “this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” We don’t hear about the rest of the birth pangs in subsequent verses, but believe me, they don’t get any better. This labor won’t have nearly as happy a result as Hannah’s.
It’s an apocalyptic view in some ways, but it also describes the way the world is. Wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famine are part of the daily news. Personal sorrows are there, too. Christianity is an open-eyed religion that can directly face what is awful and what is evil in the world (though less so in its happy-clappy manifestations). That’s true because it is also a religion of hope. “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,” the letter to the Hebrews says, “for he who has promised is faithful.”
That’s the key, isn’t it? God is faithful. God has promised to be with us, to remain among us always. God sent Jesus Christ to reveal God’s own self to us, and God continues to send the Holy Spirit so that we are not comfortless. It is not easy to see or sense God in the middle of distress, yet God is there. “There is no Holy One like the Lord,” Hannah sings, “there is no Rock like our God.” Because of that faithful Rock who can throw down stones, we can live through distress, take up hope, and walk with joy.
Pentecost 24: 1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10 (as canticle); Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8.
I’ll pass over the Bible’s “family value” of Elkanah having two wives. What strikes me most about the Hannah story is how much attention is drawn to Hannah’s distress. I realize that her barrenness is heightened to magnify the miraculous nature of the prophet Samuel’s birth, but still – fifteen verses describe her bitterness and only two the happy outcome of her prayers. I’m glad that we’ll sing the Canticle of Hannah instead of a psalm on Sunday; such great grief deserves an equally great outpouring of joy.
Hannah’s unhappiness is clearly described. “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly… ‘O Lord of hosts, if only you will look favorably on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant…’” R and I have not known this misery of unwanted childlessness, thank God, but it seems to me that Hannah speaks eloquently for those who have, who not only are without child but may feel forgotten by God. God answers Hannah’s prayer. What do we say to those who do not have their prayers answered?
The discourse of Jesus takes us beyond personal misery to an overthrow of religious, political, and natural order. When a slack-jawed Galilean disciple-tourist is overawed by the beauty of the Jerusalem temple, Jesus lets him have it. “Do you see these large buildings?” he says. “Not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” Prophets in the past were killed for saying things like that, and the fearful disciples want to know more in private. Instead of reassuring words, they hear even worse news. There will be wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines. And “this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” We don’t hear about the rest of the birth pangs in subsequent verses, but believe me, they don’t get any better. This labor won’t have nearly as happy a result as Hannah’s.
It’s an apocalyptic view in some ways, but it also describes the way the world is. Wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famine are part of the daily news. Personal sorrows are there, too. Christianity is an open-eyed religion that can directly face what is awful and what is evil in the world (though less so in its happy-clappy manifestations). That’s true because it is also a religion of hope. “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,” the letter to the Hebrews says, “for he who has promised is faithful.”
That’s the key, isn’t it? God is faithful. God has promised to be with us, to remain among us always. God sent Jesus Christ to reveal God’s own self to us, and God continues to send the Holy Spirit so that we are not comfortless. It is not easy to see or sense God in the middle of distress, yet God is there. “There is no Holy One like the Lord,” Hannah sings, “there is no Rock like our God.” Because of that faithful Rock who can throw down stones, we can live through distress, take up hope, and walk with joy.
Pentecost 24: 1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10 (as canticle); Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Off the Hook
This Sunday will be my first one off since I started at CEC. N is giving the first of two masters’ recitals this Sunday in Connecticut, and R and I are flying out there to hear him. It will be especially crazy for R. At the moment she is in NYC for a campus chaplains’ conference. She’ll fly to Des Moines on Thursday, where I’ll pick her up so she can give two presentations on General Convention at our diocesan convention (and officiate at a Jazz Evensong Friday evening). Then we’ll leave for New Haven before convention ends, return to Des Moines on Monday, and finally drive home via Iowa City. That’s why I think of Sunday as being “off” rather than a vacation. We always seem to pack a lot in!
I’m grateful that I have a well-seasoned deacon and a priest of nearly fifty years’ duration to fill in for me while I’m gone. They became a well-oiled team in the interregnum before I came on board. I’m also grateful that I had the opportunity at St. Peter’s to fill in during Lynne's three month sabbatical. Otherwise I might be unaccustomed to the constant flow of work and feel desperate for a break. Instead I am looking forward to the freshness that comes from returning to a familiar place after being away. I hadn’t thought about it until just now, but my long tenure at St. Ambrose was also preceded by a year as a sabbatical replacement. In both cases, teaching and preaching, the initial stint gave me the self-confidence to launch into a long-term position. At least I hope my current position will be long-term!
So those of you who are looking for lectionary reflections will have to wait a week. Uncharacteristically, I have nothing to say!
I’m grateful that I have a well-seasoned deacon and a priest of nearly fifty years’ duration to fill in for me while I’m gone. They became a well-oiled team in the interregnum before I came on board. I’m also grateful that I had the opportunity at St. Peter’s to fill in during Lynne's three month sabbatical. Otherwise I might be unaccustomed to the constant flow of work and feel desperate for a break. Instead I am looking forward to the freshness that comes from returning to a familiar place after being away. I hadn’t thought about it until just now, but my long tenure at St. Ambrose was also preceded by a year as a sabbatical replacement. In both cases, teaching and preaching, the initial stint gave me the self-confidence to launch into a long-term position. At least I hope my current position will be long-term!
So those of you who are looking for lectionary reflections will have to wait a week. Uncharacteristically, I have nothing to say!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Saints Alive!
It’s not November 1, All Saints’ Day, that gets me, but November 2, All Souls’ Day. Anglicanism is supposed to be both Catholic and Reformed, but sometimes leans too far toward the Catholic side for this Lutheran soul. Paul uses the term “saints” to mean all Christian believers. It is accretions of tradition that have led to “saint” being restricted to those who led an exemplary life, often by martyrdom, whose worthiness has to pass muster (or pass mustard, as we say at home). That restriction necessitated All Souls’ Day in order to remember all the faithful departed, whom Paul had already included with the saints. I’d rather return to the Scriptural usage of the word, and just have one day for everyone. The rest of the year we can commemorate exceptional individuals on particular days. (There are too many of them, in my opinion, but that’s a rant for another day.)
If “saints” includes all believers, then I can ask the question, who are the saints in your life? Who led you to the Christian faith, brought you to church as a child, or witnessed the faith to you as an adult? Who are your ancestors in the Christian faith?
Mine were my parents, and their parents before them, and so on back to the apostles – a kind of apostolic succession that does not necessarily involve the laying on of hands. My father was pastor of the church we attended, but it was my mother who saw to it that we actually got there. Considering how I acted many Sundays, she truly was a saint!
We were always made mindful of the communion of saints, of that apostolic succession of faith. The icon of that faith was my dad’s maternal grandfather, Grampa Jacobs, also a Lutheran pastor, about whom we heard many stories. To solidify his faith, Grampa Jacobs translated from German to English The Book of Concord, the tome that contains the essential writings of Lutheranism. Some years ago R found a copy of it at a used book sale and bought it for me. It stands on a shelf in my office, not only a reminder of faith passed on, but an indicator that pastors had more time before blogs, emails, and Facebook! And I have photos of both my dad and Grampa Jacobs in my office to give me courage when I need it.
So let us celebrate all the faithful departed on All Saints’ Day, those whose lives have been remembered over the centuries, those who have preceded us in the faith, and those who “have no memorial, who have perished as though they had not lived,” but were faithful Christians (cf. Ecclesiasticus 44:9). The communion of saints extends from you and me to the likes of St. Paul and yes, to Mary Theotokos herself. We may not feel worthy to be in that company, but that is what being redeemed and justified by Christ is all about. “For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.”
(H293 has one of our favorite lines to rearrange: “And one was a soldier, and one was a beast, and one was slain by a fierce wild priest…”)
If “saints” includes all believers, then I can ask the question, who are the saints in your life? Who led you to the Christian faith, brought you to church as a child, or witnessed the faith to you as an adult? Who are your ancestors in the Christian faith?
Mine were my parents, and their parents before them, and so on back to the apostles – a kind of apostolic succession that does not necessarily involve the laying on of hands. My father was pastor of the church we attended, but it was my mother who saw to it that we actually got there. Considering how I acted many Sundays, she truly was a saint!
We were always made mindful of the communion of saints, of that apostolic succession of faith. The icon of that faith was my dad’s maternal grandfather, Grampa Jacobs, also a Lutheran pastor, about whom we heard many stories. To solidify his faith, Grampa Jacobs translated from German to English The Book of Concord, the tome that contains the essential writings of Lutheranism. Some years ago R found a copy of it at a used book sale and bought it for me. It stands on a shelf in my office, not only a reminder of faith passed on, but an indicator that pastors had more time before blogs, emails, and Facebook! And I have photos of both my dad and Grampa Jacobs in my office to give me courage when I need it.
So let us celebrate all the faithful departed on All Saints’ Day, those whose lives have been remembered over the centuries, those who have preceded us in the faith, and those who “have no memorial, who have perished as though they had not lived,” but were faithful Christians (cf. Ecclesiasticus 44:9). The communion of saints extends from you and me to the likes of St. Paul and yes, to Mary Theotokos herself. We may not feel worthy to be in that company, but that is what being redeemed and justified by Christ is all about. “For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.”
(H293 has one of our favorite lines to rearrange: “And one was a soldier, and one was a beast, and one was slain by a fierce wild priest…”)
Monday, October 19, 2009
Dust in the Eyes
There could not be greater contrast between the visions of God that we encounter this week. On the one hand we have Job, despising himself and repenting in dust and ashes after being beaten down by seventy verses extolling God’s power. On the other hand there is blind Bartimaeus, whose encounter with God in Jesus Christ could not have been more welcoming and healing. Two very different encounters with the living God – some would say illustrating the differences between the God of the Old and the God of the New Testaments. Yet God is one, and I won’t follow Marcion with that easy explanation of the difference.
Last week I wrote about the astonishing anthropomorphism of the thirty-eighth chapter of Job. That and the following chapter reveal that the author also knew a lot about the natural world, more than most people do today. The author wrote out of joy but also awe, an awe we have largely lost through the ability to give rational explanations for so many natural phenomena. (Perhaps that is why more astronomers than biologists believe in God: the universe is still awesome.) Awe naturally leads to respect, a respect akin to fear. So the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Job would agree. For all of his bluster, he cowers before the presence of God.
Bartimaeus, on the other hand, shows no fear. There’s no bluster, either. Instead he importunes Jesus, ignoring the crowd that tries to shut him up. “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” he shouts. It’s not clear if he’s annoying because he’s so loud and insistent, or because he’s not politically correct in his indirect reference to Jesus as the Messiah. Being a beggar, he probably looks bad and smells worse. Yet he stops Jesus in his tracks.
Then comes my favorite part of the story. Jesus says to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” What’s the matter, can’t Jesus see that he’s blind? Is he wearing sunglasses? Did his seeing-eye dog stay behind? Or did Jesus not assume that he knew what was best for the man? I love this part, because Jesus makes him articulate his own need. How many times have we assumed that we know what is best for someone else? How many times have we acted on that, and then become annoyed when it turned out that the person didn’t want that at all?
“My teacher, let me see again,” he says. And Jesus replies, “Go; your faith has made you well.” The commentaries will tell you that this healing of blindness bookmarks a similar healing in chapter eight, and in between is a lot of blindness on the part of the disciples. But today it simply strikes me that Jesus is so willing to stop, to listen, to heal. He doesn’t make Bartimaeus repent in dust and ashes. On the other hand, the blind beggar isn’t posturing the way Job was, insisting on his own self-righteousness.
Rather than two faces of God, or two Gods, these passages show us two ways of approaching God. With one we can expect to be overwhelmed and put in our place. In the other we can expect to have God stop and listen. The latter way also shows us how to live with one another: to ask questions, listen carefully to the answers, and then decide what to do. What is most remarkable is that however we approach God, healing occurs. Both Job and Bartimaeus were relieved of their misery. That’s why both stories reveal the same God. It is our healing, our wholeness, that God always desires. And God will work with us to accomplish that, no matter what our approach.
Pentecost 21: Job 42:1-6, 10-17; Psalm 34:1-8(19-22); Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52.
Last week I wrote about the astonishing anthropomorphism of the thirty-eighth chapter of Job. That and the following chapter reveal that the author also knew a lot about the natural world, more than most people do today. The author wrote out of joy but also awe, an awe we have largely lost through the ability to give rational explanations for so many natural phenomena. (Perhaps that is why more astronomers than biologists believe in God: the universe is still awesome.) Awe naturally leads to respect, a respect akin to fear. So the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Job would agree. For all of his bluster, he cowers before the presence of God.
Bartimaeus, on the other hand, shows no fear. There’s no bluster, either. Instead he importunes Jesus, ignoring the crowd that tries to shut him up. “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!” he shouts. It’s not clear if he’s annoying because he’s so loud and insistent, or because he’s not politically correct in his indirect reference to Jesus as the Messiah. Being a beggar, he probably looks bad and smells worse. Yet he stops Jesus in his tracks.
Then comes my favorite part of the story. Jesus says to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” What’s the matter, can’t Jesus see that he’s blind? Is he wearing sunglasses? Did his seeing-eye dog stay behind? Or did Jesus not assume that he knew what was best for the man? I love this part, because Jesus makes him articulate his own need. How many times have we assumed that we know what is best for someone else? How many times have we acted on that, and then become annoyed when it turned out that the person didn’t want that at all?
“My teacher, let me see again,” he says. And Jesus replies, “Go; your faith has made you well.” The commentaries will tell you that this healing of blindness bookmarks a similar healing in chapter eight, and in between is a lot of blindness on the part of the disciples. But today it simply strikes me that Jesus is so willing to stop, to listen, to heal. He doesn’t make Bartimaeus repent in dust and ashes. On the other hand, the blind beggar isn’t posturing the way Job was, insisting on his own self-righteousness.
Rather than two faces of God, or two Gods, these passages show us two ways of approaching God. With one we can expect to be overwhelmed and put in our place. In the other we can expect to have God stop and listen. The latter way also shows us how to live with one another: to ask questions, listen carefully to the answers, and then decide what to do. What is most remarkable is that however we approach God, healing occurs. Both Job and Bartimaeus were relieved of their misery. That’s why both stories reveal the same God. It is our healing, our wholeness, that God always desires. And God will work with us to accomplish that, no matter what our approach.
Pentecost 21: Job 42:1-6, 10-17; Psalm 34:1-8(19-22); Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52.
Monday, October 12, 2009
How Manifold Are Your Works
My first and deepest experiences of God came from the natural world. Only there do I feel most at home, least aware of myself, the deepest peace. I still cannot believe that I am so lucky as to live in a place where I can walk out into that world every morning, to see the dawning light in an endless sky, where plants and birds gradually emerge from the darkness. It empties me for the rest of the day.
Psalm 104 is one of my favorite psalms for that reason. The psalmist intimately knew the natural world and saw the finger of God everywhere, from the beasts of the field to the birds of the air, through plants and trees and rock badgers and mountain goats. Even the labor of humans is seen as part of the cycle of God’s creation.
In the book of Job, God as Creator has an overwhelming transcendence. The writing is astonishing in its anthropomorphism, beautiful in its poetry. “Where were you?” God asks the miserable, irritated Job. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?...who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?” – a passage that never fails to bring tears to my eyes, for the sheer joy of creation.
One might think that a scientist would be sighing at all of this pre-scientific thought. Yet it precisely illumines the limits of science. A mechanistic view of the world, which science necessarily takes, does not provide for joy and beauty except as evolutionary adaptations needed for the continuation of the species (or perhaps incidental to our existence, which is even worse). Can I be faulted for preferring morning stars that sing together?
I can forget myself in the natural world, but it is in the world of people that I choose to dwell. And where there are people, there are the Jameses and Johns who want to get ahead of their fellow travelers. Jesus has a few words for them. One is know what you are asking. James and John said that they could drink the cup of Jesus and be baptized with him, and indeed James was later killed by the sword. At least John, tradition tells us, lived to a ripe old age.
Jesus also talks about servanthood: “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant…For the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The self-emptying that is necessary in order to serve others is not so different from the loss of self-awareness I experience in the natural world. Maybe that is why a morning walk prepares me so well for a day among people. If I start the day lost among the joy of creation, I am less likely to magnify my importance among fellow travelers. O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all.
Pentecost 20 – Job 38:1-7(34-41); Psalm 104:1-9,25,37b; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45
Psalm 104 is one of my favorite psalms for that reason. The psalmist intimately knew the natural world and saw the finger of God everywhere, from the beasts of the field to the birds of the air, through plants and trees and rock badgers and mountain goats. Even the labor of humans is seen as part of the cycle of God’s creation.
In the book of Job, God as Creator has an overwhelming transcendence. The writing is astonishing in its anthropomorphism, beautiful in its poetry. “Where were you?” God asks the miserable, irritated Job. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?...who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?” – a passage that never fails to bring tears to my eyes, for the sheer joy of creation.
One might think that a scientist would be sighing at all of this pre-scientific thought. Yet it precisely illumines the limits of science. A mechanistic view of the world, which science necessarily takes, does not provide for joy and beauty except as evolutionary adaptations needed for the continuation of the species (or perhaps incidental to our existence, which is even worse). Can I be faulted for preferring morning stars that sing together?
I can forget myself in the natural world, but it is in the world of people that I choose to dwell. And where there are people, there are the Jameses and Johns who want to get ahead of their fellow travelers. Jesus has a few words for them. One is know what you are asking. James and John said that they could drink the cup of Jesus and be baptized with him, and indeed James was later killed by the sword. At least John, tradition tells us, lived to a ripe old age.
Jesus also talks about servanthood: “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant…For the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The self-emptying that is necessary in order to serve others is not so different from the loss of self-awareness I experience in the natural world. Maybe that is why a morning walk prepares me so well for a day among people. If I start the day lost among the joy of creation, I am less likely to magnify my importance among fellow travelers. O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all.
Pentecost 20 – Job 38:1-7(34-41); Psalm 104:1-9,25,37b; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Images of Jesus
Several pictures of Jesus stand out from my childhood. In one he is carrying a lost lamb on his shoulders, with the rest of the obedient flock in the background. (That was in the room where the Sunday School met; the implication for us wayward children was obvious.) In another he stands at a door and knocks. The third is at the garden of Gethsemane, when he kneels and fervently prays. The largest one was behind the pulpit of my father’s church, Jesus walking on a path along the Sea of Galilee. In all of them, Jesus is tall and white and handsome. The backgrounds are idyllic; the setting Victorian. Jesus could be knocking at the house where Santa Claus lives, for all we know.
In my current church there is a picture of Jesus that is clearly more modern. He is still white, but now bearded, and laughing. No longer is he the somber, you’d-better-watch-out Jesus of the nineteenth century. This is definitely a 1960s portrait. Only his head shows, but you can sure that he’s wearing sandals. He might even have beads around his neck!
How can we reconcile this friendly, mild-mannered Jesus with what we read in Scripture? “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,” the letter to the Hebrews tells us, “piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” And in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus calls remarriage adultery, and says that it is practically impossible for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. No wonder his disciples object! This is not the warm, fuzzy “What a friend we have in Jesus” that they’ve been looking for. This is a demanding Jesus who turns every expectation upside down.
I think that’s why I’ve always had a problem with some of the revival hymnody of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It’s just a little too chummy, too focused on the self. “And he walks with me, and he talks with me” is reassuring, no doubt, but hardly how one would describe a person who drives out moneychangers with a whip of cords.
Yet in the midst of that severity, there is always love. The rich young man got off to a rocky start by calling Jesus good teacher. But his earnestness and his devotion to right behavior impressed Jesus, who looked searchingly at him and loved him. Jesus wanted him on board. So he asked him to do one more thing – the very thing that it turned out he could not do.
That’s where the living and active word of God appears, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joint from marrow. Nothing is hidden from God. And God demands nothing else than all of us. If there is anything in our lives that is more important than God, it must go. For some, that means selling what they own and giving money to the poor. For others, it will mean leaving home and family. (I should point out that, in spite of Peter’s statement that the disciples had left everything, it appears that he still had a house in which his mother-in-law lived, and a boat from which to fish.) The critical element is to jettison whatever separates us from God, and then obey Jesus’ words: “Come, follow me.”
Can that be captured in a picture? Probably not. Besides, no one wants to meditate on a painting of someone walking away from Jesus, grieving and shocked – especially not a rich man. We’d rather have our prosperity gospel. We’d rather believe that being rich is a sign of being blessed by God. But that’s a blog entry for another day!
Pentecost 19 – Job 23:1-19, 16-17; Psalm 22:1-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-21
In my current church there is a picture of Jesus that is clearly more modern. He is still white, but now bearded, and laughing. No longer is he the somber, you’d-better-watch-out Jesus of the nineteenth century. This is definitely a 1960s portrait. Only his head shows, but you can sure that he’s wearing sandals. He might even have beads around his neck!
How can we reconcile this friendly, mild-mannered Jesus with what we read in Scripture? “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,” the letter to the Hebrews tells us, “piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” And in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus calls remarriage adultery, and says that it is practically impossible for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. No wonder his disciples object! This is not the warm, fuzzy “What a friend we have in Jesus” that they’ve been looking for. This is a demanding Jesus who turns every expectation upside down.
I think that’s why I’ve always had a problem with some of the revival hymnody of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It’s just a little too chummy, too focused on the self. “And he walks with me, and he talks with me” is reassuring, no doubt, but hardly how one would describe a person who drives out moneychangers with a whip of cords.
Yet in the midst of that severity, there is always love. The rich young man got off to a rocky start by calling Jesus good teacher. But his earnestness and his devotion to right behavior impressed Jesus, who looked searchingly at him and loved him. Jesus wanted him on board. So he asked him to do one more thing – the very thing that it turned out he could not do.
That’s where the living and active word of God appears, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joint from marrow. Nothing is hidden from God. And God demands nothing else than all of us. If there is anything in our lives that is more important than God, it must go. For some, that means selling what they own and giving money to the poor. For others, it will mean leaving home and family. (I should point out that, in spite of Peter’s statement that the disciples had left everything, it appears that he still had a house in which his mother-in-law lived, and a boat from which to fish.) The critical element is to jettison whatever separates us from God, and then obey Jesus’ words: “Come, follow me.”
Can that be captured in a picture? Probably not. Besides, no one wants to meditate on a painting of someone walking away from Jesus, grieving and shocked – especially not a rich man. We’d rather have our prosperity gospel. We’d rather believe that being rich is a sign of being blessed by God. But that’s a blog entry for another day!
Pentecost 19 – Job 23:1-19, 16-17; Psalm 22:1-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-21
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