Who Do You Trust?

The scriptures referred to are Psalm 146.

I worked at a radio station in Brownville, Texas for a couple of years. I was the Production Director, which means I wrote, recorded, edited, and kept track of the commercials which provided the main income for the station. The company that bought the station spared no expense at improving it. We moved from a shack out on a rutted rural road to a suite of offices and a brand new studio taking up most of a floor in a nice building in town. They hired DJs who took us from the 12^th rated station in the Rio Grande Valley to the 6^th highest rated. So you would think it was a meritocracy. You'd think they would reward their best ad salespeople.

But by the end of my first year there I could see that there was a preference for the salesmen over the saleswomen. And that was despite the fact that our top 3 salespeople were women. But slowly the women realized they weren't valued, quit and moved on.

There was one guy they made the top salesman, despite the fact that his method was to sell the client on a remote broadcast from their business, like a grand reopening or sale, and give them as many free promos for the event as the ads they bought, effectively selling them our airtime at half price. I couldn't understand why the General Manager and Sales Manager favored this guy, who was always asking for advances on his salary. But he was a great salesman—that is, at selling our bosses on the idea that he was a great salesman. The station was going downhill when I took a job at a radio station in the Keys. The station in Brownsville has since changed ownership, format, location and call letters several times.

Aristotle called man “the rational animal.” The Greek philosopher was giving us way too much credit for using our brains in a rational manner. Or else it would be true that people who make it to the top of their profession would be the best at what they do. But we all know or have worked for bosses who made bad decisions for reasons that made no sense. And yet somehow they achieved or were given positions of leadership. And people under such a boss often talk about him as if he were a genius, even though deep down they know he's not. As Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.”

Our psalm today begins by praising God and then tells us, “Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them.” I don't know what prompted the writing of Psalm 146 but it contrasts earthly rulers with God, “who keeps his promise forever; who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; The Lord loves the righteous; the Lord cares for the stranger; he sustains the orphan and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked.” Since we are to imitate God, a godly ruler should do these things as well. (Ephesians 5:1)

Of course, no one can live up to God's standards, not even David or Solomon. But that's no excuse for them not to do their best. Few athletes win the gold at the Olympics but that doesn't mean they shouldn't aim for that. So let's look at what Psalm 146 says about God's kingship and see what an ideal ruler would be like.

First, we are told that God “keeps his promise forever.” Rulers promise a lot. They often promise things they can't deliver. They cannot magically make other countries do what they want them to do. That takes diplomacy. And it takes allies who can put pressure on rogue nations. Despite what they say, earthly rulers cannot make the economy boom. They cannot make people buy more goods and services, not if the people lack the money or desire for them. They cannot make companies hire more people, not if the companies don't need them or if they can replace them with automation. They can make policies that make the rich richer, as we've seen. Wall Street has become a casino for rich people betting on companies to earn investors more money. Why we've made it a measure of how the average person is doing is beyond me. Nevertheless, rulers can enact policies that help the average person have enough to live on, as FDR did during the Great Depression.

Which leads to the fact that God “gives justice to those who are oppressed.” The Hebrew word for “oppress” means literally “to crush.” And the words “oppressed”, “oppression”, “oppressors” and their variants appear in the Bible 118 times, almost twice as often as adultery. Jesus kicks off his ministry by reading a passage from Isaiah that says he was anointed to, among other things, “set free those who are oppressed.” (Luke 4:18) So according to God's word this is a major concern for him. The Hebrews themselves were once oppressed in Egypt. So God tells his people “You shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 25:17) And they should fear him because God is just. Justice, which is also translated righteousness in some contexts, appears 157 times in the Old Testament alone. According to Psalm 37, “The godly speak wise words and promote justice.” (Psalm 37:30) A godly ruler should seek to give justice to the oppressed.

Next we are told that God “gives food to those who hunger.” God made the world with abundant food sources. Experts say we can feed everyone in the world. Yet as many as 733 million people in the world still go hungry. Why? Poverty is one reason. 35% of the world's population can't afford a nutritious diet. Conflict is another reason. 85% of people facing hunger live in areas affected by conflict. Conflicts can keep food from getting to people in war-torn areas. And the climate crisis is causing temperatures to rise and weather to become more extreme, causing droughts and famines. (You can learn more at actionagainsthunger.org.uk) We waste and throw away a lot of food as well, costing the global economy $1 trillion a year. In France, grocery stores are legally required to donate unsold, edible food to charities and food banks. Remember, Jesus fed 5000 people, the only miracle recorded in all 4 gospels. And what was left was not thrown away but gathered up in baskets. A godly ruler would work to reduce poverty, end food waste, resolve conflicts and work to keep the climate from getting hotter.

Next we are told, “The Lord sets the prisoners free.” There are 11.5 million people in prison worldwide, with 25% of them, around 2 million, in the US. That's the largest total number of any nation, followed by China, Brazil, India and Russia. The countries with the highest rate of incarceration (prisoners per 100,000 citizens) are El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, and American Samoa, in that order. Obviously, some people do things so bad they must be removed from society to protect it. But just as obviously with such large numbers and the fact that humans are imperfect, there must be a lot of people who should not be there. Even if the justice system was right 99% of the time that would still mean it was wrong in 20,000 of the cases. And we know that for many people the main barrier to being free is lack of money. The reason Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Epstein were the focus of so much news coverage was that, in addition to the scope and nature of their crimes, there was the novelty of seeing very rich people kept in jail. And again in his mission statement, Jesus said he was sent “to proclaim release to the captives.” Both he and his cousin John the Baptizer were falsely imprisoned. A godly ruler would work for reform of our justice system so that the innocent would go free.

The Lord “opens the eyes of the blind.” This is something Jesus proclaimed at the beginning of his ministry and he healed many who were physically blind. And there are many Christian ministries which help the blind and which work to reduce preventable causes of blindness and visual impairment. But this verse could also mean the spiritually blind. Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that those who do not see may gain sight, and the ones who see may become blind.” (John 9:39) It's clear he was talking about spiritual blindness, the inability to see God at work in him and to discern between God's values and the world's values. In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus repeatedly contrasts the world's values with God's. He says that the blessed are not those the world would see as such. He condemns anger, hatred, adultery, retaliation, hating your enemy, passing judgment on others, and worshipping money. Jesus also condemns being a hypocritical follower of him. (Matthew 5-7) A godly ruler helps the disabled and makes sure that he himself is not spiritually blind but does what Jesus tells us to do.

Next we are told “the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.” In the previous psalm, there is a parallel line: “The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.” (Psalm 145:14) So this seems to apply to those who are bowed down by misfortune. As it says in Psalm 34, “The Lord is near the brokenhearted; he delivers those who are discouraged.” (Psalm 34:18) Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.” (Matthew 11:28-30) God comforts and encourages those who suffer and are weighed down with troubles. A godly ruler does what he can to help the helpless and to give hope to the hopeless.

Next we are told “The Lord loves the righteous.” Remember the Hebrew word for righteous also means just. So the Lord loves those who are just and act in fairness. The book of Proverbs says, “If a king judges the poor in truth, his throne will be established forever.” (Proverbs 29:14) It also says, “The one who acquits the guilty and the one who condemns the innocent—both of them are an abomination to the Lord.” (Proverbs 17:15) But the Lord is also a God of mercy. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7) Proverbs says, “Mercy and truth preserve the king and his throne is sustained by kindness.” (Proverbs 20:28) A godly ruler will be both just and merciful.

Next we read, “the Lord cares for the stranger.” The Hebrew word translated “stranger” means “alien, foreigner, immigrant.” From the beginning God anticipated that foreigners would immigrate to Israel. In the Ten Commandments, the commandment not to work on the Sabbath applies even to the “resident foreigner who is in your gates.” (Exodus 20:10) And just 15 verses after saying, “love your neighbor as yourself,” Leviticus says, “The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like a native citizen among you; so you must love him as yourself, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:34) Foreigners are mentioned over 200 times in the Bible, so this is not something trivial in God's mind. And in Jesus' parable of the last judgment he says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25:35) A godly ruler would not wrong or oppress immigrants and resident aliens. (Exodus 22:21)

Then we are told that God “sustains the orphan and widow.” Technically the word translated “orphan” means a “fatherless child.” Widows and the fatherless were usually the poorest people in the Bible. And even today 56% of those living in poverty are women. And 1 in 3 single women with dependents are living in poverty. The widow and the fatherless are often grouped with the immigrant as people God especially cares about. Deuteronomy says, “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God who is unbiased and takes no bribe, who justly treats the fatherless and the widow, and who loves the resident foreigners, giving them food and clothing.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-18) This was done through an offering of a tenth of the people's produce that was collected every 3 years. It was given so that the landless Levites as well as “the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows of your villages may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.” (Deuteronomy 14:29) James says a mark of true religion is taking care of widows and orphans. (James 1:27) A godly ruler would make provision for widows and single women with dependents to have enough to live on.

Finally, we are told, almost as an afterthought, that God “frustrates the way of the wicked.” I say, as an afterthought because all of the other ways in which God is superior to earthly rulers is in how he treats the disadvantaged, the destitute, the diseased, the disabled, the despised, and the discouraged. Only at the end of this list is God's treatment of the wicked mentioned. Most people think God's number one priority is punishing bad people. But, no, it is helping those who need help, those the world considers losers. God champions the underdogs of society. And anyone who calls themselves a godly ruler should do the same.

This Tuesday we can do something Jesus wasn't able to do: vote for our earthly ruler. And of course, none of those running are perfect matches for the godly ruler. But neither do all people who win the gold at the Olympics get scores of perfect 10s. The judges look for the one in the contest who best matches the Olympic ideal. We too must prayerfully consider who is closest in making God's priorities of helping the oppressed, the hungry, the prisoner, the blind, the bowed down, the resident foreigner, the widow and the fatherless their priorities.

In Jeremiah God says to his people, “You must change the way you have been living and do what is right. You must treat one another fairly. Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. Stop killing innocent people in this land. Stop paying allegiance to other gods. That will only bring about your ruin. If you stop doing these things, I will allow you to live in this land which I gave to your ancestors as an inheritance.” (Jeremiah 7: 5-7) If he says that to the Israelites, why would we think he not would want us to do the same?

We like to say we are a Christian nation. If so, shouldn't we act as Jesus says we should? Jesus said that not serving the hungry, the thirsty, the alien, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned is the same as not serving him. (Matthew 25:31-46) Do we think he was joking? If we take Jesus seriously, we must do what we can to help those whom he told us to help. And we should use our right to choose our leaders to make sure that, when it comes to people in need, their priorities are as close to God's priorities as we can get.

Lessons from Job

The scriptures referred to are Job 42:1-6, 10-17.

Nothing prepares you to preach on Job like getting a kidney stone the day before your 46^th anniversary and then seeing various doctors for it and other problems the week of and week after your 70^th birthday! Still, reading Job can work on you like a sad song does when you are blue. It can paradoxically lift your mood. Because you really can't compete with Job. I still have my family, thank God! I'm not rich but what I have hasn't been wiped out. And I'm not sitting on an ash heap, covered in sores.

Author and Keys resident Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a book named Brightsided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she went through one of the recognized stages of grieving a loss: anger. She was angry about not only getting a life-threatening disease but also with the brutal course of treatment, which primarily consists of poisoning the body in the calculated risk that the more rapidly growing cancer cells will absorb more than the normal cells and so be killed off. She was also angry with having to wrangle with the insurance company she had been paying monthly to deal with such a health event, only to have them forget about all that when it was their turn to write the checks. And she was angry with the fact that everyone wanted her to stop being mad and start being positive. Requiring her to manufacture good feelings during a time of pain and suffering was an additional burden on her. Instead she wanted someone to empathize with her. She felt like Job.

The majority of the book of Job is a poetic debate between Job and his so-called “comforters.” Job was not only rich but righteous. That made his extreme misfortune—losing his family, wealth, and health through a series of disasters—theologically inexplicable to his friends. If Job were a bad man, then his recent reversals could be seen as a punishment. But if God allows the righteous to suffer, doesn't that make him unjust? Shouldn't only good things happen to good people?

We still feel this way. There are many churchgoers who think God is like a bodyguard or like Iron Man's suit of armor. They think God's primary purpose is to keep bad things from happening to them. And, ironically, it is atheists who are most likely to believe this. They think that if there is a God, he is obligated to protect if not all people then all believers from all that is evil. If he doesn't, they say, then he must not exist. Plow through all the angry eloquence of the recent atheists all the way back to the classic ones who preceded them and what you will find is the basic argument that the existence of evil somehow disproves the existence of God. Which shows that none of them really understands the Bible.

If the mere fact that “bad things happen to the innocent” could bring down the faith, then Christianity would never have survived the crucifixion of its founder. Of all the world religions, Christianity is the one that most honestly and deeply faces the reality of pain, loss, injustice and tragedy. Many criticisms were lodged against the movie The Passion of the Christ, but none of them said it sugarcoated what happened to Jesus. And this monstrous act of injustice is at the very heart of the gospel, or good news. Why?

In fact, there are lots of examples of the recognition that “bad things happen to good people” in the Bible. One of the most devastating is the fate of Josiah, the last righteous king of Judah. He eradicated the idolatry that had practically become the state religion for the 70 years preceding his reign. He repaired and beautified God's temple, which had fallen into neglect and decline. During the renovation, the high priest discovered a copy of the Torah, the book of the law of God. When it was read to Josiah, he was alarmed by how far his nation had strayed. He had the Torah read to the people and had them renew their covenant with God. He celebrated the Passover in a way that hadn't been done since before his time. And then he rode out to fight Egypt, his people's ancient enemy. He was unexpectedly cut down by a random arrow and died at age 39. Soon after, the nation was conquered and taken into exile. How's that for inexplicable injustice?

But the fullest discussion of the problem of the relationship between earthly injustice and God is in the book of Job. Job's catastrophic losses have nothing to do with his behavior. That is made clear. But his “comforters” can't tolerate the cognitive dissonance between their concept of how the world should work and the way it actually does in Job's case. And because their concept of God depends on their faulty concept of the world, they take Job's insistence on his innocence as an attack on their faith, rather than the exposure of how simplistic and inadequate their theology is.

A lot of people's faith is like a chain. Each belief is a link in that chain. Like “There is a God,” and “God likes good people,” and “God will not let anything bad happen to me because I am a good or nice or religious person.” Some of those links are forged in steel but some are bound to be faulty, because we are human. The problem with a chain is that it is only as strong as its weakest link. So when one of those beliefs breaks down, the chain comes apart and so does the person's faith. Many an atheist began as a sincere believer whose chain of beliefs was shattered by a pathetically weak link.

Job's friends are like a guy whose GPS app is telling him to go straight when all he can see is a dead end. Yet this guy insists to his wife that his app can't possibly be wrong. Go ahead and laugh. We've all been that guy. We all have maps in our heads of how the world works that are flawed. They all need to be updated at times. What's stupid is insisting that our map is right and reality is what's wrong.

It may not be the map that's wrong, though. It could be that you're not reading the map correctly. You missed a detail. You misread a sign. You skipped a step. You flipped a direction. It's a left turn and not a right. There's a detour. The bridge isn't open yet. Or if you're in Miami, you want NW 123^rd Court, not NW 123^rd Circle, or Boulevard, or Avenue or Terrace or Street. My point is that people misread the Bible or read into it their own ideas or their denomination's theology. Like the popular interpretation of the rapture. It's only in one passage (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) and it's not at all what people think it is. The Greek terms Paul uses are of meeting a king or emperor when he comes to visit your city. You meet him outside the city and then accompany him into it. He doesn't meet the people and then take them back to Rome. Paul is saying when Jesus returns we will join him as he comes to earth. He's not taking us away to heaven to spare us from the tribulation only to come back later. There's no two-part return. Christians are not going to be absent from a world in tribulation just when it needs them the most. (Matthew 24:22)

Ultimately what God is telling Job's “comforters” is “You got it wrong.” They kept insisting that Job couldn't have had all his troubles if he were really righteous. Only unrepentant sinners end up like that. And Job's continued assertion that he didn't deserve what he got infuriated them. “It's right here on the map,” they're saying. And then God says, “You read it wrong. Job is right. Apologize to him and if he asks me to, I'll forgive you.”

In fact, according to Biblical scholar Ellie Weiner, most translations get part of Job 42:8 wrong. They have God saying to Job's friends, “You have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has.” The proper translation should be “You have not spoken to me properly as my servant Job has.” In other words, they were speaking to Job about God rather than speaking to God about poor Job. So now Job must speak to God about his “comforters” so they can be forgiven.

So lesson 1 is: take the cry of the one in pain seriously. And lesson 2 is: don't assume people are always the cause of their misfortune. Sometimes bad things do happen to good people. Lesson 3 is: show compassion. Pray for people who are suffering; don't argue with them.

Last week the Episcopal lectionary gave an example of what God said to Job from chapter 38 of the book. It's a majestic, poetic panorama of the creation. But it didn't directly answer Job's question. God essentially says, “Did you create the universe and work out all its details?” And this week we get Job's response, which is, “Nope. Wow! I didn't realize all that was involved in creating the universe. Sorry. I'm satisfied with the fact that you talked to me and with the vision that you've given me.”

A lot of people find the answer God gives unsatisfying. They want a rational answer. They want God to tell us precisely why we suffer. To them I say, “42.” That's the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The answer is given by the great computer Deep Thought. And it doesn't satisfy the pan-dimensional beings who programmed Deep Thought to give them an answer. Of course, Adams' sci-fi version of Candide is a satire. But he has a point. Would any answer to the problem of suffering that could be reduced to words or numbers really satisfy us?

Ask scientists what causes earthquakes and they will tell you about the tectonic plates that cover the earth like armor and on top of which our continents sit. They will tell you the plates shift and scrape against one another, causing earthquakes and tsunamis. They say that if the plates didn't move, life could not exist on this planet. So there's the answer to what caused the tsunami that hit Asia in 2004 and the earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010. Do you think that would satisfy the people who lost their homes and whose loved ones died in those disasters? It's a rational, scientific answer and yet it's no more emotionally satisfying than the answer given to Job.

God's answer is similar in that he points out the variety, complexity, timing and other imponderables about the workings of the creation. He asks Job what he knows about creation and what he can possibly control in all creation. In other words, God is saying, “If you can't understand how these things work, then there is no way I can explain why good people sometimes suffer very bad things.”

The other thing people tend to find unsatisfying is God replacing everything Job lost, down to another 7 sons and 3 daughters. Anyone who has lost a child knows that a new child may comfort you but it's not the same as the one you lost. But the book of Job is limited to the man's earthly life. And that's the best that can be done under those limitations. Ultimately if there is no afterlife then there is no true justice in the universe. Only if a just and loving God will give us a new unending life after this one can everything be redressed and restored to what it should be.

And we get a glimpse of this in the book of Job. At one point he says, “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God, whom I will see for myself, and whom my own eyes will behold, and not another.” (Job 19:25-27) That sounds eerily like Job is talking about resurrection. And his Redeemer is God who is not simply a spirit but who stands on the earth and can be seen with his eyes. Which sounds a lot like a vision of Jesus.

Whereas earthly words and actions cannot satisfy us emotionally in the face of loss, Jesus, the Word of God incarnate, can. As Ellie Weiner says, Job was asking the question “why” and when God appeared, instead Job got “who.” And while God's verbal answer at the end of Job doesn't seem to give us what we need, his answer in Jesus does.

Let's face it: God seems a bit distant and detached in Job. He talks about creation the way an IT guy talks about a computer that seems to have randomly deleted your pictures of your wedding. He doesn't seem to have a stake in it.

But what about a God who has everything at stake? A God who is not separate from his creation but has become a part of his creation, who has entered into it, rolled up his sleeves and started the hard work of making reality fit his original plan for creation. That kind of God has more satisfying answers.

But not as satisfying as a God who is also as vulnerable as we are. If he is not subject to the same obstacles and risks as we are, then it's like sending Superman to show us how to live a righteous life in an unrighteous world. He wouldn't get the full experience of how hard and risky and painful it is for us to stand up to injustice and evil. And so his answers about suffering wouldn't be as satisfying as those of a God who really knows the risk firsthand. And those wouldn't be as satisfying as the answers given by a God who has suffered and died.

The real answers to the questions of the suffering of the innocent can only be found in Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, and who is fully immersed in the experience of being just in an unjust world, suffering to the full extent what the world can do to a person. But not all of those answers can be given in words. Nor can they all be received and understood merely by hearing, but they can by doing what Jesus did. The final lesson is this: to understand the suffering of the world, we must take up our cross for the good of others as Jesus did for us. We must put on Christ and as the body of Christ on earth, take up his mission, redeeming and repairing the world in his name. Only in healing the world's pain do we find its meaning.

This sermon was first preached on October, 25, 2009. It has been updated and revised.

Real Power

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 53:4-12 and Mark 10:35-45.

Today it's popular to deconstruct superheroes. The TV series The Boys, the cartoon series Invincible and the horror film Brightburn all question whether people with that much power would be good guys or would their powers tempt them to do very bad things. But legendary comic book writer Alan Moore asked this back in 1986 with a book called Watchmen. The title comes from a quote by the Roman satirist Juvenal, which asks “Who will watch the watchmen?” In other words, who will keep an eye on those who are supposed to keep an eye on us? In the comic book, we meet a group of heroes who often use their power not to make the world better but to maintain the status quo. One superhero, the smartest man in the world, does try to head off World War 3 by creating a disaster that appears to be the work of an alien race, causing the US and the Soviet Union to join forces against a threat to our planet. The fact that to pull this off meant killing half the population of New York City doesn't seem to bother this superhero. For him, the ends justify the means. Which makes him a supervillain.

We all like to think that if given superpowers or magical powers we would still be good, like Superman or Harry Potter, but that's fantasy. If you had the power to force people to do things or even the power to kill them and you were too powerful to be stopped or punished, how long would you resist that temptation? Maybe you'd justify it by only doing that to really bad people. But who would decide which people are bad enough to deserve it? What if they tried to take away your power? Would that justify killing them?

Objectively, it's a good thing that superpowered humans don't exist. Look at what happens to people who are simply given positions of earthly power. As Lord Acton wrote, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” That's a major reason why those who wrote our constitution created 3 branches of government to keep any of them from having too much power. They didn't want a king or a dictator.

So it's weird that there are Americans who are open to the idea of a dictatorship. Because even the best kings, emperors and supposedly benign dictators have done some awful things with that power. They usually justify what they do on the grounds that they're serving the greater good. But often they use their power to eliminate their political opposition and muzzle the media. Because they think that having absolute power over what people can do or say or even think is for the greater good.

In Jesus' day, the Roman emperor had absolute power. He could have political enemies imprisoned, exiled or killed. And he was emperor for life. So to change emperors before their natural death, the incumbent had to be killed. And 39 emperors were assassinated or executed. 6 committed suicide, usually under pressure to do so. 5 died in battle. Only 25 died of disease or natural causes, and some of those might actually have been poisoned. So why would anyone want to be emperor? Because of the power, of course.

Which is why many of the Jews of Jesus' day expected God to anoint his own king to oppose the emperor, push the Romans out of the land of Judea and set up a physical and political kingdom of God. It's true that some Jews thought the Messiah would be a prophet or a priest instead. But it's easy to see why the majority were hoping the Messiah would be a holy warrior king like David. They could only conceive of power being exercised in the way they saw it used.

That's obviously the way the disciples saw the issue. When Jesus asked who they thought he was and Peter said that Jesus was Messiah, they thought that Jesus would lead an army against their oppressors. But instead Jesus starts teaching them that “the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:31) I imagine they stopped listening after he said he had to be killed because they never understood the part about him rising again. Instead they were thinking, “What good is a dead Messiah?” Peter actually scolds Jesus about saying that and Jesus rebukes him for looking at things from a human standpoint and not from God's perspective. Jesus says that anyone who wants to be his disciple must likewise give up all rights to himself, take up his own cross and follow Jesus. (Mark 8:34)

Yet just two chapters later, James and John ask to sit at the right hand and left of Jesus' throne. They are still thinking of what an earthly ruler is like. And naturally the other disciples get jealous. So Jesus sets them straight. Earthly rulers want power so they can control others and be served by them. But that is not how God's kingdom works. Jesus says, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” And that principle goes all the way to the top. Jesus points out that “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Jesus had the power of God and how did he use it? To heal. (Matthew 4:23) To raise the dead. (Mark 5:35-43, Luke 7:11-15; John 11) To feed the hungry. (Matthew 14:15-21, 32-38) To stop a storm from sinking the boat his disciples were in. (Mark 4:37-41) To leave a place where people who were planning to forcibly make him king. (John 6:14-19) And he refused to do miracles simply to impress others or even to save his own life. (Matthew 12:38-39; 26:53-54; Luke 23:8-9) He didn't leap tall buildings with a single bound, bend steel in his bare hands, or punch bad guys. He served others and even turned bad guys into good guys. (Mark 2:14-17; Luke 19:1-9)

Would people go to see a superhero movie if there were no violence? Would they go to see it if all the violence was done to the superhero by the bad guys and he died without fighting back? I doubt it. We like violence. The Romans had their gladiators. We have boxers and hockey players. We go to the movies to see James Bond and John Wick and Batman and the Avengers and Liam Neeson beat up and kill bad guys. We want to see a fight.

And the same thing applies to our politics. We keep electing people who are belligerent, who would rather fight than be peacemakers, who would rather say their opponents are demonic and destroying America rather than tone down the rhetoric and work out practical solutions to our mutual problems. We say we are a Christian nation but give us a fighter and we will forgive all his other sins.

But right after the gospel of John tells us that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, it tells us, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him.” (John 3:17) And how did he save the world? By fighting? By leaving his opponents lying on the ground, bleeding?

No. He saved the world by doing the opposite—by refusing to fight, by laying down his life and letting his enemies shed his blood. And this wasn't some novel twist found only in the New Testament. It was God's plan all along, as we see in our passage from Isaiah. “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” He didn't save the world by fighting violence with violence. He absorbed the violence we did to him. He took the worst the world could dish out—being whipped, being beaten, being pierced by thorns, being spit upon, being mocked and humiliated, being stripped, being skewered by nails, being hung on a cross for hours in the heat—and he died. Then he rose again. His only weapon was life-giving love.

And his followers did what he did. They taught and preached and healed. They were whipped and beaten and imprisoned and eventually they were executed. And yet their faith conquered the Roman empire, the most brutal regime at that time. Their only weapon was their trust in the love of God that they saw in Jesus.

You know John 3:16 but what about 1^st John 3:16? “We have come to know love by this: that Jesus laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for fellow Christians.” Jesus didn't die for us so we could go on living as we always have. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, the Son of God became a human being so that human beings could become children of God. (John 1:14) Which means becoming like Jesus. The point of Christianity is to become like Christ. (Romans 8:29) We were created in God's image (Genesis 1:27) but we have marred that image by our sins. Jesus is the very image of God (Hebrews 1:3) and by uniting with him, that image is being restored in us. Paul says, “You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old man who is being corrupted with deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man who has been created in God's image—in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth.” (Ephesians 4:22-24, NET)

The New Testament is full of admonitions to be Christlike, not just in some inward invisible way but in how we live. 1^st John says, “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” (1 John 2:6) Again in Ephesians Paul says, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2) In Galatians, he says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatian 2:20) This is what Paul means when he says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) When we trust in Jesus, we become part of the body of Christ, the priesthood of all believers, and we are given the mission to spread the good news of love, forgiveness and new life in Christ.

We don't do it by trying to gain power over others. On the night before he died Jesus said, “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do just as I have done to you.” (John 13:13-15) Like Jesus, we are not called to be served but to serve. We spread the good news about Jesus by behaving like Jesus.

As a psychiatric nurse, I dealt with patients who thought they were God or Jesus. And their behavior was not that of humility and service, but of acting grandiose and expecting worship. Now they were delusional. But we see this behavior in certain powerful people who supposedly understand reality and can operate in the real world. We see it in cult leaders. And in certain church leaders. And in certain politicians. Whether they say they are Christ or speak for Christ or are anointed by Christ, they like the part about being powerful and everyone listening to them and serving them. But we don't see in them Christlike humility and service to others. We don't see in them self-sacrificial love for others. We don't see in them the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) We humans want to emulate God's power but not his loving, just, holy and merciful nature.

Indeed the first temptation was to become like God but without having to obey God. (Genesis 3:5) We took our position as rulers of creation to mean we had authority to do whatever we wanted rather than to preserve and serve God's creation. (Genesis 2:15) Which has led to our ruining God's good earth and filling it with violence. (Genesis 6:11) Because if everyone wants to be in control, they are going to clash with one another. I am listening to one of the Great Courses called “War and World History.” And indeed you can tell practically the whole history of mankind by simply recounting the history of warfare. An awful lot of the innovations we have come up with were the results of or side effects of war. For instance, we have a Congress that makes laws and decides how to spend the nation's money. That comes from the English Parliament, which began because kings wanted to wage wars and had to get the money from their barons to do so. In return the barons (and eventually free men and then all citizens) wanted a say in how the nation was governed. All because English kings wanted to conquer the lands of the Welsh and the Scots and the Irish and parts of France.

Is fighting what God wants? In Isaiah we see God's vision of the future. “He will judge disputes between nations; he will settle cases for many people. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not take up the sword against other nations, and they will no longer train for war.” (Isaiah 2:4)

Of course, everyone says they want peace. But we rarely try to resolve disputes beforehand. We do that only after we have killed so many people and done so much damage that one or both sides decide to sit down and finally talk. And rarely do the nations or peoples in conflict trust anybody else to be an objective judge in such matters. So there are at present over 110 armed conflicts going on right now, according to the Geneva Academy: more than 45 in the Middle East and North Africa, more than 35 in Africa, 21 in Asia, 7 in Europe, and 6 in Latin America. Why? As James tells us, “You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you fight and make war.” (James 4:2) We still act like toddlers, who see something they want, try to grab it and then strike out at whoever tries to stop them from taking it. And then when we've wrested the toy from the hands of the other toddler, we walk away admiring our prize, while ignoring the other's cries of pain and outrage.

So of course we can only conceive of conflicts being resolved by someone stronger defeating someone weaker. And that's where Jesus flips the script. He did not come to solve our problems by force but by love. He in fact absorbed the violence we invariably inflict on those who do what we don't want them to do or say what we do not want them to say. He took the brunt of our sins, the consequences of our arrogance and lust for power and rage and all the other things that motivate us to harm others, ourselves and our relationship with God. He took them on—and more. He took on our ultimate enemy. Isaiah foresaw it: “...he 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, and remove his people's disgrace from all the earth. Indeed, the Lord has announced it!” (Isaiah 25:7-8) Death and the fear of it motivates us to distract ourselves with toys and pursuits. The inexorable approach of death causes us to be impatient with how long it takes us to do things properly and peacefully. Death is the thing which we can't control no matter how strong we are, and death will inevitably take all our possessions from us and render every one of us, rich or poor, strong or weak, utterly powerless.

While we squabble over things that will not last—earthly power, possessions, empires, nations, cultures, honors, superficial identities—we ignore the fact that Jesus has defeated death and brought to an end that which can end us. While we think we are godlike in our power to take life from others, we forget that only God has the power to give life. Jesus offers us eternal life. Once we put our trust in him and his promises, we need not fear death. We need not try to squeeze as much happiness as we can from temporary things. We need not try to grab up as much as we can because time is running out. We can forego the things of this life that everyone else is scrabbling for and quarreling over. Jesus said that whatever we give up for him and the sake of the gospel we will receive back a hundredfold. (Matthew 19:28-30) But more importantly, we will receive ourselves, our true selves, the image of God that we have lost. We will be like Jesus and we will be with him, the God who is love and the source of all goodness, forever.

Words of Life

The scriptures referred to is Hebrews 4:12-16.

A man decided that he wanted to know the will of God for his life but he didn't pray for it. He figured since the Bible is the Word of God, God would speak to him through it. He picked up his Bible, opened it at random, jabbed his finger onto the page without looking and then read the verse. It said, “Judas went out and hanged himself.”

Ok, it wasn't what he was expecting, but he felt God would make it all clear to him. He closed the Bible, riffled the pages, inserted his finger, and read the verse he was touching. “Go thou and do likewise.”

All right, now this was getting puzzling. But God moves in mysterious ways so the guy decided to give the Almighty one last chance. He shut the Bible, held it upside down, flipped it rightside up and holding the other hand over it, gently let it light on the page. He peeked at the verse. It said, “And there will be much rejoicing in heaven.”

I have no doubt that there are people who play Bible roulette that way. There are people who treat the Bible as if it were a talisman, a magical item. There are even people who worship the Bible, making it the subject of a kind of idolatry. All of those reactions are distortions of how we should relate to the scriptures. But what should our response be? How should we look at the Bible?

When I was ordained, I solemnly declared that I believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the Word of God. In what used to be called “the Catechism,” is now called “the Outline of the Faith,” and in the next edition will probably be called “the Christian F.A.Q.”, the Book of Common Prayer asks, “Why do we call the Holy Scriptures the Word of God?” The answer goes, “We call them the Word of God because God inspired the human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible.” What it doesn't ask is why do we believe them to be the Word of God? And how do we believe them to be the Word of God? The answers to these 2 questions are at the root of much of the church's turmoil today.

It used to be that many people thought that God dictated the very words of the Bible, that the authors were not much more than stenographers. But if you read the 66 books of the Bible you will notice that we do not get just one voice or one point of view. You get many. The writers of parts of the books of Kings and of certain psalms see the world as fundamentally just. Good things happen to good people; bad things happen to those who are bad. But the author of Job knows that sometimes bad things happen to good people and asks why. And certain psalms and parts of the book of Proverbs talk about how bad people can prosper. Hosea emphasizes how much God loves his people. Jonah learns the hard way that God loves foreigners too. Most prophets speak of God's holiness, many of the same ones tell of his forgiveness. Some see God as a warrior. The old English phrase “Lord of Hosts” means “Lord of armies.” Others prefer to talk of God as shepherd, Father, or loving husband. Which is correct?

To answer, let's consider the Buddhist fable of a group of blind monks who encounter an elephant for the first time. One feels the elephant's tail and says, “An elephant is like a rope.” Another touches its leg and says, “No, it's like a tree.” One pats its side and says, “It is more like a wall.” Another fingers its ear and says, “I think it's like a leaf.” Still another encounters its trunk and says, “An elephant is like a snake.” But another feels its tusk and says, “No, it's like a spear.” The point is not that they are wrong. They are all right in part. What each perceives is true about an elephant but not exhaustive. Put all of their data together, noting their different positions around the animal, and you have a pretty good idea of what an elephant is like. And if describing all the elements of that creature is complicated, how much more is describing all the aspects of our Creator.

And some holy books only have one perspective on God, being filtered through just one person. The Quran is a collection of the revelations of one man, Muhammad. The distinctive doctrines of the Latter Day Saints are derived from The Book of Mormon, The Pearl of Great Price and other writings of Joseph Smith. Christian Science gets its name and beliefs from Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science with Key to the Scriptures. But the 66 books of the Bible were written by at least 40 people over as many as 1000 years, with material that goes back another 1000. Even in the New Testament, we have not one but 4 versions of Jesus' life and teachings, each with a different perspective. The church respected them enough not to edit and harmonize them into one account. Put all of these encounters with God together and you have a multi-dimensional view of a very big and complex God.

But a lot of people have a problem with this big and complex God. They want a simple God, small enough to carry around comfortably in their head. So they disregard some of the data, especially the parts they are uncomfortable with.

The central thesis of J.B. Phillip's book Your God Is Too Small is that we have a natural tendency to diminish God. We reduce him to one aspect of divinity, like justice, or mercy, or holiness, or forgiveness. It makes God easier to understand. The problem is that any god small enough for us to totally comprehend is too small to help us in all aspects of this large unwieldy universe, which we also don't totally comprehend. We need to resist our proclivity to chip away at the parts of God we don't like or understand.

In just about every episode of the show C.S.I., Gus Grissom, head of the Las Vegas crime lab, reminded his subordinates that their job is to follow the evidence. Although they may have their own pet theories and a tempting suspect, they must remain objective and not go beyond what the evidence tells them. So, unlike most fictional detectives, they don't always get their man or woman. Sometimes the evidence is insufficient. Sometimes the evidence is ambiguous. As Sherlock Holmes, Grissom's hero, said, “It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts.” And yet in The Adventure of the Yellow Face, Holmes himself makes that mistake. When the real solution of the mystery is revealed, Holmes even tells Watson that he may remind the great detective of this case should Holmes ever display such arrogance in violating this basic principle of investigation.

If we pick and choose among the Biblical evidence we can make it say whatever we choose. And indeed that's what cult leaders do. Right now churches that belong to the New Apostolic Reformation boast that their leaders are prophets and apostles. They make predictions and yet when they are wrong, they try to get around what Deuteronomy 18:20-22 says about false prophets. When their apostles say things that contradict the Bible or even Jesus, they say these new revelations supercede the ones in scripture. And they add to God's Word with doctrines about awakening angels and about picking up the mantle of dead prophets by lying on their graves. They run schools of supernatural ministry, nicknamed by students “Hogwarts for Christians,” which use a lot of New Age practices. And despite Jesus turning down Satan's offer of all the kingdoms of this world (Matthew 4:8-10), N.A.R. churches teach that Christians are to take control of everything, including business, media, entertainment, and the government, as part of the non-Biblical Seven Mountain Mandate. Jesus told Pilate his kingdom did not come from this world and that the evidence of that was that his followers were not fighting for him. (John 19:36) But the N.A.R. plans to take over earthly kingdoms and make them God's kingdom, not by persuasion or showing Jesus' love or by letting Jesus' enemies do their worst to them what they did to him, but by any means necessary. That's why you saw so many Christian symbols at the January 6^th insurrection. They think spiritual warfare includes physical warfare and violence. Contrast that with what Jesus said about turning the other cheek and loving our enemies. (Matthew 5:39, 44-45)

So how do we understand the Bible as the Word of God? In its totality, as a mosaic of human-divine encounters, some dramatic, some subtle, some obvious, some counterintuitive, some straightforward, some paradoxical, some popular, some decidedly not. And while we may have to view some of the content through knowledge of the cultures of the time, we may not simply dismiss parts by assuming we are smarter because our time and culture is superior. That's what C.S. Lewis called chronological snobbery, the idea that newer ideas are always better.

Knowledge changes but wisdom endures. Human paradigms shift but human nature remains the same. That's why our passage in Hebrews says that the Word of God is living. In other words, God still speaks to us through the Bible. More than that, it says God's word is “active” or as some translations render it, “energizing” or “effective.” It changes lives. Like a man I know of who was put into solitary confinement and left prison transformed. Why does it have this effect? Because the Bible is “sharper than a two-edged sword.” It cuts both ways, affecting our beliefs and our behaviors. It pierces to our marrow, to the dividing line between our earthly soul and our eternal spirit. It dissects our emotions and our thoughts. All we are is stripped naked before its divine perspective.

And yet there are those who feel we have grown beyond the Bible. It is not as up to date as science. But science is always a work in progress. Plus science is about how: how things develop, how they are structured and how they work. The Bible is about why: why we exist, why certain things are good and healthy and why some things aren't. It's about values, meaning and purpose. So science can tell you that some animals eat their young. It can't tell you why people shouldn't. Science and the Bible are dealing with different questions.

Whereas the current scientific understanding of things can be overturned tomorrow by some new discovery, the wisdom in the Bible is timeless. It's not like we have evolved beyond sin. It's not like technology will render murder, jealousy, lying, envy, drunkenness, arrogance, cowardice, slander, or foolishness obsolete. It's not like we will find replacements for the virtues of courage, wisdom, justice, moderation, faith, hope and love.

Science cannot tell us about God's love and forgiveness. Science cannot tell us about the meaning or purpose of life. And it sure can't tell us about eternal life. In the Bible, however, we have the field notes of those who have encountered God in the wild and who have found answers which make life about more than mere existence.

And where else would we get our knowledge about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ? You can deduce that God is Creator from nature but how on earth would you know that he so loved the world that he sent his son to become one of us so that we can become like him? From other historical sources we know that a man named Jesus lived and was crucified, but without the Bible we would not have 4 different perspectives on him as our big complex God. We would not have a portrait of the God who is far above us, as Phillips put it, focussed in terms we understand, that is, in terms of time and space and human personality. We would not have the picture of Jesus picking up and blessing children, rebuking hypocrites, touching and healing lepers, overturning the tables of the money changers, weeping at Lazarus' grave, commending Mary for listening to his teachings rather than doing the housework, defending and then forgiving the woman taken in adultery, praying for his executioners from the cross, comforting Mary Magdalene in the garden, or eating fish with the disciples on the shores of Galilee after his resurrection. We would not know that Jesus is the living Word of God, the embodied expression of who God is, to whom the written Word of God testifies.

It is real tempting to keep the parts of the Bible that we like and discard the rest, just as it is tempting to always eat potatoes and never anything green. But a lopsided diet leads to malnutrition, whether we are talking physically or spiritually. And the Bible gives us exercise in the form of wrestling with God over these things.

Ultimately it is a matter of faith, of trusting that God loves us and knows what is good for us, even when we cannot understand all the reasons why. When I was a child my parents prohibited stuff for no good reason that I could see. And they encouraged me to learn or do things that were of no earthly use to me at that time. And then, when I was a parent, I found it's hard to communicate the reason for your instructions to kids who think they know it all. They had to trust that I was looking after their best interests.

Finally, the reason why we call the Bible the Word of God comes down to the way its truths resonate deep within us. While it does not tell us everything about everything, it does give us what is vital and essential to understanding God and ourselves and how we should live. It points us in the right direction, gives us landmarks to look for, and the name of a trusty Guide. That's why people still read and follow it today.

The gospel of John tells us that, when Jesus spoke to the crowds that wished to make him king, he talked about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Those folks turned away in droves. So Jesus asked his disciples, “Do you also wish to go away?” Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

First preached on October 19, 2003. It has been revised and updated.

You're All a Bunch of Animals

For the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi and the Blessing of the Animals.

Ever hear of the Cambrian Explosion? In 1989 the late paleontologist Stephen Gould published a critically acclaimed book called Wonderful Life. In it, Gould discusses the Cambrian Explosion, the discovery of thousands of fossils from the Cambrian period where it looked like innumerable new lifeforms suddenly appeared, many of them with bizarre types of bodies. Other scientists, however, were reappraising this event and coming up with a different interpretation. But to ethologist Richard Dawkins, Gould's explanation of what was once the scientific consensus was in fact a “near-disingenuous” misrepresentation of the facts. That's awfully close to calling Gould a liar! And of course, this had nothing at all to do with the fact that Gould said that Dawkins' “selfish gene” theory was a form of “reductionism” and an example of “Darwinian fundamentalism.” Nor should we infer that Dawkins doesn't get along with anyone who disagrees with him, whether they are theists or other scientists!

What this was really about was whether these fossils represented new forms of life or not. In fact one of the heroes of Gould's book, Simon Conway Morris, had changed his mind. He originally thought these fossils belonged to new phyla but now thought that most of them belonged to modern classifications. And that's what these scientists were really arguing about—names! They were getting all worked up about what categories to put these fossils into, even though one of the constants of science is redrawing the tree of life. New specimens and new data are always challenging the existing reconstructions of how various lifeforms are related. In the early days scientists looked at various specimens and grouped them by similarities. But since the discovery of DNA, classification has gotten trickier. It turns out that aardvarks and anteaters are not that closely related even though both have long snouts, burrow in the dirt and eat ants. On the other hand, fungi are closer to animals than plants! Although some scientists argue that plants are closer to animals than fungi. Science is always a work in progress.

The fluidity of these efforts to catalogue creation means we need to take the pronouncements of how we are related to other species with a large grain of salt. It is obvious that we are related to apes, and DNA confirms this, but it is just as obvious that human beings are radically different from them and all other species. When I was a kid, I was taught that one of the things that one of the things that made us unique was that we were toolmakers. Now we know that chimps use sticks to fish for termites in their mounds and otters use rocks to break open shells. But there is a huge difference between a stick and a Swiss Army Knife and between a rock and a laser. What we create is much more complex than what other animals make. And while chimps are among the few animals who recognize themselves in mirrors and so may be self-aware, the smartest chimp is not as smart as the average 5 year old human child. We can teach chimps to use symbolic languages but left to themselves they don't develop any. Nor do they use the languages we teach them to communicate in any great depth about anything other than their current needs, feelings and perceptions. They are never going to produce an insightful memoir or great work of fiction.

Nor will they ever endanger the whole world, as we do. All of the locusts in history could not duplicate the ecological damage that humans can. Jane Goodall was shocked to observe the chimps she studied for decades go to war with each other and even practice cannibalism. But they will never develop nuclear devices or biological weapons. The gulf that exists between our powers and those of the other animals means not only that we can do greater good but also greater harm. And due to our language, our ability to imagine the future and to judge potential outcomes as well as our ability to empathize with others, we cannot excuse such acts as due to ignorance. Greater intelligence does not necessarily lead to better behavior. That's why every human culture has to spell out explicit rules of morality.

The ability to choose right over wrong is part of what the Bible calls “the image of God” in humanity. (Genesis 1:27) The negative version of the Golden Rule, that is, “Don't do to others what you wouldn't like done to you,” is so universal it could almost be called a meme, Dawkins' unit of cultural thought that spreads like a gene. While there are areas of morality in which cultures disagree, all peoples recognize concepts such as fairness, moderation, compassion and wisdom. There is broad agreement that these principles apply to our relationships with our fellow human beings. But what are our obligations to the other animals?

In the beginning humanity was not only created in God's image but we were also given “dominion” over the rest of creation. (Genesis 1:28) What does this mean? Some have felt that it means we simply can walk all over other creatures and that we have been granted absolute power over them. That's not what the Bible says. Genesis 2:15 says, “The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to care for it and protect it.” A better translation of the Hebrew would be “to serve it and preserve it.” In other words, the man was to act as its gardener. So this “dominion” is not ownership but stewardship. The earth belongs to God, not us. We have authority over the earth and its creatures in the same way the manager of a great estate has authority over its land and native animals. He can act in the name of the estate's owner but he is expected to do the owner's will. He is not authorized to go against the express wishes of the owner.

We tend to forget this. We act as if we know better than God does when it comes to what we do with his gifts. We often go against his express wishes. And then we are surprised when we suffer the consequences of going against the principles upon which this world was created. We forget just how interconnected it all is.

For instance, large commercial farms have been paying beekeepers with portable apiaries to travel the country and use their bees to pollinate crops on a scale that the local bees cannot do alone. But the exchange of diseases between the visiting bees and the local ones is being studied as a factor in the problem of colony collapse disorder. As bees mysteriously disappear, the crops they pollinate are endangered. This includes almonds, cranberries, cucumbers, raspberries, strawberries and watermelons. In trying to do God's natural order one better, we may lose many of its delicious gifts and one of its most iconic insects.

In the Keys we have seen how overfishing has had drastic negative effects on our fish stocks. It seems that even after killing all the dodos and passenger pigeons, we have not learned our lesson and we have pushed almost to the brink of extinction blue whales, red wolves, black rhinos, gorillas, leatherback sea turtles, chimpanzees, sea otters, elephants, lions, tigers and bears. Oh, my! Even with recent conservation efforts most of these species are endangered or the slightly higher rating of vulnerable. But their numbers are not robust and some are in decline. They are not out of the woods yet, so to speak.

We have also worked against God's way of breeding healthy species. Purebred people or animals are not natural. Just as blood diseases such as porphyria and hemophilia ran rampant through the inbred royal families of Europe, so have more than 500 distinct genetic defects been found in various breeds of purebred dogs. God's natural selection of mates works better than our artificial selection.

So we have not been wise stewards of the animals we have been charged with caring for and protecting. But does the Bible explicitly tell us to treat animals well? In Exodus, just 3 chapters after having been given the Ten Commandments, Moses is told that the Sabbath applies to our animals as well. (Exodus 23:12) They are also to rest from work so that they may be refreshed. And Jesus points out that the prohibition against humans working on the Sabbath could be lifted if an animal needed to be rescued. (Luke 14:5; Matthew 12:11) If you see an animal in trouble you are to help it. (Exodus 23:4-5; Deuteronomy 22:4). Oxen were not to be muzzled as they tread on grain. (Deuteronomy 25:4) In other words, they are allowed to eat some of the food they are helping to process. And Proverbs 12:10 says that the righteous person takes care of the needs of his animals. Or as Eugene Peterson translates it, “Good people are good to their animals.”

Another significant piece of Biblical data: Animals are included in God's covenant with Noah never to flood the whole earth again. (Genesis 9:8-11) And when he tells Jonah why he cared if Nineveh was destroyed, God specifically mentions his desire to save the animals as well as the people in the city. (Jonah 4:11) Jesus says that God is aware of each sparrow that falls. (Matthew 10:29) The conclusion is clear: God loves all of his creatures, not simply humans.

This is not to say that the Bible advocates vegetarianism nor that it puts animals on parr with humans when it comes to rights. Animals can be used for food. (Genesis 9:3) They were used in the sacrificial system. (Leviticus 1:2) Their blood reminded the penitent of the cost of his sin. (Leviticus 1:4-5) Their blood was used precisely because they are precious to us. If it became easy for a person to sacrifice an animal, it would not send the right message. The loss of any life has to be a significant loss. In the Bible, part of the preparation of meat is the draining of all blood. This predates the Kosher laws. God tells Noah that blood was not to be eaten. Blood is life and all life belongs to God. (Genesis 9:4)

The paradox is that we are animals and yet we are different from all other animals. Biologically, we are their kin. Spiritually, we are their caretakers. We are, as C.S. Lewis put it, amphibians, at home in both the physical and spiritual realms. When Paul tells us to be spiritual, that doesn't mean we are to be divorced from our bodies but directed by God's Spirit. (Romans 8:8-10, 12-14) The physical creation is not to be reviled but redeemed. Our ultimate destiny is not an ethereal existence in the clouds but a resurrected life in a new world, where heaven comes to earth, and the Creator's original plan for his creation as a paradise has been restored. (Romans 8:11; Revelation 21:1-4)

So on the day we remember St. Francis of Assisi, we bless our animals and they bless us. Just as we reflect some aspects of God, so also they reflect others. But there is an overlap. We are startled to see bits of ourselves in them and they remind us that we too are creatures and not gods. They often cock their heads in amazement at what we do, reminding us of the radically generous gifts God has bestowed upon us. We need to remember that in the Biblical economy, power is not given so that some may exploit others but so that we may help and protect others. To that end we are given gifts of empathy and love for them. (2 Samuel 12:1-6) And it works both ways. Our animals often sense when we need their love to lift our spirits.

Blessings are to be shared. We are blessed so that we may bless others. And the blessings of God need to be expressed and articulated, lest we forget that they are there and lest we forget what they are and what they mean. They need to be articulated so that we can see if our works are in harmony with our words, if what is on our lips can be found in our lives.

Let us pray:

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things and giver of all life, let your blessings be upon our animals. May our relationships with them mirror your love, and our care for them be an example of your bountiful mercy. Grant our animals health and peace. Strengthen us to love and care for them as we, like your servant Francis, strive to imitate the love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We ask these things in his name and through the power of your Holy Spirit, who live and reign with you, Father, one God forever and ever. Amen.

First preached on October 4, 2009. It has been revised and updated.

Removing the Obstacles

The scriptures referred to are Mark 9:38-50.

The most frustrating driving experience has to be where you can see where you want to go but you can't seem to get there because there are obstacles in what should be a straightforward route. My worst experience in this regard was driving in the English city of Bath. We circled our hotel several times before we found the secret entrance to the little loop of road on which it was located. Later I found out that, in an effort to alleviate traffic, the city had changed many of its narrow medieval streets to one-way streets and cut others off completely to create a pedestrian walkway. The map I had did not indicate this. Because of the obstacles, you had to be an insider to navigate from certain parts of the city to get to other parts. It was almost as if the planners were saying to outsiders, “You can't get there from here.”

Today's gospel is best understood as a collection of sayings by Jesus. They were not necessarily all said at one time or in this order. Some commentators see the sayings as grouped by little more than shared words or loosely related thoughts. But I think there is a definite theme here. These verses are all talking about putting up obstacles which keep us from getting to Jesus and the kingdom of God.

For context, let's look at what happens just before this passage. Mark 9:33-37 records the disgraceful episode in which the disciples argue about which of them is the greatest. Achieving personal glory was a high priority in the Roman empire; humility was not. Jesus responds by reversing this popular standard: the greater person is not the one who is served but the one who serves others. And he illustrates his point by holding up a child, the most powerless person in society, as the kind of person we should welcome in Jesus' name. When we offer hospitality to a person who, like a child, needs everything and who can't offer us anything of material or political worth, we are welcoming Jesus and his Father. This overturning of worldly standards is a common theme in Jesus' teaching.

At the beginning of today's gospel the disciple John makes a comment that seems like a non-sequitur. Perhaps he is embarrassed about the whole greatness argument. Later in this gospel, John and his brother James are the main cause of the renewal of that debate about who is greater. (Mark 10:35-45) So to change the subject, John brings up this independent exorcist who is healing people of physical and mental illnesses using Jesus' name. Because he is not formally a member of Jesus' group of students, the disciples take it upon themselves to tell this guy to cut it out. John is obviously telling this to Jesus in the hope that he will at least commend them on this action.

But Jesus surprises them by saying, “Stop hindering him, for no one who does a powerful good deed in my name will be able to immediately afterwards say bad things about me. For whoever is not against us is for us.” I like the way Eugene Peterson translates the last sentence: “If he's not an enemy, he's an ally.”

Officially, 2.4 billion people, about 1/3 of the world's population, call themselves Christians. We do a lot of good. There are innumerable Christian charities and ministries for those who are poor, hungry, in need of a place to stay, in need of education, in need of medical care, and/or in need of psychological support. In many places, Christians, in the words of Proverbs 31:8, “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves” and act as champions of the oppressed.

So why aren't Christians always seen as a force for good? Well, in part, because we are divided up into approximately 47,000 denominations. And these groups don't always play well with others. Many hold to distinctive doctrines, or interpretations, or rituals, or behaviors, or organizational elements that they feel are more important than having unity with other Christians. The rest of the world doesn't understand all of these distinctions. They just see so-called followers of Jesus fighting with one another. And that's a big obstacle to bringing outsiders to Jesus.

Unlike his disciples, however, Jesus wasn't upset by someone outside his original group doing good in his name. Why not?

The man in question really believed in Jesus. John doesn't say that the man was attempting to cast out demons in Jesus' name; he was succeeding in doing so. In those days, people thought diseases were caused by entities invisible to the eye called demons. Today we think diseases are caused by entities invisible to the eye called microbes. In both cases, the cure lies in expelling the unseen entities. And however you look at it, this unofficial Christian was healing people. Which means he had genuine faith in Jesus.

In the book of Acts we meet some Jewish exorcists who didn't believe in Jesus but tried using his name anyway, with the result that they were beaten up by the possessed man they tried to exorcise. (Acts 19:13-16) They didn't realize that using Jesus' name is not like magic. In magic you use words and rituals to force the universe to obey your will. Christians pray which is asking the Lord of the universe for something, always with the realization that it is up to our heavenly Father to respond in accordance with his will and his wisdom.

So this was a real Christian, doing what Jesus was doing. He was healing and helping others and spreading word of Jesus. And the Lord is basically saying, “Don't put up an obstacle for him. Let him continue to do my work and my will.” That's a lesson we still need to heed. If people really put their trust in Jesus and are doing powerful deeds for him, their official affiliation is not important. What they do for Jesus is.

It works the other way as well. Jesus goes on to say that anyone who simply gives you a cup of water because you are his follower will be rewarded. In other words, don't reject or despise the smallest gesture of hospitality or friendship. Sometimes we interpret anything less than 100% agreement with us, or anything other than total support, as unacceptable. We don't want half-measures. But in the Middle East, where hospitality is a major virtue, a cup of water was sometimes all a poor person could offer a visitor. Jesus says we should appreciate the thought behind the gesture. Because God does.

In the next verse we shift to the subject of causing little ones to stumble. It may mean that Jesus is talking about children here but he could also mean new Christians no matter what their age. In Greek the word for “put up a stumbling block” is the same word from which we get the English word “scandalize.” Jesus is saying if you cause a new believer to stumble in their faith, you are the one in real trouble with God. Taking advantage of someone's naivete by misleading them, or exploiting them, or bullying them, or giving them a hard time is wrong. Sometimes we engage in low-level blasphemy, acting a little too familiar or jokey about God and other sacred matters. This can eat away at a young Christian's faith, just as our culture's automatic contempt for all authority has made our children and young people unable to see any reason to obey rules or their teachers or the government.

Next Jesus moves from us being an obstacle for someone else following him to the ways in which we sabotage ourselves when it comes to being a Christian. Since Jesus says that evil comes from the heart, not from anything external, (Mark 7:20-23) he doesn't mean here that your hand, foot or eye is the actual cause of sin. Nor is he really saying amputation is a ticket to heaven. What he is saying is that we need to keep our priorities straight. Sometimes we get so attached to things that we feel that they are a part of us. Our possessions, our positions on certain issues, or the positions that we hold in society can come to feel like extensions of who we are. They become part of our self-image and so giving them up might be almost as hard to do as lopping off a limb.

We see this in how people modify what kind of Christians they are—conservative, progressive, Anglican, Evangelical, gay, charismatic, feminist or fundamentalist. And I wonder what would happen if Jesus came to them and said, “You must make a choice between simply being a Christian and the issue you have attached to my movement. You must give up one or the other.” How would you choose? In other words, what's more important: God's kingdom or our pet causes? Can't we have both? Sometimes, if the pet cause is neutral or totally in line with the gospel. But often it skews our work for Jesus. There are those who say that all true Christians must also belong to a particular political party. And we have seen how many people have been turned off to the gospel before they actually heard it because we associated it with something earthly and temporal. A lot of our modern issues don't appear in the Bible. Remember: the Bible contains everything necessary for salvation. We cannot add other conditions to it or we are adding to God's word. If we start off by saying, “Hi! I'm a pro-life, pro-choice, pro-death penalty, anti-gay marriage, anti-gun Christian. Would you like to hear the good news?” we will turn people off before they have a chance to hear the gospel and we will have rendered ourselves useless as ambassadors for Jesus.

And you know where useless things end up? In the garbage dump. The word translated “hell” in this passage is “Gehenna,” the valley of Hinnom. It runs along the southwest side of Jerusalem. In the past it had been the site for the worship of the pagan god Moloch. During a period of widespread apostasy, ancient Israelites sacrificed their children to Moloch by fire. (2 Kings 16:2-3; 17:17; 21:6) They did this in defiance of God's command as well as the lesson learned when God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son Isaac. (Deuteronomy 12:31; Genesis 22:10-13) King Josiah desecrated this valley so it could no longer be used for pagan worship and it became the city garbage dump. (2 Kings 23:10) In addition, Jeremiah prophesied that it would become a mass grave (Jeremiah 7:30-34) It also sounds like the place that Isaiah described where the corpses of God's enemies lie and “their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” (Isaiah 66:24) Recognize that language? Jesus uses this as an image of hell: the garbage dump, where worms feed and fire burns the things that are rotten, useless and irreparably broken.

Unlike garbage we have a choice in where we end up. Just as those who don't give up unhealthy behaviors like smoking, drinking and abusing drugs are on one level choosing a lifestyle that will inevitably lead to illness, those who end up in the cosmic garbage pile are self-selected. If they can't let go of the things that are obstacles to being with God, such as idolizing things like money, power, lust, or themselves, or such as hating other people and neglecting people in need (Mark 12:29-31), then they are choosing an existence apart from God, the source of all goodness. By resisting the healing he offers, they render themselves rotten, useless and irreparably broken.

The next three verses in our passage are among the most difficult in the Bible to interpret. To many, they seem to have been grouped together simply because of shared words like “salt.” Was Mark such a poor editor that he just lumped a bunch of miscellaneous quotes by Jesus together for such superficial reasons? I don't think so.

From talking about a fire that is never quenched, he goes to “everyone will be salted by fire.” This verse may be a reference to Leviticus 2:13 where we are told that sacrifices are to be salted. But why does this verse say “salted with fire”? The best interpretation is that Jesus is contrasting his previous use of fire as a destructive force with that of fire as a purifying one. The fiery trials of this life can destroy us if we let them or we can see them as experiences that are only able to burn up things in our lives that are neither essential nor eternal.

Disasters can bring people together or drive them apart. They can do the same with people's relationships with God. Some find meaning in the events through which they suffer and come away with a strengthened faith in God. Some reject God for allowing any suffering of pain and loss. Ironically, when they do, they are still left with their suffering. It's just that without God it will remain random and meaningless. What they have actually eliminated is any possibility that an objective meaning for their suffering can exist or that there is hope for justice or for restoration in this life or the next.

The way we perceive our trials can be an obstacle to our relationship with Jesus. We can either see them as events through which God can turn evil into good or we can see them as reasons to doubt that God is good. No event is so horrible that some good cannot come out of it. Corrie ten Boom and her family were good Christians who hid Jews during the Holocaust. They were discovered and Corrie, her sister and their aged father were sent to a concentration camp. The Jews they hid were safe but only Corrie survived the camp. She could have railed at God for punishing her, her father and sister for doing the right thing. But instead Corrie went around the world, telling people how God triumphed even in such a dark time. (In her 80s she spoke at my college and when at the end of her talk we applauded for her, she stopped us. “Not Corrie,” she said, “Only Jesus.”)

Jesus next says, “Salt is good but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again?” Salt was used as a seasoning to make things better and as a preservative to keep things from going bad. Either use suits Jesus' purpose here. His point is how can you restore something that has lost its essential nature? Things in our life tend to lose what was once essential to what they were. The internet, which was originally created for the sharing of knowledge, has now become a tool for entertaining us and spreading misinformation. Our government has ceased to be a body of representatives working for the common good and is now a gladiatorial arena, where each side is simply trying to score points off the other without regard for whether their activity helps or harms the nation. Some churches seem to be acting in a similar manner. Changing the nature of the church definitely can be an obstacle to bringing people to Jesus.

Finally, Jesus says, “Have salt in yourselves...” Now what could that mean? What is the essential element that Christians must have to preserve us and make things better? Many will say “righteousness” or “orthodoxy” or “socially aware policies.” But Jesus concludes, “...and be at peace with one another.” Christians who are at peace with one another will preserve us and make things better. And Christian peace is not passive but active. We don't promote peace by simply saying “Don't rock the boat!” but by listening to one another, submitting to one another, making sacrifices for one another, bearing one another's burdens, forgiving one another, loving one another. (James 1:19; Ephesians 5:21; 1 John 3:16; Galatians 6:2; Ephesians 4:32; John 13:34)

One of the biggest obstacles to having people come to Jesus is us not seeing Jesus in one another, not serving Jesus in one another, not reflecting Jesus to one another. (Mark 9:35-37; Matthew 25:40) The object is not simply to be near Christ but to be in Christ, to push past the surface and live in him and to draw others in, so that we may all be one in Christ. (Galatians 3:26-28)

First preached on September 27, 2009. It has been revised and updated.