Bizarro Christianity

 The scriptures referred to are Romans 12:9-21.

In a Superboy comic book in 1958, a new supervillain was created: Bizarro, a fractured mirror image of the hero who becomes Superman. Because he is the exact opposite of Superman, he causes destruction rather than saving people. Eventually the comics came up with a Bizarro world, where the rules of that society were the inverse of ours.

The reason this train of thought occurred to me is that while I was reading our passage from Romans, I was thinking of how they go against, not the way we think the world should work, but the way it actually does. And sadly, there are those in the church who, if they were honest, would admit subscribing to the Bizarro version of the ethical rules Paul lays down here.

It begins with Paul's first rule: “Let love be genuine.” The Bizarro version is “Let love be false.” Few people would openly say they were for love being hypocritical, but their words and actions betray them. Love means wishing for and more importantly, working for what is beneficial to the beloved. And since Jesus told us to love our neighbor, and revealed in his parable of the good Samaritan that neighbor includes anyone you happen to encounter, including enemies, we are to love everyone. Yet we have seen again and again people show an indifference to the mistreatment of certain people. Or they voice a justification for those people being mistreated, like the fact that the people in question were doing something illegal or were suspected of doing something illegal. This is a particularly bizarre line of reasoning for so-called Christians, since at the heart of the gospel is God in Christ acting graciously to save us despite the fact we have broken his laws. Paul writes just a few chapters before this one, “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8, emphasis mine) Jesus said, “My commandment is this—to love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) Jesus acted out of love for a world so sinful that it executed him...legally. If we say that people who break laws deserve mistreatment, even if all out of proportion to what they are accused to have done, we are saying that because we have broken God's law Jesus never should have saved us. Only a Bizarro world Christian would say that.

Next Paul says, “hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good.” The Bizarro version is “love what is evil, let go of what is good.” As I've said before, one way to define evil is deliberately doing something you know is harmful to others. We have hate groups that deny that all people are created in the image of God and put themselves above others due to things like race, religion, sex, or national origin. And a lot of these organizations claim to be Christian, like the Christian Identity movement. And most of these groups hate Jews, though Jesus, the Twelve, Paul and every writer in the Bible, with the exception of Luke, are Jewish. Megan Phelps-Roper, the granddaughter of Fred Phelps and long-time spokesperson for the hate-mongering Westboro Baptist Church, left the cult she grew up in because she could no longer reconcile its hateful teachings with Jesus' commands to love. Only a Bizarro world Christian would love and justify what is obviously evil and let what is good slip away.

Paul writes, “love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.” The Bizarro version is “hate one another with mutual loathing; outdo one another with showing contempt.” You see that every day on the news and in social media. People on different sides of issues are accusing each other of wanting chaos and wanting to destroy civilization. That's the unrealistic motivation of comic book villains. Both sides want what's best; the differences are the methods for achieving this and, quite frankly, very different ideas of for whom it would be best. People who love each other can disagree on issues and by talking honestly and respectfully can work out some areas of agreement. Only a Bizarro world Christian would think that spewing hate and loathing and showing contempt for others will change anyone's mind.

Paul writes, “Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.” The Bizarro version is “slack off, don't put much work into spiritual things, serve your own interests.” Again we see this today. Christians have lost their ardor for the things God cares about but are all worked up about temporal matters that benefit them in this life. Part of this is due to the fact that we live in a society that claims to be Christian and that fact takes away the urgency of spreading the good news and the kingdom of God. It lets us turn instead to making ourselves as comfortable as possible. If you have been following me on Facebook as I have been reading the book of Acts and the letters of Paul, you've heard how the early Christians were proclaiming the love of God in Christ in an environment hostile to their message. Their opponents realized what the good news of Jesus meant in regards to the idols and the emperor they worshiped. So they beat, whipped, and imprisoned the early Christians. The obstacles we face today are subtler. Our situation reminds me of the church in Laodicea, to whom Christ, in the book of Revelation, says, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” (Revelation 3:15-17) Our outward abundance of things belies our inner poverty. Only a Bizarro world Christian would feel the church needs to tone down its message and moderate its actions and serve the status quo rather than the rousing call of God.

Paul writes, “Rejoice in hope.” The Bizarro version is “Wallow in despair.” Fortune-telling is condemned in the Bible because we do not know the future. (Deuteronomy 18:10) Yet we constantly act as if we do, sometimes being overly optimistic, but often predicting a grim and dark course ahead. And either way, it can stop us from doing things today, thinking that we either need not or cannot do anything to alter the ways things will go. But the fact that God gives us the chance to repent shows that the future is not fixed. It says in Ezekiel, “And if I say to the wicked man, 'You will surely die,' but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right—if he gives back what he took in pledge for a loan, returns what he has stolen, follows the decrees that give life, and does no evil, he will live; he will not die. None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live.” (Ezekiel 33:14-16) If we turn to God, our past need not determine our future. Only a Bizarro world Christian would let a possible future absolve them from acting now.

Paul writes, “be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.” The Bizarro version is “treat the absence of suffering as an entitlement and if you do suffer, give up praying for help.” The Bible never says that good people are exempt from suffering. Nor is suffering necessarily a punishment for behavior. Yes, if I drink too much, the result will be a hangover. Yes, if I sleep around a lot, I can expect to get STDs. But I have known people who never smoked who got cancer and good parents who have lost a child. The whole book of Job is about how bad things can happen to good people. For that matter, so is the cross. And, as someone who has a chronic condition, let me tell you to cherish the respites, the good days, the undisturbed periods of sleep, the little joys that are never wholly absent from life. And never stop praying. Help is coming. And it need not be come by an obviously supernatural route. God chooses to work though humans. For instance, polio used to cripple hundreds of thousands and killed 15 to 30% of its victims. After decades of research a vaccine was created 70 years ago. Just this week we got news that wild polio has been eradicated in the continent of Africa. Only a Bizarro world Christian would think suffering is something you can always opt out of or think it a good reason to stop praying to God.

Paul writes, “Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.” The Bizarro version is “Your money and your possessions are your own and you have no obligation to others.” We like to believe that we make our own fortunes. But even if we don't inherit wealth (which is the way most wealthy people have gotten that way), we do inherit our bodies, our brains, the community in which we grow up, our helpful relatives, our family friends with connections, etc. And most people who succeed get a “lucky” break. Both Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell submitted their patent applications for the telephone on the same day. Bell got his in just a little bit earlier. History is full of rivals to Edison, Gates, Jobs and others who didn't quite make it, sometimes for reasons outside their control. The successful person who is wise realizes that he or she was fortunate and gives credit to those who helped them and especially to God.

The Bible tells us that “The earth is the Lord's and everything in it...” (Psalm 24:1) David prayed, “Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” (1 Chronicles 29:14) Peter wrote, “Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of the varied grace of God.” (1 Peter 4:10) As Jesus points out in his parable of the talents, God didn't give us our gifts to sit on. (Matthew 25:14-30) We are to use them, not for ourselves but for the good of all. Because whatever we do for others, however humble they seem, we do to Jesus our Lord. (Matthew 25:31-46) Only a Bizarro world Christian thinks God prefers the old Ebenezer Scrooge and not the new one who awakens Christmas morning, grateful and generous to the poor.

Paul wrote, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” The Bizarro version is, “Ruin the joy of others, laugh at those who weep.” Look how much we enjoy watching successful people fall. And since when did people's first impulse become to disbelieve someone who says they are suffering? Sadly, this even happens in medicine when doctors cannot easily find out what's wrong with a patient. Loathe to say, “I don't know,” doctors are more inclined to tell a patient the problem is all in their head. That's what happened to a friend of mine even though she had lost 60 pounds in 2 months and was unable to keep food down. It took going to several doctors before one thought outside the box, diagnosed her properly, and cured her. Why do we think the number of people who enjoy playing the victim are anything other than a very tiny minority? As Christians we are to sympathize, which in Greek literally means “feeling with” someone. Only a Bizarro world Christian will try to rob people of their joy and add to the suffering of those who are in pain or who mourn.

Paul writes, “Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are,” and “If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” The Bizarro version is “Create disharmony; be arrogant and act as if you know everything. Don't worry about trying to get along with others.” The word “peace” appears in scripture 450 times. In the Beatitudes Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9) As for arrogance God says, “I will not tolerate anyone who has a cocky demeanor and an arrogant attitude.” (Psalm 101:5) Regarding humility, Peter writes, “And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5) Only a Bizarro world Christian would think God approves of anyone who is arrogant or divisive or a know-it-all.

Finally, Paul writes, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them...Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.” The Bizarro version is “Curse those who make your life hard and treat them as badly as they treat you.” That runs contrary to what Jesus said: “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) How we should treat people is not dependent upon how they act. Otherwise Jesus would never tell us to love our enemies. (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27) Instead we are to love others as Jesus loves us. (John 13:34, 15:12) Only a Bizarro world Christian would think we should give rein to our natural impulses when we encounter people hostile to us and be just as nasty to them as they are to us.

You may notice that in most of the things that we Christians are to do is the opposite of what people in fact do. Because doing what comes naturally does not result in better behavior. It wasn't hard to come up with examples of people doing the opposite of what scripture calls for us to do. What we usually see is the Bizarro version of what Paul says. As he wrote, “Now the works of human nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, indecency, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, strife, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I warn you, as I did before, that those who make a practice of such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19-21, my translation)

We wouldn't need the kingdom of God if the kingdoms of earth could handle these issues. We wouldn't have needed Jesus to come if we could make things right easily. We wouldn't need the Spirit of God in us if these things came to us naturally. Doing good to those outside the circle of people we know and love is not natural. Not reacting badly to those who treat us badly is also not natural. What we need is to change who is in control of us. Paul says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love: joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the merely natural with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:22-25, my translation)

If what we usually see in this world is the Bizarro version of things, maybe it's because—plot twist!—we are actually living in Bizarro world! If Bizarro Superman is the opposite of the heroic one this world has, maybe it's because their world is the opposite of ours and doesn't need a hero to fight injustice as we do. Of course, Superman isn't real. And he wouldn't really be what we need anyway. Can Superman end racism, or antisemitism, or poverty, or arrogance, or laziness, or lust, or greed, or rage, or envy, or overindulgence? No. Because they are immune to super speed and heat vision and even brute physical strength. They are problems deep within human nature. And the only person who can get deep within us and change us is the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit who empowered Jesus and whom he gives us as a down payment on our inheritance: a new nature that will not need the rules spelled out because loving everyone and treating everyone fairly and living in harmony with everyone will just come naturally.

Elementary

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 16:13-20.

Believe it or not, in the original stories Sherlock Holmes was not always right. In the very first novel, A Study in Scarlet, the detective who is a master of disguise is fooled by a young man dressed as an old woman. In A Scandal in Bohemia he is outwitted by Irene Adler whom he thereafter refers to as “The Woman.” In the The Yellow Face, Holmes' solution is so far off that at the end of the tale he gives Watson permission to remind him of it should he get too arrogant in the future. But what is really startling is that Holmes was mistaken in what he called his technique for uncovering the truth. He called his method deductive reasoning. But that is starting with a general principle and arriving at conclusions that are logically derived from it. And he did that occasionally. For instance, starting from the general principle that dogs tend to bark at strangers, when he found evidence to the contrary, he deduced that the intruder wasn't a stranger. But more often what Holmes did was inductive reasoning: taking specific facts and logically putting them together to arrive at a general conclusion. When Holmes meets his prospective roommate, he observes little details about him, puts them together and concludes that Watson is an Army doctor who has been wounded in Afghanistan.

Like Holmes, we use both methods. Let's say I am at a party and I look at the host's books, as I'm wont to do, and if I see shelves devoted to Sherlock Holmes stories, I can by inductive reasoning be sure that he or she is a fan. Alternately, if someone who I know is a fan invites me to their home, I can deduce that I will see Sherlockiana there.

I can go further. If I see DVDs of Benedict Cumberbatch and none of Basil Rathbone, I can venture a guess that the person became a fan due to the recent BBC series that updated the stories and characters to the 21^st century. If instead I see a lot of very old and hard to find volumes on Holmes, or reproductions of the original books, or a collection of the Strand magazine in which the short stories were first published, I can conclude that this person probably came to Holmes through reading the stories. And if the person has a whole room of Sherlockiana in every medium, including a Snoopy in a deerstalker and Inverness cape, I know I am in the presence of a serious collector and possibly a completist.

Today's passage from the gospel of Matthew uses both methods of logical thinking. We start with Jesus asking his disciples, first, who do others think he is and, secondly, who do the Twelve think he is. He is asking them to look at the data, the things they've seen him do and the things he has said, and draw a conclusion, using inductive logic. And Peter, who acts as the spokesman for the Twelve, says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And as Sherlock Holmes followed Watson's unspoken thoughts in the beginning of The Sign of Four, we can figure out how Peter came to that conclusion. Jesus heals the sick, calms a storm, raises the dead, feeds thousands and walks on water. His mastery over illness, death, scarcity and nature puts him above all other prophets. Plus Jesus has keen moral and spiritual insights, gives novel but incisive interpretations of scripture, speaks with authority when opposing religious traditions and forgives sins. It is not too great a leap to conclude that Jesus is the Messiah or Christ, God's Anointed, sent to save his people.

But just as there are many versions of Sherlock Holmes, from Robert Downey Jr. to Jeremy Brett, there were many ideas about exactly what God's Anointed one would be. Because the Hebrews anointed prophets, priests and kings. So he could be any of the three.

Could the Messiah be the prophet predicted in the book of Deuteronomy? In it God says to Moses, “I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command. I will personally hold responsible anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet speaks in my name.” (Deuteronomy 18:18-19) There were a lot of prophets but this one is special. He is to be like Moses, a lawgiver and one who leads his people out of bondage. So the Messiah could reasonably be this special prophet.

Another way of looking at the Messiah was as a second David, an anointed king from his line who would re-establish his kingdom. When David became king, the big threat was the Philistines, who came from the sea, took over the coast and moved eastward. It was David who finally stopped them. (2 Samuel 5:17-25) In Jesus' day, the Romans occupied the land God had given to his people and the Jews wished for a Messiah who would push the Romans out and establish a truly independent kingdom of God. In fact, many thought the Messiah would end the present evil age and usher in the era of God's rule on the earth.

And it may very well have been this version that Peter was thinking about. The clue is in the title he gives Jesus. “Son of God,” which we take to be a title of divinity, was also a title for the king. God uses it of the Davidic line of kings in 2 Samuel 7:12-14. We see it used in the coronation hymn, Psalm 2. So Peter may have been referring to Jesus' divinity but he could also have been confirming the popular idea of the Messiah being a holy warrior-king like David. And indeed acting not as a peacemaker but as the king's bodyguard Peter draws his sword to prevent Jesus' arrest and cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant. (John 18:10) And after his crucifixion, the dismayed disciples heading to Emmaus say, “but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” (Luke 24:21) Notice that they are talking about Jesus in the past tense. A dead warrior-king is no help to their cause.

In our passage Jesus praises Peter because he is right about the Messiah part. Peter is even right about Jesus being a king, though not in the mold that he thinks. Because Peter doesn't have all the data yet. He and the others have not yet seen what will happen on Passover. Only after all that, and, crucially, after Jesus' resurrection, will they understand that there is another type of person anointed by God.

And that is the suffering servant who dominates the last third of the book of Isaiah. In chapter 42, verse 1, God says, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.” When Jesus begins his ministry he reads in the synagogue from the scroll of Isaiah where it says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those in chains, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Isaiah 61:1-2, my translation; cf Luke 4:18-19)

What is distinctive in Isaiah is that God's anointed servant suffers for the people. Again it says, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:4-6)

Peter's reasoning was correct but he did not have all the data. And so his conclusions went a bit astray. We know this because when Jesus reveals that he must suffer and die, Peter rebukes the person he just called God's Messiah. So Peter thinks the person anointed by God as his son doesn't know what God's plan actually is.

Jesus says to Peter, “You are not setting your mind on God's concerns but those of humans.” (Matthew 16:23, my translation) Peter couldn't see how Jesus dying was going to help set up the kingdom. Yet this part is crucial. Because a lot of people get Jesus wrong. Many prefer the “conquering holy warrior” kind of Messiah to the one who gets beat up and killed. But seeing and embracing that difference is vital. Because here's where we go from the inductive logic that puts the pieces together and sees Jesus as the one sent by God, to where we switch to making logical deductions from that fact.

If Jesus' mission is to demonstrate God's love by allowing himself to be sacrificed to save his people, what then does following Jesus mean? Does it mean we are off the hook as far as suffering? Or does it mean that we, recipients of God's self-sacrificial love, should in turn be willing to suffer in order to bring that love to others?

We don't have to guess. Jesus spells it out. And if Peter didn't like what Jesus said about him having to die, then he really wasn't going to like what Jesus said next. “If anyone wants to come after me, let him disown himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

Can you imagine how the disciples took this? People don't want to give things up nor suffer nor appear to be on the losing side, which is what getting crucified meant. And that hasn't changed. Not even in Christ's church. There's this hymn that we all know. It's got a great tune composed by Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame. It goes: “Onward, Christian soldier, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before. Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe; forward into battle, see his banners go!” That hymn is a lot more popular than this next one, which you will also find in our hymnal. The tune is so-so but the real contrast is in the words: “Take up your cross, the Saviour said, if my disciple you would be; deny yourself, the world forsake, and humbly follow after me.” But in our hymnal they substitute other words for the original “deny yourself, the world forsake.” In fact, I looked it up in both the Episcopal and in the Lutheran hymnals, and while the replacements words are different in each, they both take out the reference to denying oneself and forsaking the world.

Yet the logic is undeniable: if Jesus is the Messiah, and his mission is to save a sinful world, even at the cost of his life, then as his followers, we are to not only spread the good news of what he has done but also to be willing to demonstrate that same self-sacrificial love as a part of our mission. To the extent that we aren't ready to do that, we can expect that sinful world to call us out on the message we are preaching.

Again one sign that Jesus was the Messiah is that he healed people. If we aren't willing to make sacrifices to see to it that those who are suffering from physical and mental diseases get the medical help they need, why should the world believe we are followers of Jesus the healer?

Another sign that Jesus was the Messiah is that he fed thousands though it didn't look like he had enough. If we aren't willing to do what we can with whatever we have to see to it that hungry people get the food they need, why should the world believe that we are followers of Jesus the bread of life?

Another sign that Jesus was the Messiah was that he displayed mastery over weather. If we aren't willing to make sacrifices to slow and reverse the global warming which the overwhelming majority of scientists say we contribute to, and which our defense department lists as a major threat to world stability and our security, why should people believe we are followers of Jesus who calmed the storm?

You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to see that the church is reluctant to live out the implications of following the person we call Lord and Savior. As I've said before, I've had patients who say they want to get better but don't follow doctors' orders. If I didn't follow the orders of the doctors who saved me after my accident, I would still be alive but I would also still be confined to a wheelchair. Therapy was painful but necessary for me to walk again. If we wish to walk with Jesus, we need to follow the Great Physician's orders.

There are further deductions to be made from our gospel passage. After Jesus puns on Peter's nickname, the rock, he says he will build his church on this rock. I don't think he's talking about this specific fisherman but rather Peter's declaration that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus is the foundation the church is built on. (1 Corinthians 3:11) But Jesus says he will give the church the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And for time's sake I will quote the rest in my own translation for clarity: “...and if you compel or prohibit anything on the earth it will be compelled or prohibited in the heavens, and if you annul or let anything go on the earth it will be annulled or let go in the heavens.”

Basically Jesus is saying that we, as the church, have authority to deal with things that come up as we carry out our mission. For instance in Paul's day, a married woman would cover her head in church to distinguish her from a prostitute. We no longer require that. It has been annulled. Slavery was universal back then. Early Christians started releasing their slaves and even made certain slaves bishops. They began to realize that slavery was incompatible with following Jesus. After a very long struggle, within the church as well as within the Western world, slavery was finally prohibited, the movement largely spearheaded by Christians. As Jesus challenged the unjust traditions of his day, he gives us the authority to challenge the things which keep people from experiencing God's love and forgiveness and the freedom we have in Christ.

What is essential is that we stay true to our mission: to embody the love of God we see in Christ. And it is not a love which runs roughshod over people but which heals them, which meets their basic needs, which protects them from the storms of life that threaten to sink their lives into turmoil and drown their hopes.

I once wrote a paper for the Baker Street Journal that looked at Sherlock Holmes as a literary Christ figure. As Jesus was an unofficial religious leader who did a better job than the scribes, Pharisees and priests, so Holmes was an unofficial detective who did a better job than Scotland Yard. As Jesus had disciples who spread the good news about him, Holmes had Watson who wrote up his adventures. And as Jesus gave up his life to save the world, so Holmes was willing to die in the grip of Professor Moriarty to rid the world of his evil. And as Jesus rose from the dead on the third day and appeared to his disciples, Holmes reappeared to Watson three years after his supposed death. Many people have been inspired by Holmes to become real detectives and forensic scientists. And they are extending what he did in directions his author never imagined. And as followers of Jesus, we too must keep extending the ways and the areas of life in which we demonstrate the self-sacrificial love and forgiveness and liberating power of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of the living God. It's not merely logical; it's elementary.

From the Inside Out

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 15:10-20.

I read a fascinating and chilling book called Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight. It was written by a brilliant woman who, when her promising career fell apart in her mid-20s, went to a psychiatrist and got diagnosed as a sociopath, which explained her self-destructive behavior. She uses a pen name because she is now a law professor and people tend to hold being a sociopath against you. But what I found enlightening was how this person thought and operated in her life. And, oddly enough, she was a regular churchgoer. She valued the religion she was brought up in because it teaches her how she should behave, which is difficult if you lack and therefore do not understand fear, regret and empathy.

People can go far in religious circles if they scrupulously obey the outward rules. But, like the music student lacking perfect pitch, they will always sound a false note here and there. Meticulous observance of the rules absent a feel for the spirit of the thing will always be a bit lifeless. I don't care how skillfully you do a paint-by-numbers copy of the Mona Lisa, you won't capture the genius of Da Vinci's original. Today the vast majority of Hollywood films are expertly done in regards to cinematography and special effects and action, but they often feel empty, don't they? It is still a rare film that captures your heart and makes you really feel what the characters are feeling.

Following rules can help. The residents of Judea, taken into exile by the Babylonians, did not assimilate as did their brothers, the so-called “Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.” The Israelites had been taken into exile by the Assyrians 200 years earlier and were never heard from again. One way the Jews preserved their community was by compiling and following the Torah. Even though many of the 613 laws derived from the books of Moses concerned the now-destroyed temple, 1600 miles away in Jerusalem, the rabbis expounded and expanded on the other ceremonial and ethical rules. By keeping the law assiduously the Jews kept their racial and religious identity.

While the Jews of the Old Testament were constantly forgetting God's law and straying from worshiping him alone, in contrast the Jews of Jesus' day made observance of the law the core of who they were as a people. Of course, they found the ceremonial parts much easier to keep than the moral parts. Jesus often points out the difference between the public performance of the Pharisees and scribes and what they did in private. Jesus quotes Isaiah, saying, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:8-9; cf. Isaiah 29:13)

Laws can be abused. The film Just Mercy is the true story of an early case taken on by Bryan Stevenson. In it the young lawyer from Harvard is trying to overturn the conviction of a black man on death row for murder. It becomes pretty obvious that the case against him is very weak, depending on no physical evidence and 2 unreliable eyewitnesses, contradicted by a large group of people who were with the convicted man at a public function at the time of the murder. And yet Stevenson is hindered at every turn by the authorities, who use any legal trick to uphold the verdict rather than to seek the truth. Even when he gets the most damning witness to recant his testimony in court, the judge rules the witness lied during the appeal but not during the original trial. Eventually, Stevenson gets the DA to change his heart by an appeal to justice.

What is legal is not always moral and vice versa. That's what Jesus is getting at in our gospel passage today. The dietary laws take up a whole chapter in Leviticus (11) and 2/3 of a chapter in Deuteronomy (14). They are very specific and comprehensive and so they affected the everyday life of the average Jew. But even rabbis put them in a class of mitzvos or commandments they called choks. Unlike the commandments against immoral acts like murder and cheating and the commandments to help people, a chok is a mitzvah without apparent reason. Like the one prohibiting wearing clothes made from a blend of cotton and wool (Leviticus 19:19), rabbis admit that the Jewish dietary laws are observed simply because they are commanded.

And though it is not included in our lectionary reading, the actual thing that the Pharisees were criticizing was the fact that that Jesus' disciples were eating without first doing the elaborate handwashing that, while not in the Torah, was traditional. It was not to remove germs, whose existence was unknown to them, or even dirt. This handwashing was to undo any ritual uncleanness one might have incurred by, say, going to the market. Jesus' disciples weren't violating the Mosaic law but an extension of it.

So why did Jesus challenge this and make a big thing out of it? Because it was possible to follow the religious laws and be ritually clean but morally have dirty hands. In roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons there is a category called Lawful Evil. This refers to a character who follows the letter of the law but violates the spirit of it by gaming the system to achieve his own ends. He plays by the rules but without mercy, compassion or empathy, rather like a sociopath. Think Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers, or any corrupt politician or legal authority that puts the desire for absolute order over people's basic rights and freedoms. Think of the cops who arrested ministers and priests in Ft. Lauderdale for operating a ministry that fed the homeless because the city commission told them to. Think anyone who does evil but whose excuse is “I was only following orders” or “But everything I did was legal.”

To Jesus what is more important than adhering to external rules is what is going on in the person's heart. He says, “For from out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.” In Mark's version there are 6 more evils mentioned: greed, malice, lewdness, envy, arrogance and folly. And in Mark “deceit” replaces “false witness.” Evil first pops into your mind before it comes out of your mouth or comes out in what you do.

That's why Jesus lists evil intentions first. First comes the thought and then comes permission to follow through on it. We all have thoughts of doing something wrong. Hopefully we decide against spreading gossip about someone, or cheating on our spouse, or taking home office supplies from work, or cheating on an exam, or padding our expense account, or poisoning the neighbor's constantly barking dog, or getting in a fight at the store about wearing a mask. But it all starts with a thought.

Billy Graham once said that he couldn't keep a bird from flying over his head but he could prevent it from building a nest in his hair. Bad thoughts often flicker through our minds and sometimes they take us unawares. Usually we dismiss them. The trouble starts when you entertain the thought, brood about it, fantasize about it, start working out a plan of how you would carry it out. The Las Vegas shooter was not acting on impulse. Nor is the person who registers at a hotel under a false name with a person who is not their spouse. Nor is someone who embezzles. Nor is someone who comes up with an elaborate cover story to hide what they've done.

It comes down to what we call “character.” What kind of person are you? Are you honest? Reliable? Willing to listen to the perspectives of others? Conscientious? Compassionate? Consistent but not rigid? Committed to doing the right thing for all? Do you have self-control? People trust those of good character. They can't read their hearts but their pattern of behavior in the past leads them to expect the same behavior now and in the future.

These qualities come from the heart, as do evil qualities. How a person speak and acts depends on which qualities prevail. But ideally only good should come from the heart. So the question is: what can clean a person's heart of evil? God gives the answer in Ezekiel. “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27) We need a change of heart. We need a new spirit, God's Spirit, in control of our minds and hearts.

John the Baptizer said, “I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one coming after me is more powerful than I—I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” (Matthew 3:11) Baptism is not for physical bathing but is for cleansing one spiritually. And the agent of the cleansing is the Holy Spirit, which is symbolized by fire. As fire refines silver and gold, the Spirit refines our hearts, separating out the impurities.

In defending the mission to the Gentiles, Peter says, “And God, who knows the heart, has testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between them and us, cleansing their hearts by faith.” (Acts 15:8-9) Paul wrote of the previous immoral lives of the church members in Corinth and then said, “Some of you once lived this way. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11) To his colleague Titus Paul writes, “he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us in full measure through Jesus Christ our Savior.” (Titus 3:5-6)

The Spirit cleanses us and gives us a change of heart. If we let him take control, we will find that new thoughts will come to us: thoughts of how to serve, not ourselves, but God and those created in his image. As Paul says,“Do not seek your own good but the good of the other person.” (1 Corinthians 10:24) And again he says, “Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

Following Jesus has always been about transformation of the person. After all the Greek word for “repent” literally means “change your mind; think differently.” And that's how you change the outer person: by changing the inner person. Ultimately that's how you change the world: by changing people. Changing rules certainly helps but as we've seen people unwilling to change can learn to game the system. For instance, right now there's a lot of effort to change the language we use to refer to people. That's good and, as someone pointed out, if a person says a label is offensive believe them and use an acceptable term. But as Patton Oswalt has pointed out, clever racists and sexists learn the new language and use it but don't change their underlying attitudes. Look at how many times the proper term for African Americans has changed in the last century and a half. Racism and racist systems did not disappear magically. Hearts and minds must be changed or else any changes on the surface are lies.

“If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation...” (2 Corinthians 5:17) But just as a baby is new and yet has not achieved its ultimate form, we begin as “babes in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1) and have to grow. (1 Peter 2:2) When Jesus said, “Therefore you shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” (Matthew 5:48) another way to translate the Greek word for “perfect” is “mature or fully grown.” Becoming Christlike is a process of growth.

And it is not automatic; it is intentional. Jesus said, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23, emphasis mine) The twelve step programs, which take a lot of their ideas from Christianity, also speak of taking things “one day at a time,” Jesus is saying we must make the commitment to disown ourselves and take up our cross every day. And as Jesus carried his cross for us, so our cross is not our personal problems, but the burdens we bear for the sake of others. Or as Paul says, “Carry one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

And that's another thing: there are no Lone Ranger Christians. The Christian life is not meant to be lived apart from the body of Christ. After all, God is love (1 John 4:8), Jesus Christ is the very image of God (Hebrews 1:3), and we are to be like Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1) To be Christlike is to embody God's love and you can't do that separate from other people. Moreover, what we do to others or neglect to do, we do or neglect to do to Jesus. (Matthew 25:40, 45) We serve Jesus by serving others.

Spoiler alert! In the series finale to the TV show Agents of SHIELD, our heroes are outnumbered by emotionless robots come to wipe out all life on earth. Like all superheroes you expect them to fight the bad guys. But when they get access to the robots' programming, instead of shutting them down, or causing them to self-destruct, our heroes give them empathy. And their enemies become their friends and throw down their weapons.

Human beings are forever trying to fix internal problems with external solutions. Usually by using strict laws and force. And it never works. God knows that if you change the internal programming, it will change how a person thinks and speak and acts.

But we are not robots. We have a choice. We can keep doing the same thing over and over and get the same results time and again. Or we can open our hearts to the Spirit of God in Christ and let him change us. It won't be instantaneous, any more than a mustard seed turns into a mature shrub overnight. But if we don't smother it, if we nurture our life in the Spirit with prayer and scripture and worship and service, we will be transformed. As it says in 1 John, “Dear friends, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that whenever it is revealed we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is.” (1 John 3:2) In that day, what we are inside will match what we are outside, and we will be who we were always meant to be, a vast mosaic of glorious beings coming together as a living image of the God who is love whom we first saw in our incarnate, crucified and risen Lord, Jesus Christ. 

What You Don't See

 The scriptures referred to are Romans 10:5-15.

You may have read that the difference between the DNA of humans and chimpanzees is only 1.2%. To visualize that imagine 2 piles of pennies, each totaling $10, or 1000 pennies in each pile. Let's say some of the pennies were pre-1982 and some were post-1982, because that's the year the US treasury changed the composition of pennies from mostly copper to mostly zinc. Let's say the pile of pennies representing the chimps was all pre-1982 pennies and the pile representing humans had a certain number of post-1982 pennies that show the difference between chimps and humans. The number of pennies that would be different is 12 out of a pile of 1000.

Now let's look at the differences in the DNA of human individuals. Between the 2 $10 piles of pennies, you would find only 1 penny that would come from a different composition of zinc and copper. That's how little difference there is genetically between different humans: 0.1%. Yet we make a big deal out of those differences. We have constructed the idea of race by lumping together people who share broad similarities in looks, despite the fact that when you get down to DNA, the code which makes us what we are and how we look, the differences are statistically not important. In Africa, there are greater differences between people in various regions of that continent than between them and other so-called races. For that matter there are greater differences between men and women (0.325% or a little over 3 pennies out of a thousand) than between people of different races (again, 1 penny).

The Bible really doesn't have a concept of race, as we define it. Like the rest of the classical world, people were seen as coming from a regional or language or family or cultural group. Physical differences were attributed to geography and climate. The only real reference to “black” skin in the Bible is to the beloved in the Song of Solomon who describes herself as “dark but lovely.” (Song of Solomon 1:5) Any racism based on skin color has to be read into the Bible by those looking to justify it.

According to Wikipedia, the word “race,” meaning an identifiable group of people sharing a common descent, was only introduced into English less than 500 years ago. It was used by scientists and naturalists who were classifying everything, including plants, animals and rocks, into systems they tried to make comprehensive. By the 1600s Francois Bernier labeled people according to the 4 quarters of the earth as either Europeans, Far Easterners, Negroes or Lapps. It was in the 1700s that scientists were linking physical differences with psychological or behavioral traits and deeming some superior to others. By the 1800s races were being ranked by supposed differences in moral character and intelligence. Some scientists even said that the different races had different origins and were created separately by God. Thus not all races were descended from Adam and so were not physically related. And, of course, this “scientific racism” was welcomed by people who bought and sold African slaves.

At this same time modern states and governments were being created and so these notions were baked in. In his original draft of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson, to his credit, explicitly stated that all men were created equal, regardless of race, but congressional leaders from the South had it cut from the final version. What did stay in was a paragraph that said, “the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction of all Ages, Sexes, and Conditions.” And in our Constitution, people who are not free, nor indentured servants nor Indians, in other words, slaves, are counted as 3/5 of a person. Slavery was not outlawed until the 13^th Amendment in 1865, and rights weren't secured for all citizens, regardless of race, color or the fact that they used to be slaves, until the 15^th Amendment in 1870. But racial discrimination wasn't really outlawed until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But, as we have so vividly seen in videos, not everybody follows the law. Because despite the fact that modern science has refuted the idea that races are more different than alike, that belief has burrowed deep into people's psyche.

In his letter to the Romans Paul wrestled with the problem that some folks within the church hadn't gotten the message that, as his fellow apostle Peter said, God doesn't show favoritism. (Acts 10:34) Though originally Jewish, the church now had a considerable number of Gentile converts. And this was causing tensions. Some Jewish Christians felt that the Gentile Christians should get circumcised and follow Jewish law. Some Gentiles were debating whether eating meat from the surplus sacrificed to idols was morally justifiable or not.

Paul's position was, when it comes to God, these differences are insignificant. As it says in today's passage from Romans, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'” Now here Paul is specifically talking about equality among people when it comes to salvation. But it also applies to our position in the body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians he says, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink.” (1 Corinthians 12:13) In Colossians, he writes, “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” (Colossians 3:11) In Galatians, Paul says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) And consequently we have “full rights” as children of God. (Galatians 4:5)

In these passages, Paul keeps emphasizing that the classifications and identifiers that men use to distinguish between people fall away when we come together before God. As the God tells Samuel, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

I saw this close up in my nursing career. I was doing what was then called private duty nursing, taking care of someone who either had really good insurance or was wealthy. The person who coordinated and assigned nurses to the cases quit and the owners offered me the job. That was great because private duty nursing could be spotty at times, especially around holidays and vacation times when doctors did not do elective surgeries. This way I would be working 9 to 5 Monday through Friday which was important to me as a married man with small children. The owners showed me the loose leaf binder that had the contact information of all the nurses they employed. When someone called in, needing round the clock nurses to watch them or their spouse or relative as they convalesced from their surgery or disease, I would start calling nurses to see who was available. That was pretty straight-forward. Then they pulled out a nearly identical binder that contained the same list but with marks next to the names. This indicated which nurses were white and which were black. Because sometimes the rich people living in the western part of St. Louis County specified they only wanted white nurses. In fact, my bosses pointed out one nurse at the very bottom of the last page. They said that I should call her only if I ran out of other white nurses because this one was not a very good nurse and they suspected that she drank. But if the client insisted on white nurses only and no one else was available, I could use her.

I would like to say that I made a scene and quit the agency immediately. But I needed the work and the better pay and the regular hours I'd get as coordinator. Besides, how often would people insist on having a white nurse, even if she was a bad one, over a good nurse, whatever her color? More often than I would have imagined. And I hated having good black nurses call and ask if I had any cases for them and telling them “No.” After a month, I quit and told the owners why. But I have always felt guilty for saying “yes” to them in the first place.

Because my first 2 head nurses were black. My clinical nursing instructor was black. Many of my fellow nurses were black. And I learned that competence doesn't have a color. Compassion doesn't have a color. My fellow nurses were smart, worked hard, had the same values as I did and wanted the same things for their kids that I did. My head nurse threw a Christmas party at her home and invited us all. It was up in north St. Louis, which was supposed to be the bad side of town, where mostly blacks lived. And yet I found that her neighborhood and house were no different from the ones where I grew up in south St. Louis. It was a great party. And it opened the eyes of this young guy who grew up in a white neighborhood and went to a white church and whose father came from Tennessee and was not that enlightened when it came to race. I didn't think that I had any negative attitudes towards people of a different color. But then why was I surprised when I found out how much they were like me?

All species come in different colors and yet only when it comes to humans do people think that this external feature gives you insights into the actual nature of a person. In Paul's day, the important identifier was where you came from, or what tribe you came from or what language you spoke. Human beings like to create caste systems, invisible structures that let you know who can boss you around and whom you can boss around. In the US we use color and money and family to signify where you belong in society. And, yes, we like to tell ourselves that anyone can better themselves. But that's not totally true. A study that drew from a sample of 20 million Americans shows that the neighborhood where children grow up “has a greater effect on future income earnings than the neighborhood they end up living in as an adult.” (here) Children who lived just a few blocks away could have a much better success in life. And much of this is due to redlining, policies by the US government that created segregated neighborhoods by guaranteeing FHA loans to developers on condition that no homes were offered to African-Americans, or resold to African-Americans. (here)

The big division in the early church was between Jews and Gentiles. And in addition to reconciling human beings to God, Jesus was also reconciling different groups of people with each other. “For he himself is our peace, who made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14-16)

Sin doesn't affect only the individual, or only our relationship with God; it affects our relationships with other people. Racism is a sin, as is any attitude that uses things like color or gender or ethnicity or body type or facial symmetry or disability to classify people as good or bad, smart or dumb, harmless or dangerous, hardworking or lazy, trustworthy or not. Jesus said, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” (Matthew 7:1) And he didn't add any exceptions for people who look different than us.

The body of Christ is supposed to be the model of the new humanity in Christ. And, as Paul pointed out, different parts of the body look different. That doesn't mean we can dismiss them or diminish their importance. And the pain of one part of the body should be felt by all. (1 Corinthians 12:12-27) As Christians we must acknowledge the pain felt by others, whether they look like us or not. And we must try to stop the pain. Ever catch your little toe on the edge of the bed? You entire body reacts and you bend over and give immediate attention to it, one of the smallest parts of your body. That's how the body of Christ needs to react whenever our brothers and sisters in Christ are in pain.

If, say, while you are strolling through a neighborhood, a dog runs out of a yard and bites you on the ankle, you don't quiz the ankle about what it was doing in that neighborhood or ask how it might have provoked the dog. You protect the ankle from further harm; you say, “Bad dog!”; you find out whose dog it is and make sure they see that it doesn't happen again. And you get whatever medical help you need for your ankle and make sure the owner pays for it. Why do we act differently when a member of the body of Christ is attacked for being in the “wrong” neighborhood or has the police called on him for barbequing in a public park or swimming in a public pool or birdwatching or going home from the convenience store to his father's house?

Nor does this only apply to our fellow Christians. Every person in the world is someone created in the image of God and is someone for whom Christ died, whether they know it or not. Which means every person is also either a brother or sister in Christ or a potential brother of sister in Christ. And you can't tell that just by looking at them. Only God sees their hearts.

Even if they are your declared enemy, Jesus commands us to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:44-45) And by the way, in an agricultural society rain is also good. So God is good to all. And we should be as well.

When I was in nursing school, we were working on Maternity, and one of our jobs was to take the babies to their mothers to be nursed. And you know how all babies have cute little button noses? Not this one kid. He looked like Jimmy Durante. But his mother didn't refuse to nurse him. She loved him; his looks didn't matter. Which is how God loves us. This was 40 years ago and for all I know that big nosed kid is right now researching how to defeat this virus that killed so many people, including my mother. But even if he isn't I know that fighting it are researchers and nurses and doctors and other healthcare personnel who are black and Asian and Latino and Indian and Pakistani and Palestinian and Arabian and Iranian and Israeli and others who belong to every human category you can think of. And God help the person who makes their life or anyone else's worse because of what they look or sound like, disregarding who they are in the eyes of the God who is love.

Memento Mori

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 13:14-31.

Media vita in morte sumus. “In the midst of life we are in death.” Like me, you may know this from the burial service in The Book of Common Prayer. It turns out that it goes way back to at least the 1300s where it is found in a Gregorian chant that was used in the New Year's Eve service. It's not a sentiment you hear often these days, probably because we don't usually feel surrounded by death. We have increased human life expectancy, and that mostly by reducing infant and child mortality. Until the middle of the last century, most people knew someone close to them who died young. In ancient times, life expectancy at birth was about 35 years of age. Yes, some folks lived to 70 but that was offset by how many died as a child, which was as much as 50% of those under 5 years of age. Even so, disease, infected injuries and accidents killed many over the age of 15. A scholar pointed out that Edgar Allen Poe was obsessed with death because his mother, step-mother, a neighbor who acted as a mother to him and his wife all died young. What has made the difference today is the rise of public health departments, sanitation, access to clean running water, better nutrition, immunizations, and better health care.

As we have reduced deaths by disease, deaths by external means have taken its place. Like violence. According to Yale historian David Blight, the Civil War, which by current estimates killed ¾ of a million soldiers, “left a culture of death, a culture of mourning, beyond anything Americans had ever experienced or imagined.” No war since has killed as many Americans. Yet, even without war, for those aged 15 through 34, the top 3 causes of death today are unintentional injury, homicide and suicide.

In Jesus' day, death by causes both natural and unnatural was common. That's why people flocked to him: first and foremost, to be healed. And his feats of healing were why they were so keen to hear him. If God was acting through his works, it followed that God was speaking through his words. He was able to put people right both physically and spiritually.

We even know of 3 instances where Jesus restored someone to life: the synagogue leader's daughter, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus. But there was one person he couldn't bring back: his cousin John the Baptizer, who was beheaded by order of Herod. That's what happened immediately before the story in our gospel reading today. We don't know how well they actually knew each other but still it was a blow. And we are told that when he heard about John's execution, Jesus withdrew.

Why did he withdraw? It could have been that Jesus realized that Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, could be a threat to him as well. The Greek word translated “withdraw” here is often used of people responding to danger, such as the wise men not returning to Herod the Great but going back home by another route, or Mary and Joseph fleeing from Herod into Egypt and later avoiding his son, ruler of Judea, on the way back to Nazareth. Because the house of Herod saw killing as their go-to solution for inconvenient people. This Herod's father killed several sons and wives. This Herod's nephew, Herod Agrippa, would one day kill James the apostle and try to do the same to Peter. Jesus knew his fate was not to die at Herod's hand but that was no reason to tempt a murderous tyrant.

I think another reason Jesus withdrew is to deal with the shock and grief. In emptying himself of the prerogatives of divinity, (Philippians 2:5-7) Jesus evidently gave up knowing every single thing that would happen. He is amazed at the lack of faith he found in his own hometown (Mark 6:6) and he is surprised when the centurion shows greater faith than Jesus had seen in Israel. (Matthew 8:10) He tells his disciples that he doesn't know the exact time when the last day will come and he will return; only his Father knew that, at least while Jesus was on earth. (Matthew 24:36) So John's death could have come as a shock to Jesus and he needed time to absorb it.

He also may have needed time to grieve. John was both a cousin and the man who baptized Jesus and announced his coming. Jesus would have felt his loss. Jesus wept over the death of his friend Lazarus, even though he knew he was going to resurrect him. (John 11:35) Jesus also knew that was not going to happen with John and that he was just going to have to deal with that, as we ordinary humans do. As it says in Hebrews, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses...” (Hebrews 4:15) And I for one feel better knowing that Jesus knows what it is like to lose someone to death and know you will not see them again in this life.

In the documentary series I'll Be Gone in the Dark Patton Oswalt describes how he reacted to finding his wife Michelle had died in her sleep. He said he closed his eyes and tried to will it to be a nightmare. But when he opened his eyes it was just horrible reality. Michelle's sisters describe their reactions to the news. One, listening to her brother-in-law tell her that her baby sister was dead, just could not seem to grasp it at first, making him repeat it over and over. When she in turn called another sister all she could babble was “It's bad, it's bad, it's bad,” before she calmed down enough to say what was bad. And Patton said that finding his wife dead was the second worst thing he endured. The worst was the breaking the news to their 6 year old daughter, Alice.

Some atheists feel that the existence of suffering somehow refutes the existence of God. Which is odd since the Bible does not shy away from the topic. The words for “suffer” and “suffering,” as well as those for “pain” and “mourning” and “weeping,” appear hundreds of times. The entire book of Job is about a godly man who is suffering and wrestling with the fact that bad things do indeed happen to good people.

And of course, at the heart of Christianity is the worst thing that could happen to the best possible person, which is the suffering and death of God's son. It's a terrible death: being whipped and then being marched to a place where you are nailed to a tree and then hang until you die. It's not at all sugarcoated and we see the effect on Jesus' mother and disciples. They are shattered and heartbroken.

They do not take philosophical refuge in thinking he was just a good moral teacher. They had hoped he was the Messiah but not any more. (Luke 24:19-21) Nor do we see any of them expecting Jesus to come back from the dead. Even after the resurrection, after the women see him, the men do not yet believe. When Jesus first appears to the remnants of the Twelve they think he's a ghost. (Luke 24:27) And missing on that occasion is Thomas, who, when Jesus proposed taking that dangerous journey to Judea, said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16) I would not be surprised to find that he was on a drinking binge. Not even the others telling him they had seen Jesus convinced Thomas. Only seeing and touching Jesus a week later changed his mind. (John 20:24-29) So nothing in the accounts lead us to believe that they thought Jesus' death was anything but final.

Because usually death is. While 40% of those having a cardiac arrest outside a hospital and who receive CPR are revived, only 10 to 20% survive long enough to be discharged from the hospital. That rate drops by a factor of 10 for every minute's delay in starting CPR. However, the survival rate more than doubles for those who receive a shock from an AED or Automatic External Defibrillator. Likewise, 27% of children who drowned and receive CPR within minutes survived. Even so that's a small minority of those who die.

And those are cases where a trained person who is on the spot can do something. Most people who die cannot be brought back. I myself was unable to revive a patient using CPR. Eventually we all die. And that is being drilled into us daily as the death toll of this virus rises.

In a way, this brings us back to the state of affairs that has existed through most of human history: that in the midst of life we are in death.

But the reverse is also true. In the presence of death we are still in the midst of life. One thing that helped Patton Oswalt not collapse under the weight of his wife's unexpected death was the fact that he had a daughter to take care of. He had to get Alice up, get her dressed, get her fed and get her to school. He had to pick her up from school, take her home, feed her, bathe her, put her to bed and read to her. He had her needs to think about, which kept him from withdrawing completely from the world into his own despair.

In our gospel we are told that Jesus “withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.” Mark says Jesus “had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” (Mark 6:34) Like Oswalt's daughter, they needed to be cared for. And Jesus put aside his grief for the moment and performed the one miracle that is mentioned in all 4 gospels, the feeding of the 5000.

I do hope Jesus got to talk with his disciples about his loss. Oswalt observes that being silent about grief allows it to seek out and fortify its positions in your life. But talking about it, exposing it to light, helps diminish the darkness.

And the presence of those who love you help. Every night Michelle and her daughter Alice would share what was their rose and what was their thorn that day. After Michelle's death, Alice told her father and aunts that her thorn was the loss of her mom but her rose was having them all there.

And Jesus had the Twelve. After the feeding of the 5000, John tells us that the crowd wanted to make him king. And Jesus tells them not to seek after the physical bread he had fed them with but the bread from heaven, the bread of life. And when they asked him what it was, he said it was his body. They had to eat his body and drink his blood. They were repulsed by this teaching and John tells us that Jesus lost a lot of followers. Jesus turns to the Twelve and asks if they also wanted to leave. “Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.'” (John 6:68) That must have been heartening for Jesus to hear.

In one sense, death is the fairest thing there is. Not all will be strong. Not all will be rich. Not all will be good looking. Not all will be popular. Not all will be powerful. But all will die. The only thing that seems unfair about death is when and how. In some cases we can delay it but we cannot escape it.

What we do have some control over is our attitude. Do we let our knowledge of the end of life rob the rest of life of its joys? Do we prematurely surrender to it? Do we pretend it will not happen to us? Do we let it impel us to do as much as we can before it comes, as it seems that Alexander Hamilton did? Do we cherish this gift of life all the more for its temporary nature?

Psalm 90 says, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12) In other words, we need to use the time alloted to us wisely. Rather than fritter our time away, we can, as we said last week, listen to God's call, find our purpose and make that our ministry, our way of expressing God's love and grace towards others. And science confirms that having a sense of purpose is a vital part of being healthy and happy and living a long life. We were designed to have a purpose in our lives rather than just existing until we don't.

This week on the NPR show Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed Jim McCloskey. In his 30s he found himself dissatisfied with his life in business. He returned to church and found a call to ministry. He thought he was called to become a pastor but while in seminary, he was assigned to do fieldwork as a prison chaplain. There he met an inmate whom he became convinced was innocent of murder. McCloskey founded Centurion Ministries, one of the first innocence projects. They have managed to get 63 prisoners freed from wrongful convictions for murder. McCloskey never did get ordained but credited that condemned man he proved innocent with helping him find his purpose in life and a way to make the world a better place.

Eventually we will find our death approaching and inevitable. Then will be the time to accept it, knowing that we have served God and those in our life to the best of our abilities and gifts. But we need not go with resignation. We go knowing that Jesus our Lord has gone before us and that he is there to take our hand on the other side. As God took the worst thing that could happen to his son and transformed it into the greatest good for us, so he has transformed death for those of us in Christ into new and eternal life.

C. S. Lewis expressed the afterlife evocatively in his works. Perhaps my favorite passage on the subject is on the last page of the last of his children's books. Aslan reveals to the main characters that they are no longer alive in their world but are now in the new Narnia forever. “And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All of their life in this world and all of their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”