Tag history

What You Do Not Know

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

John 4:5-42

The story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well is one of the most beloved stories in the gospels, and the Samaritan woman, herself has become a treasured figure of faith and devotion in several Christian traditions throughout the world.  In the Eastern Orthodox Churches, she is called Saint Photine or Photini, and is regarded as equal to the apostles.  Their tradition says that after her meeting with Jesus she continued to make disciples for Jesus and was eventually martyred at Carthage.  The Roman Catholic Church calls her Saint Photina and asserts that she was martyred at Rome after convincing Emperor Nero’s daughter to become a follower of Jesus.  In the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox traditions, she is called Svetlana, which means “shining one” or “luminescent one.”  In Oaxaca and other parts of Mexico she is called La Samaratina, and on her feast day, which they celebrate on the fourth Sunday in Lent, churches, schools and businesses give sweet fruit drinks or sweetly flavored water to people passing by on the street in memory of the drink of water she gave to Jesus and the living water he became for her.

As beloved as this story is, though, it begins with something of a mystery:  Why did Jesus suddenly decide to leave the Judean countryside to return to Galilee?  And why did he go through Samaria?

At the beginning of chapter four we read that when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was attracting and baptizing more disciples than John the Baptist, Jesus suddenly decided to leave Judea and return to Galilee.  You get the sense that he is worried that he and his disciples are suddenly a little too prominent on the Pharisees’ radar.  Some think that this was about the time when Herod had had John the Baptist arrested—the Gospel of John isn’t clear about that—and Jesus may have thought he would be next.  For whatever reason, Jesus decided rather abruptly to withdraw to his home base in Galilee.  

“He left Judea and started back to Galilee.  But he had to go through Samaria.”  That’s how it reads in the NRSV.  There is an implication in the Greek text that for some reason it was necessary for him to go through Samaria, that something compelled him to go that way.  It adds to the feeling that he was under some kind of pressure, but we’re not told what that was.  

Going through Samaria was the shortest and most direct route to Galilee from Judea, but most Jews avoided taking that road if at all possible, preferring instead to take the long way around Samaria through Perea, the region that’s often referred to in the gospels as “beyond the Jordan.”  

Perea was a Jewish territory with a fairly significant Roman presence.  The road through Perea was heavily patrolled and more travelled, so even though it was a much longer route, it was usually considered a safer way to go.  But the primary advantage of this route for most Jews was that you did not have to go through Samaria.  Instead, you skirted along the eastern side of it.  Which was good.  Because no decent Jew wanted to go through Samaria or deal with Samaritans if it was at all possible to avoid it. 

Jews hated Samaritans.  And Samaritans hated Jews.  Their feud had been going on for more than 900 years when Jesus decided to take the Samaritan road to Galilee.  It had all started with the death of King Solomon.   Jeroboam led the northern territories of Israel in a revolt against Solomon’s son, Rehoboam.  The end result of the brief civil war was that the kingdom which had been united under David and Solomon became two kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south.  

Two hundred years later, the Assyrians attacked Israel and Judah refused to come their aid.  The Assyrians quickly conquered the northern kingdom and renamed it Samaria after the region’s capital city.  The Assyrians took many of the Israelites into captivity, divided them into small groups, then exported them to resettle other conquered areas.  At the same time, they brought in conquered peoples from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim to resettle the territory of Israel. That is why the Jews of Judah sometimes called Samaritans “the people with 5 fathers.”  It was a kind of racial slur.  You can read all about it in 2 Kings 17.

Two centuries and two empires later, when the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah in 538 BCE, the Samaritans were ready to welcome them back, but the Jews despised the Samaritans for their lack of ethnic purity.  Remember that racial slur about the 5 fathers?  

The Samaritans offered to help rebuild the Jerusalem temple, but the Judean leaders rejected their help because they weren’t “pure” enough.  You can read about that in Ezra 4.  That rejection turned a potential reunification into bitter political opposition and outright hostility.  As a response to the rejection of their help in building the Jerusalem temple, Sanballat, the Persian-appointed governor of Samaria, decided to build a temple on Mt. Gerizim.  And that’s when the rift between the Jews and the Samaritans became the unbridgeable Grand Canyon of feuds.  

When Alexander the Great conquered all of Palestine, relations  between Jews and Samaritans continued to deteriorate.  The Samaritans tended to cooperate with their Greek overlords while the Jews tended to resist them.  Then in 108 BCE, when the Jews had finally won their independence in the Maccabean revolt, John Hyrcanus, the high priest and new ruler of the Jews, destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mt. Gerizim and ravaged Samaria as a punishment for having allied themselves with the Seleucid Greek rulers.  

The Jews and Samaritans were not just separated by politics and racism, though, but also by religion, even though they both claimed to worship YHWH.  The Jews of Judah continued to insist that sacrifices could only be offered in the temple in Jerusalem.  The Samaritans had never really accepted that idea even in the time of Solomon.  During their history they had had altars at Shechem, Bethel, Shiloh and other places but they regarded Mt. Gerizim as the holiest site.  The Samaritans had their own version of Torah that differed in several places from the Jews’ version.  The Samaritans had their own version of Messiah, whom they call the Taheb, the restorer, a prophet who will carry the staff of Moses as a sign of his authority.   They believed that the Taheb will come from the tribe of Joseph.  The Jews, on the other hand, believed that Messiah would come from the tribe of Benjamin and the line of David.

Even under the iron fist and enforced peace of the Romans, the animosity between Jews and Samaritans continued.  As an example of revenge being served cold, around the time of the birth of Jesus, a band of Samaritans profaned the Jerusalem temple by scattering human bones across the floor of the sanctuary.  

All of that history and animosity is in the background when Jesus sits down at Jacob’s well in the middle of a hot afternoon.

When Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for a drink of water at Jacob’s Well he is crossing just about every line imaginable in their world, lines of sexism, racism, political hostility and historical animosity.  That’s why she responds to him with some surprise and asks, “How can you—a Jew—ask me, a Samaritan woman for water to drink?”  The NRSV then adds in parentheses, “For Jews have nothing in common with Samaritans.”  That translation is a monument to understatement.  The translation by Eugene Peterson in The Message may not be as accurate, but it captures the feeling a lot better when it says, “Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.”

Jews wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans, and Samaritans would be caught dead talking to Jews.  Men wouldn’t be caught dead talking to unaccompanied women, and an unaccompanied woman wouldn’t be caught dead talking to a man.  But there they are, both of them crossing the lines.  And talking to each other.

“If you knew the generosity of God and who I am,” said Jesus, “you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you living water.”  It sounds almost like flirting.

“Okay, Mister,” she says, playing along, “but this well is deep and you don’t have a bucket, so where does this ‘living water’ come from?  Are you better than our ancestor, Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it and watered his cattle from and handed it down to us?” 

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,” said Jesus.  “Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst again. The water I give will be a spring within, a gushing fountain of endless life.”

Blaise Pascal said that there is a God-shaped hole in every human heart, an emptiness that only God can fill, a thirst that only the Spirit can quench.  Whether we know how to name it or not, there is a yearning for the living water of Christ in the arid wells of our souls, a cistern waiting to be filled by the love and life of God.

Jesus and Photina talked some more about her living situation.  Jesus knew all about her and told her the facts of her life but he didn’t judge her.  He just continued to talk with her and in the midst of their conversation she realized that he was a prophet.  So she asked him the big question, the question that had separated Jews from Samaritans for hundreds of years.

“I see you’re a prophet!” she said.  “So tell me this: Our ancestors worshiped God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place for worship, right?”

“Believe me, woman,” said Jesus, “the time is coming when that won’t matter.  You will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews.  But the time is coming—it has already come—when genuine worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.  That’s the kind of people the God is seeking.  God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth.”

I think of Jesus saying this every time I hear someone say they’re “spiritual but not religious.”  You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know.  What matters in the end is that we are connecting with God and with each other in spirit and pursuing truth.  

When the disciples came back they were shocked to see him talking to this Samaritan woman because he was crossing all the lines and breaking all the rules.  For her part, the woman ran back to her village and invited all her neighbors to come hear Jesus and talk with him.  She wanted them to meet the prophet who knew everything about her but didn’t judge her, the man who was willing to cross all the lines and break all the rules for a conversation, the man told her that God doesn’t care which mountain you’re praying on as long as you’re putting your true heart and your true spirit into your prayer.

It’s easy to fall into the rhythms of old beliefs and assumptions.  It’s easy to get stuck in old, unexamined patterns of hatred and antagonism.  In our world today we have all kinds of ways to separate ourselves from each other.  We have no shortage of isms that draw hard lines and build daunting barriers between us.  We have religious commitments that keep us looking at each other with suspicion.  We have all kinds of political commitments that keep us glaring at each other as opponents.  But in the end, the only way we’re ever going to move forward is to cross all the lines and have a conversation.  That’s the only way we’re ever going to get anywhere.

Jesus took the road through Samaria.  He walked right past the old wounds of politics and racism and religious separatism and sexism to sit down beside an ancient well where he and the Samaritan woman could drink deeply from the sweet water of respect and conversation. 

And the end of the story is the best part. At the end of the story, the Samaritans of that village, the ancient enemies of his people, asked him to stay so they could talk some more.  In spirit.  And truth.

Out of Our Minds (and into our hearts)

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

Matthew 4:12-23

Today’s gospel reading is Matthew’s version of Jesus calling the fishermen.  It sounds like a simple enough story:  Jesus is in Capernaum, and as he walks along the shore of the Sea of Galilee he spots the fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James and John and calls out to them, “Come, follow me and I will make you fish for people.”  Immediately they left their nets, their boats and their families and followed Jesus to begin their new life as disciples.  

The sermons we spin around this story often focus on a few key elements.  We talk about how amazingly charismatic Jesus is; obviously the Holy Spirit is powerfully present in him if all he has to do is say, “follow me” to get salty old fishermen to leave their boats and hit the road with him.  We talk about the power and importance of his invitation, and point out that Jesus is inviting us to come and follow him, too.  And then we usually finish up with an exhortation to “evangelism,” by which we mean prodding you all to invite your friends and family and neighbors to come to church.  Sometimes we even give you talking points or sample phrases you can use when you invite others to come to church.

There’s nothing wrong with any of that.  It’s all good stuff.  The charisma of Jesus was obviously off the charts—so off the charts that we still feel the pull of his personality more than two thousand years later.  The call to follow him is still compelling and life changing.  And inviting others to come and join us, especially when we extend that invitation because we know that being part of our community would enrich their lives, is both a duty and a joy.  

But what if instead of inviting people to come to church we invited them to be part of our subversive movement?  Can you imagine taking your next door neighbor aside and saying in a low voice, “Listen…there’s a group of us who are working behind the scenes to change things.  We’re talking politics, economics, social and cultural dynamics, personal values—all of it.  We’re talking about a quiet revolution.  The world’s a mess and we’ve got a nonviolent way to fix it.  We think you could help.  We’re having a meeting on Sunday morning.  Come hear us out and see what you think.”

That is, in fact, the kind of invitation Jesus was issuing when he called out to Peter, Andrew, James and John. There’s a lot more going on in today’s gospel than meets the eye, and to get the full impact of it we need to look at a bit of history so we can try to hear it the way the people in Matthew’s community of Jesus followers originally heard it.  

So let’s start at the beginning.

Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. (4:12)  John the Baptist had been preaching and baptizing at the Jordan River, issuing a call for the nation to embrace a life of righteousness.  He had gathered a significant following, and when he began to directly target Herod Antipas with his preaching, Antipas was afraid he would lead a revolt, so he had John arrested and thrown into prison.  Matthew seems to be asserting here that the arrest of John was the cue for Jesus to begin his ministry in earnest.  

He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. (4:13-14)  Matthew quotes the words of Isaiah from a time five hundred years earlier when the territories of Naphtali and Zebulun were under the oppressive thumb of the Assyrians.  Isaiah was reminding the people in those territories that God had not forgotten them.  He told them that a light would dawn to lead them out of the darkness of their oppression. Fast forward 500 years, and Matthew is telling his community of Jesus followers, who are also living under the thumb of an oppressive empire, that Isaiah’s words apply to them, too, that Jesus is the light who will lead them out of their dark night of oppression.  

To begin his ministry in earnest, Jesus left Nazareth in the hill country and “withdrew” to Galilee to make his home in Capernaum.  This was a strategic decision.  Nazareth was just a small village.  Economically it was dependent on the constant construction projects in the Roman garrison city of Sepphoris only four miles away.  It wasn’t a likely place for attracting followers, and starting a movement in the Roman army’s back yard, especially a movement dedicated to confronting imperial and religious oppression, a movement that proclaimed an alternative way of life and called it the kingdom of God, would have brought immediate and crushing consequences.  

Galilee, on the other hand, was in many ways the ideal place to start.  Galilee was the breadbasket of the region, ringed by Hellenistic cities that were dependent on its farms for their food supply.  But despite the overall wealth of the region, there was a current of seething dissatisfaction in Galilee.  Tenant farmers paid as much as 50% of their crops to absentee landlords.  On top of that there were heavy Roman taxes and tithes to the temple in Jerusalem.  Very little money ended up in the pockets of the people doing the actual work, and most farmers were living at a subsistence level.  This led to work stoppages, occasional uprisings, and organized banditry throughout the region.

It wasn’t much better for the fishermen in the Sea of Galilee.  Rome claimed ownership of the sea and all that was in it, so Rome took a hefty cut of every catch.  Fishermen had to be licensed—another income stream for the empire and drain on the workers.  Often fishermen were employed by someone who owned a license and wages were determined by the size of the catch.  On top of that there was the cost of nets, net weights and boats.  The boats were made of cedar imported from Lebanon and were in constant need of repair, another cost that came out of the fisherman’s pockets.  

The tension between the urban lifestyle of the cities and the rural lifestyle of those in the farm lands was acute.  The difference in values was significant.  The economic distance between the haves and the have-nots was extreme.  And one of the most important pivot points in all that tension was the small city of Capernaum.

Capernaum—not so big as to be a real urban center, not so small as to be a mere country village—was the first town in Herod Antipas’ territory after you crossed the border from Herod Philip’s territory.  It was a toll station where taxes were collected.  It had a Roman presence, but not a large Roman presence.  It was Hellenized, but not too Hellenized.  It was important enough that important things could be started there, and out of the way enough that those important things could have a chance to grow before being noticed by the powers that be.  It was the perfect place for Jesus to begin his work.

 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (4:17)  This is the same message that was the centerpiece of John’s preaching, so Jesus is picking up where John left off.  There are a couple of important translation notes to pay attention to here, though.  The first is the word “repent.”  “Repent” is a pretty poor translation of the Greek word metanoiete.  Metanoiete is a compound word composed of two Greek words, meta, meaning “beyond,” and nous, meaning mind.  A literal translation would be “go beyond your mind.”  The English word “repent” has moralistic overtones suggesting a change in behavior or changing your actions, but  Jesus is calling for a far more comprehensive change, a change in the way you think, in the way you see the world, in the way you approach the world and in the way you understand your place in the world.  

The second word that needs retranslating is the Greek word engiken, as in the kingdom of heaven is engiken.  This word is usually translated as “at hand” or “has come near” or something similar, but the sense of the word is more imminent than that.  My favorite way to translate it is “in reach.”  The kingdom of heaven is in reach.  It describes something so close you can almost touch it.  If you make a little effort it’s reachable.

So putting all this together, the message that both John and Jesus were proclaiming so urgently was, “Change your thinking—get out of your head and into your heart!  The kingdom of heaven, the shalom of God, is in reach!  It’s on your doorstep!  It’s doable!”  

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen.  And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” (4:18-19)  I don’t usually borrow from one gospel to interpret something in another gospel.  The four gospels were written at different times and at different places, and originally each stood more or less on its own.  But I think an exception is warranted here.  If you remember last week’s gospel from John 1:29-42, Andrew and Peter met with Jesus near where John was baptizing.  John’s account says that they spent a long afternoon with him.  It makes sense to me that the encounter on the seashore is not their first meeting; they would have already spent time with Jesus and listened to him teaching about the better way of life he called the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God.  So when he called out to them, “Come, follow me,” they had been waiting for his summons and were ready to follow.  

When Jesus says, “I will make you fish for people,” this is an echo of the Hebrew prophets that they would have known well.  The prophets used fishing as a metaphor for both salvation and judgement.  In Jeremiah 16:16 we find a prophesy of both rescue and retribution, promising that the people in captivity will be brought home: I am now sending for many fishermen, says the LORD, and they shall catch them.  

Amos 4:2 promises that wealthy elites who have abused the poor will be caught like fish and brought to judgement: 

The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness:

                  The time is surely coming upon you,

         when they shall take you away with hooks,

                  even the last of you with fishhooks.

Jesus borrows this metaphor when he calls the fishermen, James, John, Andrew and Peter, but he is “fishing” them out of the waters of their normal life in order to save them.   He is “catching” them to lead them into a new kind of health and wholeness in a beloved community with new values and a new way of being.  He is “hooking” them into a movement to create an alternative to the systems that keep so many ground down in poverty.  It will involve political confrontation, but not violence.  It will involve a change in the understanding of their religion, but not apostasy.  It will be the new thing God had long promised.

“The best criticism of the bad,” said Richard Rohr, “is the practice of the better.”  Jesus started a movement, a quiet revolution, not by merely criticizing all the wrongs of the world, but by modeling a better way.

In an oppressive world that was tearing itself apart, Jesus called the fishermen and the tax collector and the builder and the tanner and all kinds of other people to follow him into a new way of life.  He called them and he calls us to live in a beloved community set apart from the business-as-usual world.  He calls us to live in cooperation instead of competition.  He calls us all to change our thinking—to be a little bit out of our minds and very much into our hearts—so we can enter into the shalom of God and change the world.

Apocalypse

Steve Beckham 8 Comments

Mark 13:1-8

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

The word apocalypse comes directly from Greek and only drops one small syllable on its way into English.  Apokalypsis to Apocalypse.  The literal meaning is “to uncover” or “to unveil.”  It originally meant a disclosure, a revelation.  

The word can also describe a particular kind of literature.  That’s the first meaning 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.  

Why are people 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 why has our interest in this topic been growing? 

I took 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 world was at war in the 1940s.  People were living through an apocalypse, and they wanted their movies to tell them there was a brighter day coming, 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 1969, twenty-six apocalypse movies are listed, including the classics Dr. Strangelove and Planet of the Apes. The 1970s gave us 39 apocalypse or post-apocalypse movies.  From 1980-1989, producers cranked out 47 apocalypse movies.  In the 1990s the stream of apocalyptic films slowed but not by much.  That decade gave us 41 apocalypse movies, but the Left Behind series of books hit the market in 1995, smack in the middle of that decade, so maybe people were reading about apocalypse instead of going to see it on the screen.  

After slowing just a bit in the ‘90s, the genre exploded in the 2000s.  From 2000 through 2009, Wikipedia lists 69 movies with apocalyptic themes showing up on our screens and probably in our collective psyche, because from 2010 through 2019, that number blew up again.  In that decade Wikipedia lists 109 movies with apocalyptic themes.  It’s too early to tell how “apocalyptic” this decade will be.  The pandemic put a serious crimp in film production of all genres, but even with a Covid-imposed lockdown, the first two years of this decade have put 15 apocalypse movies on our screens.

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 of that—when a people is oppressed, or under great stress, or experiencing persecution.  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 “Rome is a gluttonous, greedy, selfish pig of a nation that bullies other nations into handing 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.

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 (see Darius the Mede bringing new management to Babylon), or enough people finally get tired of their rubbish and rise up to throw them out on their ear (see Antiochus Epiphanes versus the Maccabees), or they overindulge themselves to death and collapse from internal squabbling and rot (see Rome).  Once more for emphasis: Hold on to hope.  Have courage. God is on your side.  And God wins in the end.”

That is the uniform, universal message of pretty much all apocalyptic literature.

With one apocalyptic exception:  the “little apocalypse” in chapter 13 of the Gospel of Mark. 

Mark was written during the Jewish uprising against Rome from 66-70 CE.  There was tremendous pressure on the followers of Jesus in Palestine to join with the Jewish forces in the fight against Rome.  They were told it was their patriotic duty to save Israel.  Special emphasis was put on protecting the temple in this appeal to patriotism.

The temple was in particular danger for several reasons.  It was the natural rallying point in the heart of Jerusalem, their ancient capitol.  That would make it a target for the Romans.  It was also the largest temple to any god in the Roman world, something of a point of pride for the Jewish people.  It was an important tourist attraction, drawing both pilgrims and tourists.  It was the heartbeat of Jerusalem’s economy.  It was also one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful building complex in the ancient world.  Most importantly, though, it was central to every Jew’s sense of identity.  The temple was Israel.  Israel was the temple.  To destroy the temple would be to destroy the nation.  That, in turn, would put every Jewish person’s sense of identity adrift.  Their spirit and resistance would be broken.  For all these reasons, protecting the temple was the rebellion’s top priority.

In Mark 13, when the disciples are gobsmacked by the beauty and grandeur of the temple, Jesus just flatly tells them, “It’s all coming down.  Not one stone will be left on another.”  A bit later as they gather on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sits down to teach.  The disciples, having just heard a tantalizing tidbit of apocalypse want details.  “When is it going to happen?  What will the signs be that it’s about to happen?”  

Remember, this gospel, unlike Matthew, Luke, and John is being written while the temple is still standing, but in great jeopardy.  The questions the disciples are asking in the text are the questions that Mark’s faith community, his companion followers of Jesus, are asking.   They are desperate for a timetable.  As Mark writes his account, the Roman legions have vacated Palestine temporarily to go fight one of their frequent civil wars, but everyone knows they’ll be back. And with a vengeance. But when?

They want a timetable.  They want signs to look for.  But Jesus isn’t going to give them one.  “Stay on the path,” he says.  “Don’t let anyone lead you astray.  Others are going to come claiming they’re the Messiah.  Don’t fall for it.  If people try to tell you that various wars or natural disasters or famines are signs of the end and it’s time to get in the fight, don’t fall for it.  All these things are going on always and everywhere.  They are not signs of the end.  They are birth pangs.  Something new is being born.”

When they continue to pester him to be specific about the time of the temple’s destruction, Jesus finally says, “No one knows.  Even I don’t know. Only the Father knows.”  

This “little apocalypse” from Jesus in Mark 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 rebellion—all focused on the basic universal apocalyptic message: hang tough, fight the good fight, God is with you, hope and courage.  But this homily from Jesus is almost the opposite.  Ched Myers and other scholars suggest that he is telling his followers to abandon the temple.  He is telling his followers not to join in the resistance.  He urges them not to be led astray from their path of nonviolent resistance by charismatic leaders with messianic claims, 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 them that the rebellion is not the kingdom of God.

This is the pathway of Jesus, 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 Gospel of Mark, 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.  Yes, the Way of Jesus does describe the end of the world.  It ends when it is gradually, nonviolently reimagined heart by heart, mind by mind, one person at a time until the reign of God has come on earth as it is in heaven.  

How’s that for an apocalypse?

A Season of Fasting

Steve Beckham 1 Comment

One year when I was serving in the Church Relations Office at California Lutheran University we decided to put together a Lenten devotional that could be emailed in daily installments to students, faculty, staff, and patrons.  Most of the feedback was positive.  One student, however, wrote us a rather heated letter.  He was not only opposed to our Lenten devotional, he was opposed to Lent.  “There is nothing in the Bible about Lent,” he wrote.  “It is a thing made up by the church.  If it is not in the Bible, we should not do it.” 

I wrote back what I hope was a gentle letter explaining that the practice of setting aside a time for fasting and preparation before the celebration of Easter was, in fact, one of the earliest practices of the church.  I also explained that it was the Church that gathered and assembled the books into the sacred library we call the Bible, but that there was nothing like an official agreement on which books were included and which were excluded until the Council of Rome in 382 CE.  So, even though the individual books of the Bible might be older, I explained, the followers of Jesus have been practicing Lent longer than they’ve had a Bible.  

Today, Ash Wednesday, is the beginning of Lent.  There are 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday, but the season of Lent is only 40 days.  That’s because the six Sundays are not included in the fasting of Lent.  They are, though, included in the liturgical observation of the season.  We don’t sing the Gloria or the Alleluia during Lent.  In some traditions, the Alleluia is symbolically buried in a casket under the altar during this season and is “resurrected” for the celebration of Easter.

We begin our observance of Lent by marking ourselves with ashes.  Ashes have been a symbol since ancient times of grief and sorrow.  They also serve as a sign  of humility, or of repentance.  On Ash Wednesday we stand humbly before God and remember that we are both sinful and mortal.  

In Genesis, when God is escorting Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden and into a life of difficulty, God says to them, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (3:19)

Later in Genesis when Abraham is bargaining with God and trying to keep God from destroying Sodom, Abraham says, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.” (18:27)  These are the words we quote as we mark ourselves with ashes.

Job, after his trials and tribulations, finally sees God’s majesty revealed and says, I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Jeremiah, when he’s calling the people of Judah to repent and warning them of the destruction that is coming upon them, cries out, O my poor people, put on sackcloth, and roll in ashes; make mourning as for an only child, most bitter lamentation: for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.”

In the book of Daniel, when Daniel is preparing to ask God to intervene and show mercy for his people, he writes: “Then I turned to the Lord God, to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.”

Ashes continued to be used as a sign of contrition in the early church.  Tertullian (c. 160-225) included sackcloth and ashes in the rite of repentance.  Around the year 800, those who had committed serious sins were covered in sackcloth and sprinkled with ashes before they were allowed to receive Holy Communion at Easter.  Sometime around the year 1000, as Lent came to be viewed as a season of penance, the practice of strewing ashes on the head was extended to the entire congregation.

Ashes remind us that because we are mortal, our life, our strength and our help come from God.  They open the doorway into Lent,  a time when we reflect on the way of Jesus and follow his path and listen to him more closely.

Lent is a time when we renew our practice of spiritual disciplines, especially prayer and fasting. 

There are a variety of ways to fast.  The traditional practice of many has been to give up meat during this time.  It has been the practice of some to have two small meals during the day then break the fast after sunset.  Some people simply give up something they’re attached to for the 40 days:  chocolate, television, podcasts, Facebook.  You can fast from anything that’s a daily part of your life.  The idea is to set that thing aside and give its space to Christ.  For instance, if you’re giving up lunch for the 40 days, then during that lunch hour you can spend time in prayer or meditation.  

On Sundays and Feast Days we get a break from fasting.  So if you’re giving up red meat for Lent, you can still have a bite of corned beef on the Feast of St. Patrick!

This time of fasting and preparation before Easter may have originated in the preparation for baptism.  The Didcache, a Syrian manual of church practice that dates to about the year 100, instructs that both those who are being baptized and those who are baptizing should fast for one or two days before the baptism.

At some point early on baptisms became tied to Easter.  Lent, then, became a time to prepare for baptism.  The practice of this, though, was far from uniform.  In Alexandria, Athanasius required his catechumens to prepare for 40 days, studying for 3 hours each day.  In other places, though, the preparation might be as little as a a week. 

At the Council of Nicaea in 325, in addition to establishing the doctrine of the Trinity, several important matters of church order and practice were standardized.  One of the things that was decided was how the date of Easter should be determined.  While they were at it, the bishops also agreed that Lent should be 40 days leading up to Easter.  

They didn’t call it Lent, by the way.  That’s our English word from the Old English word Lencten,  for Spring.  The Eastern bishops called it Tessarakosti and the Western bishops called it Quadragesima.  Both mean 40 days.

So why 40 days?

Though the Bible as such had not been assembled yet, the bishops at Nicaea were very familiar with the texts that would eventually be included in it.  They knew that the number 40 in these sacred texts represented a period of testing, trial, judgment, or probation.  In particular they were mindful of Jesus being tested in the wilderness for 40 days at the beginning of his ministry.

The number 40 occurs 146 times in the scriptures.  Moses lived 40 years in Egypt and 40 years in Midian before God called him to lead his people out of slavery.  He stayed on Mount Sinai with God and fasted for 40 days.  The Hebrew people wandered for 40 years in the wilderness before reaching the Promised Land.

Elijah spent 40 days and 40 nights walking to Mount Horeb.  Jonah’s prophecy to Nineveh gave them 40 days to repent or be destroyed.

Forty days may seem like a long time to fast, but there was also a practical reason for it.  In the days before refrigeration and food preservation, and in times when it wasn’t easy or inexpensive to ship food from other places, this would be the time of year when supplies of some foods, especially grains, vegetables and fruits would start to run low.  Fasting for an extended period could help to stretch these supplies until the new crops, especially the early grains, began to produce.

So are you planning to take up a spiritual discipline during Lent?  Are you thinking about praying more?  Meditating more?  Giving more?  Reading a devotional?   Here’s a suggestion:  Practice the discipline of kindness.  Be kind.  Practice having a generous spirit.  

Are you thinking of fasting?  It’s a worthwhile discipline and you can learn a lot about yourself by doing it.  But if giving up chocolate or television or meat or anything like that seems like it might be too much of a challenge, let me pass along this list of Suggestions for Fasting During Lent from Pope Francis:

Fast from hurting words and say kind words.

Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.

Fast from anger and be filled with patience.

Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.

Fast from worries and have trust in God.

Fast from complaints and contemplate simplicity.

Fast from pressures and be prayerful.

Fast from bitterness and fill your heart with joy.

Fast from selfishness and be compassionate to others.

Fast from grudges and be reconciled.

Fast from words and be silent so you can listen.

This is a good time to listen.  

Listen to the message of the ashes.  The message of our mortality doesn’t have to be bad news.  God has breathed life into dust and ashes.  

Listen to our history.  We are part of a very long story that is still unfolding.  

Listen to Jesus.  He has called us to renew the world…and to be renewed ourselves.

And She Began to Serve

Steve Beckham 2 Comments

Mark 1:29-39

“He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.  Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.”  Two simple sentences.  And like so much of Mark’s gospel, a surprising amount of action in surprisingly few words. 

After preaching with authority in the synagogue at Capernaum, then casting out an unclean spirit from a man who interrupted him, Jesus is ready for a break.  So he goes to the house of his new disciples, Peter and Andrew.  It happens that Peter’s mother-in-law is sick.  She’s in bed with a fever.  They tell Jesus about her right away and Jesus goes to her.

And here is where the translation maybe is not our friend.  “He took her by the hand” sounds much gentler than what it says in the original language.  Kratésas it says in the Greek.  Kratéo is the verb.  It’s not a tender word.  It means to grasp firmly or strongly.  

And then it says he “lifted her up.”  Which is fine.  But again, something is lost in translation.  The verb Mark used is egeiro.  It’s the same word Jesus will use when he raises Jairus’ daughter from the dead and says, “Little girl, get up!”  It’s the same word the angel will use to tell the women that Jesus is not in the empty tomb because he is raised up—egeiro.  

So maybe this isn’t quite the gentle scene I had always imagined.  Maybe this is a scene full of strength and energy and power.  Jesus grasped her strongly, firmly by the hand and raised her.  

Then the fever left her.

And she began to serve them.

It’s tempting to get a little upset about that last part—she began to serve them.  After all, she’s just been sick with a fever.  And now here are all these guys who come traipsing into the house and because of the expectations of the society they live in, she jumps out of her sickbed to rustle up some dinner for them.  Oh, and by the way, does anybody care that it’s still the Sabbath?

Some commentators have pointed out that she would be happy to do this because in a culture where roles are clearly defined she could now resume her place as matriarch of the household along with all the social currency that comes with that.

But again, there’s something going on in the language that deserves a moment of attention.  It’s a little thing.  But, as I’ve been learning, Mark often uses these subtle little things to make big points.  In this case, it has to do with the word “serve.”  Here’s how Ched Myers explains it in his book, Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship—

“Peter’s mother-in-law is the first woman to appear in Mark’s narrative.  We are told that upon being touched by Jesus, “she served him(1:31).  Most commentators, steeped in patriarchal theology, assume that this means she fixed Jesus dinner.  However the Greek verb “to serve” (from which we get our word “deacon”_ appears only two other times in Mark.  One is in 10:45—“The Human One came not to be served but to serve”—a context hardly suggesting meal preparation.

“Mark describes women ‘who, when Jesus was in Galilee, followed him, and served him, and…came up to Jerusalem with him’ (15:41).  This is a summary statement of discipleship:  from beginning (Galilee) to end (Jerusalem) these women were true followers who, unlike the men (see 10:32-45) practiced servanthood.”

So here is Peter’s mother-in-law—sadly we don’t have her name—but Mark identifies her service with a word that implies that there is a sacred aspect to her serving, a holiness that springs not from her sense of duty, but her faith.  She is a deacon.  

In Mark’s gospel, the men surrounding Jesus are often argumentative and a little dense.  But the women, though not mentioned often, are astute and faithful.  

I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week.  This week we had a graveside service for Barbara, one of those astute and faithful women who have kept the ministry of Jesus alive and well in this world for more than 20 centuries.  As I conducted her service I was wearing one of the stoles she wove for me on her loom, and it made me think of Tabitha who we read about in the book of Acts.  She was much loved by her community in Joppa, and when they summoned Peter to pray for her, they showed him all the tunics and other clothing she had made for people.

I thought of the women mentioned in the Gospel of Luke who travelled with Jesus and supported Jesus and the disciples financially.  Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, Luke says, who provided for them out of their resources.  

These women came to be called the Myrrh Bearers because they were the ones who went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body after the crucifixion, but found it empty.

Mary Magdalen was known to be particularly close to Jesus and was regarded as an Apostle by many in the early church until patriarchy asserted itself, suppressed her influence, and sullied her reputation by spreading the story that she had been a prostitute.  But it was Mary Magdalen, according to the Gospel of John, who first encountered the risen Jesus.  It was Mary Magdalen who first proclaimed his resurrection, making her the first evangelist.

Another Mary who was part of this group of women disciples, was Mary, the wife of  Cleopas.  If tradition is correct, her husband was the brother of Joseph, Jesus’ foster father, so she was the sister-in-law of Jesus’ mother, Mary.  She, too, was a Myrrh Bearer and is probably the unidentified person traveling with Cleopas on the road to Emmaus in chapter 24 of Luke’s gospel, making her one of the first witnesses to the resurrection.

Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward, Chuza is someone we know a little more about.  We see her later identified in the letters of the Apostle Paul where he uses her Roman name, Junia.  Paul says she is prominent among the Apostles and that she knew Christ before he did (Romans 16:7).   In Junia we see someone remarkable, a woman disciple of Jesus who travelled with him in his ministry,  and continued in ministry as an Apostle, travelling as far as Rome for the cause of the gospel.

Priscilla and her husband Aquila are mentioned six times in the New Testament.  Priscilla is mentioned first four of those times, and it’s clear that she is a full partner in their work together for the sake of the gospel.  Tradition includes them among the 70 that Jesus sent out on a mission in the Gospel of Luke.  Priscilla, also called Prisca, her more formal name, has always been considered one of the first women preachers in the church.  We read in Acts 18:24-28 that she, along with Aquila, instructed Apollos in the faith.  There is even a theory that she is the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Phoebe was an overseer and deacon in the Church at Cenchreae.   St. Paul referred to her in Romans 16 as a deacon and a patron of many.  This is the only place in the New Testament where a woman was referred to with both those titles. Diakonos kai prostateis.  A chief, a leader, a guardian, a protector.  St. Paul had such trust in her that he provided her with credentials so that she could serve as his emissary to Rome, and deliver his letter to them—that letter we know as the Epistle to the Romans.

Lydia of Thyatira, was a wealthy merchant of purple cloth, who welcomed St. Paul and his companions into her home at Phillipi and became a convert.  In doing so, she helped to establish the church at Phillipi, the first church in continental Europe.

In that church at Philippi were two women, Euodia and Syntyche who were serving in positions of pastoral leadership.  At some point they got into a disagreement. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul urges them to “be of the same mind in the Lord” so that their disagreement doesn’t split the church.  In calling them to unity, he notes that they have “struggled beside me in the work of the gospel.”

Jesus took Peter’s mother-in-law in his firm grip and raised her up.  And she began to serve.  She became a deacon.  She began making sure things got done.  Making sure ministry happened.  And it’s the women who have been making sure things get done and ministry happens ever since.

Fifty years ago, our denomination began to ordain women to the ministry of Word and Sacrament.  To be pastors.  On the one hand, it seemed then—and to some people it still seems—like a bold and progressive thing to do.  But when you look at the witness of the New Testament itself and what we have learned about the roles that women played in the earliest years of the church…well let’s just say that it was shamefully long overdue.

I think of the women I’m indebted to in my ministry.  I think of all the women teachers I’ve had, like Dr. Martha Ellen “Marty” Stortz, professor of Church history who opened my eyes to the rich goldmine of our heritage.  I think of the women scholars and writers I turn to for thought-provoking insights in theology and biblical studies.  Women like Debi Thomas, Barbara Brown Taylor, Rachel Held Evans, Roberta Bondi, Nadia Bolz-Weber, and Amy-Jill Levine.  I think of my women clergy colleagues who are so amazing and indispensable as we puzzle our way through the week’s texts and the week’s issues, and life in the church.

I think of the women in our congregation who make things happen.  Without whom things would not happen.  The Tabithas, the Junias, the Priscillas, the Marys, the Pheobes. The Myrrh Bearers.  The Apostles in our midst.

I think of them all.  And I am so grateful.

Jesus has grasped them by the hand and raised them up.  And they have served.  Showing the presence of Christ and proclaiming the kin-dom of God.  And we are all richer for it. 

This Is The Time

Steve Beckham Leave a comment

It’s time.  

Time to get out the boxes with the special decorations, each one with its own story and all of them together part of the bigger story.  It’s time to deck the halls, to fill the home with light and music.  It’s time to dig out recipes and to bake.  It’s time to prepare.

I loved Christmas as a kid.  I still do.  What I didn’t realize for years, though, was how much I loved Advent.  I loved all the preparation. I loved the anticipation.  I loved the way the house looked when it was all decorated.  I loved the way the kitchen smelled when it was full of baking and roasting.  I loved how everyone, even though they were a bit frazzled, still managed to be in a pretty cheery mood.  

I love the honesty of Advent.  I love the sense of longing in the texts and prayers.  “Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.”  And yes, Christ has already come to us, but no, Christ has not yet returned, and we surely do feel sometimes like he’s overdue.  There is an honest yearning for things to be better, especially in this year when everything has been scrambled and turned sideways by the pandemic.  “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down!”  Isaiah shouts for us.  We’re in over our heads.  “Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we might be saved!” the Psalmist cries out for us.  But we also hear, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God… Every valley will be lifted up.  Every mountain and hill made low.  The uneven ground shall be made level and the rough places a plain.”  Things will be smoother.  Something better, something brighter is coming.  Help is on the way.  A new day will dawn.  

I love the way Advent, if we pay attention to it, sets the scene for Christmas by reminding us that we are not the first ones to live in a time of shadows hoping for light.  “During the rule of King Herod of Judea…” we read in the first chapter of Luke.  This is the same King Herod who, in Matthew’s gospel, murdered all the male babies in Bethlehem under age two.  This is the Herod who killed two of his own sons because he suspected them of plotting against him, the Herod who killed his wife Mariamne, the Hasmonean princess, along with her brother and her mother.  This is the Herod who replaced the High Priest in the temple with a Sadducee who would be more inclined to do things the way he wanted them done.  This is the same Herod who, according to Josephus, as he lay dying, ordered that one member of every family in Judea should be slain so that the whole country would be in mourning when he died. Fortunately the order was never carried out, but the people never forgot that it had been issued.  

This is the time, Luke reminds us, when Quirinius is appointed legate of the expanded Roman province of Syria with the specific mandate to carry out a census, something forbidden by Jewish law, so that Tiberius can impose a new tax.  This is a time when Rome’s domination of Judea is iron-clad and iron-fisted with no velvet glove to make it less harsh.  This is a time when work is hard, taxes are heavy, and freedom is limited.

But this is also the time when an angel appears to an aged childless couple, Elizabeth, whose name means “God keeps promises” and to Zechariah, whose name means “God remembers.”  The angel promises them that they will have a child and that they are to name him Yochanan, John, which means “God is gracious,” and that many will rejoice because of him and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit.

This is the time when a kinswoman comes to visit Elizabeth, a young, unmarried kinswoman named Mary, who is also pregnant with a miraculous child.  And when Elizabeth sees her, her unborn child leaps in her womb.  This is the time when Mary sings a prophetic song of joy and rebellion that has been bringing hope to people on the margins for two thousand years.  My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant… 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…”

This is the time to sit with the candles of hope, peace, joy, and love.  This is the time to remember.  And to look forward.  This is Advent.  And soon, Christmas.

The King shall come when morning dawns and light triumphant breaks, when beauty gilds the eastern hills and life to joy awakes.

Hidden Talent

Steve Beckham 2 Comments

Matthew 25:14-30

“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; 15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.  16 The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents.  17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents.  18 But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.  19 After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.  20 Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’  21His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’  22 And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’  23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’  24 Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed;  25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’  26 But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter?  27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.  28So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents.  29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.  30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

I saw a video of a painting not long ago that was nothing short of mind-boggling.  It was a painting by Spanish artist Sergi Cadenas who has developed a technique that allows him to paint multiple images on the same canvas so that if you view the painting from one angle you see one thing but if you see it from a different angle you see something completely different.  For instance, in the first painting of his that I saw when you view the left side you see a portrait of a young woman but as you move to the right you see her age and when you come all the way to the right side of the painting, you see her as an old woman.  In another one of his paintings you see Marilyn Monroe transition into Albert Einstein as you move from left to right.  What you see depends entirely on where you stand.

Sometimes the parables of Jesus are like that.  Mark Allen Powell once talked about how his students in different countries interpreted the Parable of the Prodigal Son very differently.  When he asked his students, “Why did the prodigal have nothing to eat?”  His students in Tanzania replied, “Because no one gave him anything.” To them the idea that no one would give a hungry person something to eat was a shocking element in the story.   His students in St. Petersburg in Russia replied, “Because there was a famine in the land.”  They still had a cultural memory of the famine of World War II and that element of the story stood out to them.  His American students answered, “Because he wasted his father’s money.”  That’s the thing that stood out to them.  All of those things are in the text of the story, but people heard the same story very differently because of their history, culture and location.

“How you hear a parable has a lot to do with where you are hearing it from,” said Barbara Brown Taylor.  The same parable can look different or sound different to different people depending on where they’re hearing it from.  It’s like a Sergi Cadenas painting: what you see depends on where you’re standing.

I think when it comes to this parable, the Parable of the Talents, most of us have been standing in the same spot and hearing it or seeing it pretty much the same way all of our lives.  We hear it primarily as a stewardship parable.  God, the Master, gives each of us certain gifts and resources and abilities, talents, each according to our abilities.  We’re supposed to use our talents—our resources, gifts and abilities—to build up the church and further the kingdom of God.  Someday, either when Jesus returns or when we meet our Maker, there will be an accounting, and you surely do not want to be the “wicked and lazy slave” who just buried your talent in the ground.

There are some real strengths in hearing the parable this way.  We can focus on those first two slaves who apparently have a high opinion of their master and want to follow his example.  We can put our talents to good use.  We can put our abilities to good use.  We can enlarge them.  And in the end we can be praised and rewarded for doing so.

That raises the issue of how we see and understand God and God’s generosity, and that is always a good thing for each of us to spend some time thinking about.  You’ll notice that at the beginning of the parable the Master doesn’t actually give any instructions as he doles out the money, nor does he give any warnings about consequences.  The actions the slaves take depend entirely on how well they know the master and what they think about him.  

It’s the same for us.  The actions we take or fail to take with the gifts and resources God has placed in our hands depends entirely on how well we know God, how much we trust God, how we see God, how we understand God, how much we love God.  The first two slaves have a positive opinion of their Master and act accordingly.  The third slave regards him as “a harsh man” and something of a thief and acts accordingly.  So how do you picture God?  What kind of God are you responding to as you use the talents that are at your disposal?  Are you responding in trust to a benevolent God of grace and generosity or are you responding in timid fear to a God of harsh judgment?  Or are you just obliviously toodling along in life and not giving much thought to either God or your gifts?

God gives us talents and resources to help make God’s kin-dom a reality on earth as it is in heaven and to build up the church as the nucleus of that reality.  You’ve been blessed so you can be a blessing.  And I suppose I should stop right there and ask you to get out your checkbooks and sign up to volunteer for various ministries because what I’ve said so far is pretty much the bottom line of good stewardship and we’re long overdue for a word about stewardship.  

As I implied earlier, however, there is another way to hear this parable.  There is another place to stand so that we see the story differently, but to get there we need to be reminded of a few facts.

If we’re going to try to hear this parable the way those listening to Jesus heard it, one of the first things we need to know is that a talent was a huge amount of money.  One talent was equivalent to twenty years’ wages.  So there’s a bit of shock value right at the beginning of the story.  A man going on a journey summons three slaves.  He gives the first one of the equivalent of 100 years’ wages.  He gives the next one 40 years’ wages.  The third one gets 20 years’ wages.  It’s tempting to try to calculate what that would be in our money in our time, but it’s really kind of pointless because the other differences between their culture and ours and their economy and ours are too vast for the numbers to really have any meaning.  

The next thing to know if we’re going to try to hear this the way Jesus’ audience was hearing it is that, according to Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, most people in the first century Mediterranean world had a “limited good” understanding of the world.  They believed that there was only so much of the pie to go around, so if someone had a great deal of the worlds goods it meant that someone else had been deprived.  Honorable people did not try to get more and those who did were regarded as thieves, even if their means were technically legal.  “Noblemen avoided such accusations of getting rich at the expense of others by having their affairs handled by slaves. Such behavior could be condoned in slaves, since slaves were without honor anyway.”[1]

Exodus 22:25 and Deuteronomy 23:19 expressly forbid Jews to charge interest to other Jews, although Deuteronomy 23:20 says that interest may be charged to a foreigner.  Here again the wealthy used their slaves as a bypass of the law, making loans to the poor at interest rates anywhere from 60% to as high as 200%. According to Will Herzog,[2]  the poor would put their fields up as security and when they couldn’t pay the exorbitant interest, the wealthy would take their land.  So those first century people gathered around Jesus listening to this parable would probably assume that the wealthy master and his two slaves who doubled their money had “traded” in this way.

The slave who buried his Master’s talent in the ground was actually acting in accordance with Jewish law and custom.  The Talmud states that this is the safest way to safeguard someone else’s money.  As for the suggestion the Master makes that he should have left the talent with the banker so it could have at least made some interest, a case could be made that to do so would violate Torah.

So for those listening to Jesus, the Master who is wealthy enough to hand his slaves such staggering amounts of money must be a crook because how else would he ever come by such wealth?  He gives his money to his slaves to invest because that’s what rich people do to sidestep Torah and avoid tainting their reputations any further.  Two of the slaves enter wholeheartedly into this economic scheme and manage to double their master’s money.  One can only assume, if you’re in the crowd listening to Jesus, that they did it on the backs of the poor.  

And now comes the big question.  What if the third slave—the one the master calls wicked and lazy, the one who hid the talent in the ground—what if the third slave is really the hero of the story? What if when he says, “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed,” –what if he’s simply calling him out and telling the truth.  What if Jesus is simply saying, then and now, this is how the system works, folks.  This is what the money people do.  This is why the CEO makes 300 times what the clerk makes.

Will Herzog, Amy-Jill Levine, Malina & Rohrbaugh and others have pointed out that, especially in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was often using parables to highlight the disparities, inequities and injustices of the political and economic systems of his time…and ours.  

And yes, the third slave is punished.  His talent is taken away and given to the one who has ten.  Even though he does the right thing, according to the Talmud, he’s thrown out “into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  But then a few days after telling this story, at least in Matthew’s chronology, after turning over the tables of the money changers and standing up to both political and religious authorities, Jesus, himself, is thrown to the darkness of crucifixion and death.  He will be buried like the third slave’s talent.  But he will rise again.

So how do you hear this parable now?

Do you hear it as a call to stewardship?  Do you hear it as a call to take stock of the gifts God has entrusted to you, a call to evaluate how you have been using those gifts?  That’s still a perfectly good way to hear it.

Do you hear it as an invitation to consider how you have been thinking about and seeing God and how you respond to your picture of God?

Do you hear this parable as an invitation to take another look at how our economic systems work—to look at who benefits and who gets the shaft?

There is more than one way to hear it.  There is more than one face in  this painting.

And that is so Jesus.

Regardless of how you hear it, how are you going to respond to it?

[1] Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, p. 149

[2] William Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed.

Stirred Up or Battered Down?

Steve Beckham 1 Comment

I saw a Facebook post today that cast a shadow over my afternoon. It was written by someone I greatly respect and admire, a person whose opinion I value highly, a person who has shaped my own thinking more than a little. Here’s what he wrote that saddened me: “Remember how unrealistically high hopes for an Obama presidency crashed when he actually began to govern? It’s far simpler to make stirring speeches than to effect genuine change. I am increasingly inclined to vote for Clinton’s pragmatism over Sanders’ utopian fantasies.”

Now before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I don’t want what I’m writing here to be taken as any kind of statement in support of or against any candidate. I do have a preference among the candidates, of course, but that’s something I keep mostly to myself. No, the matter that worries me, that saddens me, is not that my friend is leaning more toward Clinton than Sanders, the matter that deflates something inside me is that more and more we the people of these United States have become willing to give up our ideals of what’s possible and settle for what’s pragmatic. More and more we are willing to characterize our best hopes as “utopian fantasies” and sacrifice them on the cross of pragmatism, lamenting them and praying that the next generation will resurrect them even as we abandon them to the forces that will crucify them.

My friend and teacher is right that many of our high hopes for the Obama presidency have gone unfulfilled. We were, many of us, naïve in our assessment of how much pressure for change his election could really bring to bear on the status quo. We grossly underestimated the kind of backlash and opposition he would face in response to that pressure. We were unaware of any number of commitments and entanglements that would limit his effectiveness. And we seriously failed to anticipate the myriad ways in which a Black Man in the White House would become a catalyst who would surface the not-at-all latent systemic racism that is still too much a part of the fabric of our national culture…if there is such a thing as our national culture.

My friend and teacher is also right that it is far simpler to make stirring speeches than to effect genuine change. That’s absolutely true. But let’s not dismiss or discount the power of stirring speeches too quickly. I have lived long enough and have studied history enough to remember some powerful and sweeping changes that were initiated in this country by stirring words in both documents and speeches. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson ignited an effective change when he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” And yes, it’s true that “all men” meant “all property-owning white males” at the time, but deep inside us we knew that these words represented a higher ideal than that. It has taken a long time and extraordinary sacrifice by many and the work is certainly not finished, but most of us now know that all persons are endowed by their Creator with those inalienable rights and that Governments should not only be instituted and maintained by Men but by all persons. We know now that “consent of the governed” is supposed to apply to all the governed. It took us a long time and more than a little hardship to get there, but it is the ideal planted in those stirring words that has carried us forward through two centuries to a day when we can see it begin to blossom as a pragmatic reality.

In 1962 at Rice University, President John F. Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone…” In more ways than any of us could have anticipated, that stirring speech—that stirring fragment of a stirring speech—shaped not only the remainder of the decade but our entire future. It gave us a goal. It gave us a national will to achieve something great. And in spite of the myriad voices that warned that it couldn’t be done, that it was not practical, that it was too dangerous, that it was not economically feasible, we did it. We did it, and in the doing of it we also initiated an era of tremendous inventiveness, creativity, education, industriousness and prosperity—a prosperity that didn’t trickle down from the wealthy top but that flooded out from our common center. I grew up in the flowing heart of that stirring speech, and it made me believe that if we put our minds and hearts to it we could, indeed, make our utopian fantasies a reality.

“I have a dream,” said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King in 1963. “I still have a dream, a dream deeply rooted in the American dream—one day this nation will rise up and live up to its creed, ‘We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men [sic] are created equal.’ I have a dream…” This stirring speech, too, rang through my childhood and adolescence, continued to stir me through adulthood and still brings tears to my eyes as I quote it to my grandsons. And yes, this dream, too, is still unfulfilled. This dream, too, is still far too much a utopian fantasy and not nearly enough a reality. So should we abandon this dream because it has proved far more difficult to realize than we imagined? Should we settle for a diminished national soul because racism is still with us a half century after this prophetic and stirring speech? Or do we repeat these words to ourselves and rekindle the power of that dream, that utopian fantasy, and let that stirring speech inspire us to keep working for a more perfect union, toward a day when we will rise up and live up to our creed?

“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable” wrote John Kenneth Galbraith, and somewhere along the way during the last 15 years we all swallowed that poison pill. We have allowed cynicism to infect all our dreams. There is a spirit of meanness abroad in the land—how else to explain the popularity of the Hitleresque Mr. Trump and the disturbing Mr. Cruz?  There is a loud voice shouting through our country to tell us what we cannot do, what we cannot accomplish, who we should not help, who we should not trust, and what we should not even try to imagine. That voice stirs us up to batter us down.  It wants us to think that we cannot feed every hungry child and provide medical care for every person or provide job training and education for every young adult or….well, it’s a long list, the things that voice wants to tell us we cannot do. But I don’t believe it. I grew up listening to a different voice. I grew up listening to a voice that stirred our hearts by announcing a dream that called us to live up to our national creed. I grew up with a voice that inspired us to work toward the realization of our utopian fantasies, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone…”
There is so much at stake in this divided nation of ours right now. There are too many who are being stirred by speeches full of anger, hatred, xenophobia, Islamophobia– energetic  speeches that play on fears and resentments of every kind. And lest we forget, sometimes those speeches, too, have stirred many, have moved history and swept whole nations and even the world into an ocean of suffering.

So yes, we need to be ‘wise as serpents but innocent as doves’ as another stirring speaker once said long ago. He was the same one, though, who announced that the ultimate utopian fantasy was within reach.  “The kingdom of God is at hand,” is the way his words are usually translated, but make no mistake–he wasn’t talking spiritual pie-in-the-sky.  He was talking about a utopian world of justice and equality, a world where no one goes hungry, a world where everyone’s basic human needs are met.  We’ve been working on making his vision a pragmatic reality for more than 2,000 years now.  Lord knows it’s been difficult and costly, but I, for one, refuse to give up on it.  I, for one, still believe it can happen.  So yes, Candidate, please show us your pragmatism.  It’s essential.  But more essential than that, stir us with a vision.