Tag: Love

“Buried in the Past; Captive to What Was”: Christian Limitation

Psalm 107:1, 21-22 Give thanks to God, for God is good, and God’s mercy endures for ever… Let them give thanks to God for God’s mercy and the wonders God does…Let them offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving and tell of Abba God’s acts with shouts of joy.

Introduction

We’ve spent the last few weeks looking outside at the global, national, and local socio-political tumult, chaos, and turmoil. There are many fires burning right now, and not enough water to put them all out. Some of these problems are so big that it feels like that save divine intervention itself, nothing will stop the death and destruction or ease the fear and anger and bring peace. Maybe God should start over again…*cue the thunder…

With all that is going around us, we can become so caught up with the tumult, chaos, and turmoil that we forget that there’s more here than meets the eye. We can become caught up in feeling helpless, hopeless, pointless, and absorbed by our limitations; we can’t make it better so why bother. It’s here we, a Christian church, forget the rock on which our identity is founded on. God. God The Creator, God the Reconciler, God the Redeemer; God who is the source of divine revolution of love and harbinger of liberation unto life. The same God who creates something out of nothing; God who resurrects the dead into life. It is this God who is fundamentally the source of our life spiritual (visible and invisible) and of our life corporate (spiritual and temporal).

Yet, it is this God we are so quick to jettison and abandon with saccharine desires to “keep the church” or “make the church relevant.” We would rather adhere to institutional order than be oriented toward this radical divine entity eager to flip the cosmos right side up. We grow embarrassed of our awkward proclamations and let the abusers, the power hungry, and the narcissists tell us what we will and will not say. We seem eager to remain silent when Jesus, God’s Word incarnate, is highjacked for violent purposes, baptizing war and genocide, oppression and alienation in the name of our Triune Abba God. We’d rather cling to the rope of the status quo and just fit in than dare to let go and fall into God, become radical, and go against the grain.

In refusing to let go of the rope we find ourselves dangling from provokes our spiritual and existential exhaustion. If you feel spiritually fatigued, this is why. All we want to do (and are trying to do) is climb back up the rope; what if we went back just a few years when things were “normal” and everyone was still here and things were going just fine, wouldn’t that be better than this? We don’t need or want rebirth, we think to ourselves. We just want our old church back. We want to go back to when it didn’t hurt so much to come to church, when decisions were easy, when we could quietly be this church gathered together. There’s a pit in our collective stomach that yells and screams: Go back! Run back to what was! Go back to that shore that was once comfort! Go back to not knowing, go back to when it was easier, go back to when things were better…I don’t care where, just go back to where it’s safe to just live…

Human beings have a hard time fighting against this lure and seduction of the romanticized past; the more we fight the more stuck we become. We are buried in the past, captive to what was.

Numbers 21:4-9

And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

We find ourselves in the book of Numbers, the fourth book of Torah that “…recounts memorable events of the Israelite wandering from Sinai, God’s mountain, to the plains of Moab, just opposite the promised land.”[1] The Israelites are still liberated from Egypt, still murmuring and grumbling, and still following God and Moses through the wilderness.[2] Our particular passage falls in the middle unit of Numbers, titled, “The Generation-long March in the Desert from Sinai to Moab.”[3] And this particular unit about the “Generation-long March in the Desert” demonstrates Israel’s “recurring cycle of murmuring and rebellion against the authority of God and Moses, by individuals or by the community as a whole.”[4] This “murmuring and rebellion” isn’t solely restricted to the people following God and Moses, but includes leaders like Aaron and Miriam—Moses’ sibling; it also include Moses himself demonstrating disloyalty to God.[5] Yet, when the murmuring and rebellion threatens to reach a fever pitch and provoke God’s beloved back to captivity, God acts and acts swiftly (e.g. the Tribe of Korah and Numbers 16).[6]

In our story, we find the Israelites fed up (again! [7]) with spontaneously generating quail, this weird coriander substance, and a lack of water. “There is no bread and no water, and we have come to loath this miserable food,” (aka Manna[8]) (v.5b).[9] God’s response? Snakes on a plain! These “snakes” were poisonous serpents with a burning bite.[10] Rightly, the people—watching “many Israelites” die because of the bites of the serpents—hie themselves to Moses. We sinned against God; intercede for us! Moses—mercifully—intercedes for them. God resolves the issue. Using God’s instrument of punishment, God tells Moses to make a seraph symbol and mount it high on a standard (v. 8). Moses does so, casting one of these serpents in bronze,[11] mounting it on a standard. Anyone who was bitten and looked up at this bronze snake was healed (v. 9). Israel, amid their dilemma and plight, are exhorted to look up at God rather than down at themselves; [12] it is not the snake that heals them, it is their right orientation toward God who is their source of love, life, and liberation. Through this bronze serpent on a pole, they are summoned to remember that God calls them to look to God and to follow God even when it means missing those creature comforts of way back when and following God into the unknown and uncomfortable. God heals Israel as they turn to God; God liberates Israel when Israel follows God.

Conclusion

God is not stuck in the past; God is not captive to what was. God summons and coaxes forward God’s beloved—all creation, from the teensiest, weensiest critter to the biggest, ziggest beast; from the ones that live deep in the oceanic abyss to the ones residing on the peakiest of mountains. God woos the beloved forward, into something NEW, into something new and of God because backward is the stuff of humanity that has long ago expired, gone sour, become septic. Liberation for Israel is not a liberation to go backward, which is a return to captivity. Rather, Israel is liberated to step forward into the unknown, dared to fall into the void of faith and God, knowing that they cannot achieve this depth of liberation and life and love apart from God. They cannot leave God in the past as if God is no longer a necessary hypothesis. For this group of people, God is the beginning and the end of their life, love and liberation…no matter how banal the food has become and how boring the water from a rock.

Beloved in Christ, we are currently in a similar plight. We are surrounded by global tumult, national chaos, and local turmoil—vicious, deadly snakes, nipping at ankles. Now is not the time to jettison God and forsake God’s word. God desires to beckon us forward out of what we know, away from what was, and to lift our heads to God’s self. To forsake any portion of the proclamation of Christ will be the nail in the coffin of the Christian church. When we forget our source of life, love, and liberation we will hand the entire story over to those who are determined to use it to bring death and destruction. If we are dead set on going backward, clinging to our comforts and ease, we will be unable to lift our head to gaze upon God’s standard fixed upon the cross, because we will be too focused on ourselves. We will miss the One who can bring and guide us toward healing, peace, mercy, grace, and justice; we will sell our identity and existence as church for a few pieces of silver. We must let faith lead us to let go of the rope and fall into God, fall into the impossible so that God may bear through us God’s divine possibility. We must each gaze up at God’s standard and sing,

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.[13]

Beloved, God calls, may our ears perk up. God comforts, may our souls be soothed. God speaks, may our ears delight in comforting words. God comes, may we run to Abba God. God is doing a new thing in this man from Nazareth, Jesus, the beloved, in whom, by whom, and through whom we are being coaxed forward, released from the past and liberated from what was…

[1] Nili S. Fox, “Numbers,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 281.

[2] Fox, “Numbers,” 281. “Thus, Numbers continues the story begun in Exodus and continued in Leviticus of the escape from Egyptian servitude, the desert journey to Mount Sinai, the revelation at Sinai and giving of the law, and the building of the Tabernacle with instruction on its operation.”

[3] Fox, “Numbers,” 282.

[4] Fox, “Numbers,” 282.

[5] Fox, “Numbers,” 282.

[6] Fox, “Numbers,” 282.

[7] Fox, “Numbers,” 325. “Once again the people revolt against God and Moses.”

[8] Fox, “Numbers,” 326. “This miserable food refers to the manna.”

[9] Nili S. Fox, “Numbers,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 325. “This incident is the final recurrence of wilderness murmuring. Complaints again center around a lack of water and poor food.”

[10] Fox, “Numbers,” 326. “Seraph serpents, based on the verb, means ‘burning serpents,’ because of the poisonous bite.”

[11] Fox, “Numbers,” 325. A copper serpent more likely refers to one made of bronze, a copper-tin alloy.

[12] Fox, “Numbers,” 326. “Rabbinic interpreters were disturbed by the magical nature of this cure, and suggested that it was the glance of the afflicted to their father in heaven, rather than the snake, which effected the cure.”

[13] Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

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The Paradox of Christian Existence

Psalm 147: 1, 3, 12, 21c Hallelujah! How good it is to sing praises to our God! How pleasant it is to honor God with praise! Abba God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. God has pleasure in those who fear him, in those who await God’s gracious favor. Hallelujah!

Introduction

When I became Christian, I remember feeling liberated. Really and truly free, living in the light of God’s love for me in Christ that I felt—truly felt—by the power of the Holy Spirit. It was like being in love for the first time, nothing could dampen that sensation of liberation. Everything felt great. Until.

One day I was driving down 1-95, going somewhere to fetch something, and my eye locked on to the speed-limit sign. For the first time (ever?), I felt compelled to check my speed and slow down. When I normally wouldn’t flinch towards 5-10…ish miles over the speed limit, but this time I did flinch, I did care.

I wish I could say that was the only and last time that ever happened. It wasn’t; it kept happening. I started noticing more and more laws. But it wasn’t like I was noticing the laws and that they infringed on my liberties, but that I saw the law doing something bigger than condemning me (how could it? I was free in Christ from the condemnation of the law!). What did I see? The people being protected by these laws. I remember my heart growing heavier; it was no longer just me on those roads or in that place, I was very aware there were others. My liberation in Christ was now tainted with a burden. A burden to give a heck about my neighbor; a burden to resist myself; a burden to love like I was loved by Christ.

Everything felt different, shifted, big, heavy, real. While I knew and felt that my liberation in Christ wasn’t gone, it was now yoked to this burdened-ness. My inner world shifted from levity to serious. Why hadn’t I seen this before? Why am I seeing it now? 1 Corinthians explains this well,

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

For being free/not under restraint of all things, I am brought under subjection to all, so that I might gain more of them.…For the ones under the law [I made myself] as one under the law, not that I myself am under the law, so that I might gain the ones under the law. For the ones who are lawless, [I made myself] as a lawless one, not being lawless of God but subject to Christ, so that I might gain the lawless. I made myself as the [socio-politically] weak[1] for the [socio-politically] weak so that I might gain the [socio-politically] weak. For all people I have become all things, so that I might save some by all means. Now, I do all things through the good news, so that I might partake jointly of it. (1 Cor. 9:19, 20b-23)[2]

How does this explain what I was experiencing all those years ago as a new Christian? Let me show you. First, Paul tells the Corinthians that his boasting is not in his preaching the gospel. The reason why he doesn’t boast is because a constraint is pressed upon him. He doesn’t have a choice, he is compelled to preach the gospel not for vainglory but for the glory of God which imposes itself on him.[3] Because Paul loves Jesus, he is compelled to proclaim Christ crucified and raised to everyone who will listen, to spread the announcing of God’s good tidings for the beloved.

In fact, Paul is so compelled that if he doesn’t preach the gospel it is woe, or better yet, it is agony forhim.[4] Paul elaborates further with a relatively awkward comment about wages. For if I do this entirely by personal choice,[5] then I have my wages/reward; but, if [I do this entirely] unwillingly, then I have been entrusted with stewardship. Only those who are able to choose to do something earn a reward or “wages”; those who must, who cannot do otherwise, are called and sent, summoned and wrapped up in the divine pathos like the prophets of old.[6] Paul is so commissioned that he refuses payment for preaching the gospel; he forgoes his rights to serve his neighbor.[7]

Then Paul declares that he’s free, not under restraint, and delivered from obligation. Um, what? Paul is talking about the paradox of Christian freedom and responsibility. By faith in Christ, Paul is free, under no obligation, having no restraints laid upon; he is wrapped up in God’s love, mercy, grace, and good pleasure. However, in being so wrapped up by this God means that Paul is also taken by the Holy Spirit of God and caused to love those whom and that which God loves. By this divine Spirit of love, Paul is liberated unto God to be in service to his neighbor, God’s beloved. In this way, Paul will forgo his right to his own liberty to put himself in service to his neighbor by means of the “law of love.” He loves because he has first been loved and cannot do otherwise.

Conclusion

In the beginning of his 1520 treatise, The Freedom of a Christian, Martin Luther offers this about Christian existence:

A Christian person is a free lord above everything and subject to no one.
A Christian person is a devoted-peer servant of everything and subject to everyone.[8]

I bring this up not because I’ve been trying to process the full extent of what this paradox means for Christian faith and praxis in the world before God and before humanity. I bring it up because Christian existence is a paradox. It is a paradox of real, true liberation that is gifted in Christ by the love of God and it brings the believer into true and real life, consummated by the power of the Holy Spirit. But, it comes with a burden. Because, to be so wrapped up in God’s gift of love, life, and liberation, enveloped in God’s grace and mercy through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit means that I am no longer my own, refused access to the law of autonomy; it necessarily means being for my neighbor, whoever they are, to serve them, to bring them the same love, life, and liberation I have. It means to feel the love of God and feel the love of God for the neighbor. It means to see them as God sees them. It means to feel their pain with them as God so feels their pain through Christ’s identification with the oppressed and lowly.

Beloved, you cannot have freedom without responsibility. You cannot have liberation without burden. To have freedom means to be responsible, to use that freedom to serve others is evidence of your freedom. To have liberation means to be burdened with bringing that same liberation to others. To be loved is to love. To be a Christian and to become as Christ, to follow Christ, is to become as one of these others just as he did. To try to have one half of the paradox and not the other is to remain in captivity—you cannot have just liberation and no burden, freedom without responsibility. As soon as you eliminate either part of Luther’s and Paul’s paradox, you lose everything. Beloved, you have been set free to set others free.

[1] Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 705. “…the weak is a designation which derives from how ‘the strong’ perceive the social relationship, in addition to denoting an objective social contrast between the influential and the vulnerable In this context the weak may mean those whose options for life and conduct were severely restricted because of their dependence on the wishes of patrons, employers, or slave owners.”

[2] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[3] Thiselton, 1 Corinthians, 695. “Paul has explained that he can glory of boast only where the principle of ‘freely you received, freely give’ operates, and when a renunciation of ‘rights’ is entirely voluntary. This cannot apply in this particular case to the act of preaching alone or to proclamation itself, for, like Jeremiah, in every account of his call Paul insists that God’s compulsion presses upon him.”

[4] Thiselton, 1 Corinthians, 696. Woe to me is more about pain, “misfortune, trouble…or agony for me. It is agony if Paul tries to escape from the constraints and commission which the love and grace of ‘the hound of heaven’ presses upon him.”

[5] Thiselton, 1 Corinthians, 696. ἑκών “entirely by personal choice” because it is position against compulsion.

[6] Thiselton, 1 Corinthians, 696. “Hence Paul makes a logical point that only acts carried out from self-motivation or self-initiative belong to the logical order of ‘reward’; and thereby his own irresistible commission excludes such logic.”

[7] Thiselton, 1 Corinthians, 697. v. 18 “This verse explicates the point just made above. Only by gratuitously proclaiming the gospel gratis can Paul go beyond the preaching which God has pressed upon him as an inescapable, not voluntary, task, and thereby go ‘the second mile.’ To do this, however, he must forego a right, as he pleads with ‘the strong’ among his readers to do.”

[8] WA 7:21; LW 31:344. Translation mine.

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Shut Up and Come Out of Them!

Psalm 111:1-3  Hallelujah! I will give thanks to God with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation. Great are the deeds of God! they are studied by all who delight in them. God’s work is full of majesty and splendor, and righteousness endures for ever.

Introduction

When you think about an encounter with Jesus, what do you think of first? You might think of wisdom. For surely encountering Jesus would be bringing you face to face with the wisdom of the ages. Jesus is a true teacher, one who can enlighten hearts and open minds. Maybe you’d think of healing. This would also make sense; there are so many stories in the Gospels about Jesus healing people, adults and children, living and dead. So, maybe you’d think of possibility… for truly this one is the Son of God and with God all things are possible. Maybe, being really good church school students, you would think of grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness. These, too, would be spot on; many stories about these very things confront us on every page of the Second Testament. Some of you might think about kindness, gentleness, and comfort; again, good thoughts and biblically solid. Maybe some of you—the stout hearted, the tell-me-like-it-is folx—would think about the way Jesus exposes us, like a bright light shining into the marrow of our bones type of exposure, yet a safe type of exposure, an exposure into life and love.

To all of these I say YES! An encounter with Jesus would carry all of these things. But we are still missing one more, the one that wraps up all of these: Liberation.

To encounter Christ in all of these ways—in wisdom, healing, possibility, grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, kindness, gentleness, comfort, and exposure—is to encounter Christ as the liberator, the one who sets captives free. Christ brings liberation to the people who are stuck, not only spiritually stuck but physically stuck. Christ comes to identify with humanity stuck in its plight and to set them (all!) free from those things that torment and haunt, oppress and possess.

Mark 1:21-28

And then at once there was a person with an unclean spirit in the synagogue crying out, “Go away! You leave us alone, Jesus of Nazareth![1] Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God!” And Jesus admonished the unclean spirit saying, “Shut up and come out of him!” And then after convulsing the man, the unclean spirit called out in a great voice and came out of him (Mark 1:23-26).[2]

Mark uses a story about Jesus’s teaching in the synagogue to demonstrate the depth of his divine power and authority. Mark’s use of ἐξουσία is potent here. This was a word normally used of kings and God is being applied to Jesus. He has authority in his teaching and in his deeds. [3] Mark moves the story from the shore of the sea of Galilee (Mk. 14-20) to Capernaum (v.21). Mark’s normal fast pace is heightened: as soon as they entered Capernaum, Jesus immediately taught in the synagogue on the sabbath.[4] Jesus didn’t force himself to the front to teach, he was invited to do so; this reinforces that Jesus was known and respected for his authority to interpret the scriptures and teach the people of God.[5] As Jesus teaches, the crowd was astonished/amazed regarding his teaching, for he was teaching them as having authority and not the authority of the scribes. Mark lets his audience know that not only does Jesus have authority to teach, his teaching exceeds that of the scribes; this truly is the Son of God (1:1).[6]

Then, in the midst of it all, the dramatic focus shifts[7] from Jesus to a person with an unclean spirit who enters the synagogue crying out and saying, “Go away! You leave us alone, Jesus of Nazareth![8] Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God!” (vv.23-24). It’s worth pointing out that a person with an unclean spirit (being ritually impure) was not to be in the sacred space of the synagogue.[9] And this, too, is worth pointing out that they make themselves the center of attention by yelling… at Jesus; not that this person is yelling, but the unclean spirit(s) inside them are yelling at Jesus because they recognize who Jesus is (as they always do).[10] Jesus—the ultimate non-anxious presence—responds with authority to the unclean spirit and admonished it saying, “Shut up[11] and come out of them!” With this type of divine command, the unclean spirit has no choice but to obey this superior spiritual power[12] and leave; however, not without first yelling in a loud voice and then convulsing the person as it leaves. The crowd was already astonished at his teaching, and now with this exorcism, they were amazed, almost terrified at Jesus’s ἐξουσία to liberate this person from such oppression. The people turn to themselves and begin wondering, what is this new teaching according to authority and commanding unclean spirits, and they obey him?! This new teaching is about profound liberation for the oppressed, the burdened, the lowly, the possessed, the ones who don’t belong in the synagogue, and the unclean. This is the new thing that God is doing in the world among God’s people: authority to teach and authority to liberate as one divine activity. Surely, the truth will set you free. And this freedom, if taken seriously, will provoke to anger everyone who is in power. What happens to the system if it is undone from the bottom? Even the top falls.

Conclusion

Beloved, in your encounter with God in Christ by faith you… you are liberated, inwardly and outwardly. When we go about conformed to the image of who we should be according to the world, we are no better than the unclean spirit storming into sacred places, hooting and hollering. We must dare to be fully “exorcised” of whatever vision we have of ourselves that is tied to things that are not of God, we must dare to (fully) step into the liberative encounter with God by faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and be ushered into our deliverance into and unto divine life and light. Mark is desperate to bring his readers, you, to the feet of this Jesus who sets the captives free, releases the bondages and fetters, and commands unclean spirits to be shut up and be gone so that the reader will be liberated into the world to participate in this great mission of the revolution of divine love in the world, to assist the divine Spirit seeking and searching for the beloved, bringing lightness and life out of the depth of darkness and death.

I’ll close with this quote from Dorothee Sölle talking about “renewed praxis” for those who encounter God in faith,

What the theologian should learn here is to dream and to hope. Our imagination has been freed from original sinful bondages, and we are empowered to imagine alternative institutions. We become agents of change. Prayer and action become our doing. The literary form is now the creative envisioning. We find new language. Only this last step discloses the text and makes us not only into readers but into ‘writers’ of the Bible. We say to each other ‘take up your bed and walk,’ which is a necessary step in any liberation theology.[13]

[1] France, Mark, 103. v. 24 “τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί; is an OT formula of disassociation…When addressed to an actual or potential aggressor it has the force of ‘Go away and leave me alone’… The demon assumes, without any word yet from Jesus, that his mission but be ἀπολέσαι ἡμᾶς; there is instant recognition that they are on opposite sides.”

[2] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[3] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 37. “Twice in a few verses observers remark that he has authority. Exousia, the word for ‘authority,’ was often applied to kings and especially associated with what God would have when his reign came. This section mentions no opposition, but there are hints of things to come. He has authority, not like the scribes. His fame begins to spread.”

[4] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 101.

[5] France, Mark, 101. “Mark’s καὶ εὐθὺς τοῖς σάββασιν ἐδίδασκεν might suggest that this unknown man of Nazareth took the initiative in imposing himself on the congregation, but the right to teach in the synagogue was controlled by its leaders (Acts 13:15), and the fact that Jesus was invited or allowed to do so suggests that, despite the orle of this pericope in Mark’s narrative as Jesus’ first public appearance, he had already been active in the area long enough to be known and respected.”

[6] France, Mark, 102. Stunned/amazed ἐκπλήσσομαι [these types of words] “…indicate the recognition of something out of the ordinary, and keep the reader aware of the unprecedented ἐξουσία of Jesus, and of the surprising and even shocking nature of some of the things he said.”

[7] France, Mark, 103. v. 23 “καὶ εὐθύς here serves to introduce a specific dramatic event within the more general scene set up in vv. 21-22.”

[8] France, Mark, 103. v. 24 “τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί; is an OT formula of disassociation…When addressed to an actual or potential aggressor it has the force of ‘Go away and leave me alone’… The demon assumes, without any word yet from Jesus, that his mission but be ἀπολέσαι ἡμᾶς; there is instant recognition that they are on opposite sides.”

[9] Placher, Mark, 37. “A man with an unclean sprit did not belong in a synagogue. He was ritually unclean, and this was a sacred space.”

[10] Placher, Mark, 37. “…he promptly disrupts things by yelling his head off. The spirit or spirits within him recognize Jesus as ‘the Holy One of God.’… Evil spirits never have any problem knowing who Jesus is…”

[11] Placher, Mark, 38. “English translations usually water down the blunt forcefulness of Jesus’ response: ‘Shut up’ or ‘Muzzle it’ and ‘Get out.’ The evil spirit(s) spoke truly enough, and Jesus’ insistence on secrecy about this identity is a theme in Mark…”

[12] France, Mark, 104. Son of God “Here it serves…to convey the demon’s awareness that he has come up against a superior spiritual power. If it is not yet a direct ascription to Jesus of the title ὀ υἰὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, it suitably prepares the reader for its use in 3:11; 5;7.” And, ἐπιτιμάω “In Mark the verb is used for Jesus’ authoritative silencing of unwelcome human utterance in 8:30, 33, and, strikingly, with reference to the natural elements…in 4:39…ἐπετίμησεν here therefore describes the effective command expressed in the direct speech which follows … rather than representing a separate element in the encounter,” 104-105

[13] Dorothe Sölle, On Earth as In Heaven: A Liberation Spirituality of Sharing, trans. Marc Batko (Louisville: WJK, 1993), xi.

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The Divine Whisper: “Beloved”

Psalm 62:6-8 For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in God. Abba God alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken. In God is my safety and my honor; God is my strong rock and my refuge.

Introduction

There are voices that will turn your head no matter where you are, no matter how old you are, and no matter how long it’s been since you heard that voice. You hear it, you know it, and you look in its direction eager to see the one who spoke. What makes your head turn and your body fill with warmth, and turn? Love. A voice that caused fear would make you stop for sure, but not in the same way. You wouldn’t turn with eagerness but freeze out of fright or send you running to hide. But the voice of Love is different. Even if this voice were to be frustrated with you, there would be the unyielding synthesis with love that would soothingly resonate with our nervous systems reminding us—even here and now—we are safe with this one who speaks.

The one who bore you into the world can have the voice loaded with this substance of love. We all know the voice of this one who carried us, whose voice was the auditory backdrop as we came into existence. The voice of the children we bear into the world can also carry this substance of love. No matter how many changes they go through, how deep their voices get, or how infrequently you hear them as they drift into their own adult lives, you know it—in the cacophony of the crowd, you can locate it. Their mature voices carrying those same idiosyncrasies and inflections they had when they were no higher than your knee.

Apart from these two specific relationships, others participate in this special distinction of being a voice that stops you where you are—no matter when and no matter what. Dear friends spanning eras of life and lovers here with you or from a different era can speak to you now and you would feel the weight of the substance of love that is the marrow of their words. Humans know when they are loved by the voice of love targeting their heart, mind, soul, and body. It’s to love that our ears harken and our head turns, it’s love that sends our feet to follow this voice.

Mark 1:14-20

And then when Jesus was passing by the sea of Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting nets in the sea, for they were fishing. And he said to them, “Come behind me, and I will make you become fishers of people!” And Immediately, leaving their nets they followed him. (Mark 1:16-18)[1]

Mark begins this story telling us that after John was handed over (by some unnamed person), Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time has been completed and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news,” (vv. 14-15). What John started, Jesus took up[2] and ushered in a new era of fulfillment of God’s promises made known in the exhortations to “change the inner person”/repent and believe the good news of God (v. 15).[3] It is here, amid proclaiming God’s good news and the inauguration of a new era, according to Mark, where Jesus begins his public activity.[4]

And how does Jesus inaugurate this public activity? Neither with pomp and circumstance nor with displays of power and might but with meager, human words summoning humble people out from the fringes unto the light of God.[5] From the edge of the sea of Galilee and from a dingy floating in water, Jesus summoned the lowly into the majesty of the liberating presence of God. And what happens when Jesus called out, “Come behind me!”? Those who were called go. There’s no time lag between the call and the response of the (now) disciples; there was no arguing, waffling, hemming and hawing…they just went (immediately!).[6] They heard Jesus summon them, and they dropped their nets and followed after him without any delay. They obey the call of God for no other reason than just because; they simply follow.[7]

As simple as Jesus’s summons, so was the disciples’ response. No grand gestures, no cleaning up, no getting right with God first…they heard and they went. All four summoned fishermen—Simon/Peter,[8] Andrew, Jacob, and John—radically departed what they knew, what was comfortable, and what was familiar to follow Jesus and receive a brand-new beginning filled with what would become uncomfortable, unknown, and strange.[9] In following when Jesus called, they were guided into a new beginning that started and will end with love. When Jesus called these humble men, Love beckoned them into the light of God by the divine voice of Love, which is none other than the divine Spirit, hovering over the deep eagerly seeking and summoning the beloved out of the deep.

Conclusion

I don’t know about you, but this story gets me every time I read it. I mean, they just followed!?!? Isn’t that beyond comprehension. I’m left with a lurking question: would I go? Would I follow this man who summoned me to come follow him? Suspending for a moment my 21st century mind, my “stranger danger,” my engrained fear of sinister, windowless vans and the large quantities of candy harbored behind those doors, would I follow Jesus? Would I give up everything and follow after this one proclaiming the kingdom of God come? Would I, could I recognize the voice of divine love summoning me out of the chaos and the deep?

To be a disciple of Christ starts with hearing, hearing the divine summons, the divine call of God to you, Jesus calling your name, the Spirit luring your heart toward this one who is the “Son of God” (Mark 1:1). To be a disciple of Christ is to hear and (immediately) follow, even if it means leaving everything behind that once defined you but no longer can because you’ve heard God’s voice in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit,[10] because you’ve heard the voice of love and can never unhear it.

Beloved, God calls you—day and night—summoning you unto God’s self, eager to bathe you in the love filling that loving, divine voice echoing throughout the halls of time, calling for you. I pray you hear the call of God in Christ, and that you drop your nets and follow this voice of love. For here, in this love is life and light, here is God, and here is your rest and comfort. No longer striving in the way of the world, desperate to fill an empty void to validate yourself or feel loved, here in the summons and in following you find the entirety of God, the very one who spoke the cosmos into existence and who now speaks to you, whispering to every fiber of your being: Beloved.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 90. “The role of the forerunner is over; the time of fulfillment has come.”

[3] France, Mark, 93. “With the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, therefore, a new era of fulfillment has begun, and it calls for response from God’s people. That response is summed up in the twin imperatives μετανοῖτε καὶ πιστεύετε.”

[4] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 31.

[5] France, Mark, 94. “The kingdom of God comes not with fanfare but trough the gradual gathering of a group of insignificant people in an unnoticed corner of provincial Galilee.”

[6] Placer, Mark, 36. “No discussion or explanation, no packing, no good-byes to family and friends.”

[7] Placer, Mark, 36. “Because it is Jesus who calls, they obey. Nor do they understand any particular content to that obedience other than simply following….”

[8] France, Mark, 95. “Mark will consistently refer to the first named disciple as Σίμων until he formally introduces the name Πέτρος as given to him by Jesus (3:16); thereafter he will consistently use Πέτρος…”

[9] France, Mark, 98. “The use of ἀπέρχομαι, rather than the simple ἕρχομαι as in 8:34, adds to the sense of radical departure and a new beginning.”

[10] Placer, Mark, 35. “John’s arrest is a signal: after the prologue the director is opening the curtain on the first scene.” Mathetes, “It was a rare enough word that Mark’s first readers/listeners would have had to learn its meaning by what followed. Being a disciple of Jesus, it emerges, means receiving his call, physically following him (and thereby giving up job, home, and normal ties to family), and risking the suffering that may ensue.”

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Free To Be For You

Psalm 139:1-4 Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways. Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O Lord, know it altogether. You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me.

Introduction

Last week we were brought into the presence of a very big event initiated by a divine word, “Let there be light!” At this command, the universe was thrust in to the divine light of order and basked in the magnificence of divine approval, “It is good.” The divine word pulled the lightness from the darkness, and set the earth into its fluctuation between day and night, forever dancing and never crossing, one bowing to the other as it cedes the stage to the other.

This week our attention turns to something much smaller, but no less magnificent: our own bodies. We, inside and out, are cosmic miracles, bipedal universes, worlds thrust and caught between illumination and obscurity. We are beautiful creatures composed of paradox, reflecting the paradoxical nature of our Creator: we are soft and firm, we are rational and irrational, we are strict and lenient, we are happy and sad, we are exciting and boring, we know who we are and we have yet to be introduced to ourselves, we are marvels and unexceptional. We crave inclusion and seclusion, we want love but not that much, we want approval but, again, not that much. We are complex and simple. You’re amazing. Whether you feel it or not, you’re amazing, fearfully and wonderfully made, valued at a great price. You are worthy in your skin to be loved as you are, just as you are.

You are so amazing but yet caution must be employed with ourselves, with our bodies, with our minds. While we are amazing, (I’ll never back down from that sentiment), we are very vulnerable creatures. We are prone to being misled, lied to, fooled, lured, and carried away by fear, threat, and intimidation, pulled into a sea of the billows and waves of charlatans and con-artists selling cures, and liquid mythologies only to take proceeds from eager believers while leaving nothing but saccharine syrup. Most of all, we can be swept away by our own notions of our freedom and liberation, becoming drunk on autonomy run amok.

This is why Paul says,

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

“All things are permitted to me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are permitted to me,” but I, I will not be ruled by them. “Food [is] for digestion, and digestion [is] for food,” and God will abolish both one and the other. Now, the body is not for idolatry, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God both raised the Lord and will raise us up according to the power of God. Have you not yet known that our bodies are members of Christ? (1 Cor 6:12-15a)[1]

While the historicity of Christianity has proven itself very capable at absolutely destroying the bodily alterity and autonomy, I must call attention to the fact that this isn’t Paul’s fault. Corinthians is one of my favorite collections of letters because of how well both the body and the self are held in high regard. Not only the body of the individual, but also the body corporate. Let’s look.

Paul begins by quoting some colloquialisms that came to him (most likely) from Corinth. Both, “All things are permitted to me,” and “Food [is] for digestion, and digestion [is] for food,” are considered to be quotations from other letters sent to Paul. So, Paul jumps in contending directly with what he’s heard and challenges it based on hindering and helpful terminology with a good dose of “freedom from” and “freedom for.” For Paul, the Christian has real and total liberty in Christ but that can only go so far. While many actions can be helpful, they are so only until they become hindering to both the one doing the action or the neighbor. In other words, both individuality and community matters, neither is to be victor over the other.[2]

Now, I know we’re raised to think that w’are the masters of not only our own domains but also of our destinies. But the reality is, we’re not. As mentioned last week, there is much we can plan and much that will happen this year that falls very wide of any plan we ever made ever. So, while I have a robust amount of freedom, I must always be aware that I’m not in this alone, and that my freedom can end up being someone else’s captivity. For Paul, Christians are expected to walk and talk differently, for they’ve been liberated from themselves to be captive to their neighbor, and all of it by faith in Christ working out in loving action. To say it doctrinally, we are to live resurrection lives now[3]and that means living into the divinely gifted glory of our beautiful bodies (in alignment, inner and outer) and in unity with other humans and especially with God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is why Paul spends time talking about uniting our bodies to “idolatry.” Should we, in our liberty, just unite our bodies to anything, even things of idolatry because we are justified by faith in Christ with God by the power of Holy Spirit? Paul says, μη γενοιτο! The reason? Because, essentially, you are not your own as you may (like to) think, you can’t just do what you want.[4] Then, after exhorting the Corinthians to FLEE IDOLATRY! (v. 18a), Paul says, “Have you not known that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have from God? You are not your own, you were purchased with honor; now, glorify God in your body,” (vv. 19-20).

But what has this to do with hindering and helping, freedom from and freedom for? Well, it comes down to making absolutes and maxims about individual freedom and liberty that conflict with the liberty and freedom of the neighbor. According to Paul, that I’m a Christian united to Christ by faith, in union with God, filled with the divine Spirit and Love, means I must take into consideration (always) my community, my neighbor, the other hoomans living here with me (whether the ones produced by my own body, whom I know intimately, or the ones I’ve never encountered with my body and whose names I may never know). I am not an island, I am not my own, I am now, according to Paul, yoked to Christ and the Spirit burdened with the light yoke of just loving other people as they are, where they are; it is not for me to conform others to my ideological orientations or force neighbors to get in line with my program.[5] Rather, I’m to serve my neighbor by my faith in Christ working itself out in love to the wellbeing of my neighbor. I am to see my actions as not only helping or hindering me, but also whether or not they might be helping or hindering my neighbors both near and far. For their wellbeing is linked to my own, knowing that in doing this I, too, will benefit as my neighbor thrives in abundance that is also mine.

Conclusion

Beloved, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Your body is amazing. It is so amazing that our sacred text exhorts you to care for it, treat it well, to honor it, and use it to bring God glory because it’s the temple of the Holy Spirit. What you do to/with your body is important, it matters, our actions towards ourselves should emphasize that divine gift of love, life, and liberation gifted to us by God through Christ and the Spirit. And, this exhortation extends beyond only what you do with your body and moves toward the neighbor, taking their body into account, valuing it, considering it worthy, honoring it, making sure to hold it in regard because their body matters, too. Let us remember these ones are also the beloved of God, purchased with honor by Christ’s body, and temples of the Holy Spirit, loved by God, the same God who us first as we are, where we are.

In other words, “let us love because God in Christ loved us first,” (1 Jn 4:19).

[1] All translations mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 462. “The issue for Paul is what helps and what hinders in constituting credible corporate Christian identity as a community in corporate solidarity with Christ. Both a theology of identity and an ethic of social or interpersonal relations are aspects of the unity…at issue. If freedom  or liberty is absolutized without qualification it brings bondage, or at least threatening constraints, to the competing freedoms of others. But part of the grammar of union with Christ is to share Christ’s concern for the well-being of the other, and to let go of his or her own freedoms in order to liberation the other. The ‘mind of Christ’ (2:16) has to be relearned and rediscovered at Corinth, not least as a basis for ethics and lifestyle.”

[3] Thiselton, Corinthians, 463. “The σῶμα is not to be equated with the κοιλία, but somatic life is absorbed and transformed in the resurrection of the σῶμα in such a way that continuity as well as change characterizes the relation between the present σῶμα, i.e., present life in its totality, and the resurrection σῶμα, i.e., the transformation of the whole human self as part of the raised corporeity in Christ.”

[4] Thiselton, Corinthians, 476. “The imagery of the purchased slave underpins the point that Christian believers belong to a new master, or owner, to whom they must give account for everything. That the main emphasis falls on this point is correct…”

[5] Thiselton, Corinthians, 478. “Redemption is from a state of jeopardy by a costly act to a new state.”

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The Wind of Love; The Word of Beginning

Psalm 29:10-11 God sits enthroned above the flood; Abba God sits enthroned as King for evermore. God shall give strength to God’s people; Abba God shall give Abba God’s people the blessing of peace.

Introduction

Happy New Year! With the start of the new year, we find ourselves at the very beginning of Genesis. It seems fitting to flow right through advent into Christmas and find us at the very beginning. Due to annual rotations around the sun, we are at another beginning of our earthly revolution; so we are, in a real sense, “In the beginning…” A new year carries so much wonderful and fearful unknown. Finally, a clean slate is here, out with the cluttered one from last year. We have our new canvas, that beloved empty page, and on these surfaces we can write whatever we want… But with all that newness, there is the demand, what will you put down, write, draw, paint? What will you do with this large expanse of anything and everything laid out before you? What will be painted on your canvas that you didn’t put there yourself, what part of the story will be written by someone else?

It’s incredibly liberating and intimidating, this wide-open space presented before us. For me, I am both excited and afraid; this year will pass by carrying its ups and downs and some of it I will foresee and others I will not—that’s how it’s gone before and, I’m guessing, that is how it will continue to go each revolution around the sun. Anything can happen! And, anything can happen… So, in the flux of the paradox of liberating and intimidating, between excited and afraid, where do we find our comfort, peace, that good, good word to still the (good and bad) storms that (could be, might be?) brewing? Well, we go back to the beginning, and listen again…

Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

We do not come to Genesis looking for scientific fact. These stories of the cosmos’s start by a divine word and light born out of nothingness into somethingness are not supposed to be treated as if a textbook in a lab room, as if it would stand up under scientific scrutiny. These stories are meant to bring comfort to a people lost and wondering if God is still with them, if God cares, if they are still God’s people. If everything you know is currently thrust under the waves of chaos and tumult, it might bring comfort to remember that the entire cosmic event is nestled under the care and concern of God, the very same one who called you, your ancestors, and your ancestor’s ancestors unto God’s self. Genesis 1, from beginning to end, is very much one of those stories, crafted to bring comfort to ears longing for a good word, maybe ears longing to find stable ground after being too long caught between excitement and fear, liberation and intimidation.

Rather than being a story replete with awesome works of power and might, sending shudders of fear and awe down the spines of all who are encountered by the story, Genesis 1 opens with a rather small bang: let there be light! That’s it. That’s all. Light is born into the chaotic darkness[1] by a word spoken. This light is not the sun (created on day 4), it is of a “different order”[2] than what the darkness was that hovered over the surface of the deep. If the darkness was considered chaos, then the light is order. Into chaos, order was summoned to make room within actuality for all things new and possible. From here, the text moves forward and tells us that God “saw” the light and decided it was “good.” But the text doesn’t stop there. God then separated the light from the darkness, literally pulled the two apart and gave each a different name so confusion would never occur again. One, the darkness, was called “night,” and the other, lightness, was called “day.” Never would the two cross paths, like death and life, only one would occupy a particular space and time. By day, things will be illuminated, known, exposed; by night, they will be hidden, lost, cloaked.

Genesis 1 establishes that God is the one who speaks and when this God speaks things happen. Genesis 1 locates God behind all of it: amid the chaos calling forth order, in the tumult summoning peace, in the darkness beckoning lightness. From the depths of the deep to the peak of the summit, God is there. So, as God’s people travel in and out of various territories, at times in exile and in others in return, God will never leave them because God is in it with them—God has been and always will be with God’s people no matter where they find themselves.

Conclusion

As we find ourselves in the twixt of an old year giving way to a new year, between the excitement and fear, between liberation and intimidation let us rest assured that as much as any other time in history from the beginning of the cosmos unto this very year, God is with us, behind it all. God is in your fear and in your excitement; God walks with you in your feelings of liberation and with you in your feelings of intimidation; God is with you in your chaos and in your order, in your plans and in the events you have not planned. God is with you because God is love and love is that wind sweeping over the waters of the deep searching and seeking the beloved to bring them into the light and life of God’s divine liberation.

And later, as we look back on Christmas and ahead to Easter, let us remember that once more will God’s love hover over the waters of the deep in search of the beloved eager to bring them (back) into the light and life of God’s divine liberation. But that story is for another time. For now, there is light and that light is good.

[1] Jon D. Levenson, “Genesis,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. Eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 13.

[2] Levenson, “Genesis,” 13.

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Yesterday’s Song; Today’s Peace

Psalm 89:1-2 1 Your love, O God, for ever will I sing; from age to age my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness. For I am persuaded that your love is established for ever; you have set your faithfulness firmly in the heavens.

Introduction

The warmth of the holiday season, the festivity of lights and music, the cheeriness of people, and the fullness of celebrations and feasts solicit our radiant smiles and eager, welcoming hugs. It’s a time of year heralding hope from street corners and twinkling rooftops and yards, fueling faith deep within weary souls, and jumpstarting joy in the bodies of the young and the old—and those captured between—eager to get through the one to many demands of the end of the year.

Though this is true for half of us, I know it’s not true for the other half of us. The same lights and music, cheer, celebrations and feasts do anything but solicit such warm feelings. The holiday season conjures up feelings of sadness and longing over loved ones too far to celebrate with us, record a(nother) year someone won’t our door or sit at our table ushering in grief and sorrow, and spark anxiety and fear at the rising expectations to gather with those who have not always proved themselves safe to be around. Specifically, considering our own moment in history with wars and genocides plaguing our lands, human liberties being stripped away, and life and love being threatened on almost every side, it can be doubly hard to enter that warm season, to have hope, faith, joy… and peace.

Peace seems far off, distant, but a dream of yesteryear, an unfamiliar word, something we thought we knew but may be now we aren’t so sure…But it’s to peace (along with hope, faith, and joy) that Advent calls each of us personally. Hope fuels faith and these procure joy and these three create the space and slow time down long enough for peace. Even now? Yes. Especially now. Even you? Yes. Especially you.

Magnificat

God deposed the rulers and potentates from thrones and exalted the lowly and humble, God filled up the needy with all good things and sent the abounding away empty. God took hold of Israel, God’s child, to call to [their] mind [God’s] mercy, just as God spoke to our elders, to Abraham and to his descendants into eternity. (Lk 1:51-55)[1]

Mary’s words recorded by Luke participate in that still, small, divine voice eager to beckon those feeling exhausted, fatigued, weary, downcast, low, a lacking hope, faith, and joy. This isn’t just a message jotted down or a hymn eloquently penned (though, it might very well be these things!). It’s a prophetic utterance soliciting a harkening to God and a change in direction for all those who hear; it’s a response not only to Mary’s own situation but of Elizabeth, too. It’s in the midst of her visit to Elizabeth—who acknowledges the Savior Mary carries—that causes the space for this song to erupt from Mary’s soul, a song of a poor, oppressed one[2] for the poor, oppressed ones.[3]

Mary’s song articulates that the starting place of God’s divine activity is among the lowly and not those set up high; from the bottom up, God will make God’s self known.[4] And God will bring God’s liberation as God moves through humanity correcting the misplaced emphases on human power in terms of status, wealth, privilege, and might; Mary recognizes God as the one who liberates.[5] And this liberation is an expression of God’s justice; because God is just God will right-side up the upside down world crafted by the kingdom of humanity,[6] leaving equality and equity, peace and justice, mercy and grace in the wake of God’s liberating activity of leveling love and life.[7] This is why we have hope, this is why we have faith (trust), this is why we have joy, and most of all: this is why we have peace. Mary reminds us, that God isn’t aloof and doesn’t remain far off, but the exalted God come low to exalt the lowly.

Conclusion

In the high-middle ages Mary was known as the “‘Madonna of Rogues,’”[8] the one who identified with the lowly, the oppressed, the poor, the hungry, the not-very-significant, the stressed, the anxious, the fearful, those who are bereft of comfort, long to be seen and heard, starving for company and solidarity. She is the one who knows how low God will descend to bring love, life, and liberation into the world, by fulfilling God’s promises through the body broken of an unwed woman of color. She knows those tears you’ve cried, those heartaches you’ve felt, those losses you’ve suffered, those threats you live under.

Mary knows and Mary speaks. She speaks with knowing mercy as one who knows the pain of being human, the sweat of the struggle, the fear of the unknown, the feeling of being reduced to property and easily dismissible. Mary speaks with knowing mercy and walks with you as part of the great cloud of witnesses attesting to the faithfulness of God while promising, according to Dorothee Sölle, “‘I’ll stick by you without reservations or conditions. I’ll stick by you because you are there, because you need me.’”[9] With her song, bursting forth the from her weary and desperate body all those years ago, Mary sings to you today, this morning, because in death she is alive, alive in the one she bore who came to defeat death and destruction, isolation and alienation.[10] She sings to you today and calls to you: Do not give up weary one, God hears you, God sees you, God comes to you, God is coming to you…have hope, have faith, have joy, and have peace…

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, trans. Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010) 16. “Teresita: ‘…When she called herself a slave, Mary brought herself closer to the oppressed, I think.’”

[3] Cardenal, Solentiname, 15. “The pregnant Mary had gone to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who also was pregnant. Elizabeth congratulated her because she would be the mother of the Messiah, and Mary broke out singing that song. It is a song to the poor.”

[4] [4] Justo L. Gonzalez Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010) 26-7. “Mary sees in her own act of conceiving, and in the child who is to be born out of that act, a sign of the way in which God works. Her song is not like many of the ’praise’ songs of today, proclaiming how great God is. It is a hard-hitting proclamation of a God who overturns the common order of society.”

[5] Cardenal, Solentiname, 16. “‘[Mary] recognizes liberation…We have to do the same thing. Liberation is from sin, that is, from selfishness, from injustice, from misery, from ignorance—from everything that’s oppressive. That liberation is in our wombs too, it seems to me…’”

[6] Cardenal, Solentiname, 17. “And another: ‘She says that God is holy, and that means ‘just.’ The just person who doesn’t offend anybody, the one who doesn’t commit any injustices. God is like this and we should be like him.’”

[7] Cardenal, Solentiname, 19. “The last remark was from Marita: ‘Mary sang here about equality. A society with not social classes. Everyone a like.’”

[8] Soelle, Strength of the Weak, 45. , “[Mary] was known as the ‘madonna of rogues,’ which is to say the madonna of the impoverished rural proletariat, who could not help being at odds with the increasingly stringent laws that defined and protected property.”

[9] Soelle, The Strength of the Weak: Toward a Christian Feminist Identity, trans. Robert and Rita Kimber (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984) 45. “…Mary embodied Mercy, or what we usually call ‘charity.’…What I mean to say is that Mary rejects ‘performance’ as a measure of human value. I will not stick by you, she says, because you are handsome, clever, successful, musical, potent, or whatever. I’ll stick by you without reservations or conditions. I’ll stick by you because you are there, because you need me. Her unconditional acceptance is that of a mother who cannot exchange her child in the store if she finds it doesn’t suit her.”

[10] Soelle, Strength of the Weak, 46. “The little Madonna who spoke of liberation in the passage quoted form Luke is not made of plaster or plastic. She is very much alive, alive in the history of all who are oppressed, alive in the history of women.”

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The Far God Brought Near

audio forthcoming….

Psalm 100:2, 4 Know this: God is God; God has made us, and we’re Abba God’s; we’re God’s people and the sheep of God’s pasture. God is good; God’s mercy is everlasting; and Abba God’s faithfulness endures from age to age.

Introduction

God lives at the end of infinity; God finds God’s home in the finite. God is the first movement; God is the last movement. God is immortal; but then God is mortal. God is beyond the stars; God is the very twinkle in the eye of the one who loves you. God is so far; but also? God is so near. God is here but only because God is not here, too. It’s hard to speak succinctly about God.

Dorothee Sölle refers to God as the “far-near God.” Grand-humble; royal-common; immaterial-material; here-there; far-near. These paradoxical statements keep God just in our grasp and just outside of it. To declare that God is “far” and only “far” is to objectify God and force God into a (far) corner thus (ironically) to make God small, figured out, caged, folded up like an origami God and stuck in a wallet. And we cannot render God strictly close as God is only near, never far. In this equation God becomes (logically) too small, no different than that voice in your head, your conscience, and ceases to be God because there is no distinction between your inner person and God—the confusion here becomes dastardly when one’s own wishes and desires are mistaken for God’s (acts of violence, narcissistic manipulation, etc.).

To speak of God is to speak in paradox, holding as one two statements appearing to be antithetical while seeing they deeply relate as one existing in the other. (Death in life, life in death.) Here is where the letter of Ephesians shines, for me. The language employed by the author of Ephesians plays with the stretchiness of paradox like the way a womb can expand to comfort and nourish the entire life held within its embrace.

Ephesians 1:15-23

On account of this I also heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and the love toward all the holy ones. I do not cease being thankful concerning you mentioning [you] when making my prayers, so that the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, the progenitor of glory, maybe give you a spirit of wisdom and a revelation in knowledge of God…[1]

Eph. 1:15-16

The author of Ephesians writes this section in single sentence,[2] peppered with small-big, near-far statements about God. The author commends the Ephesian Christians for their faith and that this faith leads them to love outwardly. Their inward faith renders them turned outward and not inward, toward their neighbors; smallness located in bigness. Then the author brings together their own thankfulness for the Ephesian Christians in tight correlation to their prayers to God. This gratitude for these Christians weaves its way into Paul’s prayers eliminating the distance between the two; nearness located in farness. Then the author brings to the fore that this God who is the source of glory is also the one who gives of God’s own spirit of wisdom to those who believer, granting them a revelation in knowledge of God. Something big in something small in something big. It is God in Christ in the Spirit that participates through Paul into the Ephesian Christians in the Church. [3] The big in the small and the small in the big; the far in the near and the near in the far.

…the eyes of your heart having been enlightened in order that you behold what hope there is of God’s calling, what wealth of God’s inheritance in the holy ones, and that which is beyond the greatness of God’s strength in us, the ones who believe according to the activity of God’s might of strength.

Eph. 1:18-19

Again, the author of Ephesians continues with these big-small, far-near statements. It’s the God who acted in Christ—way back when—who calls now; God’s far voice comes near, divine soundwaves beckoning down long hallways of history taking those who hear from any era into the Christ who lived and died and rose again as if that then was and is now. In this way God still acts now not as an historical event still working itself out, but as a current event in our lives; the far-near God, the historical-current God.

Better yet, it is the historical-current-future God speaking to God’s historical-current-future church, granting wisdom and knowledge of God’s self according to the context of the believers, as they are and where they are, as they all await their inheritance by their hope. [4] And this hope that lays hold of God’s historical promise currently spoken to them while trusting God will fulfill that promise in their future, is not only a sentiment. This hope informs and forms the Ephesian Christians’ praxis in the world (evidenced in their love for their neighbor mentioned at the outset).[5]

This God worked out in Christ by raising him from the dead and making him to sit on God’s righthand in the heavens high above all rule and authority and power and domain while being named above all names, not only in eternity but also in this coming one. And, God “subjected all things under his feet,” placing him as head above all things in the church. Wherever his body is there he is the fullness of all fulfilling.

Eph. 1:20-23

And here at the end of our passage, the bigness of God resides in the smallness of those who are called; the far God is near to the ecclesia, the called ones. Here, the church is in Christ by faith and yet this Christ is the one who fills the church.[6] The great Christ, the one who is above all powers and authorities and domains and names and who sits at the righthand of God is the same one who is present in the small church and shows up where this small, fragile, vulnerable, and humble body is by faith in the power of the holy Spirit, participating in his self-witness. The small church carries the big burden that is the light yoke of faith in Christ, bringing Christ and thus God with them in their praxis in the world by faith manifesting as love toward the neighbor.

Conclusion

God is the far-near God, the big-small God, the here-there God, the infinite-finite God. The largeness of God is also God’s intimate closeness, farness that is nearness, the immaterial that ends in the material; the divine that intersects with the human.

But what does this have to do with us? Well, we are wrapped up in this great big-smallness, this far-nearness. And we are not only wrapped up in it but brought further in to God to be closer to the neighbor, bringing this far-near, big-small God closer to those who have been deprived of access to God. This is the witness of the church in the world: God for us, God for you, God for me. We, the church, are called in our faith to be as Christ in the world bringing God’s love, life, and liberation to those who are trapped under the principalities and powers of kingdom of humanity.[7]

Beloved, Christ witnessed God into the world; after Christ ascended, the divine Holy Spirit came to make the church God’s witness of God in the world in Christ’s name as Christ’s body, bringing the world and its inhabitants into the manifold grace and mercy of God. We are called and inspired to bring the big God into the smallest recesses of the earth, into the hearts of those who are crying out because of oppression and marginalization. We are filled by Christ with Christ to bring the far God near to those who suffer under alienation and isolation. Because where the body of Christ goes, there Christ goes, there the far-near, big-small God goes.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Markus Barth, Ephesians, The Anchor Bible (Garden City: Double Day, 1974. 160. “…Eph 1:15-23 has the form of one long sentence.”

[3] Barth, Ephesians, 160. “The main agents are God, the Spirit, and the Messiah. The apostle, the saints, and the church are mentioned in tun.”

[4] Barth, Ephesians, 160. “Again, the action of God is not limited to the past. Rather the faith, prayer, and community of the saints are related to that God who is still pouring out his Spirit, increasing knowledge, proving his might over all power, filling the church and the world. The saints are still to attain to an heirdom which lies before them; their faith (and love) cannot be genuine unless it is a hope relying on God who has made a promise, gives hope, and will keep his word.”

[5] Barth, Ephesians, 163. “…’wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ imparted by the Spirit are not limited to perception, learning, and theoretical insight, but show the wise man how to live. It is characteristic that knowledge cannot exist without growth and expansion. A knower remains a learner, and knowledge will always seek to give others a share in its contents.”

[6] Barth, Ephesians, 160. “Thus the end leads back to the beginning, a reference to the communion of saints. But while the saints were described at the beginning as being ‘in Christ,’ at the end Christ seems to be portrayed as the one who is filling them.”

[7] Barth, Ephesians, 176. “…the message of Ephesians is concerned less with the salvation of the individual soul than with the peace between man, his fellow man and God, i.e. less with private piety than with the social character s of the church and its mission to the world.”

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Lovingly Awaiting the Bridegroom

Psalm 78:5, 7 God gave God’s decrees to Jacob and established a law for Israel, and commanded them to teach their children…So that they might put their trust in God, and not forget the deeds of God, but keep Abba God’s commandments…

Introduction

If you’ve been around, then you’ve probably heard the phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” It’s a great colloquialism; one bringing comfort to those who may feel they themselves are unlovely. Yet, as great and comforting as it could be, the phrase is often shrugged off. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, blah bla blah, I know… Much like your teen giving a hard-eye-roll when you, once again, tell them they are so handsome and  beautiful.

Why don’t we believe this?

Because the world and our society tell us differently. We’re regularly bombarded with images and messages (implicit and explicit) telling us we don’t measure up. In this war between us and a myriad of industries, our bodies are the battle ground and all too often we are ready to let our psyches and souls be dragged off as prisoners of war. So, we don’t believe that beauty can actually be in the eye of the one who deems us beautiful because we don’t deem ourselves beautiful, wonderful, fleshy miracles, daily breaking boundaries of possible and impossible.

Our attention is drawn away toward that which brings death and destruction and not on that which brings life, so we cannot to see the truth of our beauty and strength (no matter where you find yourself in this journey from point a to point b). Immersed in this diverted attention, we spend our entire lives focused on how we fall short, forgetting to live liberated and loved, finding ourselves out of oil and out of time, locked out of the feasts and festivals of life .

Matthew 25:1-13

Now, while [the foolish bridesmaids] were away purchasing [olive oil], the bridegroom went to the wedding feast and the prepared bridesmaids entered with him and the door was shut. Now later the remaining bridesmaids came and were saying, “Lord, Lord, open up for us.” But the [bridegroom] answered and said, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” [And then Jesus said,] “Therefore, you watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” [1]

Mt. 25:10-13

Matthew drops us deep into Palestinian culture while dropping a bomb of eschatological judgment. Jesus’s parable of what the kingdom of heaven is, is drawn from “wedding customs in first century Palestine,” where bridesmaids would usher the bridegroom to the house of the bride and then both of them would be paraded to the wedding venue for the ceremony and subsequent feasts. [2] But the hard part (the eschatological bomb) isn’t Jesus’s recourse to historic Palestinian wedding customs; this makes sense. What’s hard is that the bridesmaids are divided into “practically wise” and “foolish.” Separating the main characters of a story into two groups is a well-used ancient literary device used to demand attention and cause inner and outer disruption as the one who hears listens. For one group, it will not end well.[3]

After telling the audience that there are two groups of bridesmaids (one foolish, one practically wise), Jesus explains that these ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to wait for the bridegroom; but five did not bring any more oil than what they carried in their lamps. Then, all of the bridesmaids fell asleep for the bridegroom was delayed in coming. Then! Now, in the middle of the night an outcry happened: behold! The bridegroom! Come out to meet him! All ten wake up, but five awaken to their flames about to extinguish for lack of oil. Five came prepared. The five lacking oil panic and request help from the other five who are prepared. No avail. The prepared five send the five lacking oil to the market, the amount of oil we have will not suffice for you and us; go to the ones selling so you might purchase [oil] for yourself. Now as the unprepared bridesmaids are off bartering for oil, the bridegroom comes and the festivities commence. The door is shut. And it won’t open again, not even for the remaining five bridesmaids. They are left out in the cold.

Whether or not the prepared bridesmaids shared is not the point of the parable. This parable isn’t even about staying awake.[4] Keeping in mind that all ten bridesmaids fell asleep and all ten woke up at the same time, the point is: preparedness stemming from love. The emphasis falls on the practically wise bridesmaids being prepared and wise, carrying expectant hope of the bridegroom’s arrival at any hour, thus the extra oil.[5] This isn’t the type of cramming and rushing at the last minute, [6] but because of their love[7] the practically wise bridesmaids brought extra so they would be ready. You can’t manufacture that type of love at the last minute, it is there and it is working behind the scenes making the object of love, the beloved, beholden by the eye, the beautiful one, the one longed for and desired.[8] The preparedness of love, in this story, redefines family because of the fixed mutual gaze of the beloved and the lover.[9]

Conclusion

Jesus’s use of this parable is to speak to those who are listening and to refocus their gaze on the true bridegroom: himself. Jesus is eager to draw God’s beloved onto to himself thus unto God, to bring them deep into life, love, and liberation; to enter with them into the great wedding feast, to be celebrated, and rejoiced.[10]

Is God jealous? Yes. Jealous for you, for you to know the depth of how much God loves you. Jealous for those outside of this building to know they are so loved by God. So loved that God will move heaven and earth to be born in Christ in the lap of Mary to write it across the starry night sky. So desired, God will reorder life and death in the resurrection of Christ from the dead to shout it to the ends of the cosmos. So cherished, God by God’s Spirit will draw intimately near to the beloved—transcending God’s self—to show that such meager jars of clay are marvelously and wonderfully made, beautiful, beloved. And all of it to draw the focus away from death and destruction and toward life, love, and liberation; away from all the myths and narratives telling the beloved they are inferior and don’t measure up, need to be this or that, or must deny their own selves to be loved. God draws the beloved’s attention away from that toward true, unyielding, always and forever, never-stopping, never giving up divine love, love for you just as you are.

Beloved, dare to believe God loves you so much and that you know you are the apple of God’s eye, the most beautiful and wonderful thing God’s ever seen (each of you! And all of you together!). Turn your heads to the still small voice calling your name, reminding you how precious you are. Double down. Double down so much that you bring extra oil to be ready for when the Bridegroom comes.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville: WJK, 2015. 275. “In wedding customs of first century Palestine, it was common for the bridegroom to be escorted by such a company of bridesmaids/virgins to the home of the bride. They would then escort the couple to the house where the wedding and the wedding feasts were to take place.”

[3] Case-Winters, Matthew, 275. “This contrasting of the ‘wise’ and the ‘foolish’ is an ancient conventional device used in wisdom literature. Jesus uses this device both here and in the Sermon on the Mount where a wise man builds on a rock and a foolish man builds on sand (724-27). … The earlier motif of Jesus as the bridegroom (9:15) and the eschaton as a wedding banquet (22:2) is picked up once again here.”

[4] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. 947. “Why then did the five [foolish] girls miss the feast? It was not that five slept and five stayed awake: v. 5 says explicitly that they all slept and all had to be awakened by the midnight shout. The problem goes back to the preparation they had made before going to sleep.”

[5] Case-Winters, Matthew, 275. “The wise bridesmaids may serve as examples of wisdom and anticipation of the advent of the Messiah. Such a reading is more consistent with the Gospel’s direction and its overall positive portrayal of women.”

[6] France, Matthew, 947. “But the point is simply that readiness, whatever form it takes, is not something that can be achieved by a last-minute adjustment. It depends on long-term provision, and if that has been made, the wise disciple can sleep secure in the knowledge that everything is ready.”

[7] Cardenal, Solentiname, 476. “Oil gives light and joy, and that’s the way love is. Each person is a lamp, but a person without love is a lamp that’s gone out.’”

[8] Ernesto Cardenal The Gospel in Solentiname Translated by, Donald D. Walsh. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010. 476. “Olivia: ‘It’ll be too late to look for it, because love can’t be learned in a day, you learn love all your life, and you teach it to your children, or else you teach your children selfishness. And people that have grown up with a selfish mentality and that belong to a society that’s all selfish, how are they going to change suddenly.’”

[9] France, Matthew, 950. “The comparatively trivial lapse of a failure to be provide with oil has come to symbolize an ultimately false relationship; they are not part of Jesus’ true family (12:50).”

[10] Cardenal, Solentiname, 478. “Oscar: ‘It’s a great joy, man! In a feast we all get together and we share everything that’s there, and we all take part in all the talking and we’re all happy; you’re full of joy. And when we’re all together here, you feel happy, you feel a joy, it’s a kingdom that we’re all sharing in, it’s a little like, like the coming of the bridegroom, I’d say.’”

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Making the Journey a Good One

Psalm 107:1-2 Give thanks to the Lord, for Abba God is good, and God’s mercy endures for ever. Let all those whom the Lord has redeemed proclaim that God redeemed them from the hand of the foe.

Introduction

I don’t know about you, but I think life can be hard. None of us have recourse to the last time we did life, so all of it’s new and carries the mysterious paradox of being helpful and hindering. None of us asked to be born; all of us were born. Now, we’re here. All of us together. In this when, in this where, in this what, in this why, in this how; together for better and for worse.

I don’t know about you but I trip every so often (as in: often); I say the wrong thing, I do the wrong thing, I think the self-condemning thoughts, I hurt someone else, I hurt myself, and trip over which put I’m putting forward. So, even though living can be banal, life itself carries a fantastic amount of pain and personal suffering. (And I’ve not even commented on the real-life struggles that many people have that I don’t have, making this journey even harder.)

We’re all, each of us, trying to get from morning to night, from Sunday to Saturday, from one month to another, from one year to another, from point A to point B as well as we can. Anyone here absolutely killing it on this journey? I’m not, and I have it pretty good. How about you? Aren’t you just trying your best to go from point A to point B to the best of your ability, as a vulnerable and fleshy human, prone to having a troubled and agitated conscience? And if you’re doing that, then maybe your neighbor is, too? So, then, why do we heap up judgment and burdens on others, weighing them down on this already hard-enough journey?

Matthew 23:1-12

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples saying, “The Scribes and the Pharisees are seated on the seat of Moses. Therefore, you do and observe all things as much as they say to you, but do not act according to their works; for they are speaking and not acting. And they bind up heavy and oppressive burdens and add [them] upon the shoulders of the people, but they, they will not wish [to lift] their finger to move these burdens.

Mt. 23:1-4

Matthew tells us Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples. At once, Matthew minimizes the distance between the disciples and the crowd. Why? Because what Jesus is about to say is for everyone; there’s no room for hierarchy in the economy of divine love for the whole world. Therefore, those who follow Christ—disciple or crowd—are all the same.

Then Jesus tells the collective, The Scribes and the Pharisees are seated on the seat of Moses. This means they’ve inherited Moses’s role of authority among the people (to teach and lead).[1] However, even though “Jesus shared in many of the concerns of the Pharisees,” Jesus sees things a bit differently.[2] So, Jesus then says, listen to them for they know what they are teaching, but do not follow their lead because they do not do as they command (vv. 3b-4). Here, Jesus illuminates the problem: it’s not enough to sit in the seat of Moses to be a true heir of Moses. If you do not hold yourself to the same standard you preach and teach and load up more oppressive and heavy burdens on the people, you’ve forfeited the role and the seat; Moses brought liberty to the Israelites, not more bondage and captivity.[3] In other words, “Torah should not be burdensome.”[4] So, without asking it, Jesus asks all those who have ears, “Who then is the ‘”true heir” of Moses?’”[5], [6]

The answer to the question is teased out in Jesus’s criticism of some of the Pharisees and Scribes who flaunt not only their actions (v. 5a) but also their garments among the people for the sole purpose of pomp and circumstance—they’re showing off their power and privilege by going about cloaked in robes with long tassels and adorned with broad phylacteries[7] attempting to manufacture respect and honor from the people (v. 5b). And it doesn’t stop there. Jesus goes on to talk about honorific titles. Not only do these certain Scribes and Pharisees take the chief place at dinners and the chief seat in the synagogue, they also expect to be called “Teacher” by the people (vv. 6-7). But Jesus tells the crowd and the disciples, But you, you are not to be called teacher for there is one teacher among you, and you are all siblings… (v. 8). In less words: everyone here is equal, limping together on the path of the same journey from point A to point B.[8]

And then Jesus wraps up the exhortations toward a shared and communal equality among the siblings who follow him, with this last promise, Now the great of you will be the servant of you; and whoever will exalt their own self will be made low and whoever will make their own self low will be exalted. So, what does it mean that those who are listening are to listen to the Pharisees and Scribes but not do what they do? Well, it looks a lot like mutual humility and humbling oneself to serve the neighbor, the one just like you, even if it means avoiding using burdensome titles;[9] this is the opposite of what certain Pharisees and Scribes were doing[10] being more concerned with their own status than with the well-being of the people.[11]

Conclusion

There is no hierarchy among the followers of Christ. In baptism, we all come out of the waters following Jesus on the same level no matter what accolades and earnings we have. This means, as we’re all equal in Christ we’re beckoned to humble ourselves and serve each other. Why? Because we are all busted up and limping along in life, trying desperately to get from point A to point B.

There’s a song by Sia, “Breathe Me,” that speaks to this very thing, it’s worth quoting some of the lyrics here:

Ouch, I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found
Yeah, I think that I might break
Lost myself again and I feel unsafe
Be my friend, hold me
Wrap me up, unfold me
I am small and needy
Warm me up and breathe me

I believe this song speaks to the inner world of any human trying desperately to get from point A to point B relatively unscathed and to the best of their ability. So, I wonder, why do we try to make this journey from point A to point B so hard for others and for ourselves? Why do we throw the rocks of judgment and condemnation at fellow travelers? Why do we make life, love, and liberation accessible to an elite few? Why do we dare to ban God—the very God who came low, born of a woman, servant of the poor, died forsaken—from those who need God, allowing God only to be for those who have the right title, robe, and station?

Every one of us here and out there is struggling to make it day to day, none of us has it all together no matter the ease and comfort of material objects. We are all vulnerable, fleshy creatures hanging on from one day to another, with very minimal safety nets that are truly safety nets. All we have, to be honest, is each other; we are only as secure as our community around us, this is why striking out alone doesn’t work in the end.

Beloved, God is with you because I am with you, because those sitting next to you (literally and virtually) are with you. Let us make this journey from point A to point B a good one, a fun one, a celebratory one. Let us walk, run, crawl, hobble, roll all the way there; let us carry and be carried; let us carry along the divine gifts of life, love, and liberation sharing these gifts with our siblings. Beloved, let us pull together and not apart; let us include and not alienate; let us bring God’s mercy and grace to all.

[1] Anna Case-Winters, Matthew, “Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible,” Edited by Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher, (Louisville: WJK, 2015) 265. “‘Moses’ seat’ is a symbol of authority for interpretation of the law as received from God and delivered to the people by Moses. In later synagogue architecture there was a literal ‘seat of Moses,’ and the rabbi would sit on it to give instruction.”

[2] Case-Winters, Matthew, 262. “Jesus shared the concerns of the Pharisees. He was closer to their thinking than to that of the Sadducees or the Essenes. However, he differed from Pharisees in his understanding of the relative importance of such things as ritual purity, tithing, Sabbath, and what he considered to be the ‘weightier matters of the law’ (23:23).” And later Case-Winters writes, “In early rabbinic writings, in fact, Pharisees themselves engage in pointed criticism of those who manifest the flaws that Jesus notes here,” (262-263.).

[3] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname Trans. Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010) 446. “I: ‘But it can be good for us if, as Christ says, we put into practice its freedom message that they didn’t put into practice. Moses brought the people out of Egyptian slavery and took them to another land to found a kingdom of freedom, and the chair of Moses means the temple of freedom. Now just like then there are people in that temple preaching the Gospel and defending oppression. What they preach is false, but only because they don’t practice it.”

[4] Case-Winters, Matthew, 263. “Jesus condemnation is directed at religious leaders who, charged the role of leadership, fail miserably. The most frequent charge is that they are hypocrites because ‘they do not practice what they teach’ (23:3). In their teaching they might be termed rigorists. They go further than what the law requires. For example, for them it is ‘not enough to keep the Sabbath ‘in a general way.’ it was necessary to define carefully which weekday activities constituted work and were therefore prohibited on the Sabbath.’ Jesus observes here that they tie up. Heavy burdens, hard to bear. (11:28-30).”

[5] Case-Winters, Matthew, 265. “A question of consequence arises in Jesus’s exhortation to do as the scribes and Pharisees say and not as they do. Are the Scribe’s and Pharisees really the ‘true heirs’ of Moses?”

[6] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Edited by Joel B. Green. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 860. “Their behavior in effect annuls their ‘Mosaic; authority.”

[7] Cardenal, Solentiname, 447. “I: ‘Christ is talking about some adornments called phylacteries short bits of Scripture attached to the sleeves and the forehead, because in one of the books of the Bible it says that the Scripture should always be kept ‘close to the hand and in front of the eyes,’ and they believed that by doing this they were complying.’”

[8] Cardenal, Solentiname, 448. “I: ‘And he’s saying that we’re all equal and that we shouldn’t have any teachers except the one that brings those teachings about revolution.’”

[9] Case-Winters, Matthew, 264-265. “In a dramatic reversal of ordinary expectations, Jesus says, ‘The greatest among you will be your servant’ (v. 11). Members of the new community should not seek heightened status reflected in titles but rather humble themselves and seek to serve—aiming low instead of aiming high (23:11). The use of titles is not conducive to the well-being of the new community. Titles—whether ‘rabbi,’ or ‘father,’ or ‘instructor’ (or ‘Reverend’)—have their dangers, both for those who hold them and for those who call others by these titles.”

[10] Cardenal, Solentiname, 450. “Teresita: ‘Humbling yourself is serving, and the opposite of serving others is to control others.’”

[11] France, Matthew, 862-862. “In contrast with the scribes’ love of human approbation, Jesus calls on those who follow him to avoid honorific titles…They highlight a concern for status which, while taken for granted in secular society …ought not to characterize those who follow Jesus.”

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