Glory

The scriptures referred to are Exodus 34:29-35, 1 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 and Luke 9:28-36.

The first Doctor Who convention I attended was in my hometown of St. Louis. My wife came and we brought our 1 ½ year old son. 2 events stand out from this event nearly 40 years ago. One was the costumes of the attendees. Some had put an incredible amount of work into looking like the Doctor or various aliens. The authenticity they achieved was incredible. One guy built a working radio-controlled model of the Doctor's robot dog, K-9!

The other thing I will always remember is meeting Tom Baker. Of the 5 actors who had portrayed the Doctor on TV thus far, he had played the part the longest and he was the most popular version of the character at that time. We had told my son that the actor would be there and he seemed excited. As we were eating at the banquet Tom Baker entered the room and went around to each table, greeting the fans. When he got to our table, my son, rather than look awed or pleased, burst into tears and turned away as if trying to escape him! As happy as he had seemed at the prospect of meeting the hero of our TV show, the reality of seeing the Doctor there in the flesh was too much.

In the Old Testament, there was a fear that if you saw the face of God, you would die. Because to see someone's face you had to be in their presence, as when we talk about having a face-to-face meeting with someone today as opposed to being on video. It was deemed fatal for a ordinary, sinful human to be in the presence of the holy God. After Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord, he named the place Peniel, which means “face of God.” He said, “It is because I saw God face-to-face and yet my life was spared.” (Genesis 32:30) When Moses asks to see God's glory, he is only allowed to see the back of God. “But,” the Lord said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” (Exodus 33:20) And indeed when prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel have visions of God, they never describe his face. (Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1) And others, like Elijah and even Moses upon his first encounter with God, tend to hide their faces from that sight. (Exodus 3:6; 1 Kings 19:13)

However while you might not be able to look God in the face, you definitely want God to turn his face to you. The priestly blessing of Aaron goes, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26) Even if you can't look at him, you want God to be watching over you. It's kinda like not being able to look directly at the sun but still wanting the sun to shine on you.

Conversely for God to hide his face is a disaster. (Deuteronomy 31:16-18) It is the result of people sinning to the point where God removes his presence from them and lets them suffer the consequences of what they are doing. It is the equivalent of God saying, “I can't even look at you now.” Until the people turn back to God, he will not turn to them.

Our reading from Exodus takes place after the portable shrine called the Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting is set up. In the previous chapter we are told: “And whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. When the people would see the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people, each one at the entrance of his own tent, would rise and worship. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, the way a person speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp....” (Exodus 33:9-11)

Our passage takes place after Moses carves out two more stone tablets to replace the ones he broke when he saw the people worshiping the golden calf. He writes the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments, on these tablets and brings them to the people once again. But the peculiar side effect of being in the presence of God's glory in the form of the pillar of cloud and fire was that Moses' face was radiant. It glowed in a way that frightened people. When he was made aware of this, he would veil his face.

Unfortunately when St. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, he traced the Hebrew word for “rays” of light back to its primitive roots and rendered it “horns.” Thus the idea arose that Moses had horns, which unfortunately mars the otherwise wonderful statue of Moses that Michelangelo carved. I wish the guy who took a hammer and chisel into St. Peter's in the Vatican and attacked Michelangelo's Pieta, which shows Mary holding Jesus' dead body, had instead taken those horns off his statue of Moses. Unfortunately this bad translation also led to the medieval anti-Semitic trope that Jews had horns and looked like Satan. Which proves that such people either did not actually know any Jews or did not look at them very closely.

Anyway the radiant face of Moses was eerie. But it was a reflection of God's glory. And that leads us to today's gospel. The last incident Luke records before this passage is Jesus asking his disciples, first, who did the crowds think he was and, secondly, who did they think he was. Peter says, “The Christ of God.” In other words, the Anointed one whom God sent to save his people. The disciples would probably think this meant Jesus was going to be a holy warrior king like his ancestor David. But what Jesus says next surprises, offends, confuses and discourages them.

“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Luke 9:22) Now there were a few competing ideas back then of what the Christ or Messiah would be—and that was not one of them. If the Messiah was not a king, then maybe he'd be a priest or a prophet. What he would not be is dead. How could that possibly help God's people?

Peter objects to this line of talk. Ironically Peter had just said Jesus was God's Anointed but now he telling Jesus he is nevertheless wrong about his own mission. And according to Matthew and Mark, Jesus harshly rebukes him. Peter is looking at this purely in human terms and thus he is acting as God's adversary. (Matthew 17:22-23; Mark 8:32-33)

Then Jesus makes things worse. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) Give up all rights to yourself, take up the instrument of your ugly, painful and dishonorable death, and follow me? And do that every day? Is Jesus nuts? What were the disciples to think about their leader?

So, eight days later, when our Gospel passage begins, the disciples are pretty bummed out. And I think that is why Jesus takes the 3 leaders of the Twelve up the mountain with him. They needed to see God's glory in a conventional way. So as he is praying, Jesus' face changes and his clothes become dazzling white. The Greek means “to gleam or flash like lightning.” Too bright to look at directly. But that's not all.

Two men appear: Moses, the lawgiver, and Elijah, the premier prophet. I'm not sure how the disciples recognized them but they are significant figures in Judaism. Both men got a glimpse of God. Moreover, Moses, when he died, was buried by God (Deuteronomy 34:5-6) and Elijah didn't die but was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:1-12). And both, because of their proximity to the presence of God, “appeared in glory.” As did Jesus.

The Greek word for glory means “praise, honor, what evokes a good opinion.” It was used to translate the Hebrew word for “glory” which was derived from the root word for “weighty or heavy.” God's glory has weight, importance, significance. So the point is not that Jesus and the two others were merely shiny. It was like God highlighted them, made them stand out, because of their great significance. And just like my son saw a person he had previously only seen on a screen, right there, solid and substantial, Peter, James and John were looking at 2 guys they had read and heard about, right there, flesh and blood. And they saw Jesus as he really was, the light of God embodied. And just as my son was freaked out, what they saw blew their minds.

And then a cloud, as in Moses' time, came down upon them and they were terrified. And as Moses heard God speak to him from the cloud, they hear God's voice saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” Listen to him about what? We are told earlier that Moses and Elijah are talking to Jesus “about his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” Moses has tasted death and Elijah has gone up into heaven as Jesus will at his ascension. So when Jesus talks about his death and resurrection he is not crazy. That is my plan, God is saying. Pay attention to what Jesus says!

And while what the disciples see is what they, and any Jew, would expect in a vision of God's glory, Jesus, once again, sees things differently. We see this most clearly in John's gospel. In John 7:39 Jesus is speaking about the Holy Spirit, but we are told “Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” (Emphasis mine) In John 12:16 we are told that the disciples do not understand the real significance of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. “Only after Jesus was glorified, did they realize that these things had been written about him...” (Emphasis mine) So there is a part of Jesus' life and ministry that comes before he is glorified and a time after he is glorified. What specific event glorifies him?

Jesus' ministry is to plant the seeds of the gospel among his own people. So when during the week before his death some Greeks come to see Jesus, he says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds.” (John 12:23-24) And this talk of death is not merely symbolic because he says, “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” (John 12:27-28) He continues, “Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” And we are told, “He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.” (John 12:31-33) To Jesus what will glorify him and God is his death on the cross.

We think of glory in human terms as did Peter at first. It is triumph over your enemies; it is streams of light; it is splendid to look at. But in Jesus' reckoning it is not. Jesus' glory is in sacrificing himself to save the world. So to some it will not look like triumph but defeat. It will not look bright and shiny but will look like a world where the sun is darkened. It will not look splendid to the eye but will look ugly and bloody and shameful. By the world's standards it doesn't look glorious but ghastly.

Unfortunately there are people who think the best way to glorify God is to imitate what the world thinks is glorious. Make bigger buildings and flashier services and pour more money into what looks good rather than what does good. We are loathe to make sacrifices, especially personal ones. Deny ourselves? Accept the risk of pain and death and dishonor in following Jesus? That's crazy.

But as Paul says, we need to lift the veil from our minds and see clearly. We are all going to die anyway. We can die desperately clutching the empty shiny things that will not save us, or we can realize that in the end what endures is the Spirit and embrace him. The Spirit is God's presence in our lives and true freedom comes from inviting him in. With the Spirit in our hearts and in our minds, we will see the true glory of the Lord, Jesus Christ, God's Son, our savior. And by letting the Spirit be in charge we will be changed, “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” That is what our faith is really about: becoming more like Jesus, day by day. And it's not like the people at Doctor Who and comic conventions, who make themselves look like superheroes outwardly but who lack their powers. Because what the Spirit is changing is not what's on the outside but what's within.

What the disciples needed to see what a glimpse of God's glory that they could understand. Because the real glory of Jesus was going to be hard to look at. Until Easter morning when it all fell into place. And once again Jesus would be transformed, and this time some of the disciples wouldn't even recognize him at first. (Matthew 28:17; Luke 24:15-16; John 20:14-16) And I think that was because Jesus' face was beaming. Not with literal light. But with the crucifixion behind him, with our salvation secured, with the weight of the world lifted from his shoulders, with nothing to cloud his countenance, I imagine that his joy could not be contained and his face was lit up by the biggest smile anyone had ever seen. And one day, when we have crossed through the valley of the shadow of death and have awakened to the light of heaven, and when we see him there, arms open to welcome us, our faces will break into radiant smiles that will mirror his. And we will be in his presence from then on. And it will be glorious.

The Commandment We Hate

The scriptures referred to are Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42 and Luke 6:27-38.

In the film Star Trek: Generations one subplot involves Data, the android who wishes to be human. He has a computer chip, made by the scientist who created him, that will allow Data to feel emotions. He has it installed but finds it hard to control his new emotions. It does lead to a very funny moment. The crew of the Enterprise is fighting to survive a very damaging battle with a Klingon ship. Eventually they manage to blow up the Klingons. The camera pans over the solemn Enterprise crew who feel no joy at the deaths of their enemies. Until we get to Data. He thrusts his fist in the air triumphantly, with a gleeful “Yes!” It got a big laugh in the theater where I first saw the film because, ironically, Data's reaction was the most human.

In her book Jesus and John Wayne, Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez chronicles how from the early 20^th century Evangelicals have been trying to maintain an extremely masculine version of Christianity. In the early part of this century, especially after 9/11, they started to justify violence. John Eldredge argued that God made men to be dangerous. He dismissed Jesus' command to “Turn the other cheek.” Douglas Wilson called for a “theology of fist fighting.” Steve Farrar felt that by emphasizing “feminine” virtues like compassion and gentleness, the church was neglecting masculine traits like aggressiveness. One Evangelical book was actually called No More Christian Nice Guy. Mark Driscoll, the pastor of Mars Church in Seattle for 18 years until he was forced to resign, said Revelation 19 shows Jesus to be “an Ultimate Fighter warrior king with a tattoo down his leg who rides into battle against Satan, sin and death on a trusty horse.” (It also says he has a sword coming out of his mouth, so it is obvious this image is meant to be taken symbolically and not literally.) Driscoll holds that God will only be a pacifist at the end of time after he has killed all his enemies. And apparently he feels we Christians should act the same way.

I just want to draw your attention to the fact that in all the apocalyptic passages God fights his own battles. Only his angels fight alongside him. Christians are depicted solely as witnesses and, if necessary, martyrs. We are not called to fight and kill evildoers, not even at the end of the world, no matter how many so-called “Christian” novels and movies show that and no matter how much our natural bloodlust desires it.

In today's passage from the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus announces, “I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” This, and its parallel passage in the Sermon on the Mount are probably the most ignored and, as we've seen, despised commandments in the Bible. Even Christians try to diminish or dismiss the idea that we are to love our enemies. We hate this commandment. Why can't we use holy violence on evildoers?

You can find passages in the Old Testament that appear to justify war. But these are almost all about the establishment and defense of Israel, a tiny kingdom surrounded by empires who wanted its land for its strategic position on the crossroads between Africa, Arabia, Asia, Asia Minor and Europe. We, however, belong to the kingdom of God which has no borders. Christianity is the predominant religion in Europe, Russia, North, Central and South America, the Philippines, East Timor, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Oceania. You will find Christians in every country, even where they are considered illegal. 2.3 billion people, 31% of the world's population, call themselves Christian.

I don't have time to detail the Just War Ethic that St. Augustine and others have developed using Christian principles. But the Bible is clear in condemning interpersonal violence. The first murder in the Bible is one brother killing another. The reason for the flood is, according to Genesis 6:11, “The earth was ruined in the sight of God; the earth was filled with violence.” (Cf. Genesis 6:13) That's why God decides to reboot creation, returning it first to chaotic waters and then repopulating it with Noah' descendants. And the first covenant God makes is with Noah. God hangs up his bow and promises not to flood the earth; our part is not kill each other. Why? Because not only are we all brothers and sisters but humans were created in God's image. (Genesis 9:5-6) Murder is symbolic deicide.

Violence is condemned more than 60 times in the Bible. God tells his people that he didn't want innocent blood shed in the land he was giving them or else he would hold them guilty. (Deuteronomy 19:10) God considers the shedding of innocent human blood an abomination. (Proverbs 6:16-19) Psalm 11:5 tells us, “The Lord approves of the godly, but he hates the wicked and those who love to do violence.”

Contrary to the idea that God wants us to be warriors, Proverbs 16:32 says, “Better to be slow to anger than to be a mighty warrior, and one who controls his temper is better than one who captures a city.” And in today's psalm it says, “Do not fret yourself because of evildoers; do not be jealous of those who do wrong...Do not fret yourself over the one who prospers, the one who succeeds in evil schemes. Refrain from anger, leave rage alone, do not fret yourself; it leads only to evil.” (Psalm 37:1, 8-9) James tells us to be slow to anger “For human anger does not accomplish God's righteousness.” (James 1:20)

There is a meme going around social media that goes, “If someone asks 'What would Jesus do?' remind them that turning over tables and breaking out whips is a possibility.” The only mention of a whip is in John's account of Jesus cleansing the temple where it says, “In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle...” (John 2:14-15) The whips were not for the people but to get the animals to move. He did scatter the coins of the money changers and overturn the tables of those selling sacrificial animals in the only place in the temple where Gentiles could pray. He never laid a hand on humans, except to heal them.

When Jesus told us to “Do to others as you would have them do to you,” that implies being forgiving. Don't we wish people would forgive us when we mess up? Of course. And so we should forgive others as well. Furthermore Jesus tells us, “Forgive and you will be forgiven.” We repeat this principle whenever we say the Lord's Prayer: “Forgive us our sins for we ourselves also forgive all who sin against us.” (Luke 11:4) We are to “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

In fact this is how we are to imitate God, not by harming others but, as Jesus says, “But love your enemies, do good, lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” People do not drop down dead the second they do something wrong. God is merciful. He gives us all many chances to change our lives, to turn from our destructive and self-destructive ways and turn to God. In Ezekiel 33:11 God says, “Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but prefer that the wicked change his behavior and live.'”

Obeying the command for us to love our enemies is an essential way we imitate God. After all, we have acted as God's enemies, breaking his laws, doing violence to some people and ignoring the needs of others. And how did God react to our rebellion against his ways? As Paul points out, “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) As John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his unique son so that whoever trusts in him will not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) Jesus gave his life to save us rebellious sinners; in fact, he gives us his life, eternal life. As Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) If God did not love his enemies, he would not have sent Jesus. And considering what we did to Jesus, it is amazing that he still loves us and still is willing to save us. Every second of life he gives us is a second chance to turn to him.

As C.S. Lewis said, there are people who say to God, “Not my will but your will be done.” And there are those to whom God will ultimately say, “Very well, your will be done. You don't want me. So be it! But in turning away from me you are turning away from the only source of love and joy and justice and mercy.” That is the essence of the last judgment.

There will come a time when no one else will be willing to turn to God and no more people will allow him to change them and restore them to the image of God we see so clearly in Jesus. Only God will know when that will be and only he can decide the time has come to give everyone what they have chosen. And that is reserved for God alone, because he created us and he sent his son to redeem us. In fact Jesus says, “For not even the Father judges anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son.” (John 5:22) Jesus will be the judge before whom we must stand. (2 Corinthians 5:10) And thank God for that! For only he is good enough and just enough and merciful enough to judge us fairly.

But because that is not our job, Jesus tells us, “Do not judge and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned.” That is, we are not to pass verdicts on people. We can judge whether thoughts and words and actions are spiritually healthy or spiritually unhealthy, but only Jesus can decide the ultimate state of a person's spirit. So we are not to fret or get jealous or to give way to anger and rage over those who do evil. We are to love everyone, friend or foe, neighbor or stranger, with the same love that Jesus loves us. That is his command. And the whole kingdom of the God who is love is built on it. 

Your Money or Your Life?

The scriptures referred to are Luke 6:17-26.

In the documentary series Secrets of Playboy, the fantasy that Hugh Hefner was a benign rich guy who did nothing wrong except have lots of sex with lots of women has been given a severe reality check—by those very women. Yes, the bunnies at the Playboy Club were not to be touched or dated by club keyholders at the risk of those men being expelled and their membership being revoked—unless they were VIPs. Then anything goes. And by “anything” that includes illegal drug use by those at the mansion: the guests, the bunnies and Hefner himself. A woman who was one of his girlfriends from 1976 to 1981 confessed to buying drugs for him: not just pot but cocaine and amphetamines. He put them into his locked bedside table. Hefner and his top associates also had standing prescriptions for Quaaludes, which Hefner called “leg spreaders.” One former bunny said they were given to the women to make them more amenable to whatever Hefner and his guests wanted to do with them. She said 2 Quaaludes, however, would render a person unconscious. And in another documentary series, We Need to Talk About Cosby, a number of his rape victims said he plied them with 2 Quaaludes or dissolved them in drinks. The comedian was a frequent guest at the Playboy mansion.

Gee, who would have guessed that Hefner, a man who built an empire marketing a very hedonistic lifestyle, would be willing to use drugs to give himself pleasure, and to render women more pliable! He also took pictures to blackmail the women into silence.

A few weeks ago, we talked about whether power corrupts people or whether it's simply that bad people are attracted to getting power. For his book Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, political scientist Brian Klaas interviewed 500 people, most of them corrupt. According to his research on the problem, he says it's both/and. Power can corrupt people and corruptible people seek power. Marc Ravalomanana, who worked his way up from poverty to become president of Madagascar, did a lot of good at first. But increasingly he did bad things to stay in power, like allow the presidential guard to fire upon protesters, killing 31 people and wounding more than 200.

Not only does power attract people who have no qualms about abusing it but, Klaas found, some systems are so corrupt that it can seem that the only way to get things done is by working within an evil system. Thus in both helping the Afghans fight the Russians in the 1970s and later in our war there against the Taliban the United States turned a blind eye to the heroin trade of our Afghan partners.

In today's gospel we get a passage that sounds a lot like the Beatitudes in Matthew's account of the Sermon on the Mount. But it has some startling differences. Bible scholars call this the Sermon on the Plain. The resemblance of the two is probably because Jesus, like most itinerant speakers, had a standard speech which he altered to address local issues and changing circumstances.

Anyway you have only to listen to the first of these beatitudes to know that Jesus has made a big alteration. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” he begins. The words in Greek are identical to Matthew 5:3 except for the missing phrase “in spirit.” Many Bible students try to conflate the two versions but if we respect the Son of God's word choice here, we have to conclude that he is talking of those who are poor in the usual sense: lacking sufficient money, property and resources. And this continues with him saying, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.” He is not talking about spiritual hunger as in the Sermon on the Mount; he is talking about those so poor they cannot get enough food. Jesus fed thousands. (Mark 6:35-44; 8:1-9) After all it's hard to concentrate on spiritual matters when your stomach is aching to be filled.

This concern for the poor is in line with what the rest of the Bible says. Proverbs 14:31 says, “The one who oppresses the poor insults his maker but whoever shows favor to the needy honors him.” And “The one who is gracious to the poor lends to the Lord, and the Lord will repay him for his good deed.” (Proverbs 19:17) These only make sense if God so identifies with the poor that what we do to them, we do to God. And indeed Jesus tells us that whatever we do to the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the prisoner and the resident alien we do to him. (Matthew 25:31-46)

And the vast majority of Jesus' audience was likely poor. Nearly 90 years earlier, the Roman general Pompey ended the independence of the kingdom of Judea. He took land from the Jews and gave it to Hellenized landowners. Many peasants were made landless. Herod's taxes drove more small farmers out of business and they became day laborers or else had to work as tenants on land they once owned. If they objected, the landowners could just replace them with slaves. There wasn't any middle class, just the rich and the poor. And if you were rich, it was usually because you exploited the poor.

Which is why Jesus balances his pronouncements of blessings on the poor with announcements of judgment on their oppressors. “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.” William Barclay summarizes what Jesus is saying this way: “If you set your heart and bend your whole energies to obtain the things which the world values, you will get them—but that is all you will ever get!”

And yet many people felt that prosperity must be a sign of God's favor. Today they call it the “Prosperity Gospel.” Unfortunately by that logic if you aren't prosperous it's your own fault. You must not have enough faith or be obedient enough to God. And some people believe this in spite of all the evidence that there are wealthy people who are not godly but corrupt. Even the Bible says, “Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.” (Proverbs 28:6) and “A fortune made by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a deadly snare.” (Proverbs 21:6) Material wealth and prosperity is neither a sufficient nor a necessary sign that someone is good.

Wealth is powerful, like fire: it can do great good or great harm. It is spiritually and morally dangerous if you do not handle it properly. Barclay points out 3 dangers of wealth. First, riches give one a false sense of independence. You think you don't need anyone else's help. “I'm a self-made man. I did it all by myself.” That's never true. Money always comes from others, by inheritance or bank loans or investments or customers or theft or deception. And let's not forget the workers who do the labor. Jeff Bezos would not be one of the richest men in the world if he personally had to find, box and ship every item people bought on Amazon. If all those workers who can't get time to eat or use the bathroom quit, his company would be in trouble. Every CEO is dependent on the people to whom they pay the least money. Yet some wealthy people resent the idea that they owe anyone for anything. And that often includes God. They forget how precarious wealth can be. Proverbs 11:28 says, “He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.”

Secondly, Barclay says, riches can shackle a person to this world. “Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also,” Jesus said. (Matthew 6:21) Wealth can distort your sense of priorities, especially if you put it above all other things in life. Or life itself. Rose O'Neal Greenhow was a famous spy. If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, let me clarify. She was a very successful spy at first, using her position as a Washington D.C. socialite to get information from Northern senators and high-ranking military officers and pass it on to the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis credited her with ensuring the victory of the South at the first Battle of Bull's Run. But she was discovered, and because neither side would execute a female spy, she was deported to the South. She wrote a memoir and toured Europe. On her return, she was in a shipwreck. Though she made it to a rowboat, it capsized and she drowned, dragged down by her book royalties, the $2000 in gold which she had sewn into her undergarments and hung around her neck. As Jesus says, “What good will it be for a person if they gain the whole world yet forfeit their life?” (Matthew 16:26)

Finally Barclay points out that riches can make you selfish. And greedy for more. As Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, “The one who loves money will never be satisfied with money, he who loves wealth will never be satisfied with his income. This is also futile.” There are millionaires and billionaires whose primary goal in life is simply “More.” They own many mansions, cars, yachts, planes and now space ships. How big is the hole in their soul that they keep trying to fill it with more and more and more stuff?

Just as there are ways to handle fire so that it does good rather than harm, so it is with wealth. In Deuteronomy 15:11 God says, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in the land.” And Proverbs 22:9 says, “Whoever is generous will be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.” Paul writes to Timothy, “Command those who are rich in this world's goods not to be haughty or to set their hopes on riches, which are uncertain, but on God who richly provides us with all things for our enjoyment. Tell them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, to be generous givers, sharing with others. In this way they will save up a treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the future and so lay hold of what is truly life.” (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

Another thing that troubles people is not so much the first part of this first beatitude—“Blessed are you who are poor”—as the second part: “for yours is the kingdom of God.” Does poverty bestow virtue? No, not any more than wealth does. The Bible recognizes that some are poor because they are lazy or foolish. But that only applies to a few. The majority of poor who can work do—62.6%, in fact, 44.3% full time. And that doesn't include those who are seeking a job. Most of the poor who don't work are the retired, those going to school and those disabled by disease, physical or mental.

And while those who are poor are not necessarily more virtuous than the rich they are more likely to rely on God. A Gallup survey found that rich countries tend to be less religious than poor ones. According to the Pew Research Center people in rich countries are much less likely to say that religion is very important or even somewhat important in their lives. Why? Because people in rich countries tend to succumb to the 3 temptations Barclay listed: they think they don't need or owe God, they are more tied to material things than spiritual values, and they have so much stuff they become selfish and greedy.

The poor can be materialistic but that is because they lack necessities. In the minds of the rich, luxuries become necessities. Which is why Proverbs 21:17 says, “The one who loves pleasure will be a poor person...” And sure enough, Henry VIII nearly bankrupted the government of England with his excesses. Among other things, he had 55 palaces to maintain. And Hugh Hefner's lavish lifestyle nearly bankrupted his company. To keep it going, he sold out. At the end he didn't own the famous Playboy mansion in which he lived; he didn't own the rights to the Playboy brand, nor even the rights to his own name and likeness. His family no longer has any connection with the company he founded, and that company fully supports the allegations the women make in the documentary series. The poster boy for consequence-free sex is taking his place among Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and all the editors, CEOs, actors, pastors, professors, politicians and other sexual predators who were exposed in the “Me, Too” movement that began just 10 days after Hefner's death. Jesus is speaking to such people when he says “Woe to you who are laughing now...Woe to you when all speak well of you...” Because such people are often charming and popular. And to make sure nobody said anything bad about him Hefner used his connections in media to kill interviews with former playmates, girlfriends and employees and publicity for any tell-all books.

For the Bible what is essential is not how much money you've got but how you got it and what you do with it. Do you acquire it ethically and do you share with those who are less fortunate? When Jesus meets Zacchaeus, the rich tax collector, the man says, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” And Jesus says to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.” (Luke 19:8-9) That last phrase could also be translated “heal the destroyed.” In other words, Jesus came to heal those who are being destroyed spiritually, even if it is by succumbing to the temptations of wealth.

Unfortunately obsession with wealth can destroy the poor as well. In the documentary program Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller, the journalist talks to people in criminal enterprises from the street level all the way up to the top. Many of them were poor, including the people at the top. But I noticed that the people running these illegal schemes are now rich and the people under them—the ones who make the drugs, the ones who transport them, and the dealers—are not. They are always working and always in danger. These rackets have reproduced the basic structure of a legitimate business, where the people at the bottom are exploited and the big money flows upwards only.

And then when you realize the tremendous damage done to our world by legal drugs—alcohol, tobacco and opioids—it makes you wonder about our true values as a society. No matter what we make and sell, legal or illegal, it is ultimately about money, isn't it? Do we, rich and poor, actually worship and serve money? (Luke 16:13) Do we really think that he who dies with the most toys wins? Because Proverbs 11:4 says, “Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.” In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich guy suffers in the afterlife not because he had wealth but because he didn't use it to take care of the poor sick guy lying at the gate of his no doubt beautiful home. (Luke 16:19-31) His top priority, like Rose O'Neal Greenhow, like those who sell harmful products, was money—not life, not people, and certainly not God.

In college my mom made me a pillow which cushions my back as I write. It says, “What you are is God's gift to you. What you become is your gift to God.” I really like it but it's not quite correct theologically. We cannot become the person God wants us to be without his help and grace. It would be more accurate to say, “What you have—talents, abilities, and, yes, material assets—are God's gifts to you. What you do with them can be your gift to God.” When at last we face God, he isn't going to be impressed by how much money or gold or other non-living things we have accumulated, however cool or shiny they are. He will be looking for the people that we have brought back to him, people he created and loves and wants to bring into his kingdom to live with him forever.

Gone Fishing

The scriptures referred to are Luke 5:1-11.

Doing the very same thing over and over and expecting different results has been called insanity. As someone who prefers precise language, I've never cared for that descriptor. What it is is stupid. Insanity, which is not a medical or psychological term but a legal one, means not knowing right from wrong. That's why it is sometimes used as a legal defense, albeit a rarely successful one. Not learning that what you keep doing is failing to work is stupid. It doesn't however mean you should give up. It may mean you have to modify certain elements in what you are doing; that is, experiment. Edison famously tried about 100 different elements before he found one that worked as a long-lasting filament in his light bulb. He didn't give up and work on something different. He tried doing the same thing but doing it differently. That's smart.

We have an example of this in today's gospel. Jesus is teaching people outdoors and they are crowding him. He sees 2 boats at the shore. The fishermen have been fishing at night and are now washing their nets of stuff other than fish. Jesus notices a boat is empty and comes up with a novel use for it. He has Peter take the boat out just a little so he can teach the people without getting mobbed. And it will have an amphitheater effect, allowing everyone on the shore to fan out and both see and hear Jesus. (Jesus, you'll notice, sits down to teach. So I have a good precedent.)

Afterwards, perhaps as a reward for letting him use the boat, Jesus tells Peter to go further out into the deeper water and let down his nets for fish. Peter objects that they have just come in from a spectacularly unsuccessful night of fishing. But since it's Jesus, he will try again. And you know the rest. They catch so many fish they just about swamp 2 boats.

Now the interesting thing is not that the fishermen did the same thing and got different results. What's important is that Jesus changed how they did things.

First, Jesus changed the time. They had been fishing at night, which makes sense since during the day fish went deeper to avoid the heat of the sun. At night they are in the shallows. But Jesus suggests they go out during the day. Sometimes changing the time or the timing makes a real difference. Often we fall into routines and we need to change in order to shake things up and get different results. High schools that changed the start time of morning classes from 7:30 or 8 am to 9 found they got better attendance and the kids got better grades. Why? Because of the well-known fact that teenagers are nocturnal creatures and don't like to get up early. Duh!

Although in this case Jesus is going against conventional wisdom. The best time to fish is early morning or late afternoon when the fish are usually in shallower waters. But the conventional wisdom wasn't working for Peter. So why not try something different?

And here's the second change that's being made. The place. As we said, Peter was fishing in shallower waters. Jesus has Peter go to the deep water. If you want to catch fish, you go to where they are. It's day and so they are in the deeper waters. Jesus may have known this simply by hanging around fishermen. And while Peter doesn't say, “Yes, I know that at this time of day I'd have to go to the deep water. I am a fisherman, after all,” you do pick up a note of exasperation in his reply to Jesus' suggestion.

Now Peter needed to catch fish to sell to support his and his brother Andrew's families. So why didn't he just do this anyway? Possibly because night fishing had worked before. You are going to have a bad night now and then. You just have to accept that. Or possibly because fishing is hard enough without having the hot Middle Eastern sun beating down on you. No use in getting sunburned and still having no fish to show for it. Or maybe he was just tired. He'd try again the next night.

Peter gives in to Jesus' suggestion and that meant another change. When fishing in the shallows fishermen at that time used a 15 foot wide round net with lead sinkers around the circular edge. They threw it into the water and it would sink like an open umbrella trapping the fish under it. Then they would pull on a rope they still held, which caused the net to draw together like a purse and they would haul it up, full of fish, hopefully. But the Sea of Galilee gets to a depth of 141 feet. So if you are fishing in the deeper parts, you need a dragnet to pull behind your boat.

Thus to follow Jesus' advice, Peter and his brother had to change the time, the place and the equipment they use. And they get so many fish they need the help of their partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Even so the boats are on the verge of sinking.

There are two dramatic events that happen right after this humungous catch of fish. First Peter falls at Jesus' feet and says, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Now this is surprising, because in the last part of the last chapter, Luke tells us that Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law. So why did this miracle have a greater impact on Peter?

It may have been that Peter had already seen Jesus heal many people. And it may have seemed to him that, of course, Jesus, who was anointed by God, had mastery over disease. He was holy; the causes of disease were demons in most folk's eyes. But here Jesus shows mastery over not spirits but nature, specifically fish. Peter knew fish. And if they had caught a decent amount with the dragnet, Peter would have been impressed but not astonished. But nobody had caught this many fish at once. This was not natural. Jesus, who was a carpenter not a fisherman, was not merely lucky; he had to know or even have been responsible for this superabundance of fish being right there where they dropped their net. Peter saw that Jesus was not your average preacher.

However the more important sequel to this event was Jesus telling these fishermen that they would be fishers of men. And I don't think this story was just a clever anecdote leading to Jesus' saying. I think it is an enacted parable. It doesn't just lead up to Jesus talking about evangelism; it is offering us insights into evangelism.

In Jesus' day, the only way to spread the gospel was orally. Jesus preached in synagogues and outdoors. Even in Paul's day, that was the primary way to broadcast the message. Paul's letters were sent primarily to answer questions and settle disagreements in specific churches, not to be used to convert people. The Gospels, which came later, were written to preserve the accounts of Jesus' teachings and life at a time when the apostles and other eyewitnesses were being martyred. But the principle way to introduce people to the good news was by mouth, mainly because literacy was not that widespread and books were rare and expensive. Eventually that changed.

I watched a fascinating documentary about the history of communication technologies. And they pointed out that, whether we are talking about the printing press or movies or records or radio or TV or the internet, Christians have always been early adopters of each of these inventions. They see every new medium as a opportunity to share their message. Christian book publishing is a $1.2 billion market. Christians buy more more books and spend more money on books than the average reader. There are over 2 dozen Christian film companies releasing some of the most successful independent films. There are around 1600 Christian radio stations and you can tune into at least one in every city and county in the US. There are around 100 Christian broadcast TV stations and more than 40 Christian TV networks on cable and satellite. Besides innumerable Christian websites not associated with churches, of the 320,000 churches in the US somewhere between 69% and 78% of them say they have websites. That's more than 200,000! As Jesus suggested, the church has made changes in order to catch people.

But unfortunately this makes it seem that as far as evangelism is concerned, we've got it covered. We don't need to duplicate what others are doing so widely and so well. Except we are a culture that loves to watch things rather than participate in them. Millions watch sports who never go outside with a ball and a bat or golf club or a helmet to play the games they say they love. Right now millions are watching the Olympics. If they all were inspired to, say, go ice skating, all the rinks in the US would be booked solid. That isn't happening. And the advertising industry is in turmoil because even with their saturation of all the media, folks are fast-forwarding and scrolling past and tuning out ads. Hearing about something or receiving an offer doesn't mean you will act on it. And despite the popularity of Christian media, 3700 churches close their doors each year. In part this is due to a passive Christianity, conditioned by a culture that “likes to watch.”

James writes, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves.” (James 1:22, Berean Study Bible) We need to be active and if what we are doing is not working, we should listen to Jesus and make changes.

In today's 24/7 world, with Sundays not necessarily a day off, we need to rethink only offering services on Sunday mornings. And we may have to rethink only offering services in a church building. Jesus told Peter to go where the fish are. We may need to go further out and away from where we are used to operating.

But I think we also need to go deeper. One problem with the Christian message is it has been reduced to catchy slogans and sentimental sayings and simplistic solutions that do not work for everyone. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God does not give us more than we can handle. Were that true we wouldn't need God's help. Jesus is not the answer to everything, like, for instance, math problems. When it comes to how the physical world works, you need science. When it comes to spiritual matters, you need Jesus.

That is what the church is here for. To bring Jesus to the spiritually sick. And you only have to listen to the news to know that the world is ailing, not only physically but spiritually. People are losing faith in humans and the products of humanity: politicians, scientists, the police, the military, the companies we work for and buy from. Everyday we learn our heroes, past and present, have feet of clay. And while technology keeps inventing amazing new things, a lot of us feel like Jeff Goldblum in the original Jurassic Park: “...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.” Precisely. Whether something is morally right or spiritually healthy is not a question science can answer.

Unfortunately the church has been focusing on a few hot button issues that are mentioned in the Bible infrequently or not at all, and studiously avoiding deeper issues because they put us out of our comfort zone. They require that we not accept the status quo but change it. They require us to change what we have been doing in the past. They require us to go out and do God's work in broad daylight. They require us to be active rather than passive.

And the dragnet Peter used brought in not only fish but sea creatures of every kind. Some were not kosher for Jews. But the sorting came later, once you got the fish to shore, not before. I knew a good Christian man who thought evangelism meant asking people about abortion. That's not the gospel. And you are automatically forcing people to declare a side. You are not casting a wide net. You are pre-sorting. You're not going to get some people to even consider visiting your church.

The gospel, the good news, is Jesus: who he is, what he has done for us and is doing in us, and what our response should be. And unfortunately a lot of Christian media act like my Christian friend: talking about peripheral issues rather than focusing on Jesus.

One good thing my friend did do was talk to people. Because, again, the media is not really personal. It can be passively watched or ignored. I still think the best way to spread the gospel is as Jesus did it: in person, by mouth. And by ear.

On the chaplain's Facebook page, someone posted a question as to whether they should rename the position of hospital chaplain to something like Spiritual Care Provider or Pastoral Counselor. I suggested “Hospital Person who Actually Has Time to Listen to You.” And it was one of the more popular answers, though I was being a bit tongue in cheek. But just a bit. Quite frankly that's what I try to be at the jail. And that's what all Christians need to be. We live in a busy, non-stop world. And most people don't have or take the time to listen to others. So we need to be the person who listens. And we should only offer Jesus when and if it is appropriate to their situation.

Notice that Jesus tells Peter to take the boat out. When Jesus was going somewhere, he didn't do the sailing. The fishermen did. And they didn't bring people to Jesus; they brought Jesus to people. That's our job, too. In Ireland our family visited an ancient church, the Gallarus Oratory, built in the shape of a boat. You can think of the church as the boat in which we are bringing Jesus to people—where they are, at the best time for them, not us, and rather than using oars, using our two ears more than our one mouth.

The church did not grow from a dozen men to 2 billion people today by staying home and staying mum. Yes, it's safer for a boat to stay in the harbor, but that's not what boats were built for. As long as we have Jesus on board, we are to set sail. And remember, it's not our job to sort out the people who find themselves drawn to Jesus. Our job is to cast the wide net of God's love for the world and bring in all we can.