Back and Better Than Ever

The scriptures referred to are Job 19:23-27a and Luke 20:27-38.

It is not uncommon for authors to get tired of their most successful characters and kill them off. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did so when he killed Sherlock Holmes in 1893. He thought Holmes was taking attention away from his more serious books. He refused to write another Holmes story for 8 years. When he wrote the Hound of the Baskervilles in 1901, he dated the adventure to before Holmes' death. But the demand for new stories about the detective was so great, and the money offered him so very much, that in 1903 we learned how Holmes survived his near-fatal encounter with Professor Moriarty.

Agatha Christie wrote the novel Curtain, which killed off Hercule Poirot, in the 1940s but wisely kept the novel from being published until just before her own death in the 1970s. Ian Fleming similarly killed James Bond off with poison in his fifth novel, From Russia With Love, but, like Doyle, figured out how to revive him for the next book, Dr. No. It will be interesting to see how Amazon, which now has rights to the character, will bring the superspy back, seeing as how in the last movie he was blown up by missles.

It has become quite common today for comic book heroes to die and be brought back to life. Superman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Thor, Wolverine, and Spiderman have all been killed and then brought back. But these were stunts to increase readership. Corporations don't get tired of characters who can make them more money.

Still this is a trope precisely because we recognize that death is our final enemy. Just as we all are born we all will die. Until the modern era, heroes who died stayed dead, like Maui, Hercules, Achilles, Beowulf, and Robin Hood. Even gods died for good, like Izanami, the creator goddess of Japanese mythology, Quetzalcoatl of Aztec mythology and Baldr of Norse mythology. In fact in Norse mythology, all the gods die in Ragnorok, literally, the destruction of the gods. James Frazer's idea that there were lots of gods who died and rose again has been discredited by modern scholars. It looks like Jesus is the first resurrected God and the source of all the subsequent stories of others.

As we see in today's gospel, the Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead. They were the priestly party which held that only the Torah, the first 5 books of the Jewish scriptures, were authoritative for beliefs and practice. They concoct a far-fetched tale of a woman who is widowed 7 times to reveal what they see as the absurdity of the idea of resurrection. Jesus first takes care of the idea that marriage will exist in the new creation. He says that resurrected humans will be like angels, implying that marriage and reproduction will not be part of eternal life.

And if you think about it, that makes sense. The purpose of reproduction is to keep the species from dying out. If people won't die any more, there is no need for new people to replace them. And sex is not needed because while people have sex for many reasons, its primary biological purpose is reproduction. Whatever folks are trying to do by having sex, their bodies are trying to make babies. Which is why people put so much effort into preventing pregnancies.

The point is that life in the new creation will not simply be a continuation of life in this world. Think of all the things that make this life so hard: jealousy, envy, rage, violence, injustice and cruelty. Think of all the things we have to do to stay alive or stay healthy or avoid death, which can be made even harder by things like greed, poverty, inequality and lack of empathy for others. Do we really think that God will permit those things in his new creation? Instead we are told that “death will not exist any more—or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist.” (Revelation 21:4)

But isn't that just wish fulfillment? How do we know that we will rise again? It would be nice if there was some evidence for it.

In today's passage Jesus points to the Torah for a start. Moses lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs of the Hebrews. Yet when the Lord identifies himself to Moses he says “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:6) Not “I was the God...” but “I am the God...” If your friend died you wouldn't say “I am his friend” but “I was his friend.” The Lord is still the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because, as Jesus says, “...to him all of them are alive.” I'll bet that the Sadducees never thought of this verse in that way.

To be sure, resurrection is not mentioned very often in the Old Testament. We see one instance in our passage from Job: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I will see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” Hebrew poetry can be hard to interpret but how does one reconcile the idea that someone whose body is destroyed will still see God with his own eyes and in his own flesh? That sounds like an expectation of resurrection to me.

There are passages in the prophets (Hosea 13:14) and the Psalms (17:15; 49:15; 71:20) that imply resurrection but the clearest references to it are in Isaiah and Daniel. In Isaiah 26:19, we read, “But your dead will live; my dead bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to the dead.” And in Daniel 12:2, we read, “Many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake; some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” It is hard to interpret those verses as metaphorical.

“Ok,” you may say. “The idea of the resurrection did exist in the scriptures of the Old Testament but how is that evidence that resurrection is more than just wishful thinking?”

For that we must turn to Jesus. It is his resurrection that gave life to the church. After his crucifixion, the Jesus movement seemed as dead as its founder. As the disciples heading to Emmaus say, “But we had hoped he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” (Luke 24:21) Notice the past tense. With Jesus dead, they thought there was no hope of redemption. The other disciples were hiding in a room locked against the authorities, who might do to his followers what they did to Jesus. (John 20:19) They weren't expecting Jesus to rise again. When he did and appeared to them, their reaction was what you'd expect: “But they were startled and terrified, thinking they saw a ghost.” (Luke 24:37) He had to show them his wounds in his hands and feet and eat a piece of fish before they could believe it was him in the flesh. (Luke 24:38-43) We single out Thomas as a doubter but he wasn't there when Jesus first appeared to the rest. Who can blame him for not simply taking their word that a guy he knew was dead was alive again? (John 20:24-29)

Ah, but that might just be propaganda put out by the disciples. To what purpose? Proclaiming Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord didn't bring them riches and power; it brought them persecution and eventually death. What could have convinced them to risk their lives to spread that message? Especially when that message includes Jesus saying that his disciples must disown themselves and take up their cross daily to follow him. (Luke 9:23) What incentive did they have? How is that good news? It makes no sense unless what Jesus said and did was vindicated by God raising him from the dead.

Michael Grant, in his book Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels, says that as an historian he can't say that Jesus rose again but he also said it is hard to explain how his movement survived without his resurrection. Scholar N.T. Wright points out that when other would-be messiahs were killed, their followers would either go back to their old lives or find some new messiah. Only Jesus' disciples insisted that he was alive again and showed no fear of death, even when taking back their assertion might save their lives. Chuck Colson, Nixon's Special Counsel during the Watergate scandal, pointed out that the men around the president couldn't keep their story straight for even a few weeks and all they faced was prison. The fact that the disciples held to the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection until their deaths decades later convinced Colson that what they said was true. BTW, Colson did go to prison and started the Prison Fellowship ministry which sends us Christian books several times a year.

Hoaxes eventually come out. The Fox sisters, who in the 1800s started the whole séance movement of speaking to the dead, confessed decades later that it was a prank. Doug Bower and Dave Crowley, two English drinking buddies, confessed in 1991 that they created the crop circles of the 1980s. In 1994 Marmaduke Wetherell's stepson revealed that his stepfather had created the famous 1934 photo of the Loch Ness monster using a model on top of a toy submarine. The Amityville Horror was dreamed up by the house's owners and a lawyer over “several bottles of wine” to make money off the story.

None of those people faced punishment or imprisonment for their hoaxes. The disciples faced death. Nor were they deluded religious fanatics. Cult leader Tony Alamo kept his dead wife's body on display for 6 months claiming she would rise again. She didn't. Father Divine, who claimed to be God, said he would not die. He said he could lay his body down and take it up again. When he died in 1965, his followers maintained he was still alive in the spirit but he did not take up his body again. Amy Carlson and her followers believed she was God. After she died of alcohol abuse, anorexia and the chronic ingestion of colloidal silver, police found her mummified body in a sleeping bag, wrapped in Christmas lights. The Galactic beings who were to pick up her body never came. In each of these cases, the cult dwindled after their leader stayed dead.

Why did Jesus' movement not only continue to survive but grow until it became the largest religious movement in history? It's hard to explain unless, unlike his imitators, he really did rise again in the flesh. As we saw, his disciples were not instantly ready to believe. But after they were convinced, life made more sense.

We all have a sense of justice and fairness. But this life is not fair. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The powerful get away with things that the powerless routinely get punished for. Fear of pain and death keep people from trying to change this. If there is no afterlife and no just but merciful God, then there is no justice in this world.

But if Jesus defeated death, then we can trust what he said and live life as he told us to, without fear of pain and death. We can do what is right even if it costs us. Yes, pain and death will come but they are not permanent and they are not the last thing we will experience. As it says in Isaiah, God will “swallow up the shroud that is over all the peoples, the woven covering that is over all the nations; he will swallow up death permanently. The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from every face...” (Isaiah 25:7-8)

And not only will God resurrect us but he will resurrect creation. As it says in Revelation, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more. And I saw the holy city—the new Jerusalem—descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more—or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist. And the one on the throne said, 'Look! I am making all things new!'” (Revelation 21:1-5) We will be new and better people in a new and better world. And, more importantly, we will be like Jesus. (1 Corinthians 15:49; 1 John 3:2)

Notice the echo of the passage from Isaiah. I can tell you about the pain I felt like when I woke up from my car accident. I still have the scars but I don't re-experience that pain. When God resurrects us, he will heal us of the pain and trauma we have experienced in this life. It may be a distant memory. We can learn from it but it can no longer harm us.

Jesus suffered the worst trauma imaginable, experiencing exile from God in our place. Yet he rose triumphant. In the new creation, the hands wiping away our tears will be his, still bearing the scars from the nails. Yet we will not see those scars as ugly wounds but as glorious reminders of how much he loves us.

Monsters and Saints

The scriptures referred to are Ephesians 1:11-23 and Luke 6:20-31.

You know what Halloween and Christmas Eve have in common? Besides being grossly over-commercialized? (I just got back from a trip to Colorado where I saw a house with a dozen of those 12-foot skeletons, some with lights inside!) Anyway, they both celebrate the evening before a holy day. Halloween is a contraction of All Hallow's Eve, hallows being an old way of saying hallowed persons, or saints. It begins Allhallowtide: the vigil of All Hallow's Eve, followed by All Saint's Day, and All Souls Day. They fall on October 31^st, November 1^st and November 2^nd, respectively.

What does this have to do with the spooky trappings of Halloween? Well, all of these days are about the dead. Trick or treating came from the custom of poor children going around offering to pray for the dead in exchange for food called soul cakes. They were marked with a cross, like the hot cross buns of Lent, showing they were baked as alms for the poor. Those going souling would carry lanterns made of hollowed out turnips. When the Scots and Irish came to America, they used the native pumpkins instead.

Various pagan ideas came to be connected to Halloween over time. Candles were lit in homes to guide the departed souls back home. Food was left out for them. People wore costumes to hide them from any vengeful spirits about and homes and barns were blessed to protect them from witches. Halloween also fell at the time of Samhain, the Celtic festival that commemorated the end of fall and the beginning of winter. It was a time when the boundary between this world and the other world thinned and fairies could enter this world. They were mischievous at best and food was left out to appease them. As the world became more secular, and all of these customs got mixed up and monetized, we got today's version of Halloween, which is far from the original Christian vigil before a day remembering holy people. But folks like spooks more than saints.

In the New Testament all believers are called saints. (Ephesians 1:1; Philippians 1:1) Why did that apply to all Christians? Because they were called by God and sanctified in Christ Jesus. (1 Corinthians 1:2) That is, they were cleansed, purified, made different and set apart by God for his purposes. That is what is meant by holy.

Of course, there were some people who went above and beyond what the average Christian did, saints with a capital S. During times of persecution, some Christians were executed for continuing to be witnesses to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We call them martyrs, from the Greek word for witness. The early church honored their sacrifices and held them up as examples of how Christians should act. After Christianity was legalized, Christians who were extraordinary in their faith and behavior, who gave self-sacrificially to the poor, who helped and healed the sick, who were so dedicated to following Jesus that they gave up worldly pleasures despite temptations and obstacles, were called saints. Those are the people who have days dedicated to their commemoration and have churches named after them. Though other controversial uses are made of them, they are fundamentally supposed to be used as examples for us.

Sadly, we can all think of people who are called Christians by others or even by themselves who are examples of not following Jesus. And they have discredited Christianity in the eyes of the world by not showing love towards others but hatred, by not showing compassion towards the unfortunate but contempt, by not helping the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, or the immigrant but harming them instead. (Matthew 25:31-46) These people are devilish perversions of what a Christian should be. They are in fact monstrous.

The original meaning of the word "monster" was a "divine omen" and an "abomination." It came from the Latin verb meaning “to warn.” Such false Christians are a warning that, as Jesus said, not all who call him Lord will enter God's kingdom, despite their impressive credentials. Only those who do God's will, the thing they were set apart to do, know Jesus and are known by him. (Matthew 5:21)

True Christians are those who trust Jesus so much that they actually do what he says we should do. And that is not just to be nice and help out when it is convenient for us. As we see in today's gospel passage, being a follower of Jesus means doing things that are not merely inconvenient but sometimes painful.

Jesus starts out by saying, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” That is hard! Who can do that? Parents, for one thing. There are times when your kids are acting so badly, choosing to do things that are so harmful to themselves or others, that you don't like them. But you still love them. And there are times when you don't like your siblings or your parents or your spouse for the same reasons. But you make sure they eat and get to bed and get them help. It is hard. It is heartbreaking at times. But you do it because you want what's best for them. You want them to get better and to be better people. You do it because you love them.

Jesus is not saying that you have to like your enemies. He is not saying to have to endorse or enable the harmful things they do. He is saying that you must do good to them. That includes doing what you can to stop them from harming themselves or others. It means sometimes standing up to them or standing between them and those they wish to harm, as Jesus did with the woman caught in adultery. (John 8:1-11) It can mean arranging an intervention. It means listening to them and leading them away from harmful ways of thinking or speaking or acting through persuasion. When people do harm they are not generally using the rational part of their brain. Sometimes just getting the person to stop reacting and start thinking can keep them from acting irrationally.

Next Jesus says, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.” This is very hard. Not only is our natural instinct to strike back, but sometimes the person being struck is someone physically weaker than the attacker or even the frequent victim of abuse. But Jesus seems to be speaking of two equal opponents. If a man strikes another man as big or bigger than him, and the other guy turns the cheek, he will rethink what he is doing. It shows that the other guy is not afraid of what he can do. Bullies usually pick on those weaker than them. They have no desire to get in a fair fight.

If we look at the parallel verse in Matthew 5:39 Jesus says, “...whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.” In that time, someone striking you on the right cheek with the back of their right hand was an insult and they could be taken to court. Turning the other cheek was both a dare and a mercy. It said to the person doing the backhanded slap, “Think again. I haven't retaliated against you, either physically or legally. You can stop now. I am giving you the chance that you haven't given me.”

And notice that Jesus is not saying “Let someone strike you;” He is saying “If someone strikes you.” He is not saying that you should do nothing to defend yourself if you see it coming. When his opponents intended to stone Jesus, we are told, “Then they attempted again to seize him but he escaped their clutches.” (John 10:39) When the townspeople of Nazareth went to throw him off the cliff on which the town was built, we read, “But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way.” (Luke 4:30) I don't know if it was a look Jesus gave them or whether, as in my novel, he reminded them of all the things he had done for them when he lived there and shamed them for trying to pay him back that way. But he did not just passively let them harm him. Nor did he meet violence with violence.

I did something not totally dissimilar one time. I was not a big kid and I wore glasses. I was called “four eyes” and “brainiac.” On the school bus, I heard a bully loudly telling his friend how he was going to beat me up when we got off the bus at our stop. There was no way I could beat this kid. So I said to him, “You're going to beat me up? Of course you can. You're bigger and stronger than me. And what will that prove? How does that make you a tough guy, a big man? Because you can beat up someone smaller? Are you going to brag to your friends that you beat up a smaller kid?” When we got off the bus, he merely shoved me into the bushes and walked away. I got off easy because I had taken all the fun out of what he intended to do. I had drained him of all the joy of being a big, tough guy by flipping the script he had in his head. Jesus often flipped the script. He did the unexpected, which was not to use his fists but his words. He repaid evil not with evil but with good. And so should we. (Romans 12:17-21)

We are also to be generous to the needy. Jesus says, “ Give to everyone who begs from you.” Jesus doesn't mean to answer every spam call or every appeal asking you for money but to give to those who are really in need. Most people have too much pride to beg or ask for help. When they manage to overcome that, you should help them.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people who think that most of those asking for help are just trying to scam them. Ronald Reagan kept repeating one story about a woman who had cheated to get more welfare and got folks thinking that the majority of people on government assistance were what he called “welfare queens.” Anyone who has really been on welfare knows that it doesn't pay much and there are lots of strings attached. If you do work and make just a little more than you're supposed to, the government starts slashing your benefits. Being kept in poverty by rules made by wealthy and powerful people who assume you are lazy or lying is the reality most folks on welfare live with. Getting rich on welfare is rare. Even rarer is hearing the same amount of outrage being expressed at rich people who cheat the government by tax evasion or who make contributions to politicians for special legislation favoring their businesses or who get the government to pay them for building low income housing while discriminating against people of color. I don't think Jesus wants us to worry about rich people asking for more money they don't need.

The main takeaway is the last verse in our reading: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” It's called the Golden Rule because it is such a basic moral principle that almost every religion in the world has some version of it. Usually they are stated negatively, as in “Don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to you.” We could call that the silver rule because it just refrains you from doing harm, which is a start. But by stating it positively Jesus enjoins us to go the extra mile. In the parable of the good Samaritan, the priest and Levite who pass by the man beaten and left for dead don't actively make him worse. But the Samaritan goes out of his way to make the man better. He gives him first aid, takes the man to a safe place and takes care of him all night. When he has to leave, he gives the innkeeper money enough to nurse him back to health. And he promises to pay more should this care cost more than he initially left for it. If you were in as bad a shape as that man who was robbed and left for dead, isn't that what you'd want someone to do for you? Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:30-37)

Treating others the same way you'd want to be treated is basic but the person who lives that way is not as common as they should be. Most people don't want to go too far out of their way to help someone. In fact they won't at all if they don't see other people do so first. When I took a Red Cross first aid class, they emphasized that if we see someone injured or sick, we need to immediately go and help. They discovered that only if someone takes the first step will others join in and help. Nobody wants to be the first to do something out of the ordinary. As Christians we must be Jesus' first responders.

In a way, supernatural monsters are comforting. They're not human. They are sources of evil external to ourselves. In real life, when we do encounter monsters they are all human. Not just Hitler and serial killers but all who cruelly exploit others for their own benefit. They are human but they have so distorted the image of God in which they were created that it has become horrific parody of what they were meant to be and what they could be. And as Nietzsche said, those who fight monsters can become just like them.

Jesus did not fight his enemies by using their methods: violence, rage, or deception. In fact he didn't fight them at all; he flipped the script, offering them love and good reasons to change from bad guys to good guys. He went way beyond what an ordinary good man would do to help sinners. As his followers we should too. The world needs extraordinary examples of goodness and love. We have enough monsters; we need saints.

Inside Job

The scriptures referred to are Jeremiah 31:31-34, Romans 3:19-28, and John 8:31-36.

Sherlock Holmes is the human literary character most portrayed in films and TV, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. I had to say “human literary character” because Count Dracula has appeared in 538 films and TV shows. Holmes has appeared in 254 movies and TV shows. But I think if you included plays on the stage and on radio, Holmes would probably win. If you include all the fictional detectives obviously inspired by Holmes like Monk, Shawn Spencer, Morgan Gillory and Dr. Gregory House, he would leave Dracula in the dust. The great detective himself has been played by at least 75 movie and TV actors. And some have done a great job, some have been adequate and some have been abysmal. The best include Jeremy Brett, Peter Cushing and Basil Rathbone. I will not name those who have done a terrible job.

There is however one actor who, while not bad at playing Holmes, is somewhat disappointing. Arthur Wontner played the detective in 5 films made in the 1930s. With his gaunt face, hawk-like nose and thinning hair, he looked like he had stepped right out of Sidney Paget's illustrations of the original stories. His resemblance was remarkable. What is unfortunate is the way he acted as Holmes. He lacked the detective's characteristic energy. It may be because he was in his 50s and 60s when he played the part. But combined with the slow pace of the films, it is hard to enjoy his portrayal.

On the other hand many people have become Sherlock Holmes fans because of Benedict Cumberbatch's updated version, though the actor himself points out he really doesn't look much like the description in the books. When he got the part, his mother, an actress, said, “But you haven't got the nose.” But Cumberbatch's mercurial, sometimes rude, somewhat theatrical, fiercely intelligent, acutely observant and very active portrayal caught the essence, the heart of the character. And ultimately that's what counts.

But it didn't hurt that the actor was handsome. We humans are very superficial when it comes to judging people. Experiments have shown that when two people with identical qualifications apply for a job, it frequently goes to the better looking person. Even children, going only by pictures presented to them, are more likely to attribute good qualities to people who good-looking. And that's why Hollywood tends to cast the most attractive people as heroes. Stephen Tobolowsky said the day he noticed he was losing his hair he realized he was destined to be a character actor and not a leading man.

Yet as Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth, “There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.”And in Hamlet he observes “That one may smile and smile and be a villain.” The Lord himself tells Samuel, “God does not view things as men do. People look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

In the Bible the heart doesn't simply mean the muscular organ in our chest that pumps blood throughout the body but the center of a person's mental, emotional and spiritual life. It is the immaterial part of someone, their inner self. It encompasses what we mean by the words “mind,” “personality,” and “character.” When it comes to seeking those you can trust, if you're wise, you will look for people with good hearts.

But we still tend to fall for outward appearances. Conmen and hypocrites use that faulty perception to manipulate people. By the way, the Greek word from which we get the word “hypocrite” was used of actors, people who pretend to be someone they are not. Jesus uses that word or a form of it 20 times in the gospels. He mostly used it of religious people who appear to be scrupulous in how they observed God's laws but whose hearts were not in tune with what God really wanted. He warned people about them saying, “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” (Matthew 23:2-3)

In this Jesus is echoing the prophets who condemned the leaders of Israel and the false prophets. Jeremiah said his heart and mind were deeply disturbed “because the way of the Lord and his holy word are being mistreated. For the land is full of people unfaithful to him. They lead wicked lives and they misuse their power.” (Jeremiah 23:9) He says both the prophets and priests are godless. (Jeremiah 23:11) God tells the people of Jerusalem, “Do not listen to what those prophets are saying to you. They are filling you with false hopes. They are reporting visions of their own imaginations, not something the Lord has given them to say. They continually say to those who reject what the Lord has said, 'things will go well for you!' They say to those who follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts, 'Nothing bad will happen to you!” (Jeremiah 23:16-17)

Isaiah points out that God does not listen to those who pray and observe religious ceremonies but otherwise do evil and neglect justice. (Isaiah 1:11-17) “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high...Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into your house—when you see the naked to clothe him and not to turn away your own flesh and blood? “(Isaiah 58:3-4, 6-7) People who just go through the motions of worship, externally obeying the first great commandment, to love God, but who do not obey the second, to love their neighbor, are doing so in vain.

God doesn't care for acts of outward piety that don't touch the heart. So he tells Jeremiah that he will make another covenant with his people, one in which “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people.” Our passage today shows us the importance of having a change of heart. And a change of heart leads to a change in our behavior.

Lutherans celebrate the Sunday closest to the end of October as Reformation Sunday. Because it was on October 31, 1517 that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. The door was like a bulletin board in his university town and Luther wanted to debate his theses or propositions, concerning the practice of selling indulgences among other things. As a professor of the Bible, Luther had discovered that the church of his day had distorted how we get our relationship with God right. It wasn't by following all of the practices that the church has introduced over time. It wasn't by doing enough good works to earn God's approval. Paul said that nobody could do that perfectly “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) Out of his self-sacrificial love for us, Jesus, God the Son, has taken upon himself the spiritual consequences for our sins. That clears the way for us to get right with God, who is gracious and forgiving. Paul showed that it is God's grace that saves us, not our own efforts. All we simply have to do is trust God and his promises.

Some people think Paul was saying something different here than what Jesus taught. But Jesus constantly tells people that their faith saves them. (Luke 7:50; cf. Luke 8:48; 17:19;18:42) When he tells his disciples that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle than for a rich person to enter God's kingdom, and they ask “Then who can be saved?” he says, “What is impossible for mere humans is possible for God.” (Luke 18:24-27) Only God can save us. In the parable of the prodigal son, the young man who demanded his inheritance and then squandered it with a wild lifestyle finds himself poor and hungry. He comes to his senses and realizes he would do better if he just became one of his father's hired workers. So he resolves to go back, confess his sins to his father and ask to be just one of his workers. But the father sees him at a distance, runs to him, hugs and kisses him, dresses him in the best clothes and throws a party. Some say we should call this the parable of the compassionate father, because what Jesus is illustrating is God's unbelievable forgiveness of and graciousness towards sinners. (Luke 15:11-32) Paul just makes explicit what is implicit in Jesus' teachings.

Proclaiming these truths, Luther sought to reform the Roman Catholic Church he belonged to, not replace it. He was just trying to bring it back to the basics found in the Bible. But at that time, the church hierarchy wasn't prepared to listen. Luther was excommunicated. He translated the Bible from Latin into everyday German, so the common people could read it, and went about forming his followers into a movement. And others, inspired by Luther to read the scriptures themselves, did the same.

In 1999, the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation reached a consensus. The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification says, “Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to do good works.” Distinctions and nuances remain on either side but they agree on the heart of the gospel: that salvation is a free gift from God and we cannot do anything to earn it, any more than a murderer can deserve a pardon. All we can do is accept it and show our gratitude for such a gift by showing others God's love and bringing them the good news of freedom from the sin that afflicts us.

Jesus said, that “everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” Unlike social forms of slavery no one is forcing that slavery on us. It is enforced by our hearts, which cling to attitudes and habits which are bad for us but which we cannot give up. We get the word “addiction” from the Latin word “addictus,” which meant a person so in debt that he was enslaved to his creditor. Today we know that addiction is a sickness. And you could see sin as a spiritual sickness, a chronic illness that we are fighting. Today we know more about the way the addicted brain behaves. But where is our spiritual disease located?

Those of us with chronic invisible diseases like ME/CFS, POTS, fibromyalgia, or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, will often hear others say, “You don't look sick.” But as someone pointed out, most of the body is on the inside, which can't be seen with the naked eye. And the biggest problem with humans is on the inside: their hearts, their inner selves. If the center of our being is sick, then the symptoms will be seen in how we think, talk and act. As Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and incurable; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) And it would be incurable except that God, the great physician, can help us. As it says in one of David's psalms, “As for me I said: 'O Lord, have mercy on me! Heal me, for I have sinned against you!'” (Psalm 41:4) And David knew where the sickness resided. In another psalm he says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)

In Ezekiel God says, “I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them; and I will remove the hearts of stone from their bodies and I will give them tender hearts, so that they may follow my statutes, and observe my regulations and carry them out. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God.” (Ezekiel 11:19-20)

Why doesn't God simply change all hearts? Because God is love and love does not force itself on anyone. A doctor may know that you need a heart transplant but he will not do it without your consent. God offers us salvation and lets us choose if we wish to receive it. Not everyone wants to give up their selfish desires, fears and hatreds to receive the new spirit and new heart God offers in their place.

In Doctor Who, the longest running sci-fi show, the Doctor can go anywhere in his ship, the Tardis. On the outside it looks like an old-fashioned police telephone box but inside it is a vast and sophisticated time-traveling vehicle. In one episode a villain steals the Tardis by taking out its consciousness and putting it into a person. The Tardis, taking in its new form, asks the Doctor, “Are all people like this? So much bigger on the inside?”

Alas, they are not. As someone once said, a person all wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. That's what's sad about a lot of people. They are nothing but a bundle of unquenchable desires, unresolvable issues, irreconcilable conflicts and unrelievable fears, collapsing in on themselves like a black hole and threatening to suck in everything and everyone around them. But what is hopeful is that they needn't be. Though our bodies stop growing at one point, our inner selves need not stop growing if we open ourselves to the God who is love. We can become bigger on the inside. And we will have to be if our very big and wonderful God is to come and live in us. (John 14:23)

To What Purpose?

The scriptures referred to are 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5.

When the first Lord of the Rings movie hit the theatres, I saw it with my son and his friends. We all enjoyed it except one person who was really incensed that Tom Bombadil wasn't in it. Bombadil is a delightful character but as director Peter Jackson revealed on the audio commentary to the DVD, he doesn't advance the plot. The movie was already almost 3 hours long and so Tom did not make it into the film. Jackson pointed out that you could still enjoy him in the original book but that was not enough for this fan. They had forgotten that the purpose of the movie was not to be a compendium of every single detail in the original story but to entertain.

I'm a big Sherlock Holmes fan. One of the things I enjoy about meeting with other Sherlockians is that they don't usually get bent out of shape by such trivial things. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote 56 short stories and 4 novels about the great detective over 40 years. Of course he forgot about things like where Watson's war wound was and how many wives he had. Reconciling these things by using deductive and sometimes specious logic is called the Great Game by fans. Just last weekend I was on a Zoom call with a group from my hometown, discussing The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb, not one of the best stories. Nevertheless we went through it with good humor and wit and one implausibility gave me an excuse to repeat Holmes' dictum that “When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Not all fandoms approach the object of their attention so cheerfully. Some forums are so toxic with rabid fans tearing apart everything they don't like or nitpicking about some seeming discrepancy that I belong to a Facebook page called “Doctor Who fans who actually like the show.” The moderators make sure that all posts and comments are done in the spirit of sharing enjoyment of the show and not going on and on about this or that thing that someone feels has irrevocably ruined TV's longest running sci-fi show. People joining the page frequently express gratitude for its existence and wish there was one like it for Star Trek or Star Wars fans who don't hate-watch every new show and movie.

I am convinced that such toxicity in certain fans is a symptom of a personality type. My son has seen it in some folks who engage in role-playing games, people who bring the game to a halt by citing and arguing over obscure details in the manuals. They are called “rules lawyers”. They also have forgotten that the point of the game is to have fun.

So it's not surprising that such people also exist in religious circles. An old friend of mine invited me to his mosque to observe a Quran study session. And sure enough there was a guy there who kept diverting the discussion of the passage they were supposed to be looking at to talk about certain irrelevant points he was obsessed with. And I thought, “Oh my God, I've had someone like that in Bible studies I've led!”

And these people existed all the way back at the beginnings of the church. In last week's passage from 2 Timothy we read, “...and warm them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.” (2 Timothy 2:14) This is a theme which pops up in both letters to Timothy. In the beginning of the first letter Paul says that he urged Timothy to stay in Ephesus “so that you may instruct certain people not to teach any different doctrine, and not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies that provoke speculations rather than divine training that is known by faith.” (1 Timothy 1:3-4)

There was a great deal of lore that had arisen in Jewish circles, like elaborate ideas about all the ranks of angels. And there were at least the beginnings of what came to be known as Gnosticism. Coming from the Greek word for knowledge (gnosis), Gnosticism was a pagan school of thought that held that the physical world was evil; only the spirit was good. Eventually some teachers tried to introduce these ideas into Christianity. Of course this caused problems. The God of the Bible created the world. So Gnostics said this was an evil god or a deeply ignorant lesser being only distantly related to the real God. But what about the central doctrine of Christianity—that God the Son became a human being and died for our sins? No, said the Gnostics, that was an illusion. He only appeared to be human. He either never died or worked it out that someone else (Simon of Cyrene or Judas) got crucified in his place! That is the opposite of the gospel. (1 John 4:3) And they thought true salvation only comes from the secret spiritual knowledge that the Gnostics taught, which could only be disclosed to and understood by their initiates. So it was a very elitist and intellectual set of doctrines that appealed to people who felt they were special and smarter than other people.

Paul says in today's passage, “For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.” Sound familiar? Because even today people turn from the clear truths of the gospel of the incarnate, crucified and risen Christ and go after novel and alluring teachings that promise secret knowledge. A lot of cult leaders use this pitch to attract followers. And there are even churches which have woven into their preaching and teaching ideas that appeal to human desires for health, wealth and power. You will never hear them talk about how Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) Or that he said, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27) Rather than tickling people's ears, they want to cover them so they don't hear that.

The idea that mere knowledge brings salvation is a lot more attractive. Again that idea goes way back. In Genesis 3 we read that the first lie was telling the first humans that simply by acquiring knowledge “...you will be like God...” (Genesis 3:5) The ironic part is that humans have already been created in God's image. But that isn't enough. Knowledge is power and we want to be as powerful as God. We don't seem to have a burning desire to be as just and as loving and as merciful and as forgiving as God.

But to acquire that knowledge we feel that we need to let go of our trust in God. It couldn't be that there are some things that we are not ready or able to handle once we know them. And yet when we tell little kids not to go off with strangers, we don't tell them that the reason is that they might be raped or murdered. We want them to be cautious around strangers, not traumatized by the very idea of them. And in the beginning, God knew we were not ready to understand all the ways in which his good gifts could be turned to harmful purposes. When we are told that the first couple was naked and not ashamed, it means they were vulnerable. It hadn't occurred to them to misuse their minds and bodies to harm one another. But by the 6^th chapter of Genesis we learn that the thoughts of the hearts of humans were evil and that “The earth was ruined in the sight of God; the earth was filled with violence.” (Genesis 6:11; cf 6:5)

But why was there a tree of the knowledge of good and evil in paradise to begin with? Well, why do you have a stove in your home when little children can accidently burn themselves on it? Because eventually they will be old enough and wise enough to use it. But when they are small, we just tell them “Don't touch!” They are not ready yet. At some point, I think God would let the spiritually mature humans learn about how good things can be abused and used for evil purposes. Sometimes God isn't saying “No” but “Not yet.” We need to trust his wisdom and timing.

Back in 1 Timothy, Paul says, “But the aim of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (1 Timothy 1:5) The purpose of studying the good news of Jesus Christ is not to inflame our desire for power or for seemingly forbidden knowledge, but to kindle in us love; in Greek agape, the kind of love God has for us. God wants what's best for us. That's why we have the Bible.

“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” In other words, God gave us the Bible for practical reasons. Its purpose is not merely to entertain us with exciting stories nor was it God-breathed (the literal meaning of the word translated “inspired”) in order to titillate us with fascinating intellectual mysteries. Its purpose is to teach us about who God is, especially through the revelation of Jesus Christ, God made flesh, and how we should respond to him, that is, with love.

The Bible is meant to be used for reproof. The Greek word here means “tested evidence.” You wouldn't want to be convicted without evidence. We shouldn't just speculate about God without thoroughly examining the evidence of scripture.

The Bible is to be used for correction. The Greek word literally means “to straighten up again.” In other words, we are not to use God's word to beat people over the head but to get them back on track so they don't wander away to myths.

The Bible is to be used for training in righteousness. The Greek word is usually used for educating a child. But the purpose is not simply to stuff our heads with knowledge but to give us the discipline of being a righteous and just person, a person of good character.

And why is that? “...so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” The Greek word translated “proficient” has the sense of being fit and completely ready. God wants us to be fully equipped to carry out the good works he has prepared for us.

Just as fans love to delve into all the details of their favorite stories and characters, it is okay to be a Bible geek and revel in the more obscure stuff of the 31,000 verses of scripture. But we are not to let them cause us to stray from the essentials of the faith and get caught up in empty discussions. (1 Timothy 1:6) Paul warns about “an unhealthy interest in controversies and verbal disputes. This gives rise to envy, dissension, slanders, evil suspicions, and constant bickering by people corrupted in their minds and deprived of the truth, who suppose godliness is a way of making a profit.” (1 Timothy 6:4-5) Yes, even back then, Paul saw that these false teachings could be monetized by unscrupulous people. Cult leaders exploit their followers, sometimes even in the name of Christ. It is in this context that Paul writes, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. Some people in reaching for it have strayed from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” (1 Timothy 6:10)

Remember that the aim of Christian instruction is love. It is love of God and love of all those created in his image. As it says in 1 John, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” (1 John 3:16-18)

Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' “I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go. Which of the two did what his father wanted?” (Matthew 21:28-31) Even Jesus' critics admitted it was the first son. And God's word does us no good if it stays in our heads and doesn't move us to act on it. We are not saved by our works but we are saved in order to do good works. (Ephesians 2:8-10) Studying the scriptures equips us to do God's will.

The purpose of the written word of God is to bring us closer to him. And since the center of the Bible is Jesus Christ, the living word of God, the purpose of the gospel is to make us more Christlike. We cannot do it on our own which is why God gives to those who truly trust him the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. (Romans 8:9-10) The Spirit does this by pouring the love of God in our hearts. (Romans 5:5) Again, knowing this does no good if it stays theoretical. As Paul said, “...if I have prophesy, and know all mysteries and knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:2) For, as 1 John tells us, “The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8) Real love changes your life: what you think, say and do. That's ultimately what you need to know about God.

The Deadliest Sin

The scriptures referred to are 2 Kings 5:1-15.

The Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible, are the core of the Jewish faith. They contain 613 commandments. That's a lot. And obviously some are more important than others. You wouldn't put wearing clothes of mixed fibers on the same level as murder, nor gossip on the same level as idolatry. (Leviticus 19:16,19) So when a scholar asked Jesus which was the most important commandment, it was a genuine matter of debate. Jesus answered with the words of Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “Listen, Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being and all your strength!” That's the Shema, the central creed of Judaism. It is prayed by observant Jews in the morning and evening. It is supposed to be said by a Jew when dying. Herman Wouk, the author of The Caine Mutiny, was an Orthodox Jew and yet he was surprised when, as a huge wave almost washed him off the deck of the ship on which he served in World War II, he found himself automatically saying that prayer.

Everyone in his audience probably agreed with Jesus that the commandment to love God with all we are and all we have was the greatest. But Jesus, never one to do the expected, added a second commandment no one asked for: “love your neighbor as yourself.” This comes from Leviticus 19:18. Jesus then says that all that is contained in the Torah and the Prophets depend on these two commandments and that no other commandment is greater than these two. (Matthew 22:40; Mark 12:31) And indeed if you look at the Ten Commandments, the first 4 concern our conduct towards God and the last 6 concern our behavior towards other people.

A similar debate arose in early Christianity about which are the worst sins. Some came up with lists of 8 or 9 but it was Pope Gregory 1 who boiled it down into 7. They are traditionally given as pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth. I would update the seldom used word “wrath” to “rage” and the word “sloth” to “laziness” or “apathy.” The word “pride,” which has both good and bad connotations, I would update to “arrogance.” And that, the worst of the seven deadly sins, is what I would like to talk about today.

Arrogance is what we see in Naaman, the Syrian general, who comes to be healed by Elisha in today's Old Testament reading. When the prophet won't even come to the door but has his servant tell the general how to get cured, Naaman is outraged. He expected something different and insults Israel and its rivers.

We are told that Naaman was a great man. No doubt Naaman took all the credit for his military victory, though we are told that the Lord had given the victory to his nation. I'm not saying that Naaman had nothing to do with his success, but he couldn't have done it without having certain talents, like the ability to organize and command men, to strategize, and to quickly change that strategy if the situation shifts. Military experts like to say “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” It is a shortened version of an observation made by 19^th century German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. His point is that you can't anticipate everything your enemy might do, or for that matter, what your allies will do. Add in weather and other factors over which you have no control and a good commander has to be able to think on his feet and improvise when necessary. You can't teach that. It is a gift. And all our talents and gifts come from God. Presumably Naaman had that talent.

But Naaman had a problem which he could not overcome: leprosy. And it bothered him. When I was a private duty nurse I was often assigned to wealthy men, because they could afford a private duty nurse. And I was surprised at how these men, who had built up large and successful companies, were brought low psychologically by their physical conditions. I came to realize that in chronic illness they were up against a problem that they could not defeat using the tools that had worked for them in business and finance. No amount of confidence or street smarts or negotiating skills or intimidation works against a disease. They felt that their bodies had betrayed them and they were dispirited.

But that didn't mean that these men were compliant with everything their doctor prescribed or that I, their nurse, was supposed to get them to do. An arrogant person feels he doesn't need anyone. He knows better than anyone else. He may listen to advice but he won't necessarily follow it if he simply feels differently about the matter. Many an otherwise smart person will get themselves into trouble by ignoring what experts tell them. Steve Jobs delayed surgery for 9 months trying to cure himself by going on a vegan diet, trying acupuncture, herbal remedies and other unproven treatments for cancer. He later regretted this when his health continued to deteriorate. Today we have people with no medical training throwing out everything science has learned about how to treat and fight diseases because internet influencers are telling them to try their own patented cures (which they will gladly sell you.) And these people are now controlling the NIH and CDC. Meanwhile childhood diseases we used to have under control are coming back with a vengeance. Already we are seeing deaths that were preventable.

As a nurse I have observed that people do not make major changes in their life until it becomes too painful to continue going on as they have been. In the verses inexplicably skipped in our lectionary reading we learn that Naaman went to his king who wrote a letter to the king of Israel explaining that Naaman was seeking a cure. So Naaman is not totally arrogant. When he got desperate enough, he sought help.

But when he doesn't get the personal service he expects from Elisha, he reverts to his arrogance. He says, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!” He goes off in a rage. In this, Naaman does something that arrogant people often do. It is not merely that they want something done, they expect it to be done in a certain way. They presume to tell the experts how to do their own jobs.

When I was the production director and copywriter at a radio station here in the Keys, I once was told that the manager of a very fancy and expensive restaurant wanted us to create an ad to get the locals to eat there during the off-season. They wanted to announce, as a “local's special,” a dinner costing twice as much as the average meal at an ordinary restaurant. I tried to explain to the manager that this might be less than their normal price but it was still expensive. I suggested we instead frame it as a special price for special occasions and encourage locals who had never eaten there to take advantage of the offer to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and such. “No,” the manager said. “We must call it a 'local's special'.” So we did the ad that way. A week later, when they realized it wasn't working, they called back and we did the ad the way I suggested. They knew how to run a restaurant; I knew how to advertise it.

Naaman, however, is not totally arrogant, as we said. His servants manage to calm him down and talk sense into him. They say that if the prophet had told him to do something difficult in order to be cured, he would have done it. What Elisha had told him to do was not hard at all. Give it a chance, they say. And it works. In the end Naaman is humble enough to stand before Elisha and acknowledge what God did for him.

Why is arrogance considered the worst of the seven deadly sins? Because it is, as C.S. Lewis said, the complete anti-God state of mind. The arrogant person feels he knows better than anyone else, and that includes God. So why do they need God? They might admit that they are not always be right but they are never wrong. And if somebody thinks that they know it all, they stop learning. They either already know everything, or what they don't know they deem unimportant. And once you stop learning, you stop thinking. Oh, they may encounter new information from time to time but their cognitive bias only allows them to take in what backs up their deeply held opinions. Anything that contradicts their beliefs is fake. They would rather believe that all the experts are lying to them than that they might be wrong.

You see arrogance everywhere, including on both sides of the religious divide. There are religious people who are always right on everything even though they cannot discern between which parts of their faith and practices come from the Bible, which come from tradition and which come from their culture. Like the commandments there is a hierarchy of values. Some beliefs and behaviors are essential, some are important but not strictly essential and some are neither. For these folks however all their beliefs and practices are like links in a chain; they are of all equal importance. But a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. A lot of people raised as fundamentalists lose their faith when they discover that something they were taught was wrong and then their whole faith begins to come apart. Some of the most outspoken atheists were once such Christians.

But you see arrogance among atheists as well. They decry the “God of the gaps,” the argument that if science can't yet explain something, the only possible answer is God. They have a point. Yet they do the same thing. They confidently say that science will one day explain all those gaps. Atheists have faith, all right; they just place it in science.

That is, they place their faith in humans. Science is a human endeavor, which means it is not perfect. Scientists sometimes make mistakes and sometimes they even make things up to get grant money or further their careers. We are in the middle of a replication crisis in science. Scientists are having problems recreating a significant number of important studies from the past because they are not getting the same results. For instance, it looks like we have been pursuing the wrong treatments for Alzheimer's disease for decades because of a flawed study. We have to start over. Scientists are human and can have their own dogmas, which they will defend as fiercely as religious fundamentalists.

Plus there is the problem of what we will do when we get to the point that the human brain can no longer comprehend what we discover. If, as they hold, our brains evolved primarily to help us survive, it is remarkable that we understand so much that has no discernable survival value. Will our brains continue to understand the infinite number of things in our ever expanding universe? Should we shift our faith to computers, though they are the flawed products of flawed human minds? It all comes back to trusting human intelligence above everything else.

Finally, there is the logical problem of asserting there is no God. You can't prove a negative. You would have to know and examine all the data in the universe to rule out God's existence. Even Richard Dawkins was forced to admit that, strictly speaking, he can only be an agnostic, someone who says they don't know whether God exists or not. The person who says definitively that there is no God does in fact believe in a superior intelligent being: himself. As someone said, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

Arrogant people cause problems because they do not work well with others. Dealing with flawed individuals but seeing no flaws in themselves, arrogant people inevitably push people away, especially those who are experts and even friends who are trying to stop them from doing things that are stupid or wrong. Only the most craven yes-men will stick with the arrogant person. And because they will not contradict him, the arrogant person will inevitably make mistakes. And because they have ceased to learn anything or listen to others, they will double down on their mistakes and make bigger ones. Which is why dictatorships never last.

Humility is the opposite of arrogance. Contrary to popular opinion, humility is not thinking you are worthless; it is having a realistic perception of not only your strengths but also your weaknesses. It is being willing to admit your mistakes and apologize. It is being willing to ask for help. It's being able to appreciate the knowledge, skills and talents of others. It is being willing to learn.

A truly intelligent person is humble. He or she knows what has been securely established and what we still don't know. They are willing to listen to others and to learn. The word “disciple” means “student.” I have even learned from respected Bible scholars who are not believers. I have learned how to be a better Christian from believers with a lot less education than I. But I know for sure that Jesus Christ is God, the Father is God, the Holy Spirit is God and that God is one and God is love. And what's more, I know that I am not God.

God and Injustice

The scriptures referred to are Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4.

Another week, another spate of shootings. Reacting to one in her community, a friend of mine on Facebook complained that the world no longer made sense. I commented that the problem is that the world almost makes sense but not quite. That is, the world is not so irrational that we can't understand or haven't figured out how to act in the majority of situations. Generally speaking, if you treat people well they will do the same to you. If you ask for help with something, most people will try to help. But it's the exceptions to these rules that throw us off. When someone that you've acted properly towards responds with anger or when someone you've never mistreated, or whom you don't even know, inflicts violence on you, you don't know how to make sense of it. It seems to come out of nowhere.

My theory is that these acts of mass violence arise when someone thinks that their feelings are more important than the lives of others. They are expressing the bad feelings they have by making others feel as bad as they do. They feel their cause is so righteous that those who oppose it, or who simply aren't as outraged as they are about it, must suffer. Or their feelings of despair are so painful they want to die but they want others to die as well so that the world knows how they feel. And often this is the way that people who also feel overlooked can get the world to pay attention to them, if only in a negative way and after they are gone. Other people express these feelings of depression, pain, anger and indignation at what is wrong with the world in their art, in poetry, in song, in writing or in activism. But some can't think of any better way to express this than by simply hurting or killing other people. As the saying goes, hurt people often hurt people.

For most of us, just seeing such violence and injustice is painful. And those of us who believe in a just God often ask him, “Why?” That's what Habakkuk is asking in our Old Testament reading. J.M. Smith captured the strong emotions the author expressed in the translation that he made for his teaching videos on his You Tube channel Disciple Dojo. He renders the first 4 verses of the book this way: “The 'burden' (oracle) that Habakkuk the prophet beheld: How long, YHWH, must I scream for help...and you not listen? I cry out to you, 'Violence!'...but you don't save! Why do you show me iniquity, and toil you [just] watch? And destruction and violence [are] before me and there is lawsuit, and [the] strife it carries. Because of this Torah has grown cold/limp and justice never goes forth! Indeed wickedness is surrounding the righteous! Because of this justice goes forth crooked!”

Habakkuk's book is different from the books of other prophets because he doesn't begin with what God revealed to him but with his questions directed at God. To understand what he is so upset about, it helps to know what was going on during his time.

Israel and Judah were always surrounded by large empires: Egypt to the southwest, Assyria to the north and now Babylon gaining strength to their east. Assyria had already conquered Israel and taken the elite of the ten northern tribes into exile. Babylon was such a threat that Egypt and Assyria joined forces to fight them. Habakkuk lived either during the last fraught days of King Josiah who died fighting the Egyptians or during the reign of his successors, who were puppets of the empires. But Habakkuk is initially concerned about what he is seeing within the kingdom of God's people. He is observing conflict, violence, justice being weakened and ultimately coming out all twisted.

Israel's mission was to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” and as descendants of Abraham, all the peoples of the earth were to be blessed through them. (Exodus 19:6; Genesis 12:3) In Isaiah God says, “I will also make you a light to the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6) But Israel and Judah hardly acted like they worshipped and followed a just and compassionate God. So why is God allowing this?

God tells the prophet that he will punish his people by letting the Babylonians conquer them. But Habakkuk doesn't understand this. The Babylonians are even worse than the people of Judah. How is that just? God tells Habakkuk that the Babylonians in turn will receive what they are due. Their own evil deeds will bring about their downfall.

Much of the 2^nd chapter of Habakkuk is devoted to describing the king of Babylon and his fatal flaws. “...he is arrogant and never at rest...he is as greedy as the grave and like death is never satisfied...” (Habakkuk 2:5) He is pictured as ridiculed and scorned by the nations who will taunt him by saying, “Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How much longer must this go on? Will not your debtors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their victim. Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you. For you have shed man's blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them. Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain to set his nest on high to escape the clutches of ruin.” (Habakkuk 2:6-9) If you don't treat others as you would like to be treated, people will treat you exactly as you have treated them. (Luke 6:31)

And, sure enough, the Babylonian empire was eventually conquered by the Persians and the Jews were allowed to return home. During the 70 years of their exile, they transitioned from a religion centered around the temple, which the Babylonians destroyed in 586 BC, to a religion centered around studying and obeying God's word. The writings that became the Hebrew Bible were collected and compiled during this time. This ensured the survival of Judaism after the Romans destroyed the second temple in 70 AD. Jews everywhere could continue to worship and follow the Torah wherever they went. And, of course, this meant that Christianity could spread likewise. Paul and other apostles would go to a synagogue in whichever city they came to and show from the scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. And as the writings by Paul and others were copied and shared by churches, the New Testament came into being.

Empires continued to rise and fall. The western Roman empire fell in 476 AD. Its successor, the Byzantine empire, fell in 1453. The British empire was dismantled in the 20th century. The Soviet Union existed for 69 years. And we see that, just as with Babylon, their sins and arrogance usually bring about their downfall.

Emperors and dictators rarely fare better. Of the 84 Roman emperors over its 490 years, 20 were assassinated, and 8 were assassinated by their own bodyguards, the Praetorian Guard. Another 6 were possibly assassinated. 8 were executed and 6 committed suicide. Including the 8 who died in battle, it turns out that 68%, or more than 2/3s of them, died violently. Only 25 died of natural causes or illnesses. Most reigned for less than 8 years.

Mussolini reigned 21 years and was executed by his people and his body hung upside down at a gas station. Fearing the same treatment, Hitler shot himself as the Russians took Berlin and closed in on his bunker. His Thousand Year Reich lasted only 12 years. Nicolae Ceausescu ruled Romania with an iron fist for 24 years and was executed in a revolution in 1989. As Jesus said, those who take up the sword will die by the sword. (Matthew 26:52)

Those who build criminal empires, unleashing violence in the streets, perish in much the same way. Jesse James was shot by a member of his gang. During Prohibition, Dutch Schultz, “Legs” Diamond, Hymie Weiss, “Mad Dog” Coll and many others were killed by other gangsters, while John Dillinger, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Baby Face” Nelson, “Ma” Barker and Bonnie and Clyde all died in shootouts with the law. Al Capone did survive being stabbed in prison but after being released due to his decline from syphilis of the brain he died of a heart attack and stroke at the age of 48. More recently drug lord Pablo Escobar was killed by the Colombian National Police one day after his 44^th birthday. When someone decides it's OK to kill others, people think it's OK to kill him.

But Habakkuk did not see people reaping the consequences for the violence and injustice of his day. He was left with God's assurance that he did have a plan. Habakkuk and the Jews who stayed faithful would just have to trust God. As God says in our reading, “the righteous will live by their faith.”

If there is no God and no afterlife, then there is no justice in this world. We can despair or we can trust in God and in his justice and his mercy. But that doesn't mean that we simply sit back and let injustice reign. Another way that verse 4 could be translated is “the righteous will live by their faithfulness.” We are the body of Christ, carrying out his ongoing mission. Jesus made us citizens and ambassadors of the kingdom of God and we are expected to show how his kingdom works. We are expected to, as God tells Isaiah, “Learn to do what is right! Promote justice! Take up the cause of the orphan! Defend the rights of the widow!” (Isaiah 1:17) Jesus told us that what we do or do not do to the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the imprisoned and the alien, we do or do not do to him. (Matthew 25:31-46) We are to love both our neighbors and our enemies. (Mark 12:31; Luke 6:27) No earthly kingdom acts like that.

And the early Christians got the message and put it into practice. In Acts we read that “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and to prayer...All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” (Acts 2:42, 44-45) Consequently “There were no needy persons among them...” (Acts 4:34) This early form of communal sharing did not last, but later when plagues hit cities and the rich and powerful fled to the countryside, Christians became known for staying and caring for the sick even when it cost them their lives. When Christianity was legalized, churches built hospitals, housed the elderly and orphans, took care of abandoned infants, created schools, and helped the poor with food and money. These are things that we see as normal, and governments and civic organizations have taken over many of these functions. But this was a real departure from the Greco-Roman world that existed before Christianity. Not all human beings were valued. Slaves and barbarians did not enjoy the same right to life and protection as citizens of the empire. Sickly and deformed children could be drowned and unwanted children could be left on the side of the road for anyone to take, be they enslavers or hungry scavengers. But Christians saw everyone as a person who was created in God's image and for whom Christ died. Eventually these ideals spread. Today most non-Christians would subscribe to the idea that all human beings have inherent worth.

Today there are those who denigrate Christians who they accuse of being social justice warriors. But Christians were always at the forefront of human rights. Bartolome de las Casas came to the New World in 1513 as a chaplain during the conquest of Cuba. Within 2 years he returned to Spain to convince the king to end the cruel system being installed in the Americas. He became the first bishop of Chiapas in Hispaniola and was officially appointed “Protector of the Indians.” He denounced the atrocities of the conquistadores and actively fought slavery for 50 years. Christians started the abolitionist movement in the UK and the US and participated in the Underground Railroad, secretly bringing slaves to freedom. Christian beliefs about the equality of all human beings inspired the women's suffrage movement and civil rights movement, as well as reform movements to abolish child labor and alleviate poverty.

God is a social justice warrior. In Hebrew the word for righteousness also means justice. Some people have lost or ignored the connection between loving God and loving all the human beings he created. The prophets, like Habakkuk, remind us. Jesus reminds us. When asked for the greatest commandment, he gave two. And he expanded the second one, about loving your neighbor, to include people unlike you and even your enemy. He told us to look for him in those whom society either despises, devalues or forgets about. He said the mark of the person who follows him is loving others as he loves us. (John 13:35)

When we see people being harmed, we often question God's justice. But we should ask ourselves why do we let people harm others, either through direct violence or by using power, money, and deception to exploit those they find useful and erase those they don't? Why do we put bullies, conmen and people who exhibit no empathy, fear or regret into positions of power? When we look at the world, we, like Habakkuk, sometimes scream out “Why, God, why?” But the real question is “Why, humans, why?”