Category Thoughts Along the Way

Thoughts, musings, opinions and a general sorting out of sorts.

The Light of Hope

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 24:36-44

“When the end of the world comes,” said Mark Twain, “I want to be in Kentucky.  They’re twenty years behind on everything.”

Our Gospel text for this first Sunday in Advent, the first Sunday of a new church year, comes from a section near the end of the Gospel of Matthew that centers on the coming of the Son of Man. The fragment we read this morning comes hard on the heels of Jesus predicting the destruction of the temple with the implication that this will be the beginning of the “end times.”  The disciples, of course, want to know more.  “Tell us, when will this be,” they ask, “and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

The answer Jesus gives to “when will this be?” is “God only knows.” 

This section of Matthew and its parallels in Mark and Luke are sometimes called “the little apocalypse.”  The word apocalypse comes directly from Greek and only drops one small syllable on its way into English.  Apokalypsis  in Greek becomes Apocalypse in English.  The literal meaning is “an uncovering” or “unveiling.”  It originally meant a disclosure, a revelation.  

The word can also describe a particular kind of literature.  That’s the first meanings in Merriam Webster’s dictionary:

one of the Jewish and Christian writings of 200 b.c. to a.d. 150 marked by pseudonymity, symbolic imagery, and the expectation of an imminent cosmic cataclysm in which God destroys the ruling powers of evil and raises the righteous to life in a messianic kingdom.

Webster also gives what it calls the “Essential Meaning”:

a great disaster : a sudden and very bad event that causes much fear, loss, or destruction.

In more common usage, apocalypse is often used as shorthand for “the end of the world.”

From disclosure to disaster.  That’s quite a shift in meaning—although it makes sense.  When things that are covered up are suddenly revealed it often creates a lot of anger and instability.  

I’ve often wondered why we are so fascinated with the idea of The Apocalypse, the End of the World.  What is it about the human psyche that wants to immerse itself in “end of the world” thinking and stories?  And why has our interest in this topic been growing? 

If you take a look at Wikipedia’s list of Apocalyptic films, it paints an interesting picture.  Before 1950, there were only 4 apocalypse movies.  The first one was a Danish film made in 1916 called, prosaically enough, The End of the World.  And then we went fifteen years before anyone made another apocalyptic movie.  That one was a French film made in 1931, also titled The End of the World.  American filmmakers got into the Apocalypse business in 1933 with Deluge from RKO Pictures, and then the Brits took a turn in 1936 with a United Artists picture called Things to Come, written by H.G. Wells.  So in the whole first half of the 20th century, only 4 apocalyptic movies are listed.  Four.  

And then they stopped.  That’s probably because the whole world was at war in the 1940s.  People were living through an apocalypse, and they wanted their movies to give them hope, to tell them there was a brighter day coming, that there would be a time of rebuilding.  

Apocalyptic films reappeared in the 1950s, but they were still sporadic enough that it would be stretching things at that point to call them a genre.  From 1950 to 1959 there are eleven apocalypse movies on Wikipedia’s list, but things would pick up significantly in the 1960s.  

From 1960 to now there have been 378 apocalyptic movies. That’s 378 films about the end of the world in a period of 65 years.

So back to the original question: why are people so fascinated by apocalypse?  Why is there such a big market for dystopia and humanity’s grand finale? 

I don’t know what the social psychologists would say about that, but I do know what Biblical scholars and theologians say.  They tell us that apocalyptic literature appears—and movies are a form that—when a people is oppressed, under great stress, and experiencing persecution, or when the world in general becomes so dystopian that problems seem unsolvable.  

The Book of Ezekiel, with its strange visions and imagery, appears during the time of the Babylonian conquest of Judah to give hope and courage to captive and enslaved people who had seen their nation not just defeated but destroyed.  The Book of Daniel was written to give hope and courage to the Jewish rebels fighting against Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the cruel Greek Seleucid ruler who desecrated Yahweh’s temple by setting up an altar to Zeus and sacrificing a pig on it.  John’s Apocalypse, which we call the Book of Revelation, was written to give hope and courage to followers of Jesus in Asia Minor who were being oppressed and persecuted by Rome.

Hope and courage for people in dire straits.  That’s what all the ancient apocalypses are really all about when you wade through all the fascinating imagery.  They use imagery as a kind of code because the people writing them and reading them are living in dangerous circumstances.  If the empire is breathing down your neck, it’s not safe to say “The Emperor is a gluttonous, greedy, selfish pig who bullies the people and forces nations to hand over the best of everything while the rest of us are sucked dry.”  So instead you write about a harlot who sits on seven hills.  You can’t say that the emperor is a monster, so you write about a monster, a dragon with seven heads, and trust that people will read between the lines.

The writers of the apocalyptic works in the Bible, and the Holy Spirit who guided them, never intended to be giving a coded timeline of the end of all things.  That’s not why they were written.  They were written to give a simple clear message:  “Hang in there.  Yes, these are scary times.  But God is on your side. Nasty empires and oppressive regimes don’t last forever.  They either exhaust themselves, or somebody conquers them, like when Darius the Mede brought new management to Babylon; or enough people finally get tired of their rubbish and rise up to throw them out on their ear, like the Maccabees did with Antiochus Epiphanes; or they overindulge themselves to death and collapse from internal squabbling and rot.  That’s what happened to Rome.  Once more for emphasis: Hold on to hope.  Have courage. God is on your side.  And God wins in the end.

This “little apocalypse” from Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels is radically different from other apocalyptic writings in one major point.  Other apocalyptic writings—those included in the Bible like Daniel and Revelation, extra-biblical books like 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra, and the apocalyptic pamphlets that circulated throughout Palestine during the Jewish war—all focused on the basic universal apocalyptic message: hang tough, God is with you, hope and courage, fight the good fight.  But this homily from Jesus has one important departure from the formula.  Ched Myers and other scholars suggest that Jesus is telling his followers to abandon the temple.  He is telling his followers to resist, but not to join in the rebellion.  He urges them not to be led astray from their path of nonviolent resistance by charismatic leaders with messianic claims, and patriotic swords and spears.

Jesus calls us to a different pathway of apocalypse.  This is not the pathway of Judas Maccabeus picking up his sword to fight the Greeks.  This is not the pathway of Simon bar Giora, claiming to be the new King David as he leads guerilla bands in surprise attacks.  This is not Mad Max with a sawed-off shotgun.  

Jesus is telling his followers that armed rebellion is not the pathway to the kingdom of God.

 The pathway of Jesus is the Way of nonviolence.  The way of critiquing the bad by doing the better.  The rebellion is not the kingdom. But the kingdom is a rebellion…done a different Way.

In the gospels, the kingdom of God, as it is embodied by Jesus, is revealed to us as a nonviolent rebellion against business as usual, economics as usual, politics as usual, government as usual, and religion as usual.  It is also very much a rebellion against rebellion as usual.  The entire mission of Jesus in the gospels is, in its way, an apocalypse.  A revealing.  It pulls back the veil to show us the serious flaws in our ways of doing things.  It critiques the bad by giving us a vision of the better.  

It reminds us that the day will come in God’s own good time when, as Isaiah promised…

Out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

                  and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

He shall judge between the nations,

                  and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

         they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

                  and their spears into pruning hooks;

         nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

                  neither shall they learn war any more.

O house of Jacob,

                  come, let us walk

                  in the light of the LORD!

Yes, in a way Jesus does predict the end of the world.  The world as it is  ends when it is gradually, nonviolently reimagined and replaced heart by heart, mind by mind, one person at a time until the commonwealth of God’s justice and kindness becomes our everyday reality on earth as it is in heaven.  How’s that for an apocalypse?

Advent is the time when we remember that Isaiah’s hope, that ancient hope, is our hope.  Advent is a time when we light the candle of hope to remind us that Jesus has called all of us to walk in the light of the Lord.  It is a time when we remember that just as Jesus came to teach us the Way of love and truth, the Way of cooperation and companionship, the Way of kindness and justice, he will come again when the time is right to remake and renew the world.  

When will that be—the Second Coming of Christ?  God only knows.  The only thing we can know for certain is that each day brings us one day closer.  As St. Paul says, “You know what time it is.  Now is the moment for you to wake up.  For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;  the night is far gone, the day is near.”  

Salvation—our remaking as a whole and healthy world—is  closer to us now that it was when we got up this morning.  So watch.  And hope.  And be ready.  In the meantime, O house of Jacob, O house of Jesus, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.  

What Kind of Kingdom?

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

Luke 23:33-43

Today is the last Sunday of the church year, Christ the King Sunday or Reign of Christ Sunday.  This is a fairly new addition to the church calendar—it was added only 100 years ago—and frankly, not everyone is happy about it.  

In 1925, the world was trying desperately to put itself back together in the aftermath of World War I and it wasn’t going well.  Pope Pius XI was gravely concerned by the growing tide of secularism and ultra-nationalism in Germany, Italy and elsewhere, and, of course, the rise of Communism in Russia.  In response he issued an encyclical called Quas Primas—“That Which is First.” Interestingly, it can also be read as a question, “What is First?”.  In this encyclical, he established The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe or, as it came to be commonly known, the Feast of Christ the King.  

Pope Pius was trying to restate and reinforce the idea of the sovereignty of Christ over, well, everything.  He wanted to make it clear that our deepest and most profound allegiance should be to Jesus Christ above and beyond every other allegiance.  But in doing it in this way, was he, maybe, missing the point of what Jesus was actually saying when he talked about the kingdom of God?

The image of Christ as King is problematic for us in a number of ways.  First of all, it’s hard for us to relate to even the idea of a king.  There aren’t very many real monarchs left in the world, and most of the ones who are still here wield a power that is primarily symbolic or ceremonial.  As a case in point, King Charles III ascended to the throne of Great Britain three years ago after the long reign of his mother, Queen Elizabeth, but neither the world nor Great Britain have seen any significant changes in the governance of the United Kingdom as a result.  That’s because whatever power the throne still has is very strictly circumscribed by a democratic parliament. 

Another problem with the imagery of Christ the King is that, unfortunately, Christianity doesn’t have a very good track record with kings.  Too often in history Christianity has found itself either colluding with or coopted by the oppressive forces of empire instead of the liberating and restorative teaching of Jesus and the movement of the Holy Spirit.

In her book A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom and Perseverance,  Diana Butler Bass said, “The word king is so problematic.  It is wedded to social privilege and pyramids of wealth and power and invested with centuries of inequities and fairy-tale fantasies.”[1]  Our experience of kings stands in stark contrast to the egalitarian vision Jesus was describing when he announced that the basilea of God was within reach.

Basilea.  That’s the Greek word in the gospels that we translate as kingdom.  It’s a word that the empire used to describe the domain of Caesar and also the territory governed by Herod and other client kings.  And even as Jesus was proclaiming the arrival of the basileaof God, it was a word that was both too small and too loaded to really capture the new reality that Jesus was describing.

The word Kingdom implies boundaries. Boundaries imply limitations and location.  You are either inside or outside.  Even the synonyms for kingdom make it sound territorial. 

The word Kingdom also implies power, usually and especially coercive power. Constantine and later Christian emperors and kings readily embraced the concept of the Kingdom of Christ because it was an image they could use in exercising their own power.  They could claim that they were appointed by Christ and were ruling under his authority, which meant that they could spin just about anything they did as justifiable because they were acting on Christ’s behalf.  Convert people at the point of the sword or by torture?  No problem.  We’re doing it for Jesus.  

Today, Christian Nationalism and other authoritarian movements appropriate the language of Christ the King to imagine Jesus as a muscular monarch, kicking tail and taking names.  Under the auspices of Christ the King, they want to establish a restrictive theocracy, but in embracing that idea they completely miss the new reality that Jesus was calling us to embrace.

Kingdom, realm, reign, sovereignty—none of these terms are really a good fit for what Jesus was describing when he announced that the basilea tou theou –which we translate as The Kingdom of God—is arriving, is at hand, is within reach. 

George Orwell was a guy who knew a thing or two about language and how we use, abuse, twist and misuse it.  Orwell said, “There is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.”[2]

Christ the King is one of those worn-out metaphors.  We keep using it because we haven’t come up with a better phrase to describe the vision of God’s all-pervading influence that Jesus was proclaiming or a way to describe our belief that God in Christ is the ultimate power that moves the universe through love, compassion, creativity, grace and cooperation.  

On the plus side, Christ the King does make us ask ourselves some important questions. What do we mean when we say that Christ is sovereign?  How do we understand the kingdom of God, the reign of God?  How do we understand the power of God?  How do we understand power in general?  How do we use power?  Do our values reflect the values of empire or the values of Jesus?  What kind of kingdom do we belong to?  And what do we do when our allegiance to Christ and the values of Jesus are in conflict with the values and practices of the other powers that hold sway in our lives?

The kingdom of God, as Jesus described it, was and is a resistance movement.  To say that Christ is king is a resistance claim.  It is a challenge to the way power is coercively used most of the time in our world.  Jesus is a different kind of king.  The crucifixion is his coronation.  He surrenders to the coercive power of empire to show us its naked violence, but also to show us the greater power of love and nonviolence.

Pontius Pilate understood that Jesus was all about resisting the empire’s coercive power but also the empire’s imagery.  When Pilate asked Jesus straight out, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus simply replied, “You say so.  Those are your words.”[3]  The soldiers crucifying Jesus mocked him saying, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!” Pilate mocked both Jesus and the Jewish people by having a board nailed above his head with the inscription, “This is the King of the Jews.”  These were people who understood power in only one way.  Control.  Coercion.  Power over.

But the reign of God that Jesus was describing is a cooperative world.  The reign of God doesn’t force itself on anyone or try to control anyone.  Christ, as king, pervades, persuades, encourages, nudges and asks us to live up to a vision of our better selves. 

 The commonwealth of God’s justice and kindness is a world where generosity, grace, compassion and mercy prevail.  It is a world driven by and governed by love.  It is a world where everyone’s needs are met and no one goes hungry.  It is a kingdom that opens pathways through every kind of border, boundary and barrier.  It is a world where the only control is self-control.  Its central values are to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. Its only law is love: love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.  

The kingdom that Jesus was describing is a world moving toward the vision of Isaiah when we will beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks, when nation shall not lift up sword against nation nor shall they study war anymore.[4]  The kingdom that Jesus proclaimed is the world where God walks with us as Ezekiel envisioned, a world where God shepherds us, where Christ seeks out the lost and brings back the strays, where through us, Jesus binds up the injured and strengthens the weak and feeds us all with justice.[5]

The reign of God is a realm in which the poor are blessed and the hungry are filled and those who mourn are comforted.  It is the world Mary envisioned in the Magnificat when she sang, “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”[6]

Yes, God exercises power.  But not the way we usually think of power. God’s power is all about empowering you.  God is about giving power rather than holding onto it.  God gives power to us so that we can love and care for the world more fully and effectively. Together.  “The greatest manifestation of the power of God,” said Bishop Yvette Flunder, “comes when we work together to find ways to be together and do justice together and love together and stand together.”  

The kingdom of God is all of us together.

 “Jesus did not establish an institution,” wrote Bishop Michael Curry, “though institutions can serve his cause. He did not organize a political party, though his teachings have a profound impact on politics. Jesus did not even found a religion. No, Jesus began a movement, fueled by his Spirit, a movement whose purpose was and is to change the face of the earth from the nightmare it often is into the dream that God intends.”

Today is Christ the King Sunday.  It is a day when we use the “worn out metaphor” of kingly power to try to open the doors and windows of our hearts, minds and souls to the empowering love of God through Jesus Christ.  It is a day when we acknowledge both that God in Christ is the ultimate power and that we need to redefine how we understand and use power.  It is a day when we are asked to declare that our deepest and most profound allegiance is to Jesus Christ above and beyond every other allegiance.  It is a day that challenges us to walk in the Way of Jesus so that we can help to bring God’s vision of a whole, healthy, loving and cooperative world into reality on earth as it is in heaven.

Today is the day we volunteer to change the face of the earth from the nightmare it so often is into the dream that God intends.  In the name of Christ the King.

[1] Diana Butler Bass; “Christ the King”; A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance

[2] Politics and the English Language, 1946. 

[3] Luke 23:3

[4] Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3

[5] Ezekiel 34:15-16

[6] Luke 1:46-55

The Space Between

Steve Beckham 1 Comment

Luke 17:11-19

You know how you can read something a hundred times and on the one hundred and first time something will pop out at you that you never really saw before?  I don’t know how many times I’ve read this passage from Luke over the years.  It’s pretty familiar, but this week, something in the opening line really jumped out at me:

On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus passed through between Samaria and Galilee. 

That is such a curious way for this story to begin.  Where, exactly, is this space between Samaria and Galilee?   On the map Samaria and Galilee butt right up against each other.  There is and was a border that separated the two territories.  There was also a very pronounced social, cultural and religious line in the sand separating the Jews of Galilee from the Samaritans of Samaria, a line of intense historical animosity.  So what is the writer of Luke trying to tell us when he says that Jesus was passing between Samaria and Galilee?

As he entered a certain village, ten men with leprosy approached him but kept their distance and shouted, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”  Jesus looked at them and said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed of their skin disease.

In Biblical times, leprosy was a catch-all term for a variety of skin conditions, especially those that created whitish patches of scaly skin such as atopic dermatitis or plaque psoriasis.  White, scaly skin can also, however, be one of the first symptoms of true leprosy, what we now call Hansen’s disease, so in an age before microscopes,  diagnostic tests and bloodwork, it made some sense to assume the worst when those scaly patches appeared.  

The book of Leviticus dictated that persons with such as skin disease had to live outside the town.  The leper laws in Leviticus required them to tear their clothes and mess up their hair to make themselves more easily identifiable, and they were required to wear a cloth mask or veil that covered from the upper lip to the chin.  They were also required to carry a bell or wooden clapper and to cry out “unclean, unclean” to warn people not to get too close, because the law required them to keep a safe distance from everyone else.  The Talmud said that the minimum safe distance on a normal day was two cubits, about six feet, but if it was windy 150 feet was the recommended safe distance.

These men with a skin disease stood at a distance and begged Jesus for mercy .  Their plea had to be loud enough to travel across the space between them and Jesus.

Jesus healed them, but he didn’t lay hands on them.  He didn’t put them in the awkward position of violating both religious and civil laws that required them to keep their distance, which meant that in this particular instance, Jesus observed those laws, too.   So he didn’t lay hands on them, and the text doesn’t say anything about him praying for them, either.  He simply said, “Go show yourselves to the priests,”  which is what Torah required if they were healed.  Their healing happened in the space between them and Jesus.

On the face of it, this looks like a simple, if somewhat unusual, story about healing.  There is also the noteworthy gratitude of the one man who returns to thank Jesus and prostrates himself before him in an act of worship, so it can also a story about gratitude.  But when we look closer, I think there is more to it than that.  

Clearly this is a story that reminds us of God’s power to heal.  It also shows us yet another example of Jesus’ compassion.  And yes, it even makes a point about taking a moment to be grateful when God has done something extraordinary for you.  But I think maybe Luke is also trying to tell us something about the power and importance of between places, those places and times when we are in neither one place or the other but on the edge or verge of both.

Luke tells us that Jesus was passing through between Samaria and Galilee.  Jesus is in a borderland, an in-between space that is both Galilee and Samaria, and at the same time really neither one.

The ten men with the skin disease were also in a between space.  They were husbands, fathers, brothers living at a distance from those they loved most in order to keep their loved ones safe.  They were living on the outskirts of the village, living on the margins of the community in that space where the village ended and the wilderness began.  More poignantly, they were also living in that thin space between life and death.  

Because their disease had excluded them from all other society, they formed their own small community, Jews and Samaritans bound together by their common affliction in a space where the cultural animosity and antagonism of Jew versus Samaritan was not only irrelevant but could threaten their survival. 

Every border, every territorial boundary, no matter where it is, is a testament to conflict.  It is a reminder that at some point in history one group of people behaved aggressively against another group of people.  Every border is a monument to our human failure to make peace with our differences, a testimony that the space between us is often filled with anger and fear.

Anxiety, said Saint Augustine, is the garden in which sin grows.

When borders are rigidly drawn and vigorously enforced, they sharpen the divide and highlight the differences between the people on one side or the other.  They intensify the “otherness” of those who are not from our side of the line, and that, in turn, can stimulate anxiety, suspicion and fear, which all too often leads to scapegoating and violence. 

On the other hand, when borders are porous and less strictly enforced, they become zones of cross-pollination and fusion between cultures, places where ideas and feelings are shared,  places where transformation is possible.

The borderlands, the between spaces, are places where meaningful change is not only more possible but more apt to happen.  

Twenty years ago, Stuart Kauffman, a researcher in theoretical biology and complex systems, proposed a new theory to explain how organisms and systems adapt and become more complex.  He called his theory Adjacent Possible Theory or “APT-ness,” and he has suggested that the “adjacent possible” is such a powerful dynamic that it could be considered the fourth general law of physics.  

Adjacent Possible Theory suggests that at any given moment there is a space of untapped potential around every complex system—around every organism, around every person, around every institution.  That field of untapped potential in the adjacent possible is actually a new field of energy that powers change and transformation. 

In other words, you are surrounded by an energizing halo of possibility.

Think about your living room. Most of us have the same furniture, sitting in the same spots for years at a time. When the house gets crowded on game days or holidays, you know where people are going to end up, what the traffic flow is going to be like, where there are going to be “traffic jams,” where the favorite spot to hang out always is.

Kauffmann’s law of the “adjacent possible” says real change takes place when you re-arrange the current configuration of things, opening up a new possibility for movement and matter.  Rearrange your living room furniture, and see what happens.  Without adding even one new chair or table, the whole feeling of the room is changed. People move about the room differently. They interact with others in new groups. The energy in the room flows in a new configuration. All that just by moving the furniture.

The Adjacent Possible, that halo of possibility is particularly potent in between spaces because the between space is adjacent to two or more differing realities or paradigms and draws energy from both.  The “furniture” tends to be in flux.

In many ways the Church is in an in between space.  We are in a time, a space, where we are no longer what we were but what we will be has not yet been revealed.  The culture has been moving us to the margins.  We are in a space of transformation, the realm of the Adjacent Possible.  The good news is that there is energy in that space, the energy to be made new.

In the original Greek text of Luke’s story of the healing of the ten men with the skin condition, there are three different words for the healing that takes place.  The first word is katharizo.  It means “to be cleansed.”  Catharsis.  This is what the 10 men experience as they leave Jesus to go to the priests.

The second word is iathei.  It means “to be changed to an earlier, correct, or appropriate state.”  To be restored.  This is what the one grateful Samaritan experienced.  He saw that he was restored.

The third word is sesoken, the active indicative form of sozo.  It is often translated as saved, but it also means to be made well or whole.  This is the word Jesus speaks to the Samaritan who bows before him in praise and gratitude when he says, “Your faith has made you whole.”  

As a church and as a nation, we are standing in an in-between place.  We are in the borderland of the Adjacent Possible, surrounded by a halo of possibility for transformation.  The shape of that transformation depends on the choices we make. 

If we open our eyes, our minds, our hearts to encounter Jesus in this in-between space, if we ask Christ for his healing mercy and guidance, then we, too, can experience cleansing, restoration, and positive transformation.   We, too, can be made whole.

Our task, our calling, is to step past the hard lines of the borders we’ve drawn, the lines that divide into us versus them.  If we want to be made whole again, we need to step into the in-between places.  That’s where we can encounter each other.  That’s where we can form a new sense of community.  That’s where we can stand in a halo of possibility. That’s where we can encounter Jesus.  That’s where God is doing a new thing… in Jesus’ name.

Image: Ten Lepers by James Christensen

Faith Without B.S. (Bogus Stuff)

Steve Beckham 1 Comment

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-4, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40

A pastor was just about to begin his sermon one Sunday when he was handed a note.  He unfolded the paper, looked at it a moment, then said to the congregation, “This says there will be no B.S. tomorrow.”  He paused for a long moment then said, “I’m pretty sure that means Bible Study, but I have to confess that for just a moment there I thought, ‘Oh, that would be nice.’”

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a day scheduled for no B.S.—no Bogus Stuff?  

In the alternate first reading for this morning from chapter one of Isaiah, Isaiah takes the people to task for their Bogus Stuff.  He tells the people quite plainly, “God doesn’t want your bull.”  Well, what he actually says is:  

10 Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom!

Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

11 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD;  I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. 

12   When you come to appear before me,  who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more.

13 Bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.

14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.

15 When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

Somewhere along the way, the people had substituted the practice of their religion for the ethics of their faith.  They had fallen into the habit of thinking that as long as they performed the right rituals and offered the right sacrifices, as long as they celebrated certain festivals and observed certain holy days in the calendar, then everything would be okay between them and God.  

But Isaiah tells them in plain language, “No.  God thinks all of that is B.S.  Bogus Stuff.  God doesn’t want your bull…or your ram or your goat.”  So what does God want?

“Wash yourselves;” says Isaiah, “make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”[1]

The texts assigned for today are all about faith.  They tell us what faith is and what it is not.  

Isaiah makes it clear that faith is not simply worship.  It is not liturgical worship or praise worship or any other form of worship.  Faith may move you to worship God.  Worship is one way to express your faith.  But it is not a substitute for faith.  And worship without faith is meaningless.

Faith is not mere belief.  Faith does not mean you accept or give your intellectual assent to certain propositions or truths about God, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit.  Faith is not creeds or doctrine or dogma.  Those are tools that may help guide our faith in the same way a map can help you get somewhere you want to go.  But the map is not the journey.  It’s a depiction of the path others have traveled before you.   

So what is faith?

“Faith,” said Martin Luther, “is God’s work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God… It kills the Old Adam and makes us completely different people.  It changes our hearts, our spirits, our thoughts and all our powers. It brings the Holy Spirit with it. Yes, it is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith… Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.”[2]

Faith is trusting God.  That’s Martin Luther’s definition. And that’s not always as easy as it sounds because God’s ways are not our ways and God’s timetable is certainly not our timetable.

Abram trusted God, but that didn’t stop him from complaining.  He had left his home in Ur to find a new homeland that God had promised.   Everywhere he went in the new land he prospered.  He acquired vast parcels of property.  His flocks increased.  Local kings respected and feared him so much that they tried to recruit him as an ally in their territorial wars.  He could have built his own city, but Abram continued to live in a tent because God had told him to keep moving.  But when  long years had passed and he and Sarah had not been blessed with children, Abram complained.

So God took Abram outside to look up into the night sky.  “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can,” said God.  “If I can make that, do you really think giving you descendants will be a problem?”

Genesis tells us that Abram trusted God, and God regarded Abram as righteous because of his faith.

Faith is trust in God.  

When Jesus was on the road with his disciples announcing that the reign of God, the kin-dom of God is in reach, his followers started to worry about all the things one worries about in daily life.  Jesus turned to them and said, “A person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.  That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear. For life is more than food, and your body more than clothing.  Look at the ravens. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to God than any birds!  Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?  And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?

    “Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.  And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

   “So don’t be afraid, little flock.  For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the kingdom.”[3]

Faith is trusting God as we follow the Spirit-driven yearning of our hearts toward the better world that Jesus described for us.  It is trust that carries us through this in-between life—living between what life and the world are now and what we hope and dream life and the world will be as we work to transform them.  Faith is a holy restlessness.  A longing.  A hunger.  A desire.  Faith is not a destination, it is the road, the journey.

“Faith,” wrote Debi Thomas, “is the audacity to undertake a perilous journey simply because God asks us to — not because we know ahead of time where we’re going.  Faith is the itch and the ache that turns our faces towards the distant stars even on the cloudiest of nights.  Faith is the willingness to stretch out our imaginations and see new birth, new life, new joy — even when we feel withered and dead inside.  Faith is the urgency of the homeless for a true and lasting home — a home whose architect and builder is God.”[4]

Faith is a holy dissatisfaction with the world as it is.   Faith wants to tear down walls and build bigger tables.  Faith wants to open the doors wider so more can come to the feast.  Faith trusts that there will always be enough for everyone.  Faith trusts that Love is not diminished but multiplied when it’s shared.  Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see except in our Spirit-inspired imaginations.

When we stand to recite the Creed on Sunday mornings, we begin with the words, “I believe, ” which is the common English translation of the Latin word Credo.  In his book The Heart of Christianity, the late Marcus Borg reminded us that Credo has a richer, deeper meaning than what we are typically thinking when we say, “I believe.” 

“Credo does not mean ‘I hereby agree to the literal-factual truth of the following statements.’  Rather, its Latin roots combine to mean ‘I give my heart to.’ . . .As the giving of one’s heart, credo means ‘I commit my loyalty to,’ ‘I commit my allegiance to.’

  “Thus, when we say credo at the beginning of the Creed, we are saying, ‘I give my heart to God.’  And who is that?  Who is the God to whom we commit our loyalty and allegiance?  The rest of the creed tells the story of the one to whom we give our hearts: God as the maker of heaven and earth, God as known in Jesus, God as present in the Spirit. . . 

  “Most simply, ‘to believe’ means ‘to love.’  Indeed, the English words ‘believe’ and ‘belove’ are related.  What we believe is what we belove.  Faith is about beloving God.”

Faith is about trusting God, but more than that, faith is about loving God.  “The only way I know how to love God,” said Richard Rohr, “is to love what God loves.”

Jesus tells us to trust God, to love God, and to travel light.  He tells us to free ourselves from excess everything and give to those in need.  Where your treasure is, he says, that’s where your heart will be.  So, let your heart go out to all those other children of God in the world around you.  Love God.  And love your neighbor as you love yourself.  Be dressed for service.  Keep your lamps burning.  And be ready.  The kin-dom of God is so close…and we don’t want to let Bogus Stuff keep us from getting there.

Have no fear, little flock.  It is your Father’s great pleasure to give you the Kingdom.

[1] Isaiah 1:16-17

[2] An excerpt from “An Introduction to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” Luther’s German Bible of 1522 by Martin Luther, 1483-1546

Translated by Rev. Robert E. Smith from DR. MARTIN LUTHER’S VERMISCHTE DEUTSCHE SCHRIFTEN. Johann K. Irmischer, ed. Vol. 63 Erlangen: Heyder and Zimmer, 1854), pp.124-125. [EA 63:124-125]

[3] Luke 12:22-32 (NLT)

[4] Debi Thomas, Called to Restlessness, Journey With Jesus, August 7, 2022

How Much Is Enough?

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

Luke 12:13-31

There is an odd little detail at the beginning of chapter twelve in the Gospel of Luke that’s easy to overlook.  It could be utterly insignificant.  But, maybe it’s not.  Jesus had been invited to dinner by one of the Pharisees but it turned out to be a pretty unpleasant time with lots of verbal sparring between Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes.  When Jesus left the Pharisee’s house he discovered that, “the crowd had gathered by the thousands, so that they trampled on one another.”[1]

That’s the odd little detail.  They trampled on each other.   I think this peculiar little note is Luke’s metaphorical way of setting the stage for what Jesus is going to say about greed and hoarding and selfishness.  And fear.  

Someone in the crowd yelled out, “Teacher, tell my brother to give me my share of what our father left us when he died.”  Jesus replied, “Man, who made me your probate judge?” Well, words to that effect. Then he turned to the crowd and said, “Don’t be greedy!  Owning a lot of stuff won’t make your life safe.”  And to illustrate his point, he told them a little parable.

A rich man’s farm produced a huge crop, and he said to himself, “What am I gonna do? I don’t have a place large enough to store everything.”  But then he thought, “Hey, I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, where I can store all my grain and all my other stuff. Then I’ll say to myself, ‘Self, y ou have stored up enough good things to last for years to come. Live it up! Eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.’” But God said to him, “You fool! Tonight you’re going to die. Then who will get all your stuff?” 

Jesus paused for a moment to let that sink in then said, “This is what happens to people who store up everything for themselves, but are poor in the sight of God.” 

So what did this man do wrong, this rich fool in the parable?  Is Jesus saying that we shouldn’t save up for retirement or stash some cash for a rainy day when we get a bit ahead of the game?  

I don’t think Jesus is saying that it’s wrong to be rich, and I don’t think he’s opposed to saving for retirement.  But he’s also not a fan of hoarding wealth and surplus and thinking only about ourselves.  

The rich man talks to himself like he’s the center of the universe.  His surplus is all about himself.  In the culture of the people who originally heard this Jesus story, that kind of attitude would be frowned upon… to put it mildly.  Torah, the Jewish law, had some pretty clear things to say about sharing the wealth.  You didn’t harvest to the edge of your field, you left the margins for the poor.  You didn’t pick up windfall fruit in your vineyard or orchard, you left it for the poor.  And when you did harvest, you gave a minimum of 10% in a tithe for supporting the Levites and the poor.  The rich fool in this parable doesn’t even mention these things.  He only thinks of himself.  And he never asks himself, “How much is enough?”

Kurt Vonnegut, the author of Slaughterhouse 5 was good friends with Joseph Heller, who wrote Catch 22.  When Heller died, Vonnegut remembered a conversation they had once had at a party.  He recorded that conversation as a poem and read the poem at Heller’s funeral.  Here’s what he said:

True story, Word of Honor:

Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer

now dead,

and I were at a party given by a billionaire

on Shelter Island.

I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel

to know that our host only yesterday

may have made more money

than your novel ‘Catch-22’

has earned in its entire history?”

And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”

And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”

And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

Not bad! Rest in peace!”

How much is enough?  

I’ve been asking myself that question for years.  How much is enough?  I like to tell myself that my needs are simple, that I don’t need a lot of stuff, but then I look around my office, my dresser, my closet, my garage and, honestly, I am inundated with stuff.  And a lot of it is stuff I don’t need or even much want anymore.  How did that happen?  

How did I end up with so much stuff?  And it’s not just my stuff.  I have stuff that belonged to my parents and grandparents and my in-laws.  My Beloved Spouse texted me two articles on Thursday on how to declutter.  So I guess we’ll be doing that soon. . . 

On the Sermon Brainwave podcast this week, Professor Rolf Jacobson told us that his grandmother used to say, “Possessions are their own punishment.”  Yep.  Possessions are their own punishment.

We cling to our stuff, and, it seems like our stuff clings to us.  Back in 1981 the late George Carlin had a whole standup routine about all our stuff.

“I bought a house,” said Carlin. “I needed a place to keep all my stuff.  That’s all your house is, a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you’re taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody’s got a little pile of stuff.  All the little piles of stuff.  And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn’t want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff… All they want is the shiny stuff. That’s what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get…more stuff!”

What George Carlin said in 1981 is just as true today.  Maybe even more so.  Many people don’t have enough room in their houses for all their stuff, so one in 20 households rent extra space for their stuff!  Last year there were 52,301 self-storage facilities in the U.S. according to the Self-Storage Almanac.  That’s right, the stuff storage industry has its own publication.  The Almanac is projecting that in the U.S. alone, the market is expected to grow from $44.37 billion to $49.88 billion by 2029.  We can’t seem to create enough affordable housing for all our people, but we’re going to make sure we take care of all our stuff.  And it’s weird when you think about it because eventually you’re going to die.  And then who’s going to get all your stuff?  And do they even want it?    

How much is enough?  

As a culture, it seems like there’s no end to our desire for more stuff. . .or more money.  Which is really just a more portable kind of stuff.  Congress just recently passed what they called the One Big Beautiful Bill which will give the country’s estimated 900 billionaires a tax break of $60 billion dollars in federal taxes over the next two years.[2]  That averages out to more than $66 million per billionaire!  Nice.  If you’re a billionaire.  But the Congressional Budget Office also estimates that those tax breaks will add $3.4 trillion to the federal deficit by 2034.  And, of course, the bill gutted Medicaid and SNAP benefits to pay for all this largess to wealthiest among us which means that millions of the poorest among us will be without medical coverage or adequate food.

Mahatma Gandhi said that the world provides enough for all our need, but not for all our greed.

Thomas Hendricks, a psychologist who writes for Psychology Today said, “Most people, I believe, would agree that selfishness is not the basis for a healthy, sustainable society.”[3]  He’s got a point.

Stephen Hawking, the physicist, said, “We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity.” 

You want to try a fun little exercise?  Put the words “Greed and Fear” in the Google or whatever search engine you use.  Ninety percent of the results will talk about financial markets, and a lot of them will refer to the Greed and Fear index, a graph they use to tell us if Greed or Fear is driving the stock market right now.  But here’s the thing—what they don’t tell you is that Greed is rooted in fear. 

Greed is rooted in a fear of scarcity, loss, or not having enough, a fear that can drive us in a relentless pursuit of wealth or material possessions.  Greed is driven by a subconscious belief that our worth as persons is somehow tied to how much we have, and if we don’t have much, then we’re not worth much.  That is a story our culture often tells us in many not-so-subtle ways.  Some go so far as to say, “Greed is good.”  That was the unforgettable message of Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 movie Wall Street.  But the idea that greed is good doesn’t only appear in fiction.  More than a few politicians and financial commentators, Milton Friedman for instance, have talked about greed as a necessary and driving force in the economy.  

Maybe.  But one thing that is for certain is that greed is one of the ways we trample on each other.

“Take care!,” said Jesus. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”  The Contemporary English Version simplifies it this way: “Don’t be greedy. Owning a lot of things won’t make your life safer.”[4]  It doesn’t get much clearer than that.

The letter to the Colossians tells us that greed is a kind of idolatry.[5]  It’s worship of a false god.  Martin Luther would whole-heartedly agree. “Show me what you trust,” said Luther, “what your heart clings to, and I will show you your god.”[6]

So. . .what do you trust?  What does your heart cling to?  How much is enough?  These are “come to Jesus” questions, are they not?

“I tell you not to worry about your life!” said Jesus. “Don’t worry about having something to eat or wear.  Look at the crows!  They don’t plant or harvest, and they don’t have storehouses or barns.  But God takes care of them!  You are more important than any birds.  Can worry make you live longer?  If you don’t have power over small things, why worry about everything else?”[7]

I hear Jesus say these things and I think, “Yeah, Jesus, I hear you.  I get what you’re saying.  That would be a nice way to live.  But the cost of living keeps going up.  And Elon Musk monkeyed around with the IRS so I haven’t got my tax refund yet.  And we’re still paying for our last vacation. . . And what if one of the cars needs new tires or the water heater blows or the dishwasher floods the kitchen or one of us gets sick or any one of a dozen other expensive things happens?

And then Jesus says this:  “Only people who don’t know God are always worrying about such things.  Your Father knows what you need.  So put God’s work first, and these things will be yours as well.”

Only people who don’t know God are always worrying about such things.  

So I guess that means that if I’m worrying about such things then I don’t know God as well as I think I do.  I guess that means that I need to get to know God better.  To spend more time with God.  To listen to God more carefully. To trust God more.  To love God more fully and freely.

“Do not be afraid, little flock,” said Jesus, “for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  

So, I guess what it all boils down to is we need to trust God.  We need to trust that God will see to it that we have enough.  Maybe we could simplify our lives.  Maybe we could make do with less and learn that that’s enough.  And, of course, we should try not to trample on each other.

[1] Luke 12:1

[2] What The Big Beautiful Bill Really Means for Billionaires; Martina Di Licosa; Forbes,  July 9, 2025

[3] Hendricks, Thomas, Ph.D.; Greed and Fear; Psychology Today, August 3, 2017

[4] Luke 12:15 (Contemporary English Version)

[5] Colossians 3:5

[6] Luther’s Large Catechism

[7] Luke 12:22-26 (CEV)

A Prayer for Us

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

A Prayer for Us

Luke 11:1-13

How do you pray?  How do you talk to God?  What name or practice opens your heart to deep communication with the Maker of all things, the heart of Life and Love?    

Once, when Jesus was praying, one of his disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.”  John the Baptizer had apparently taught his disciples a special prayer for their community.  Jesus responded to this request by teaching his disciples the prayer that we’ve come to know as The Lord’s Prayer, or, if you’re Catholic, the Our Father, but I can’t help thinking Jesus would prefer for us to think of it as Our Prayer.  He gave it to all of us, after all.

The Lord’s Prayer was originally taught and transmitted orally, so it would naturally be remembered with some slight variations from community to community.  That’s probably why the version in Luke differs slightly from the version in Matthew, and both of them differ from the version in the Didache, the late first-century manual on how to do church.  

The most common version used today in English speaking communities is based on the wording that first appeared in The Book of Common Prayer in 1549.  That version was based on William Tyndale’s translation of the Gospel of Matthew from 1526 which is the only translation, by the way, where you’ll find “forgive us our trespasses” in Matthew 6:12 instead of “forgive us our debts.”[1]

I could talk all day about difficulties and variations in translation and transmission of the prayer.  It has even been a centerpiece of controversy a time or two in church history, but for now let’s use Luke’s version to take a deeper look at the meaning of this amazing prayer that Jesus has given to us.

“When you pray,” said Jesus—and the “you” is plural here—so, “when all y’all pray, say: Father, may your name be revered as holy. Your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread.  And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  And do not bring us to the time of trial.”  

We usually start a conversation by getting the other person’s attention. We often do that by simply by saying their name or title.  For example, my grandsons call me Pono.  When I hear one of the say, “Pono,” I know they want to talk to me about something or ask me something or sometimes just come sit with me—which is one of my favorite things in life.  It’s the same when we begin the Lord’s Prayer saying, “Father…”  We’re letting God know we would like to have a conversation.  Or that we’re ready to listen.

The word “Father” acknowledges that we have a personal relationship with God.  It’s supposed to help us feel like we’re sharing our hearts with a warm, nurturing, loving parent.  That’s the kind of relationship Jesus had with God and that’s what he would like for us to have, too.  

But the Father image, or for that matter the Mother image doesn’t work for everybody.  Some people have experienced abuse or conflict with their father or mother or both, so parent imagery isn’t inviting for them.  When that’s the case, it’s perfectly okay to address God in some other way.

In her book Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, Anne Lamott wrote, “Nothing could matter less than what we call [God].  I know some ironic believers who call God Howard, as in ‘Our Father, who art in Heaven, Howard by thy name.’  

“Let’s not get bogged down on whom or what we pray to.  Let’s just say prayer is communication from our hearts to the great mystery, or Goodness, or Howard; to the animating energy of love we are sometimes bold enough to believe in; to something unimaginably big, and not us.  We could call this force Not Me. . .  Or for convenience we could just say ‘God.’”

Anne Lamott’s advice to call on God with whatever name opens your heart and draws you closer to God might seem contradictory to what comes next in the Lord’s Prayer: “may your name be revered as holy,” or to translate it directly from the Greek, “Let it be sacred, the name of you.”  So, are we treating God’s name as sacred if we call on God as Howard or some other name?  Well, I think that depends entirely on your attitude when you use that name. 

Devout Jews often address God as Hashem in their prayers.  Hashemmeans “the name,” and addressing God as Hashem gives them a way to address God by name, sort of, without actually saying God’s name, which they believe is too holy to be spoken.  In effect, Hashem becomes a name they use for God in much the same way that Pono is the name my grandsons use for me.  

Devout Jews avoid speaking God’s name, the name God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, as a way to ensure that they don’t break the commandment against taking God’s name in vain.  Taking God’s name in vain means a lot more than just saying God’s name at the wrong time or in the wrong way or saying “Oh my God” as an expletive.  

Taking God’s name in vain means using the name or authority of God in a way that draws ridicule.  It can mean claiming the authority of God for purposes that have nothing to do with God’s sovereignty or God’s desires.  It can mean using God’s name or authority to further your own ideas or agenda, to reinforce your own authority, or simply using God’s name or authority for show.  

When we say “hallowed by your name,” we’re saying, “Let it be sacred, Hashem, let it be sacred, the name of you.” When we pray this, it’s a way of saying, “Keep us humble in your presence and keep us honest, God.”

And now we come to the part of the prayer that is truly the most challenging if we really think about what we’re saying.

“Your kingdom come.”  I think sometimes that if we took this petition seriously our knees would buckle.  When we pray “your kingdom come,” we are volunteering to help build a civilization grounded in justice, kindness and love.  

This petition is where the Lord’s Prayer becomes subversive in the best possible way.  When we pray “your kingdom come,” the Lord’s Prayer can no longer be regarded as merely a nice religious artifact or a litany of devotion.  And if anyone wants to suggest that Jesus is telling us to pray for the establishment of God’s heavenly kingdom at the end of time, then I would suggest that they haven’t really read the gospels or understood the teaching of Jesus.  Jesus was not crucified because he talked about heaven; he was executed for proclaiming that the dominion of God was within reach and, in fact, had already begun. 

Your kingdom come is a declaration that we are in favor of radical changes in the way the world operates.  When we pray your kingdom come, we are asking God to work through us to make significant changes in economics, politics, religion and society in order to bring the justice and shalom of God to our everyday lives.  When we pray your kingdom come we are volunteering to live here and now in God’s shalomand also to do whatever we can to bring God’s shalom to others and to all of creation.

Shalom is what the Lord’s Prayer is all about.  Shalom is a Hebrew word that means peace, but it’s not merely a peace based on the absence or suppression of hostility.  The word Shalom comes from the Hebrew root shalam, which literally means “make it good.”  It is a word used to describe completeness and wholeness.  And, while it’s good for us to seek our own inner shalom, the real shalom of God’s dominion happens in community.  The Shalom of God’s kin-dom is a peace that recognizes that we are all interconnected and interdependent.  Shalom is built on justice and fairness and desires peace and well-being for everyone, not just for ourselves.  

Cherokee theologian Randy S. Woodley describes it this way:  “Shalom is communal, holistic, and tangible. There is no private or partial shalom. The whole community must have shalom or no one has shalom. As long as there are hungry people in a community that is well fed, there can be no shalom. . . . Shalom is not for the many, while a few suffer; nor is it for the few while many suffer. It must be available for everyone.”[2] 

When we pray Your kingdom come, we are praying for shalom in our homes, in our towns, in our churches, in our nation and throughout the whole world.  We are praying for peace and justice and fairness for everyone.  And that brings us naturally to Give us each day our daily bread, because in the commonwealth of God’s justice and kindness, in God’s shalom, everyone is fed and no one goes hungry. 

Give us each day our daily bread.  There are some variations in the ancient Greek manuscripts here.  Many of them have this petition exactly the way we’re used to hearing it or saying it: give us today our daily bread.  However, the insightful Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine, suggests that a more useful understanding comes from the manuscripts that say give us today our bread for tomorrow.  

In most households in Jesus’s day, the dough for the next day’s bread was prepared the evening before and allowed to rise during the night.  If you were going to have bread tomorrow, you needed to have the ingredients today.  So, “give us today our bread for tomorrow” is a way of asking for something very practical.  We’re asking God to save us from at least a little anxiety by giving us today what we will need tomorrow.  

This part of the prayer reaches beyond our family table.  It echoes a traditional Jewish table prayer called the motzi: “Blessed are you, Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.”  It reminds us that God doesn’t just magically put bread on the table. God uses the generosity of the earth and the labor of the whole community to put bread on the table.  

When we pray give us today our bread for tomorrow, we are asking God to care for the land where the grain grows.  We’re asking for clean and gentle rains so the crops can grow.  We are asking God to guard and protect the farmers who plant and care for and harvest the crops.  We are asking God to care for those who transport the grain and mill it into flour.  We are asking God to care for the hands that make the dough and knead it.  We are asking for fuel for the fire in the ovens that bake the bread.  

Bread on the table depends entirely on the well-being of the community and on our relationships within the community.  God brings forth bread from the earth, but it is a team effort.  When we pray for both today’s bread and tomorrow’s we are once again praying for the shalom of God’s kin-dom. The next time you hold a piece of bread in your hand, or any piece of food for that matter, think of all the hands that labored to bring it to your hand.

Shalom is what makes it possible for us to have our daily bread.  But sometimes things we do or say disrupt our peace and fracture the cooperation and mutuality of shalom.  Sometimes our sins or the sins of others rupture relationships and forgiveness is needed to restore those relationships.  And that’s why Jesus taught us to pray Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  

Luke says “forgive us our sins.”  Matthew says, “forgive us our debts.”  In both Aramaic and Hebrew, “debt” was another way to talk about sin. This petition reminds us that there is a reciprocity involved in forgiveness.  As Jesus said in Luke 6:37, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”  Once again it’s about relationships all the way down, which means that this petition is also about God’s shalom.

But let’s go back to the language about debts and forgiving debts. Remember that Jesus was a Jew and he was teaching this prayer to his Jewish disciples.  This language about debts would have been a reminder to them of everything the Torah and the prophets had to say about economic justice.  Jesus is reminding them and us that we are called to live in an economically ethical way.  When we don’t, it’s a sin.  We accrue a spiritual debt.

Living a life of faith as a follower of Jesus means that sometimes we face difficult questions. Sometimes it feels almost as if we’re being tested. And so we pray do not bring us to the time of trial.  

When the Book of Common Prayer was revised in 1604, the phrase “lead us not into temptation” in that version of the Lord’s Prayer caused a huge controversy. The Puritans were quick to point out that the Book of James says, “No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.” (James 1:13)  This was only one of several complaints they had about the Book of Common Prayer, but it was one they were not willing to compromise.

They had a point.  What the Greek says in both Luke and Matthew is “do not bring us into a peirasmon.  Peirasmon is a time or place of testing, trial or examination.  Temptation may be a kind of test, but not every test is a temptation.  In this petition, we are asking to be spared from any kind of catastrophe or stress, or any situation that would put our faith to the test. 

The Lord’s Prayer, Our Prayer, this prayer that Jesus gave us, is not only one of the great treasures of our faith, it’s also, in its way, a call to radical discipleship.  In this prayer we are asking God to empower us, guide us, and walk with us as we embrace a new way of life with new values and a new vision of what the world can be.  It really is, in six simple lines, a kind of manifesto for life as a follower of Jesus.

In this prayer we are asking for peace, health, and  wholeness for ourselves and for our community.  We are asking God to help us live in the shalom of the commonwealth of God’s justice and kindness here and now.  We are asking God to help us live in the Way of Love.  When we say “Amen,” we are not only saying “Make it so,” we are saying we will do whatever we can to live in that vision and make it a reality for others.  In Jesus’ name.

[1] I’m very grateful to Brian Stoffregen for this bit of history and other insights in his weekly Exegetical Notes.

[2] Shalom and the Community of Creation; Randy S. Woodley

Triangulating Jesus

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

Luke 10:38-42

So. . . this one time Jesus was on the road and he stopped into a certain village and a woman named Martha welcomed him, which means she invited him into her home, which was a very nice and generous thing to do since Jesus probably had an entourage travelling with him and it would be rude not to include all of them.  

That village may have been Bethany if this is the same Martha that is mentioned in the Gospel of John as the sister of Mary and Lazarus.  Luke doesn’t tell us the name of the village and Luke doesn’t mention Lazarus, so it may have been some other village and a different Mary and Martha altogether. 

For ages it was assumed that the Mary and Martha of this brief episode in Luke are the same Mary and Martha from chapter 11 in the Gospel of John, the Mary and Martha who lived with their brother, Lazarus in Bethany, about three miles from Jerusalem.  And maybe it is the same Mary and Martha.  But maybe not.  Some scholars are convinced that these two sisters in Luke’s story are not those two sisters in John’s story and that this village is not Bethany.

A few years ago an astute Bible scholar named Elizabeth Schrader Polczer was taking a very close look at some very ancient manuscripts of the Gospel of John as part of her doctoral work and she noticed some odd little smudges and scrapes and overwriting in the text in the papyrus she was examining.  It looked like someone a long, long time ago—like maybe in the 2nd century—had inserted Martha into the Lazarus story.  

Whoever did this long-ago editing may have assumed that Martha had accidently been left out of John’s account.  That’s one theory.  On the other hand, maybe Martha was inserted to downplay the importance of Mary the Magdalene—Mary the Tower.  Mary Magdalene, who is almost certainly also Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus, was a very popular and important apostolic figure in the early church before the patriarchy boys club tried to diminish her influence by tarnishing her reputation.  That whole business about her being a lady of easy virtue?  No basis in fact.  Just some bad patriarchic exegesis with malice aforethought.  I’m looking at you, Gregory the Not-So-Great.

Anyway, another reason why this Mary and Martha in Luke are probably not Mary and Martha of Bethany is that Bethany is very close to Jerusalem, and there is no indication in the 10th chapter of Luke that Jesus was anywhere near Jerusalem or even going in that direction.  At the beginning of the chapter he was denouncing towns in Galilee and in the chapter before that he was in Samaria.  

Another thing to consider is that Mary and Martha were two of the most common names for women in that part of the world at that time.  There are, for example, no less than six different women named Mary in the New Testament.  And while there aren’t so many Marthas mentioned, it’s not much of a stretch to think there could be at least two.

And none of this has anything to do with this particular story.  So let’s get back to the story.

So. . . Martha invites Jesus and probably his ride-along disciples into her home then gets busy providing hospitality.  This was important.  Hospitality was serious business in their culture.  It was a holy obligation backed up by scripture.  Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with fire from heaven for failing to provide hospitality.  Well, that and also for sexually assaulting the travelers who came through town.  But that counts as a failure of hospitality, right?

In a culture where so many people, even some wealthy and important people, were nomadic, hospitality was one of the most important cultural virtues.  When you invited someone into your home, the very least that was expected was that you would provide a good meal.  So suddenly Martha has a ton of work to do to cook some dinner for Jesus and his companions.  And maybe she needs to work out some sleeping arrangements.  And maybe she’s checking the pantry to make sure she has enough flour to make more bread and dried figs and parched grains to give them all a good breakfast.  The point is, Martha isn’t just busy for the sake of being busy.  She’s doing her best to be a good hostess and to fulfill an important social obligation.  Her busyness is honorable busyness.  Necessary busyness.  

Anyway, Martha’s got her hands full with all the hostess things and she looks across the room and sees her sister, Mary, just sitting there on the floor listening to Jesus.  

Just sitting.  

Listening to Jesus.

Martha tries to get Mary’s attention and gestures toward the food prep in progress on the table, but Mary doesn’t take the hint.  Martha picks up the water jug and tilts it toward the door, pantomiming that she would like Mary to make a quick trip to the well.  Mary doesn’t even see her because she is so caught up in what Jesus is saying.

Finally, Martha has had enough.  She storms across the room to Jesus (as politely as possible) and says, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?  Tell her to come and help me!”

I wonder how she felt when Jesus said, “Martha, Martha! You are anxious and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen what is best, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Oof.

So. . . Are you a Mary or a Martha?   Wait, don’t answer that.  The fact is, one of the things I really don’t like about this text is that far too often it tempts us to ask questions like that.  We turn a story of two good people doing two good things into a kind of binary contest with a winner and a loser and we make Jesus sound all judgy in the process.  

Let’s look again at what’s actually happening in this little drama in five verses.  Jesus arrives.  Martha gets busy to provide good hospitality.  She is fulfilling her expected role, what she believes is required of her.  Mary, on the other hand, sits down with Jesus, and listens to him.  She is giving him her time and attention which is also an important social duty.  

Notice that Jesus doesn’t say anything about what either of the sisters is doing—he doesn’t say anything critical to Martha or anything affirming to Mary—until Martha drags him into the middle of the tension between the two sisters.  That’s called triangulating.  

Triangulation happens when a person complains about another person to a third person instead of addressing the issue directly. Triangulation is very common in families, especially among siblings.  In its worst forms it can be abusive.  In its most common forms its used in particular moments or situations to establish or maintain dominance, to confirm who is in charge at least for the moment.

How often do we try to triangulate with Jesus?  How often do we try to draw Jesus in on our side of a dispute?  How often do we assume that Jesus is on our side in a disagreement with our siblings in Christ?  That’s something worth thinking about, so maybe jot that down in your notebook of Spiritual Growth Questions.  It’s a good one for keeping us honest.

When Jesus says to Martha that she is anxious and bothered about many things he is very subtly stepping out of the triangle she tried to rope him into.  He isn’t criticizing her, he is merely describing her state of mind to her.  Unfortunately, that kind of  truth often sounds like criticism, especially if we’re feeling the least bit defensive.  

When Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen what is best, he is, again very subtly, telling Martha to stop trying to control her sister, and he is reminding her that giving a guest time and attention is at least as important as all the hospitality duties that Martha thinks are so culturally crucial.  To emphasize this, he makes it clear to Martha that he will not allow Mary’s moment of spiritual communion with him to be taken away for the sake of housework or social propriety.  

These things Jesus says to Martha can sound a bit harsh until we remember that Martha also was free to stop and sit at the feet of Jesus any time she wanted from the moment he entered her house.  The lesson for her and all Marthas might be “before you get busy with all the things, take a moment to be with all the people.”

There were very clear social conventions in their world about hospitality and meals, but Jesus was already famous for disregarding or even criticizing these kinds of conventions, so  Mary and Martha had options.  

I think this little story in Luke wants us to think about our options so we don’t accidentally create tension and anxiety and open the door to triangulation, especially at times when we want to be welcoming and hospitable.  For instance, Mary could have stepped up to help Martha right from the beginning so they could get things prepared faster and then both sat down to a conversation with Jesus.  They could have asked Jesus when he first arrived if he wanted to eat first or sit together and talk first.  Better than that, any and all of them could have stepped in and pitched in when they saw that Martha was determined to fulfill her traditional role as a hostess. And, of course, Martha could have sat with Mary and listened to Jesus and then asked Mary—and maybe also Jesus and his crew, why not?—to pitch in and help make supper.  

There is no really satisfying ending to this very brief story in Luke.  There is no easy moral to take home here.  You can’t just say “be a Mary and not a Martha.”  We need Marthas.  Marthas make things happen in the world, and especially in the church.  Every Sunday when you come in and sit down to worship a crew of volunteer Marthas has already been hard at work.  Marthas chose the hymns and practiced the music.  Marthas prepared and printed the bulletin.  Marthas checked the sound system and the cameras for online streaming.  Marthas made sure there would be bread and wine for communion.  Marthas prepared the altar and lit the candles.  And Marthas made the coffee and snacks for the fellowship time after worship.

We need Marthas.  And we need Marys.  We need the people who listen attentively and ponder what they’re hearing.  We need people who hear the words of Christ, internalize them, and pass them along to others.  We need the teachers and counselors and preachers and theologians who keep us faithful and in tune with the heart of Jesus. 

The fact is that almost every one of us has been a Martha at one time or another and almost every one of us has been a Mary at one time or another.  Both were doing good things.  Both were serving, just in different ways.  Still, when Martha tried to triangulate Jesus into the unspoken tension with her sister, Jesus does say that Mary made the better choice. 

So maybe the message is this: before you get all caught up in the necessary busyness of life, take time to sit at the feet of Jesus.  Listen to what he says.  Internalize his Word.  Breathe in his Spirit.  Then your necessary busyness, and especially the busyness of hospitality, will be motivated by the Spirit of serving and the love of Christ that crosses all boundaries and welcomes all guests.

Oh, and maybe don’t triangulate Jesus into criticizing your siblings.

A People Possessed

Steve Beckham 5 Comments

Luke 8:26-39; Mark 5:1-10

So, one day Jesus decided to take his disciples on a little trip across the lake.  Why?  Because that’s where the Gentiles and Hellenized Jews lived—you know, those “other” people—and Jesus wanted them to know about the kingdom of God, too.  He wanted his disciples to understand that the Commonwealth of God’s justice and kindness is not just for Judeans and Galileans.  It’s for everyone.  So they set out across the lake. But no sooner had their boat touched the shore than they were accosted by a naked demon-possessed man who apparently already knew who Jesus was.  “When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, shouting, ‘What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?  I beg you, do not torment me.’”  

Just to be clear, there is no record of Jesus ever tormenting anyone, although he has been known to make people uncomfortable with very pointed questions—the kind of questions that can make your soul itch.  So maybe that’s what the demoniac was afraid of.

Jesus paused the exorcism and asked the demon his name.  “Legion,” said the man, “for many demons had entered him.”

Legion.    In a Jewish story that was written in Greek, that Latin word sticks out like a bowling ball on a tennis court.  Legion.  It had only one meaning in their world at that time—a  division of Roman soldiers.  And that gives us a clue that, while this is an exorcism story and a miracle story, it is also a political story—a story about how the oppressive practices of the Roman occupation drove this poor man insane and caused his community to live under a cloud of fear.  

Living under a system where the Romans and the local nobility and the wealthy got the first and the best and the most of everything and got richer on the backs of the poor people who did all the work and took all the risks was more than this poor soul could take.  He didn’t dare to speak out against the multiple injustices that shadowed their daily life because doing so would bring swift and brutal punishment from the soldiers who patrolled the streets, punishment that would be directed not only at him but also at his neighbors.  With no safe outlet for his rage and his pain, he turned them inward on himself.

The late Paul Hollenbach put it this way: “The tension between his hatred for his oppressors and the necessity to repress this hatred in order to avoid dire recrimination drove him mad. He retreated to an inner world where he could symbolically resist Roman domination.”  By casting out the demon, said Hollenbach, Jesus “brought the man’s and the neighborhood’s hatred of the Romans out into the open, where the result could be disaster for the community.”[1]

This is not just a story about how Jesus brought peace to a tormented man in ancient times, it is also very much a story for us in our time.   In an editorial remembrance of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark who were killed last week in a political assassination, ELCA pastor and author Angela Decker wrote, “American democracy, borne in slavery, enriched in colonialism and genocide, tested in ill-advised overseas wars, is now writhing and twisting, beset by internal illness and self-inflicted wounds.”[2]

If that assessment seems too harsh, consider these events from just this month:

  • On June 8, disregarding the authority and advice of Governor Newsome and Mayor Bass, President Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell “riots” which were, in reality, mostly peaceful protests against the administration’s continuing raids on undocumented immigrants by Immigration and Customs officers. On June 10, the president deployed 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles in violation of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act which forbids the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.  On June 17, he deployed an additional 2,000 National Guard troops.  According to The Guardian, these troops “have told friends and family members they are deeply unhappy about the assignment and worry their only meaningful role will be as pawns in a political battle they do not want to join.”[3]
  • On June 10, New Jersey Congresswoman LaMonica McIver was arrested and indicted for interfering with ICE officers who were arresting Newark Mayor Ras Baraka outside a federal immigration detention facility in her state.  Both Congresswoman McIver and Mayor Baraka were there as part of to their official duties.
  • On June 13, United States Senator Alex Padilla was wrestled to the floor and handcuffed by security officers when he tried to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question at her press conference.
  • On June 17, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is also a candidate for mayor, was arrested by ICE agents at a Manhattan immigration court while escorting a defendant out of the courtroom.  He had come to the court in an effort to observe hearings and promote legal services for immigrants.
  • On June 14, Flag Day, Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were shot and killed by a man posing as a police officer.  Their assailant then drove to the home of State Senator John Hoffman and shot him and his wife, Yvette.  Fortunately, they survived.  Later that same day, the president would watch a poorly attended military parade while more than five million people attended No Kings protests all across the country to protest the policies of his administration.
  • June 12 marked the 9th anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, Florida in which 49 people were killed and another 68 were injured.
  • June 17 was the 10th anniversary of the racially motivated killing of 9 people who were attending a Bible study at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.  
  • In a related note, as of June 20, there have been 37 mass shootings in the US this month alone, bringing the total to 199 so far for the year.

Now add on to all of that the rising international tensions which threaten to involve us, the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and the increasingly violent conflict between Israel and Iran—which as of yesterday afternoon with the bombing of Iran ordered by President Trump now actually does involve us—and  it’s no wonder that politics is having a profoundly negative effect on our collective sense of well-being and our understanding of who we are as a people. 

According to the American Psychological Association, political polarization and a seemingly endless series of national crises have become a significant source of stress for the American people and that stress is taking its toll.  Seventy-seven percent, nearly 8 in 10 adults, report that worrying about the future of our country has become a serious source of anxiety causing symptoms that range from insomnia to depression.  Forty-one percent, nearly 2 in 5 adults, have considered moving to a different country.   

As I read the Gospel for this week with all these things echoing in my heart, I couldn’t help but think that we, the good old US of A, we are the demon-possessed man. We are the man made crazy by fears and anxieties and bigotry and scapegoating.  We are the man howling among the tombs and battering ourselves with blind rage and unreasoned hatreds.

We are the man with a hopelessly divided mind, made bipolar and schizophrenic by a cacophony of opposing inner voices—entrenched political parties with no common ground—conservatives vs. liberals and ne’er the twain shall meet even in the cause of common sense, putting our party identity and our ideology ahead of everything else that’s supposed to define us, making even our faith subservient to our chosen place on the ideological spectrum. 

We are so blinded by the ideological lenses we wear that we see only what we want to see. And since our biases rarely completely align with or truly resonate with the Gospel, our cognitive dissonance creates the first and most stubborn degree of our madness.

Oh, we have our moments of clarity.  But then the rage wells up in us and we explode in violence.

For most of us the violence doesn’t go beyond rhetoric and posturing, but words and attitude can open the door for those who would turn it into horribly tangible violence, death and destruction.

Even among the most enlightened among us, our suppressed  racism, or our discomfort with sexualities that are different from our own, or our anxieties about other religions—all these things creep out in unguarded words or microaggressions, or, most often, simply in awkward silence—a failure to speak, a silence which gives permission to the violence that is always waiting to happen.  We breed the craziness.

We cloak our prejudices in our religions or our patriotism. We project our own disquiet, our own fears and anxieties and hatred onto the most vulnerable and marginalized, scapegoating them with some reasonable sounding rationale to support our bigotry and give us permission to treat them horribly.  We are so blinded by our own warped and fearful reasoning that we can’t see children of God standing right in front of us—especially if the color of their skin or their language or their religion or their sexuality isn’t the same as ours.

We are caught in an epic struggle between love and hate, a struggle that is almost entirely of our own making.

Can you see that if you’re not actively and passionately on the side of love then you are at least passively on the side of hate? 

Can you see that if you are not actively generating the transformational light of cultural metanoia—a radical change of heart and mind—then you are passively brooding in a moonless night of cultural assumptions?

And can you see that we are not just the bedeviled man raving among the tombs?  We are also the craven townspeople afraid of our own shadows, afraid to stand against the madness even as we recognize the insanity of our own inconsistencies.   We penalize the voices that cry out against injustice.  We lock them up and bind them with chains, both real and metaphorical, even though we know, deep down, that silencing them will not bring us peace.

And even when God works a miracle and restores one of us to our senses we respond with more anxiety because that is just so different from our usual experience, and because anxiety has become our go-to reaction for almost everything.

Can we find a way out of all this madness?

Can we learn how to put aside our politics, our ideologies, our biases and prejudices?  Can we learn how to silence the less savory internal voices of our childhood, our inclination for self-protection, our fear of the “other,” our anxiety about a constantly changing world—can we put aside our own demons long enough to see the person in front of us as someone who God deeply loves and cares for?

Can we learn to see each other the way Jesus sees us? 

Instead of a woman with an unsavory reputation, can we learn to see a daughter of God who has been beaten down by the world and had to make desperate choices in order to survive?  Instead of an unhoused nutjob venting his rage on the corner or among the tombs can we learn to see a son of God bedeviled and enslaved by the legion insanity and heartlessness of the world around him?

Can we learn to see that in Christ we are all children of God, that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, gay or straight or trans or bi—no documented or undocumented?   No us or them?

Can you see that we are all going to have to learn to see differently?

No, we can’t afford to be stupid. No we can’t afford to be blind to real threats.  But can you see that first we are going to have to learn to recognize and deal with the real threats that arise from our own hearts and minds and souls?

Can we learn how to stop listening to all the voices that divide us and pit us against each other? Can we find the heart to switch off the news channels and radio voices and web feeds and political voices that want to tell us how awful or dangerous those other people are, who want to tell us that “they” are not the real “us”?

Can all of us, each of us, muster enough humility to have at least one “come to Jesus” moment so he can remove the lenses of our preconceptions and cast our demons into the sea of God’s love?

Can you see that the only way out of our madness is for us to learn to love our neighbors with the love of Christ?  Can you see that the love exemplified and perpetually renewed by Jesus—whether you know that’s where it comes from or not—is our only hope of ever being able to sit down with each other calmly and in our right minds?

If we can learn to see each other the way Jesus sees us, then maybe we can live to see the promise of Isaiah 32 fulfilled:

Then everyone who has eyes will be able to see the truth,

                  and everyone who has ears will be able to hear it.

         Even the hotheads will be full of sense and understanding.

                  Those who stammer will speak out plainly.

         In that day ungodly fools will not be heroes.

                  Scoundrels will not be respected.[4]

Hasten the Day, Lord Jesus.

[1] Hollenbach, P.; Jesus, Demoniacs, and Public Authorities; 1981, JAAR, p. 573; quoted in Meyers, Ched; Binding the Strong Man, p. 192

[2] Minnesota Star Tribune, June 19, 2025

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/12/los-angeles-national-guard-troops-marines-morale

[4] Isaiah 32:3-5, Contemporary English Version

The Big Fish of Civil Disobedience

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

John 21:1-19

The Gospel of John comes to a very satisfying conclusion at the end of Chapter 20.  In that chapter, the resurrected Jesus encounters Mary Magdalene by the empty tomb.   In the evening of that same day he appears to the disciples who were huddling in fear in the upper room.  Jesus greets them with a benediction of peace and breathes on them to bestow the Holy Spirit which will empower them for the work that lies ahead.  A week after that, he appears to Thomas to address his doubts.  The final words of chapter 20 feel like a conclusion:  “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” 

The end. 

Except it’s not.

Just as you’re about to close the book, the narrator starts up again in chapter 21 saying,  “After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he showed himself in this way.”  And what comes next is a fishing story.  Which is a little strange since fishing is not mentioned even once anywhere else in the entire Gospel of John.  

The final chapter of John, chapter 21, is a bit odd in a number of ways.  There is a general consensus among scholars that this chapter was added to the gospel at a later date, some say as much as 20 years after the original ending.  Since John was the last of the gospels, most likely written sometime around 90 CE depending on who you ask, that would mean that this epilogue was written sometime around 110 CE or thereabout. 

This epilogue, this fishing story, is not a story meant to inspire evangelism, although it has often been preached that way.  It’s not a story meant to affirm and reinforce the bodily resurrection of Jesus, although it has often been preached that way, too.  This is a story about civil disobedience.

So what was going on in the world and in the communities of Jesus people around that time that made it feel necessary to add this chapter?   And why does this chapter take them so suddenly back to Galilee?  And why are they going fishing?

To answer these questions, we need to revisit a little bit of history.

Jesus began his ministry in Galilee and that’s where he called his first disciples.  The writer of John seems to assume that we already know that Peter and Andrew and James and John were fishermen who fished in the Sea of Galilee before meeting Jesus.  John assumes we already know the story of how they dropped their nets and left their boats when Jesus walked by and said, “Follow me and I will teach you to fish for people.”  But if we didn’t know those stories from Matthew, Mark and Luke, we would not learn them from John because John’s gospel hasn’t been at all interested in fishing.  Until now.  In the epilogue.

Fishing was an important industry in the empire and it was heavily controlled.[1]  By law, the emperor owned every body of water in the empire and all the fish in those waters. Every last one of them.  It was illegal to fish without a license and those licenses were expensive.  Most fishing was done by family cooperatives who pooled their money to buy the license and the boats and nets.  You could make a living but you wouldn’t get rich because about 40% of the catch went for taxes and fees.  And you were probably making payments on the boat, too.  After the fish were caught they would be carted or carried by boat to a processing center where the fish would be salted and dried or pickled, except for the large fish.  I’ll come back to the large fish in a moment. 

The most important processing center on the Sea of Galilee was just down the road from Capernaum in the town of Tarichaea.  The Hebrew name for that town was Magdala Nunayya, which means Tower of Fish.  Just a side note here: Magdalameans tower, so Mary Magdalene means Mary the Tower, which tells us something about her status among the apostles.  Herod Antipas wanted to curry favor with the emperor Tiberias, so in the year 18 CE he established a city three and a half miles away from Tarichaea which he named Tiberias in honor of the emperor.  

Herod built piers and fish processing facilities then invited people from all over the empire to come live in Tiberias and work in its fishing industry.  Gentile pagans flocked to the town looking for employment on the Sea of Galilee which these newcomers now called the Sea of Tiberias.  Almost overnight the Jewish family coop fishing businesses that had sustained people like Peter and Andrew and James and John found themselves in stiff competition with state-sponsored foreign fishermen from all over the empire, and the wealthy fish-processing town of Tarichaea/Magdala Nunayya began rapidly losing money to Herod’s processing plants in the city of Tiberias.  

One of the consequences of all this was that opposition to Roman occupation and Herod’s administrative oversight began to intensify in Galilee, and Tarichaea became a hotbed of resistance. Eventually, that resistance became a revolt and a full-blown war.

In the year 70, the Roman general Titus completely leveled Tarichaea.  The Galilean fishing industry would have been completely destroyed, but the people of the city of Tiberias took an oath of loyalty to the emperor, so they were allowed to continue catching and processing fish in the Sea of Tiberias.  That same year, Titus sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple but the resistance to Rome’s heavy-handed power never entirely melted away.  The fishing community of Galilee continued to harbor a core of that resistance that core of the resistance movement.

All of this is in the background of Chapter 21, this epilogue to the Gospel of John.  This chapter was written about 80 years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and for most of those 80 years Rome had been at war with the Jews which meant they were also at war with the Christians because as far as Rome was concerned, the Christians were just another Jewish sect, a sect which the Roman Senate had declared to be an “illegal superstition.”  That declaration opened the door for persecution of Christians under Nero and Domitian and later emperors.  

So back to the original question: what was going on in the world and in the communities of Jesus people around that time that made it feel necessary to add this chapter?   In the year 112, Pliny the Younger who was serving as governor of Bithynia and Pontus wrote to Trajan, the emperor, and asked, “I have some people who have been accused of being Christians.  What do you want me to do with them?”   Trajan wrote back and said, “Well, don’t go hunting for them, but if someone is accused of being a Christian, just ask them to renounce their faith, take an oath of loyalty to the Emperor, and offer sacrifices to the gods of Rome.  If they do that, let them go.  If not, execute them.”  

This was not an easy time to be devoted to Jesus—not that it had ever been easy.  But now, if a neighbor publicly accused you of being a Christian you had a very hard choice to make.  On top of that, the seemingly endless war that Rome was waging on Jews who showed the least bit of activism kept popping up in hot spots, and as far as Rome was concerned Christians were just another kind of Jews, which, to be fair, was often true since many Christians were Jews who followed Jesus.  On top of all that, these early Jesus people had expected Christ to return at any minute to overthrow the Empire of Rome and replace it with the kingdom of God, but that had not happened yet.  The original Apostles were all gone to their reward and the People of the Way were losing hope and direction.  What do we do?  How do we continue?  How do we live in the life-giving Way of Jesus in the face of an oppressive and dehumanizing Empire?

Chapter 21 acknowledges the presence of the empire right away.   After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias.  Only the Gospel of John refers to the Sea of Galilee as the Sea of Tiberias.  That name is used nowhere else in the New Testament.  That’s the empire’s name for this body of water.  It’s a reminder that the Emperor claims ownership of this sea which plays such a large role in the story of our faith.  The emperor is in the story.  But the writer of this chapter is telling us right from the top that even where the empire claims sovereignty, Jesus shows up to challenge that claim with a quiet but firm counter claim.   

“Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.”  This naming of the disciples is a roll call of the companions of Jesus who established Christ-following communities throughout the empire.  This is a reminder to all those followers of Jesus and his apostles that we are all in the same boat even if the empire claims to own the sea.  

So they go fishing all night.  But they don’t catch anything.  Frustrating. Disheartening.  And doesn’t life in the church feel just like that sometimes.  You do everything you know how to do and you get bupkis. 

And that’s when they spot Jesus standing on the beach, waiting for them.  They don’t recognize him right away.  People usually don’t recognize the risen Christ right away. The disciples don’t recognize him until they follow his instructions, drop their net on the right side of the boat and then haul in so many fish that they can’t even lift the net into the boat.  That’s when they recognize him.  

When they got to the beach they found Jesus cooking some fish and bread over a charcoal fire and he invited them to breakfast.  It’s easy to go right past that, but it’s important not to miss it.  Jesus is already cooking a fish.  Jesus already has one of the emperor’s fish.  Jesus is engaged in an act of civil disobedience.  And he’s about to make it an even bigger act of civil disobedience.  “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught,” he tells them.  So Simon Peter hauled the net ashore and found it was full of large fish.  A hundred fifty-three large fish.  

A hundred fifty-three fish is impressive.  But the thing that would have been really impressive to the first people who read or heard this story was that they were large fish.  Regular fish were sent to the processor to be processed.  Large fish, however, were wrapped and put on ice and shipped off for the tables of the wealthy and nobility and even for the emperor, himself.  Large fish, the emperor’s large fish, were not for consumption by common fishermen on the beach.  But Jesus has other ideas.  “Bring me some of the fish you have caught and come have breakfast.”

Jesus is making a statement.  The sea does not belong to the emperor.  The sea belongs to God.  The fish do not belong to the emperor.  The fish belong to all God’s people.  In God’s economy the first and biggest and best of the world’s abundance does not automatically go to the wealthy and powerful. In God’s economy the abundant provision of the earth is for everyone. Jesus appropriates the emperor’s fish, large fish fit for the emperor’s own table, and creates a feast for his disciples, for the people who did the hard work of fishing. 

After a nice reunion breakfast of roasted fish and bread, Jesus turned to Simon Peter and said, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”  The word “these” makes Jesus’ question hauntingly ambiguous.  Does he mean more than these friends of ours, these other disciples?  Does he mean “these things?”—do you love me more than your boats and your nets and your life as a fisherman?  What are “these”?  Maybe it’s all of the above.

Jesus asks Peter this “do you love me” question three times, and in the Greek text there is an interesting play on words using two different words for love, agape and phileo.  Jesus asks Peter if he loves him with an agape love, the decisional, self-sacrificing love that puts the needs of the beloved first.  Peter responds with phileo,the deep bond of brotherly love and friendship.  Both words mean love and scholars note that they were often used interchangeably, but they’re not exactly synonyms and subtle nuances in meaning can flavor a conversation the way subtle differences in spices can change the flavor of a stew.  There is tension in this conversation between Peter and Jesus, and that tension is emphasized by the subtle differences in the words each one uses for love.

Jesus repeats the question a second time and Peter repeats his answer.  But the third time, Jesus asks the question differently, using the word for love that Peter has been using:  “Simon son of John, do you love me like a brother?”  That stings.  Peter feels hurt, and you can feel the heat when he says, “Lord, you know everything.  You know that I love you.”  

This tense dialogue with Peter, with its play between agape and phileo, echoes a moment from the final teaching Jesus shared with his disciples on the night he was betrayed.   As he sat at the table relaying his parting thoughts he said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another (agape) as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (philon).  You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:12-14)  

That was the same night when Peter denied Jesus three times.  Now, Jesus asks Peter three times to affirm his love and friendship, and three times he commands Peter to lead and care for those who will follow in the Way of Christ.  Feed my lambs.  Shepherd my sheep.  Feed my sheep.  With these words, Jesus reinstates Peter as a disciple.

Jesus wasn’t just speaking to Peter.  Jesus was speaking to all his followers in every age.

Do you love me?  Feed my lambs.  Shepherd my sheep.  Take care of people.  Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God.  Help the helpless and stand with the hopeless.  Protect the vulnerable.  Feed the hungry.  Protest injustice.  Embrace diversity, equity and inclusion, even if it breaks the rules of empire.  

Follow me.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  The risen Jesus speaks these words to Peter as both a challenge and an invitation.   That challenge and invitation extends to anyone willing to follow Christ and be a disciple of the Way.  That challenge and invitation extends to you and to me.  And sometimes the abundant life in Christ and the feast of love and joy requires a little civil disobedience. 

[1] Hanson, K.C., The Galilean Fishing Economy and the Jesus Tradition; Biblical Theology Bulletin 27 (1997), 99-111.  

In, With, and Under

Steve Beckham 1 Comment

It’s a simple thing.  You take a bit of bread and a sip of wine.  But it’s not just bread and wine.  It is nutrition for the soul where spirit and matter intersect.  Christ is in the bread.  Christ is in the wine. You are taking Christ into yourself.  The body of Christ becomes your body and you become part of the body of Christ. The blood of Christ becomes your blood and your blood flows through the body of Christ. You are being empowered and equipped to be Christ’s hands and feet and eyes and ears, to speak Christ’s love and forgiveness and grace.  In that bit of bread and taste of wine you are united as one with all the others who have shared in this sacrament in every age. In that bit of bread and that taste of wine you are drawn back to that last supper that Jesus shared with his disciples.  In that bit of bread and taste of wine you are also being drawn into tomorrow.  

This is the eucharist, literally “the good gift,” the sacrament of communion.  This is the sacrament that signifies our unity as followers of Jesus.  And ironically, sadly, it has been the pivot point of many of Christianity’s most intense  disagreements. 

Over the centuries church leaders and theologians have excommunicated each other over their different understandings of just exactly how Jesus is present or if Jesus is present in that bit of bread and taste of wine.  Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss reformer said that Christ isn’t really present.  The sacrament, he said, is only a “remembrance.”  Martin Luther insisted that Christ truly is present “in, with, and under” the bread and the wine.  Legend says he was so adamant about this that while arguing with Zwingli he carved it into a table top: “corpus meum est”—“this is my body.”   Luther and Zwingli excommunicated each other.  And the Pope excommunicated them both.  Calvin later said that Christ is present, but only spiritually.  No one was quite sure what to make of that.

And I think all of this makes Jesus weep.

One of the very first social boundaries that Jesus crossed was the boundary of table fellowship. The Pharisees criticized him roundly for it.  In their day, who you ate with was important. Table fellowship determined your social status.  It had implications beyond that.  In a culture where the ideas of “clean” and “unclean” or “acceptable” and “unacceptable” were important social constructs that could have serious implications for how your life was going to go,  who you shared a table with and who invited you to their table was a huge thing.  Dining with the right people could open doors and make your reputation.  Dining with the wrong people could close those doors and besmirch your name even if you had done nothing wrong.  So when the Pharisees talk about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners, it’s not a compliment; it’s an accusation.  But Jesus did it to make a point.  In the Commonwealth of God’s justice and kindness, everyone is welcome at the table.  In the kingdom of God everyone is “acceptable.”  Everyone.

On the night he was betrayed, even Judas was at the table.  Even his betrayer received the bread and wine.  Levi the tax collector sat beside Simon the Zealot.  Simon Peter the Galilean fisherman sat beside Thomas the builder.  They’re not mentioned by name, but it’s probably safe to assume that Mary Magdalene was there, and Joanna, and Mary, his mother.  The point is, there were people gathered around that table who might not have been acceptable in the “polite” company of the Pharisees, or maybe even in each other’s company if Jesus wasn’t there as their host.

When Jesus breaks the bread and begins to pass it around the table, I can’t help but wonder if he isn’t looking at the faces of all his friends as he says, “this is my body.”   Is he, maybe, thinking, “You—this eclectic group who would never in a million years have come together on your own, you all together, each of whom would be an outcast somewhere—you, this companionship—this is my body.  You people sharing this bread are the ones who will carry on my Christ-ness, my Christ presence in the world.  Take me into yourselves the way you take in the bread and the wine.  Take in my teaching, my way of being, my love, my spirit, my grace, my unity with God, my way of seeing—swallow me whole so you can be my hands and feet and voice, so I will still be present in the world.”

True faith is a continuing metanoia and metamorphosis, and God gives us examples in everyday life.  Seed is buried in the earth then sprouts up green to stand in the sun and ripen with heads of grain which are crushed and ground.  They change in form to become flour, which changes in form again when bound with water then changes in form yet again when baked to become bread.  

We come to the Way of Jesus as individuals.  As we take up the work of Christ we are changed in form.  Our habits, impulses and priorities change.  We are infused with the Holy Spirit. We are bound together in the water of baptism, then baked into a community through life and service together. 

This is my body.  For you.

That same night, we’re told in John’s gospel,  Jesus had washed their feet.  “You call me Teacher and Master,” he said.  “And you’re right, I am.  But if I, your Master and Teacher have washed your feet, you should wash one another’s feet.  And in case you’re a little slow on the uptake, what I’ve just done was to give you an example.  I want you to serve each other.  More than that, I want you to love each other.  I’m giving you a new commandment: you must love one another just as I have loved you.  That’s how people will know you’re my disciples—if you have love for one another.”

And these things, too, are in that bit of bread and that sip of wine.  

The call to serve is there—in, with and under the bread and the wine.   Love is there—in, with and under the bread and the wine.  Grace and forgiveness are there—in, with and under the bread and the wine. The Word of Creation is there—in, with and under the bread and the wine.  

Christ is there—in, with, and under the bread and wine—the way Christ is present in all of Creation.

Life in all its fullness is there in a bit of bread and a taste of wine if you open your heart and mind to take it in.