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One verb, two objects

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Think of all we do to please God:

  • build temples, organizations, traditions;
  • practice ritual;
  • enforce beliefs;
  • cross oceans, continents, jungles, rivers to win proselytes.

Think of the blood of religious

  • sacrifice,
  • persecution,
  • warfare.

Jesus of Nazareth boiled down real faith in God to one verb, and two direct objects.

Love God.

Love your neighbor as yourself. 

What does the Almighty think of all the religious activities we undertake in the Almighty’s name?

Jesus suggested that God did not outright oppose them. The inner nitpicker in us deserves her or his moment in the sun. Of that most sacred of all religious obligations—tithing—Jesus held the opinion that we ought not to neglect it.

But justice, mercy and faith are the big ticket items.

For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.

Matt 23:23 (NRSV)

One verb: love. Agapao in Greek, meaning 100% self-giving love.

Two objects: God (with all our being) and neighbor (as we love ourselves).

Pretty simple.

Hard to mess up—unless you’re looking for a back way out.

In the God Sightings One Year Bible, the great commandments (February 3) are followed by the Ten Commandments (February 4).

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God’s insane abundance

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

God is teaching me about economics Jesus-style.

One of the most important passages in the Bible on the subject of giving is 2 Corinthians 8-9. Paul is collecting money from the Gentile churches of Macedonia and Asia Minor for the poor Jewish Christians of Jerusalem.

This was the climax of his life’s work.

The principles I see in these verses are:

  • Give (money) as God has blessed you.
  • First give yourself totally to God.
  • Jesus’ self-emptying, descending from heaven’s throne to Calvary’s cross, is our prime example.
  • Sow little, reap little—sow much, reap much.
  • Hilarious (the Greek word) giving celebrates God’s insane abundance.
  • God gives us more than enough to be generous—both grain for food and grain for seed.
  • Giving enriches the giver!

God reinforced these lessons in my heart today. I want to thank God for the generosity of Trinity church and friends who reached out to help us with medical bills in past weeks and months.

Paul wrote:

For, as I can testify, they [the Macedonians]  voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints– and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us.

2 Cor 8:3-5 (NRSV)

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

2 Cor 8:9 (NRSV)

The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.

 As it is written,

“He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;
     his righteousness endures forever.”
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God.

2 Cor 9:6-12 (NRSV)

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Skeletons in the Closet

Friday, December 4th, 2009

Women in Jesus’ Genealogy (Matt. 1.1-17)

Matthew begins with 17 verses of “begats.” Mostly we skip it. There are theological insights hidden there, however, like Easter Eggs in a  DVD.

Three groups of 14. In gematria, the Jewish system of number symbols, 14 is David’s number. D is the 4th letter in the Hebrew alphabet, W (V) the 6th. Add the numbers, you get 14. So each group announces Jesus’ relation to David. The breaking points are highlights of Israelite history, starting with Abraham, then David the stellar king, and after the deportation to Babylon.

The list includes five women (except Mary, each of them a shady lady in some respects): Tamar (v. 3), Rahab and Ruth (v. 5), the former wife of Uriah (v. 6). This week our Bible study groups looked at Tamar, Genesis 38.

Tamar’s story interrupts the saga of Joseph, just as he was going down to Egypt as a slave. Judah had three sons; he married Er the eldest to Tamar. But Er died. Judah told son #2 Onan to do his duty and raise up an heir for his brother. (This is levirate marriage, see Deut. 25.5-10.) Without knowledge of the resurrection, you needed offspring to keep your line going. Onan, however, didn’t want an “heir” of his elder brother’s to inherit 2/3 of his father’s estate; so he practiced a crude form of birth control to prevent pregnancy. Onan also died.

Many biblical interpreters have used Onan’s story as a way to discourage boys from masturbation, but that’s a misuse of scripture. The issue here is that Onan refused to follow the law and raise up an heir for his brother.

Judah didn’t want to lose his third son Shelah to a “black widow.” He shelved his daughter-in-law in her father’s house. When she realized he was not going to let her keep her dead husband’s name alive in israel, Tamar took action.

She disguised herself as a temple prostitute, a woman involved in Canaanite worship through ritual sex. Not knowing who she was, Judah had sex with her, but not before she secured tokens from him that would identify him at a later date. (A comparable act would be giving her his driver’s license and VISA card, until he brought cash payment.) But when his friend returned with payment, the so called temple prostitute had disappeared.

Family discovered Tamar was pregnant, and planned to burn her. (Double standard! No sweat for the man.) But she produced the items belonging to Judah, proving she had acted only to secure an heir for her husband, and keep the line going.

Since it is the line eventuating in the Messiah, God also wanted to keep the line going. Her loyalty and hutspah served not only her husband, but Almighty God as well! In that way “she was more righteous than Judah.” (Gen 38.26)

Tamar took grave risks of being maligned, even being burned, to accomplish what in her time and place was an honorable goal. As a single woman, she had no power. Yet she confronted the head of a clan, successfully.

Jesus must have known the stories about his mother, and have felt the sting of slurs against himself as a “bastard.” When he was confronted with the woman taken in adultery (John 8.1-11), did he think about Mary’s suffering?

The Messiah’s genealogy includes the most powerless, poorest people of the society—single women, and not even the “respectable” ones! Surely, we too need to think of women who are left out and lost by our society, if we are truly to be part of Jesus and Mary’s household.

Next: The Miss Kitty and the Longbranch of Jericho, Rahab (Joshua 2)

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Immanuel people

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Immanuel people are those who remind us that “God is with us.”

1600 years ago a child went missing, a sign child went missing, and  is still missing today for most folks.

Child 1: Shear… “A remnant will return”

When God gave the faithless king Ahas a sign through the prophet Isaiah, he said, “The ‘almah is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him ‘Immanuel’—God with us.” (Isaiah 7.14).

Isaiah and his wife the prophetess already had a child Shear-jashub (’A remnant shall return.’)

God instructed the prophet to take his son Shear-jashub with him to meet the king (who sacrificed his son to pagan gods). As prophet and king talked, perhaps the child ran around, as children do.

The prophet called out to his child: “Shear-jashub! Shear-jashub!”

Each time he proclaimed God’s message to the king: “A few will return.”

This means either “only a few of the enemies you fear will survive to go home” or “only a few Israelite exiles will return from Babylon.” Or maybe it means both.

The exiles returned from Babylon in 538 BCE about 200 years after Isaiah confronted the king. We know the date because in that year Cyrus issued an edict allowing exiles to go home.

Child 2: Maher…. “The spoils speeds, the prey hastens”

Isaiah 8 tells us of the child we miss.

Isaiah has a legal document drawn up and witnessed which says: “Belonging to Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz” (The spoil speeds, the prey hastens.)

Then Isaiah makes love to the prophetess (presumably his wife), and nine months later his second child Maher… is born.

The young woman, the ‘almah, of 7.14 has to be first the prophetess (700 years later, another maiden, a virgin named Mary fulfills the prophet’s word again. Matthew leaves no question about Mary’s being a virgin.)

Isaiah makes his point to king Ahaz twice (Isaiah 7.16 and 8.4). Before Maher is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, the small neighboring kingdoms who are bullying Ahaz will be destroyed by Assyria, the mighty empire to the northeast.

What’s the big deal?

Prophecy is first fulfilled in the near future in the prophet’s time. Then, sometimes it may have another fulfillment later. This is true of Isaiah 7.14.

Suppose you go God and say, “Lord, I’m hurting, I need your help.”

“Fine,” God answers, “in 1000 years I’ll do something miraculous.”

How does that help you in the immediate time frame?

God doesn’t leave us hanging for long periods. The answer comes soon. Maybe not as soon as we’d like.

And yes, 1000 years is like a day.

Nevertheless, and especially in the case of Isaiah 7.14, God’s answer came in nine months. And again in 700 years, nine months.

Child 3… Jesus

When Mary’s child was born, not that many people noticed.

Historians did not notice. Three kings from the East noticed; they alerted Herod, tragically.

An innkeeper didn’t notice. Most of Bethlehem didn’t notice.

A few ecstatic shepherds told of a sky full of angels singing “Glory!”

When Mary and Joseph took him to the Jerusalem temple, most overlooked the little boy they brought to be circumcized.

Except an old man Simeon, and an old woman Anna.

They saw the Light of heaven nestled in Mary’s arms.

Two lessons

Our neighborhood Bible study group saw two lessons at least in Isaiah 7-8.

1. If we open our eyes, we can see God with us all around. Especially, there are Immanuel people, who remind us of God’s presence.

2. We as followers of Mary’s child are called to be Immanuel people, carrying the Light with us to everyone we encounter every day.

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Thou shalt love, not hate

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

I had occasion to think about Sodom and Gomorrah tonight. The prophet Isaiah addresses the leaders  and people of Judah, the Southern Kingdom, as “you rulers of Sodom, you people of Gomorrah.”

They must have been shocked, because then, as now, Sodom and Gomorrah smelled bad.

Though not for the same reason.

The modern mind equates S & G with gay sex. That’s been so for about 1600 years. (But not before that.)

According to Genesis 19, however, the men of Sodom were as willing to gang rape Lot’s virgin daughters as his strange visitors.

The issue is gang rape, violence against persons to whom is owed the sacred obligation of hospitality and the protection that comes with it.

It’s not homosexual people.

Ezekiel 16 is the only place in scripture that spells out the sin of S & G (the “you” addressed is Jerusalem):

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.  Samaria has not committed half your sins; you have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed.

Ezek 16:49-51 (NRSV)

Sodom and Gomorrah were condemned for pride, selfishness, indifference to the suffering of the poor.

I know the arguments about homosexuals get hot and heavy. The prospect of gay marriage bothers many folk.

We live in a society that promises every individual “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” What’s more basic to human happiness than freedom to build a life with the person you love?

Jesus built his life on loving God and neighbor. Isn’t he more offended by loveless arguments and loveless lives than by who we choose to love?

Yes, there are a few “Thou shalts” and a few “Thou shalt nots.”

Keeping two people from promising to love each other, and no one else, for a lifetime, however, has nothing to do with “Thou shalt” or “Thou shalt not.”

It has to do with hate.

Which, last time I looked, is at the top of God’s  list of “Thou shalt nots.”

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Background for 8th century Isaiah

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

Essentials of Hebrew History

All dates are BC (or BCE Before the Common Era)

Background

  • 2000-1500?— Abraham, Isaac, Jacob
  • 1300?—          Exodus from Egypt
  • 1200-1020?— The Judges (Deborah, Samson, Gideon, etc.)

Israel becomes a monarchy. Three kings rule over a united kingdom.

  • 1020-1000?— King Saul
  • 1000-960?—   King David
  • 960-930?—     King Solomon

Because Solomon’s heir refuses to lighten the load of forced labor and taxation, the northern tribes split from the southern tribes. This is the Divided Kingdom.

Neighbors

Throughout the history, Israel’s neighbors (enemies, occasionally friends) are Syria (capital, Damascus), Moab, Philistia, Edom, Ammon, etc. A major power, Egypt constantly struggles for control with the empires to the East. Dominant in Palestine for a century or so, one after another, the eastern empires are:

  • 8th c. Assyria (capital, Nineveh), (742—Isaiah’s call vision, ch. 6)
  • 7th-6th c. Babylon (capital, city of Babylon,) becomes symbol of evil enemies in NT
  • 6th -5th c. Persia.

 

Divided Kingdom and Exile

Northern Kingdom: Ten tribes. Capital is Samaria. Called Ephraim or Israel. Monarchy unstable, succession sometimes occurs by murder and intrigue.

  • 721— Northern Kingdom falls to Assyria. Ten tribes taken into exile, go extinct.

Southern Kingdom: Two tribes. Capital is Jerusalem. Called Judah; after fall of Northern Kingdom, it is also called Israel. Monarchy stable, succession always in the House of David.

  • 586— Southern Kingdom falls to Babylon, king Nebuchadnezzar. Two southern tribes taken into exile to Babylon.

 

Return from Exile

Babylon is conquered by Persian king Cyrus.

  • 539-538— Cyrus decrees the Jews may return to their homeland.

 

Coming home is no picnic. The remnant who return face hardship and enemies.

  • 515— Second Temple completed, despite local opposition.
  • 458— Ezra reads the Law aloud to the people of Jerusalem (this marks beginning of Judaism).

Sources: Anderson, Understanding the OT, 4th ed.; New Interpreter’s Study Bible.

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Whom do you fear?

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Isaiah's_Lips_Anointed_with_Fire

 

 

 

 

Left: Isaiah’s lips anointed by the angel (Isaiah 6.7)

 

 

Isaiah, the greatest of the writing Hebrew prophets, lived in the eighth century BCE. His children become signs, acts of God incarnate.

Here are some names for your baby book:

  • Shear-jashub (a few will come back)
  • Maher-shalal-hash-baz (swift the spoil, prompt the plunder)

No?

Perhaps this one suits you better:

  • Immanuel (God with us)

Isaiah 7.14. Isaiah, the fifth gospel, predicts the virgin birth of Jesus. Right?

Matthew understood it that way, and used the Septuagint (the Greek KJV of the ancient Jews and Christians), which read, “A virgin (parthenos) shall conceive…” Matthew understood it to be a prediction of Jesus’ birth of Mary “who knew not a man” 700 years in advance.

Trouble is, the king to whom Isaiah delivered this prophecy-child—Ahaz (735-715 BCE)—didn’t give a flip about his own kids:

He even made his son pass through fire…

2 Kings 16:3-4 (NRSV)

He put his own son to death. Why would he care about a child born 700 years later?

Isaiah’s family

Nobody’s questioning Matthew’s coopting this text for his purposes later.

What you miss if that’s all you see is Isaiah’s children, named above. For, Immanuel, the child promised by Isaiah, is good old Maher, born to Isaiah and his unnamed wife the prophetess shortly after this prophecy.

Before this child reaches the age of accountability, the foes Ahaz dreads will be smoke and cinders:

For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.

Isaiah 7:16 (NRSV)

Ahaz ignored Isaiah’s warning, and turned to Assyria for help. By 721 BCE  Assyria would help itself to the entire Northern Kingdom, and threaten the South, Ahaz’s country, as well.

Eventually Isaiah shut up, entrusting his message to his children, his disciples (Isa 8.16-18).

Isaiah’s fear

If you see a snake on the highway, you’re scared, right? But if an 18-wheeler comes barreling down that highway toward you at 80 mph, you run for your life!

The kings plotting against Israel are the snake. God is the 18-wheeler.

Fear God!

That’s Isaiah’s message.

Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what it fears, or be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.

Isaiah 8:12-14 (NRSV)

“Fear of the LORD” is a Hebrew idiom for the faith of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses in Yahweh.

But, though it doesn’t mean “to be scared of,” it does admonish us “to have a healthy respect for, to reverence.”

Since 9/11 our government likes to bandy about words like “terrorism” and “national security.”

No doubt these matters need attending to. But far more critical to the health of the nation is the state of our faith. In the powerful Message paraphrase, Isaiah puts these questions to you and me:  

Why this frenzy of sacrifices?” GOD’s asking. “Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of burnt sacrifices, rams and plump grain-fed calves? Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of blood from bulls, lambs, and goats?

 When you come before me, who ever gave you the idea of acting like this, Running here and there, doing this and that– all this sheer commotion in the place provided for worship?

“Quit your worship charades. I can’t stand your trivial religious games: Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings– meetings, meetings, meetings–I can’t stand one more!

Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them! You’ve worn me out! I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning.

When you put on your next prayer-performance, I’ll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I’ll not be listening. And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing people to pieces, and your hands are bloody. 

 Isaiah 1.11-15 The Message

Isaiah’s fate

We don’t know for sure what happened to Isaiah of Jerusalem. He produced the most majestic Hebrew poetry in the Book. He foresaw more clearly than anyone else in ancient times the One who was to come.

It may have been, not himself, but one of his children, his disciples, who penned Isaiah 40-55 which called the exiles from comfort in Babylon to the rigors of faithful living in Palestine. (Scholars call this disciple “Isaiah of Babylon.”)

Yet another may have  produced the messages of Isaiah 56-66 and helped the disillusioned returnees to see God at work in their severe circumstances. This disciple, called “Third Isaiah,” described God’s chosen  fast, a life given to serving the poor and releasing the captive.

According to tradition, Hebrews 11.37, “they were sawn in two,” refers to Isaiah of Jerusalem, put to death by Manasseh, Ahaz’s grandson. About 60 years later, in 587/6 BCE the Southern Kingdom Judah was destroyed.

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Leggo my ego!

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

leloir_-_jacob_wrestling_with_the_angel

Leloir, Jacob wrestling with the Angel, 1865 (Wikipedia)

Ego and egolessness!

A hot potato. The more you try to set aside the ego (the executive self), the more the unconscious self (the subversive self) takes over.

Paul the neurotic puts it well:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Romans 7:15 (NRSV)

Anyone who’s done time in the church knows that Satan reserves the pulpit and piano stool for somebody’s I, somebody who has to be “the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral.”

(I don’t deny there are truly godly exceptions.)

In Romans 8 Paul identifies the two states: ego (mind set on the flesh) and egolessness (mind set on the spirit). The terms aren’t interchangeable, but for the Christ-follower they’re close enough.

Ask: who’s driving? who’s in the back seat (keeping his or her mouth shut)? “Flesh” is I driving, Spirit is God driving.

Ironically, flesh (ego) will drive to church, volunteer for Meals on Wheels—anything, to stay in the driver’s seat. And,  the moment I become aware that God is driving, I stop the car and take over.

I’ve been struck by Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount:

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’

 Matt 7:22-23 (NRSV)

 What hits me in the face every time I read this section is that Jesus calls people evildoers who prophesied in his name, cast out demons in his name, and did deeds of power in his name!

“I never knew you,” he tells them.

Why?

Because the spotlight never left their ego while they did all these ostensibly spiritual things.

Acts 19.11-17 tells the humorous story of the seven sons of Sceva who attempted to cast out demons in the name of Paul and Jesus. But the demon replied, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?”

The power of evil clearly recognized that ego was in charge of the show, not God.

 Dorothee Sölle writes about “Ego and Egolessness” in chapter 12 of The Silent Cry. She describes the insights of Simone Weil, Leo Tolstoy, and Dag Hammarskjöld into the shedding of ego.

She looks back at medieval asceticism, one attempt to rein in ego. Of asceticism Paul writes,

These [regulations] have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence.

Col 2:23 (NRSV)

 Victor Hugo’s achingly accurate depiction of Claude Frollo, the archdeacon in lust for Esmerelda, the gypsy girl, reveals how so-called spirituality becomes a vehicle for pride and violence.

Sölle suggests, correctly, that in today’s consumer society simplicity is a better alternative than hair shirts. She identifies the sexism and privilegism built into old practices. In order to flourish spiritually, many women and the poor need to build up a self, rather than strip it away; for, their selfhood has been abused and put down by the world.

Sölle quotes the saying: ”Live simply that others may simply live.” (The biggest temptation I’ll admit to here is buying books.)

Ego and egolessness, from the human perspective, are like the bright and dark sides of the moon, two parts of an indivisible whole.

The goal remains, again as Paul says:

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Gal 2:19-20 (NRSV)

 But egolessness and selffulness (Andrew Lester’s beautiful word) is not something I can achieve, no matter what physical or psychological gymnastics I perform. It is a gift only God can give; a gift God sometimes gives in illness, failure, suffering, pain, or death; a gift God always gives in mercy, compassion, and joy.

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Thunder in the night

Monday, August 24th, 2009

The A/C picked tonight to konk out. So we opened windows and the doors leading out on to the deck.

I looked up the number of the guys who’ve come over the years to fix the A/C, so that it’ll be ready in the morning.

And I remembered what they said the last time. “Your system’s old, it’ll crash sometime in the next year or two.”

Great! A new heat pump. Just what we need at this time.

So it’s 3:45 a.m. It’s been thundering and raining for several hours.

I remember when the ground was saturated and we had a cloud burst. Water rose to the front step. Our Camry was totaled.

Fear in my gut.

Almost always in scripture, when angels or the Christ confront someone, they begin, “Don’t be afraid.”

There is a religious awe that’s healthy and positive. The religion of the Old Testament often is called “the fear of the Lord”—the beginning of wisdom. People responded in fear to many of the miracles, a kind of awe recognizing God at work.

A book entitled The Gift of Fear points out the healthy fear that keeps us safe.

It’s a primitive physical response to perceived and actual danger. Humans survived because, when fear alerted them to danger, they took flight or rallied their defenses and fought.

A worn out A/C isn’t a grizzly. Hospital bills won’t thrust a spear through you.

But the body sometimes reacts as it did for thousands of years to such primal threats.

Fear, angst, that paralyzes, that isolates, that fixates on and magnifies negative and harmful aspects of your situation and your future, however, isn’t positive.

Chuck Swindoll (way more conservative than me) has a dynamite series on Acts. His sermon on Paul in Corinth, Acts 17, blessed my life.

We moved to Virginia 20 years ago with much trepidation, leaving a position with limits, a conflicted small town congregation, and going into the unknown, Sandy’s position as pastoral counselor.

As we did the final check of our house before locking the door and driving off in our U-Haul, I found on the floor of the empty bedroom, Swindoll’s tape about making a risky move in faith.

It was a message from God: “Don’t be afraid.” We listened to that tape again and again as we trekked across country.

 One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you.”

Acts 18:9-10 (NRSV)

So, tonight, doors and windows open, thunder pounding at the sky, rain falling at times gentle, at times hard—there’s my old friend fear.

Dorothee Sölle (way more liberal feminist than Swindoll) writes about her divorce as a kind of death. She reports going into a church and crying out to God.

A Bible verse came to mind: “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor 12:9). But, at first, it felt to her as though God were slapping her down, refusing to help her.

Over time her response changed. She realized that not even death can separate us from the love of God. (Essential Writings, pp. 187-188)

What struck me about this passage in Sölle is how the process resembles the way God comforts-strengthens me, by bringing a verse to mind, for example.

“Here I am, Lord, doors and windows open in the cool of the morning before dawn.

May my heart be open to you.

Calm the fear, stoke the God-courage and God-confidence within me to face the challenge of the coming days.

Why don’t we have a glass of milk together, warmed physically in the microwave, spiritually by your presence!”

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No and Yes

Friday, July 17th, 2009

You know it’s important to write down insights when they come—which I’m doing now.

Ask for medical prognostication, and from any truthful physician you’ll get “Yes” and “No,” a mix of the probable and possible. Medicine is a mixture of miracle and maybe.

The Book of Common Prayer calls for psalm 88 to be read on the 17th a.m. Just my luck. 88 has to be one of the darkest psalms.

I often skip it, if my soul is already on the dung heap.

Today I read it, along with 89, 90, and 91.

91, of course, is one of the brightest psalms. One Satan quoted to Jesus in the temptations.

That confuses me. How am I supposed to claim ps 91 for my own, when Satan mouths it?

Anyway. Back to insight. Ps 88:

10 Do you work wonders for the dead, can shadows rise up to praise you? Pause
11 Do they speak in the grave of your faithful love, of your constancy in the place of perdition?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness, your saving justice in the land of oblivion?

(New Jerusalem Bible, courtesy catholic online, it’s www.catholic.org/bible.)

What struck me here as I read is these rhetorical questions. The psalm is attributed to Heman, the native born, son of Korah, sick and suffering.

Heman answered these questions “No!”

Does God work wonders for the dead? NO

Can shadows rise up to praise you? NO

and so on.

Reminds me of Hosea 13.14, another instance of a rhetorical question with an anticipated answer of NO.

      

 

14 Shall I save them from the clutches of Sheol? Shall I buy them back from Death? Where are your plagues, Death? Where are your scourges, Sheol? Compassion will be banished from my sight!
(continues below)

 

 

(NJB)

 This is as grim as it gets. Though Hosea 14 rummages through tradition for some scraps of hope, again it’s hard to look farther down from this pit.

This morning what struck me, though, reading the grim rhetorical questions put by Heman the sick and suffering, is what he doesn’t know: God’s answers are different from his.

To each of Heman’s questions, God in Christ answers Yes!

Do you work wonders for the dead? YES

Can shadows rise up to praise you? YES

Do they speak in the grave of your faithful love? YES

Of your constancy in the place of perdition? YES

Are your wonders known in the darkness, your saving justice in the land of oblivion? YES

Just ask Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God is “the God of the living, not the dead,” Jesus said.

As for Hosea’s words, when Paul quotes them in 1 Corinthians 15, the mood has transformed from judgment to resurrection and rejoicing:

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
     Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 1 Corinthians 15,54-57.

Scholars believe the people of the Hebrew Bible began to realize the resurrection very late in the Persian period two or three centuries before Christ, perhaps gaining insights from the Zoroastrians.

I don’t know what the hope of future life is in Judaism today.

But for me as a Christian, I know. The answer beyond all my questions is Jesus.

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you …was not “Yes and No”; but in him it is always “Yes.” For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” 

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

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