During this calendar year of 2023, I have begun focusing on the months of the biblical year.  I have long known they existed.  They are mentioned in many parts of the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament.  I just never paid much attention to them.

I began with Adar, which is the twelfth and final month on the calendar.  This year, it began on Ash Wednesday.  It’s focus is joy, and it is demonstrated by the book of Esther.

Then there is Nisan, the first month.  The highlight is the premier feast, Passover (or Pesach).  It’s followed by Iyar, the second month, which is a month of transition.  The Israelites have been through the exodus and are in the wilderness. They complain of thirst and hunger.  They are still on the way.

Sivan is the third month.  It features Shavuot, or Pentecost.  Traditionally, the book of Ruth is associated with it.  There’s the all-night study session.  For that, you better have some strong coffee or Turkish tea on hand!

The fourth month in the biblical calendar is Tammuz.  We are more than halfway through it.  The theme, or the association, with Tammuz in Hebrew thought is vision.  It is a month of darkness and light.  It is the month of the eyes.  Guard your eyes, we are told; guard your heart.

The word “Tammuz” only appears once in the Bible (Ezekiel 8:14).  It’s mentioned in a passage in which the Lord is revealing to the prophet, who is in Babylon with the exiles, what abominations are occurring back in the temple in Jerusalem.  There is a lovely list of them, but here’s the one relevant to us.

“Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord, and I saw women sitting there, mourning the god Tammuz.  He said to me, ‘Do you see this, son of man?  You will see things that are even more detestable than this.’”  Oh goody!

So who is this Tammuz?  There are various versions of the story, but here’s a common theme.  He was a god of spring, and the myth regarding him told of his early death and of the descent of Ishtar his bride into the underworld in search of him.  The death of Tammuz symbolized the destruction of the spring vegetation by the heat of summer, and it was celebrated annually by seven days of women’s mourning, if that can be considered celebrating.

Some say he was a handsome god, the Babylonian version of Adonis, if we can set aside the fact that Adonis was mortal.  No wonder the ladies lamented so bitterly.

Here’s an obvious question: why name the month after a pagan god, indeed after an idol?

Look at the Ten Commandments.  Right off the bat, here’s the big number one.  “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:2-3, Dt 5:6-7).  That would seem to settle it!

Again, there are many answers, but one recurring theme is a warning to avoid idolatry.  The message is to gain mastery over it.  The annual appearance of the month of Tammuz is a constant reminder of that lesson.

One story dealing with this month concerns the twelve spies sent into the land of Canaan by Moses.  (One representative for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.)  In Numbers 13 and 14 we see the command to “spy” out the region.  This is all about vision.  The spies were to use their eyes.

I like how the New International Version presents Moses’ volley of questions.  “See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many.  What kind of land do they live in?  Is it good or bad?  What kind of towns do they live in?  Are they unwalled or fortified?  How is the soil?  Is it fertile or poor?  Are there trees in it or not?  Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land” (13:18-20).

Then there’s an editorial comment.  “It was the season of the first ripe grapes.”  That’s how we know this was the month of Tammuz, which is the time of the grape harvest.

When the scouts return, they admit the lushness of “the land of milk and honey.”  However, there are problems.  They report seeing cities which in fact are fortified—and what’s more, the people who live there are giants!  In comparison, we look like grasshoppers.  The land devours those who dare enter it.  Their advice: it’s not worth the risk.  Christine Vales says, “They believed the fake news from the ten spies network.”[1]  There’s a conspiracy to stage a coup and find someone to lead them back to Egypt.

On a side note, the ten spies network has a report concerning the descendants of Anak and the Nephilim.  Who are these Nephilim?  There’s a strange story in Genesis 6 regarding them.  We read, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them.  These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown” (v. 4).

So according to the story, celestial beings mated with human women, who gave birth to the Nephilim, who were giants.  Many cultures have legends about giants who lived long ago.

Speaking of giants, if you travel along I-90 in southern Minnesota, you might encounter the Green Giant giant with a height of 55 feet!  (I think it’s still there.)  And in Nashville’s Centennial Park, there is a full-scale replica of the Parthenon, inhabited by a 42 foot-high statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom, the tallest indoor statue in the United States.

Let’s go back to the conflicting testimonies.  Joshua and Caleb have an alternate vision.  They acknowledge the difficulties but see a different destiny.  They aren’t blind, and they aren’t naïve.  Where the others see tragedy, they see triumph.  Their eyes and their hearts imagine a different reality.

Is it plausible, is it any way possible, during their mission of reconnaissance that Joshua and Caleb quite literally see what the other ten don’t?  As just mentioned, sure, they see the cities and the people.  Do their preliminary expectations alter what they can visualize?  I don’t know; perhaps not.  Regardless, I have been learning (or re-learning) for myself how my willingness to see affects what I truly see.  I think I’m moving closer to that type of leap of faith.

If I don’t want to see something, does that mean I won’t see it?  On the flip side, if I do want to see something, does that mean I will see it?  Maybe.

We humans are making it easier to play tricks on our own eyes.  Virtual reality opens up a whole new world of make-believe.  We can see things, whether we want to or not.  Virtual reality can present us with images, from our most heavenly dreams and from our most hellish nightmares.

In any event, it is safe to say our differences in vision run deeper than the technological.  I would suggest reliance on the technological, for good or ill (it can be either) is helping to re-wire our imaginations.  Artificial intelligence (AI) is able to not only trick our eyes, but what might feed our souls, by composing poems and sermons—tricking the eyes of the heart.

Last year, Rabbi Josh Franklin, who serves a synagogue on Long Island, preached a sermon written by AI.[2]  Before he began, he told the congregants he would engage in plagiarism.  He challenged them to guess who wrote the sermon.  “When he revealed that it was in fact written by a robot, Franklin said to the congregation: ‘You’re clapping, I’m deathly afraid.  I thought truck drivers would go long before rabbis in terms of losing our positions to artificial intelligence.’”

(Okay, I’ll confess, all of this is the composition of a robot.)

Joshua and Caleb want the Israelites to see.  This isn’t virtual reality.  Yes, there are fortified cities, and the people there are fierce.  They plead with them, “do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear the people of the land, for they are no more than bread for us” (14:9).  We can eat them up!

See them.  Really see them.  “Their protection is removed from them.”  The word for “protection” is צֵל (tsēl), which literally means “shadow.”  They have no cover from the burning hot sun.  They are exposed.

Tammuz is a month for vision.  It is a month of darkness and light.

On that question of darkness and light, Sarah Schneider speaks of God in creation, “And God saw that the light was good” (Gn 1:4).  She shares a teaching from Kabbalah.  “In each instant of time, creation reverts to chaos and is born anew…  In each moment we are dissolved and reconstituted, faster than the blink of an eye.”[3]

In our darkness, when we’re not sure what we see…  In our darkness, when we find ourselves worshipping and weeping for a false god…  In our darkness, when we say no to the guidance leading us to the promised land…  In our darkness, the light is constantly being reborn, just as we are.

Within the darkness of suffering, the light of healing is present.  It is present in Jesus Christ, the light of the world.

[1] www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL0YhAZz6ag (at 12:40)

[2] www.thejc.com/news/world/new-york-rabbi-delivers-full-sermon-written-by-artificial-intelligence-6BkwDEHc2ZWR63tmoOdvvf

[3] www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/2241467/jewish/Tammuz-the-Month-of-Darkness-and-Light.htm

On our second anniversary trip, Banu and I went to the Jersey shore.  Specifically, we went to Long Beach Island.  We stayed at a bed and breakfast in the cozy little village of Beach Haven.  Our anniversary was right after Labor Day, so the tourist season was starting to wind down.  There was a huge storm about a hundred miles off the coast, so the sky was cloudy, and the surf was choppy.

photo by Arun Sundar

A key landmark of Long Beach Island is the Barnegat Lighthouse.  Upon climbing to the top, I looked over the railing, and as one might expect, it is a challenge for those afraid of heights.  (I wasn’t able to see the storm out at sea.  The lighthouse isn’t quite that high!)

This lighthouse, like all lighthouses, is built to shine in the dark.  It is built to guide ships from running aground, from crashing into the rocks.  Its mission, if you want to call it that, is to protect travelers in the dark from harm.

So often, we travel in the dark.  We need a lighthouse to guide the way.  We are called to be lighthouses for each other, as we travel through perilous waters.

Lighthouses came to mind while I was meditating on Isaiah 42.

That chapter provides one of the best pictures of the grace of being chosen that appears in the entire Bible.  It’s a picture of the figure known as the Servant of Yahweh, the Servant of the Lord.  “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights” (v. 1a).

Verses 1-4 of chapter 42 present the first of what are called the Servant Songs.  There are three more: in 49:1-6, 50:4-11, and 52:13-53:12, which is the one presenting the Suffering Servant.

The question has been often asked, just who is this Servant?  Some say it’s the prophet himself.  Others believe the nation of Israel is intended.  And still others, reflecting a Christian interpretation, say the Servant is none other than Jesus himself.  One group with a less well-known interpretation, “Jews for Allah,” affirms that the figure in chapter 42 is Muhammad.[1]  (I must admit, though; I find their reasoning to be less than convincing!)  I believe the prophet and Israel are intended, but the Messiah is able to perfectly live out these statements.

The Servant has a mission.  In his commentary, George Knight speaks of the mission as being “meant to sit down alongside the brokenhearted just where they are to be found, [that is], in the mire of this human life of ours; and in this way, by his very presence with them, he will become the instrument by which a strength and hope that is not their own will be transferred to them.”[2]

By renouncing the false strength of violence, the Servant is able to tap into the true strength of God.

The first Servant Song, spoken in the third person, ends with verse 4.  At verse 5, God begins to directly address the Servant.  This chosen one is set within the context of creation itself.  The statement that the Lord “created the heavens and stretched them out” might be considered by some to be poetic flourish.  Modern astronomy, however, tells us after some 14 billion years, the universe continues to expand.  (Not that the prophet is engaging in a scientific discussion!)

Of course, Yahweh is Lord over more than the vast reaches of space and time, but also of the inner space of the human heart and of the human community.  “I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you” (v. 6).  The Lord’s taking our hand directs our dealing with each other.

The context of creation isn’t simply window dressing; it has real significance.  The word used for “righteousness” in verse 6 is צֶדֶק (tsedeq).  It comes from a verb whose basic meaning is “to render justice,” or “to justify.”  But it can also mean “to make normal.”  There’s a whole sermon in that word itself!

So what we have is the God of the cosmos calling the Servant to exhibit justice all over creation.  Wickedness—injustice—is abnormal.  What is normal is to be in harmony with creation.  To be righteous means to deal justly in our relationships: with our God, with our neighbors, with ourselves, with our planet and all it contains.

If it’s true, as I said I believe, that Israel is intended to be the Servant of the Lord, it’s also true that Israel falls short.

On that point, May 14 is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the nation state of Israel.

In the current issue of Sapir Journal, there are meditations on verses 6 and 7, as it is translated, “I the Lord, in My grace, have summoned you, / And I have grasped you by the hand.  / I created you, and appointed you / A covenant people, a light of nations— / Opening eyes deprived of light, / Rescuing prisoners from confinement, / From the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”[3]

They are meditations on “A Light unto the Nations,” and what that means for the Israel of today.

The Iranian-American writer Roya Hakakian offers this reflection: “Of all the miracles known to Jews—the burning bush, the parting of the waters, the rain of manna from the sky—the greatest of all was made not by God but by the mortals who envisioned a country out of only despair.”

Well, no doubt that vision was enabled by the divine call “to open the eyes that are blind.”

She continues, thinking of the many divisions among Jews throughout the centuries, “It is in the unceasing emphasis on questioning, even quibbling over, ideas, if only to master the arts of tolerance and temperance.”

When I was a student at Southeastern College [now Southeastern University] in Lakeland, Florida, an Old Testament professor of mine made an enlightening comment.  He said when two Jewish people come together, there are three opinions.  That wasn’t an insult.  It expresses harmony with Hakakian and the unceasing emphasis on questioning—and the light it thereby sheds.

Bari Weiss is the founder of “The Free Press,” a Substack.com publication.  She offers her own observation.

“There is a famous teaching attributed to the 19th-century Hasidic master Rabbi Simcha Bunim that has stayed with me since I learned it as a kid.”  She recalls, “Bunim teaches that every person should keep two scraps of paper in her pockets.  On one scrap, in one pocket, a line from Tractate Sanhedrin: The whole world was created just for me.  On the other scrap, in another pocket, Abraham’s words from Genesis 18:27: I am but dust and ashes.

“In low moments, we need the Talmud to remind us that for our sake the world was made.  At other times, we need Bereshit to bring us back down to Earth.”

Since its founding in 1948, the nation of Israel has been in an almost constant state of war, to one degree or another.  There are complicated reasons for this, and there is plenty of blame to spread around.

(Here’s a side note about the Palestinians: about 5% of them are Christians, and they exercise an influence greater than their numbers might suggest.  The Arab church can be traced back to the first century.)

Weiss resumes, “On the one hand, a nation like any other—screwing one another, screwing it all up.  On the other, a Jewish state set apart—an ancient promise by God to the people of Israel.  On the one hand, a reminder that we Jews are just people.  On the other, an aspiration as high as the heavens—a vision of a nation capable of lighting up the dark.

“These days, like so many Jews in Israel and around the world, I find myself reaching for the pocket with Isaiah’s words, praying that Israel can make itself worthy of that vow.”

I’ve taken the time to address this special anniversary due to the deep ties between Judaism and Christianity, despite whatever approval or disapproval we might have with the Israeli government.

Still, there is the call to let light shine, be it by prophet, nation, or Messiah.

["Simeon in the Temple" by Rembrandt]

To that point, Luke 2 speaks of the dedication of the infant Jesus in the temple.  Simeon, a man great in years and in righteousness, welcomes Mary and Joseph.  Taking the baby into his arms, he proclaims, referring to himself, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word” (v. 29).  During his long life, he has known by inspiration of the Spirit, he would not die before encountering the Messiah.

There was the promise his eyes would see the Lord’s salvation “which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (vv. 31-32).

Not only is this Lord of light the Lord of creation, as noted earlier, but also the Lord of history.  This one is the Lord of time.  Verse 9 in the Isaiah text proclaims, “See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”

We’re prisoners of the moment.  We are captives of the moment.  We have only the present in which to act.  The past is forever locked away, beyond our ability to change it.  And as for the future: whether it’s five seconds, five days, or five centuries, it’s always beyond our reach.  Tomorrow never comes.  That is, until someone figures out time travel!

But part of the good news of being chosen by the Lord of time is that we can trust that future.  We’re called to be faithful now, in the present.  We’re guided by one who has journeyed beyond the divide, beyond the final tomorrow of death, and has come back to us.

The Lord, the one “who [has] created the heavens and stretched them out, who [has] spread out the earth and what comes from it,” has given “breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it” (v. 5).  The Lord has given the life force to we mortals.  That life is the light of the world.

[Hale-Bopp Comet, 1997, "The Lord created the heavens and stretched them out"]

We have now entered a time in our nation, in our congregation, in our own lives, how we will choose to be the lighthouses for the Lord or if we will choose to be lighthouses.

As I said a couple of weeks ago, Iyar is the biblical month of healing.  It is also the biblical month of transition.  The question is, will we transition to the path the Lord has prepared for us?

Will we let light shine; will we allow it—as was the calling of the prophet…  as is the calling of the nation…  and as has been our calling of followers of the Messiah?

See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.

[1] jews-for-allah.org/Muhammad-and-Judaism/the-Jewish-Bible/Muhammad-in-Isaiah42.htm

[2] George A. F. Knight, Deutero-Isaiah (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1965), 73.

[3] sapirjournal.org/israel-at-75/2023/04/light-unto-the-nations/

There are a number of certain commercials I think we’ve all seen.  They go along these lines: “But wait!  Your culinary experience isn’t complete until you’ve savored our luscious dessert.  Layer after mouth-watering layer of deep, rich chocolate!  It has a taste that is absolutely decadent!”

I realize, of course, that the intent is to describe a delight that is a guilty pleasure.  However, unless one has a particular preference for the flavor of rotten rations, that dish might be one to avoid.  After all, the original meaning of “decadent” refers to something in a state of decay—something in the process of decomposing!

Still, at some level, descriptions of decadent dessert are true.  Nothing lasts forever.  I’m reminded of the song by R.E.M., “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.”  (And I should add, “And I feel fine.”)

As the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, “the present form of this world is passing away” (v. 31).  The Revised English Bible says that “the world as we know it is passing away.”

Plenty of cosmologists say the same thing.  At some point in time, all of the current creation—everything we now see—will be reduced to its constituent elements.  And even they won’t hold together.  If the cosmos continues to expand, that would mean we have in the neighborhood of 20 billion years before every atom, every subatomic particle, in our present universe gets ripped apart.  (At least, that’s one school of thought among many!)

In an Old Testament reading from the book of Isaiah, the prophet has a vision truly looking beyond our present reality.  In the first verse of the passage, he relays the message God has given him, saying, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind” (v. 17).  Today we recall and celebrate an event that in the timeless, eternal mind of God, shows a door opening to that new dimension: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The scripture reading ends on a note recalling the Garden of Eden—and the reversal of what went wrong.  “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust!  They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord” (v. 25).

If we recall in the book of Genesis, the serpent was given the sentence “upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life” (3:14).

[Edward Hicks, "Peaceable Kingdom" (1844)]

The resurrection is often thought of as the eighth day of creation.  “And on the eighth day…there was a new creation.”  On the eighth day, God raised Jesus from the grave.

It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out why the text in Isaiah 65 is one of the Old Testament lessons read at Easter.  All of that stuff about a new creation, a new vision, a new Jerusalem—all of that lends itself very well to reflections on resurrection.

Still, having said that, we have to be aware of trying to shoehorn Jesus Christ into the Hebrew scriptures.

I said how the passage begins with God’s promise of a new creation—how the former things won’t be remembered.  Hear verses 18 and 19: “But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.  I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.”

There will be no more crying.  The infant mortality rate will drop to zero.  “They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit” (v. 21).  There are also the images I mentioned earlier that recall the Garden of Eden.

This poetic language of a seemingly unreal, dreamlike, future appears throughout the Bible.  It’s in some of the prophets, some of Jesus’ words in the gospels, and the book of Revelation is filled with it.  It’s called apocalyptic language.  “Apocalyptic” literally means a “revelation” or an “uncovering.”  It tends to emerge when the community of faith is under great persecution.  It states, in often very colorful terms, that the high and mighty will be brought down and the lowly will be lifted up.

The prophet is telling the people that, besides the need to get their act together, they need not worry about the past, the former age.  It is said earlier in Isaiah, God is “about to do a new thing” (43:19).  What they’ve been doing hasn’t worked.  It has led them to a dead end.  That’s true in more ways than one.

They’re no longer ruled by the Babylonians (these words come after the return from exile in Babylon), but they’re still subject to the Persians.  The prophet is trying to expand their vision, to help them see how they are slaves to their own corruption, to their own decadence.  They are slaves to the powers of death.

In Luke’s version of Easter morning, angelic visitors pose the question to the women coming to the tomb: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” (Lk 24:5).

What does that mean for us this morning?  In what ways do we look for the living among the dead?  In what ways are we trapped by the past, trapped by the former age?  In what ways do we reject God’s new creation?  And on the flip side, in what ways do we yearn for that eighth day to dawn?

There are plenty of ways to approach this.  Recall verse 18, where the prophet, speaking for God, says to “be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.”  We are called to joy.

Is there room in our hearts for joy?  I’m not talking about painting saccharine smiles on our faces.  I’m talking about something deeper than emotion; something that’s present, even in times of extreme sorrow.  Is there room in our hearts for the joy of resurrection—for the hope of life, where once there was only death?

In Matthew 28, that’s something Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” are facing.  (By the way, “the other Mary” could be any number of people.  Mary was a very common name.)

They are coming to the tomb of Jesus, preparing to care for the body.  There’s an earthquake, caused by the angel rolling the stone away from the mouth of the tomb.  (Please note: in Matthew’s gospel, there is only one angel.)  He took a seat on the stone, which prompted the Roman guards to tremble with fear and become “like dead men” (v. 4).  Maybe they passed out or were paralyzed with dread.

The angel comforts the women, saying he knows why they have come.  They’ve come looking for a body, but wait, the body has disappeared!  They are searching for Jesus, but he has been raised—just as he predicted.

Then he gives them an assignment: go back and tell the others.  You all (y’all) will be reunited in Galilee.  But then Jesus gives them a surprise visit.  Greetings!  As one might expect, Mary and Mary are terror-stricken.  Jesus repeats the angel’s message.  “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me” (v. 10).

I did mention joy.  You might ask, “Okay, where is it?”

I want to especially focus on verse 8.  We are told, “they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.”  With fear and great joy.  The Greek words are φόβος (phobos) and χαρά (chara).  We get our word “phobia” from phobos, and “cheer” comes from chara.

Along with love, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Ga 5:22-23).  Joy is part of God’s very nature.

For that precise reason—and this shouldn’t be a surprise—the devil has no part in joy.  The devil has no joy.  The devil laughs, but it is cruel laughter.  But as for joy, the devil hates joy.  The devil fears joy.  The devil is “joyphobic.”  Joy is a weapon against the darkness.

The women are filled with fear and great joy.  With great joy.  The word is μέγας (megas).  It’s mega-joy!  How often have we experienced mega-joy?

I am reminded of Psalm 126.  “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream” (v. 1).  We couldn’t believe it.  We were in a state of euphoria.  We were plunged into an ocean of joy.  However, what did we do to deserve it?

Again, hear the word of the prophet, speaking for the Lord.  “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear” (v. 24).  Before they call I will answer.  Friends, that is a picture of grace.  Grace doesn’t ask if we are deserving.  Grace doesn’t ask if we are worthy.  If we do deserve it—if we are worthy—then it isn’t grace.  Grace empowers the joy that floods our soul.

Still, remember we’re told the great joy is joined with fear.  How can fear be joined with joy?  What is this phobos?  This fear is not a fear of punishment.  It is not a fear of retribution.  It is not a fear of being caught red-handed.  It is not a fear of being caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

This phobos, this fear, is one of reverence.  It is one of awe.  As the psalmist says, it is like those who dream.  But this exceeds even their wildest dreams.  It is unimaginable.  The message Jesus gives the women is just that.  To their disbelieving ears, he tells them to bear forth the gospel.  Spread the good news: our Lord has risen from the grave.

Here are some prayerful words for us all on this day of resurrection: Come to the altar of the heavens, seeking the vision of the new heaven and the new earth.  Lay aside your fear and hatred of the other—our phobia of the other.  Watch your words.  Guard your heart because that is where evil festers.  Practice agape—God’s selfless love.

Indeed, bear forth the Gospel.  We stand on holy ground.  Pray for each other; refrain from gossip.  Pray for the community of the remnant in which God is shaping the harvest.  There is not a sin which cannot be redeemed.  Welcome the mega-joy of the Lord.

To God be the glory.

Sometimes there’s a thought that comes to me.  I wonder about the particular piece of space I’m occupying—that my body itself is taking up—and I wonder who and what else has been there.  For example, in the space where I am standing, who or what was here at this time yesterday?  Last year?  A century ago?  A millennium ago?  A million years ago?  A billion years ago?

If we go back in time for almost any spot of land in this area, we might find that prior to the arrival of the Europeans, there was a member of the Cayuga Nation.  (And that might still be the case!)  Further back in time, we might encounter a woolly mammoth.  Keep going back, and we’ll find ourselves under a thick layer of ice.  Go even further back in time, and we might be face to face with a dinosaur.

Then I think of the opposite.  I think of the future, after I’m dead and gone.  Who will occupy my spot on the earth?  Maybe you can see where I’m going with this.  Trapped in time as we are, we only have freedom to move around in space.  To my knowledge, no one has been able to travel through time!

In his classic work, The Sabbath, Abraham Heschel reflects on my opening thought.  He sees it as speaking to the very heart of Jewish spirituality.  And I would say it applies to Christian spirituality, as well.  “Every one of us occupies a portion of space,” Heschel observes.  “The portion of space which my body occupies is taken up by myself in exclusion of anyone else.  Yet, no one possesses time...  This very moment belongs to all [the living] as it belongs to me.  We share time, we own space.  Through my ownership of space, I am a rival of all other beings; through my living in time, I am a contemporary of all other beings.”[1]

Among other matters, this has to do with our stewardship of creation.  That

includes our stewardship—our care for—the things of space (materials, objects, money).  It also includes our stewardship of time, our care for it.  Creation includes both space and time.

There are scriptures on the Sabbath which bear witness to this two-sided approach.  The Genesis story has God finishing the work of creation on the seventh day.  After making the birds and the bees and the fishies in the deep blue sea, how does God finish creation?  By bringing something else into existence: rest.  It is on the seventh day that God creates the Sabbath; God creates peace.  The other days of creation are pronounced “good.”  Only the seventh day is pronounced hallowed; only the Sabbath is declared to be holy.

That’s important because, to the best of our knowledge, prior to the Jewish emphasis on Sabbath, holiness had always been associated with certain places: such as a sacred mountain or forest.  Even within Judaism, there was the temple.  The Hebrew prophets would often rail against a narrow focus on the temple.

But with the Sabbath, we have holiness located in time itself.  Heschel speaks of building a “palace in time.”[2]  So, when we speak of “wasting time,” we speak of wasting something precious.  When we speak of “killing time,” we speak of killing something sacred.

This focus on holy space, as opposed to holy time, can take a serious toll.  Space has limits on accessibility; time is something everyone shares.  A perfect example of this is the Arab-Israeli struggle.  There’s only so much room in the country, and certainly in Jerusalem.  This has happened, and continues to happen, all over the world.  There’s no shortage of disputes about finite pieces of land.  We need only consider the expansion across the continent of our own country.

But when the Sabbath arrives, it’s the Sabbath everywhere.

Still, regarding the Sabbath, even if it is a foretaste of the world to come, as Rabbi Heschel believes, the seventh day “needs the companionship of all other days.”[3]  It isn’t treated as holy if the other six days are spent in activities that contradict it.  The same could be said in a Christian sense, about the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day.

In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he encourages them to remember that though “once you were darkness, now in the Lord you are light” (v. 8).  If we behave no differently than people who are clueless as to what it means to be a Christian, we are indeed hiding our light!

The apostle wants his hearers to live wisely, “making the most of the time, because the days are evil” (v. 16).  Because the days are evil.  The New Jerusalem Bible reads, “for it is a wicked age.”

It would make sense to understand that verse as referring to a certain time, to particular days, as being evil.  It seems that Paul is warning the church about the times in which it lives.  But it seems it’s also possible to take that line, “because the days are evil,” in a more general sense.  Could it also be a comment about time itself?

Heschel says, “Most of us seem to labor for the sake of things of space.  As a result we suffer from a deeply rooted dread of time and stand aghast when compelled to look into its face.  Time to us is sarcasm, a slick treacherous monster with a jaw like a furnace incinerating every moment of our lives.”[4]

Unfortunately, we flee to the realm of space—to the realm of possessions.  We sense time slipping away, like sand through the hourglass, and by getting…stuff, we try to fill the hole that our apprehension, our anxiety. has dug.  Americans are great at this!  We work to get more and more money so that we can buy more and more things—and the more things we have, the more we have to take care of.  Which means there’s more to fix, or simply replace, and that means more to go into the trash.  Really, it’s not a wise use of space or time!

When Paul advises his audience to make the most of the time, he literally says “redeem the time.”[5]  While we lack the power to redeem ourselves or anyone else, we do have the power to redeem the time that’s been given to us.  Time need not be the slick treacherous monster.  It can be appreciated for what it is: a gift from God.  Instead of wasting or killing it, we can treat it as part of God’s good (even holy) creation.

I realize that it’s one thing to say all that; it’s another to live it.  Kristen Johnson Ingram, a preacher in the Episcopal Church, asks the question, “How do I treat the gift of sacramental time?  Is my desk an altar, is our dinner table a Eucharist, is this house a temple?” she wonders.[6]

“Not always.  This morning my husband and I argued about the trash.  We were not wide awake while we juggled wastebaskets and sacks and tried to organize the recycling boxes, and he swore at me.  In fact, he used a short, unpleasant obscenity that made my cheeks get hot and my already irregular heartbeat go into a second of frenzy.”

She continues, “I wanted to have back the moment before he cursed; I wanted the earlier time returned to me.  Instead of waiting to see if the sands would run backward, I made a fuss, saying loudly that I did not deserve that language and he had no right to use it.  We quarreled for a moment, and then it was too late to snatch back the time.  I microwaved a bowl of oatmeal and ate it with no pleasure, gulped a cup of coffee seasoned with rancor.  I smacked time and sent it yipping away.”

Does this sound familiar?  I know I’m not the only one here to wish I could have the moment back—or even to relive the entire day.  I think of times when I’ve been guided by folly and not wisdom, and I cringe.  And then there are the times when placed at a crossroads, and I refused to choose.  I refused to redeem the gift of time given to me by God.  So what conclusion does Ingram reach?

“We did not stay mad,” she says. “I came into my office and started writing and I could hear the news from his radio in the next room.  We called out our opinions about the freak storm and the situation in the Middle East.  I remembered to dash into the utility room to take meat from the freezer so I could make my famous pot roast of pork with cilantro and orange for dinner.  He did some laundry.  There was no permanent damage.

“Or was there?  We can never have the time back…  God holds out the sacrament of time and sometimes I turn away to partake of something else.  Today my husband and I committed an egregious sin—and this was only an eighteen-second skirmish.”[7]

Too often, our time together results less in holiness and more in strife.

I began by mentioning all that has come before in the place I occupy on the earth, as well as all that will follow.  We are set within the stream of time and are therefore in relationship with the past and the future.

We are told to redeem time.  Our power for such is a pale shadow of the one who redeems it all.  The Lord Jesus Christ redeems all of time, not simply the sliver we call the present.  Jesus is Lord over all—all of creation, all of time.  Nothing can separate us from his all-embracing love: “nor things present, nor things to come…” (Ro 8:38).

Let’s hear again Abraham Heschel as he expresses the glorious truth, “One must be overawed by the marvel of time to be ready to perceive the presence of eternity in a single moment.  One must live and act as if the fate of all of time would depend on a single moment.”[8]

God creates the Sabbath; God pronounces rest.  Jesus is our Sabbath rest.  Jesus as the Christ encapsulates all of eternity in a single moment, in the wink of an eye.

We cease our struggling.  We cease our running.  We cease our pointless bearing of burdens.  We cease imposing them on others, and we cease accepting them from others.  We cease shaming others and trying to bend themselves to our will.  We cease our foolish resistance.

How will you honor and enjoy Sabbath?  How will you redeem time?

[1] Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951), 99.

[2] Heschel, 15.

[3] Heschel, 89.

[4] Heschel, 5.

[5] “redeem” is εξαγοράζω (exagorazō)

[6] Kristen Johnson Ingram, “The Sacrament of Time,” Weavings 14:1 (Jan-Feb 1999): 29.

[7] Ingram, 30.

[8] Heschel, 76.

For thousands of years and in cultures all around the globe, there have been practices which have served to bind societies together.  They demonstrate a quality which is not only functional, but compassionate.  I’m speaking of hospitality.  The extending of hospitality is especially praiseworthy when the recipient is someone unknown to the host.

This is modeled by Abraham in Genesis 18 when three unidentified men approach his home.  We’re told, “He looked up and saw three men standing near him.  When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them and bowed down to the ground” (v. 2).  He didn’t grumble and say, “Yeah, what do you want?”  No, he ran!

Hospitality is so important that Jesus, in his speaking of righteous behavior in Matthew 25, said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (v. 35).

The offering of welcome can literally be the difference between life and death, or at least the opportunity to get off the street and have some tea and cookies.

I had a tiny taste of that when I was posing as a homeless person during an immersion experience with a Christian relief and development agency.  I was pretty grungy looking.  If I were to show up here, right now, looking the way I did, I wonder what would happen.  I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if the reaction had the feel of “Yeah, what do you want?” rather than running to help.

Along those lines, we have in the reading from 2 John something which seems to be a curious statement regarding hospitality.  “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive and welcome this person into your house, for to welcome is to participate in the evil deeds of such a person” (vv. 10-11).

Some people say that applies to Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons.  Though I imagine as often as not, when they are knocking on doors, one might hide behind the curtain or peek through the blinds, so they think no one’s at home.  Just don’t bother me!

One day when we lived in Jamestown, I noticed Mormon missionaries walking through the neighborhood.  They were wearing their usual white shirt, dark pants, and tie.  I decided when they got to our door, I would welcome them into the house.  I figured I could offer some hospitality, perhaps tea and cookies!

I immediately let them know I was a Presbyterian minister, so they could forget my becoming a Latter Day Saint.  I didn’t really envision my converting them either.  Of course, they did what they were sent out to do—explain their faith.  I noted the belief that the risen Jesus visited what is now America.  I also mentioned how there is no archaeological evidence of the civilization that would have existed.  I don’t think they ever thought about that.  So after a brief and cordial visit, we parted ways.

According to John, they arrived, not bringing the correct teaching, and were welcomed and invited into the house by me.  Was I participating in whatever evil deeds they were up to?  Just to be clear: I didn’t suspect them of doing evil!

So what is this all about?  Well, let’s start from the beginning.

“The elder to the elect lady and her children” (v. 1).  The author of the letter is “the elder.”  The Greek word is πρεσβύτερος (presbyteros), which literally means “presbyter.”  We don’t know if John the apostle, part of Jesus’ inner circle, is the same guy as John the presbyter.  I won’t bother going into detail explaining the votes for and the votes against.

He addresses “the elect lady.”[1]  If that’s a person, she would be Lady Electa or possibly the elect Kyria.  (The Greek word κυρία, kuria is “lady.”)  However, it’s just as likely the “lady” is a church, and the “children” are its members.  John pronounces his love “in the truth” and “all [those] who know the truth.”  He greets them with grace, mercy, and peace.

He expresses his elation:  “I was overjoyed to find some of your children walking in the truth” (v. 4).  It’s not like John has only found a few who pass the test—just a percentage.  It’s more like the ones he has encountered have been “in the truth,” as he says.

He now moves on to his point (or maybe I should say, his points) in this very short letter.  Something you might notice if you read 1 John (which itself is a short letter) is how it has been summarized, boiled down, in 2 John.  Much of the first letter has been crammed together in the second letter.

He has a request of the “dear lady.”  He asks, “not as though I were writing you a new commandment but one we have had from the beginning: let us love one another” (v. 5).  It’s not a new commandment, because Jesus already delivered it to them.  It’s in the gospel of John.

On the night of his betrayal and arrest, he spoke these words: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:34-35).

We should be warned.  This love isn’t some touchy-feely mish mash.  This love sets a very high bar.  It comes at great cost.  That’s why John takes it so seriously.

love in the city of brotherly love

He issues the challenge: “this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment just as you have heard it from the beginning—you must walk in it” (v. 6).  The call to “walk in it” is about the walk of life.  It is the path we tread in this mortal flesh.  It’s the passage we take, we who are flowers that fade.

Did I say something about John’s taking this seriously?  Let’s take a peek at verse 7.

“Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist!”  That’s right—the antichrist.

(On a side note, nowhere in the book of Revelation does the word “antichrist” appear.)

A similar sentiment appears in 1 John: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.  And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world” (4:2-3).  That letter speaks of more than one antichrist.  “Children, it is the last hour!  As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come.  From this we know that it is the last hour” (2:18).

Just think, it was the last hour in the first century!  Clearly, this isn’t chronological time.

That which is antichrist arrays itself against Christ, against Messiah.

So why is it a mark of antichrist, a spirit of antichrist, to deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh—to deny that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Word?

I became a Christian when I was in college.  I was baptized when I was 21.  It was during those years when I developed a genuine interest in faith, and not just Christian faith, but other expressions of it, as well.  I studied Buddhism, Zen, Islam (primarily the mystical side of the Sufis), and more, including some Native American and aboriginal faiths.

I found what is good and true and sacred.  There is much to be learned from them.  We Christians have much to learn.

And yet, none of the revered and honored teachers and leaders of those faiths has something unique to Jesus.  None of them are the divine and human meeting as one.  There are those who say Jesus was only similar to God.  Some have claimed Jesus was a spirit or an immaterial being.  The post-resurrection appearances included Jesus’ showing his wounds, eating food, being touched.  He had actual physical relationships.  He could be encountered face to face.God with us,” down here on the ground.  He was aware of his mortality.

In the 90s, there was a song by Joan Osborne, “What If God Was One of Us?”  It was a fascinating concept.  I like the stanza in which she sings: “What if God was one of us? / Just a slob like one of us / Just a stranger on the bus / Trying to make His way home?”  Jesus is with us, down here on the ground.

There is a spiritual exercise known as the “memento mori,” remember your death.  According to philosopher Jules Evans, “the things of the world—the body, fashion, career, reputation, even family—should not be the primary focus of our minds, because these things can be swept away by death in a moment.”[2]

That applies to the high and mighty, even Roman conquerors.  We are told, “It was the custom of Roman triumphs…for a slave to stand behind the triumphant general in his victory parade, and tell him ‘memento mori’—remember, in your hour of glory, that you are destined for the dust.”

No one modeled that any better than Jesus.  He was, so to speak, a God who knew he would die.  With that awareness, there was no one who could relate to us in any better way, in any way more profound.

We must ask, and answer for ourselves, who is Jesus for us?

John continues with his message to the dear lady, “Be on your guard, so that you do not lose what we have worked for but may receive a full reward” (v. 8).  The word for “do not lose” (ἀπόλλυμι, apollymi) means “destroy.”  Be careful, lest you destroy our efforts!

Let’s go back to hospitality, or the lack thereof.  “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching,” that is, the teaching of Christ we just heard, do not welcome them.  We now know the teaching is that Jesus came in the flesh.

Our friend John closes his letter to the elect lady by saying he has more to write, but he would prefer speaking in person.  Oh yes, the “children of your elect sister send you their greetings” (v. 13).  He wants to meet face to face, so “our joy may be complete” (v. 12).

There really is no substitute for meeting in person.  Telephone, email, text, Zoom, even the dying art of putting pen to paper and writing a letter—there are surely pros and cons to each—but they don’t compare to human presence and touch.  It’s true; nothing can replace face to face.  That’s how it was with Jesus.

Our presbyter might have other things in mind, as well.  Maybe he wants to be sure he is received with hospitality and not sent packing like those others!

So there is the question, to whom do we listen?

Do we listen to the spirit of antichrist?  Understand, this spirit is called a deceiver.  Deception at its best, looks very much like something trustworthy.  It appears to be good, even holy.  On the other hand, here’s a cartoonish scenario.  Mr. Fox applying for the job as security guard of the henhouse isn’t likely to fool anyone.  No one would mistake this for a good and holy arrangement.  It’s just too “over the top.”

Visualize two streets running parallel to each other.  At some point, one of the streets begins to veer off at a one-degree angle.  For a while, they still look like they’re running side by side.  In time however, the difference is too difficult to ignore.  It just takes some people longer to see it.

So it is with us.  Are we settling for the counterfeit, the copy?  Or do we want the actual, the authentic?  Are we eating crumbs when the Lord offers a feast?

The spirit of antichrist knows nothing of joy.  But when we turn to the Lord and share in welcome and hospitality, then our joy is made complete.

[1] ἐκλεκτός κυρία

[2] julesevans.medium.com/the-memento-mori-f588311adce0

I want to begin with comments about the 1970s.  For many people, they were well along in years when that decade arrived.  For a vast part of our population, they hadn’t been born yet.  Their parents hadn’t even been born.  For those in my generation, right after the baby boomers, many if not most of those years were spent in elementary school.

This is an oversimplification, but the 70s were largely a decade in reaction to the perceived anarchy and rejection of authority of the 1960s.  The 70s gave us punk rock, with its reaction to the reaction.  It also gave us disco, with its ignoring of politics, and an urge to mindlessly lose oneself in foolishness.  (I guess you can gather my opinion of disco!)

But for my purposes here, I want to mention another phenomenon of the decade: disaster movies.  There was a flurry of them, many with ensembles of A-list actors.  There was Earthquake.  We had The Poseidon Adventure.  And then, there was The Towering Inferno, with another impressive list of top-notch actors, such as Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway…  and a host of others.

Those Hollywood luminaries aside, the real stars of those movies were the disasters mentioned in the titles.  The Towering Inferno provided a cautionary tale about the dangers of those buildings reaching up to the sky­­­­—skyscrapers.  Of course, skyscrapers had been around for almost a century, but this was the 70s.  A decidedly negative impression was portrayed.  After watching that movie, people might understandably be hesitant to live or work in such edifices.

There’s another structure which is featured in Genesis 11: the tower of Babel.  And like those disaster movies, it has usually been cast in a negative light.  Actually, it’s usually been cast as a truly wicked affront to God.  The builders have been seen as thumbing their noses to the Lord.

Again, it’s perfectly understandable to have that viewpoint.  There are several interpretations to this text: the good, the bad, and the ugly!

The decision of the people to construct a city and tower, “with its top in the heavens,” in order to “make a name” for themselves could easily be seen as an act of arrogance (v. 4).  Actually, that’s a very good way to see it.  Whatever the motivation, preventing themselves from being “scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth,” given the circumstances, could be seen as logical.

And what are those circumstances?  The stage is set: “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words” (v. 1).  There has been no end to speculation as to what that means.  This comes on the heels of chapter 10, in which the descendants of Noah form nations spread throughout the world.  More than once we are told of their families, languages, lands, and nations.

This enterprise appears to be a rejection of that diversity, indeed a God-ordained diversity.

The story’s location is pivotal.  They settle in the land of Shinar, later known as Babylonia.  It is a vast plain, unlike the mountains, islands, and forests from which they came.  It’s the perfect terrain for bringing everyone together.  Of course, if you’re out in the middle of nowhere, a construction project becomes necessary!

["Tower of Babel" by Josh Dorman, 2016]

The tower is likely a ziggurat, a structure resembling a pyramid, though with sides that are terraced, giant steps leading to the top.  They were built throughout ancient Mesopotamia (which is modern day Iraq and western Iran).

Considering the multiplicity of ethnic groups on hand, making a name for oneself could be seen as a way of establishing a one-world government.  A major part of that is how we speak.  When languages disappear, they take with them all the intricate subtleties unique to their thought processes, based on the experiences of the people who use them.  They are irreplaceable.

The saying is true: “it gets lost in translation.”  It is vital to realize the theme underlying the entire story—words and tongues, messages and languages.

The way the Lord figures out what’s going on is something we see in much of the Old Testament.  There’s a term called anthropomorphism.  It means describing as having human attributes. We see it in verse 5: “The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built.”  It’s almost like God had to use a ladder, or maybe take an escalator, to check out what those humans were up to.

This is an unpleasant discovery.  Something about this doesn’t sit well.  What could it be?

The story basically hinges on verse 6.  “And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.’”  Why is intervention needed?  Why is the decision made to confuse their language, so they won’t understand each other?

Maybe the assumption that what humans “propose to do” will work out for the best needs to be questioned.

I am reminded of George Orwell’s 1984, in which conformity in service to the state is required.  The government, overseen by a shadowy figure known as Big Brother, has four primary ministries.  There is the Ministry of Peace, in charge of waging war.  There is the Ministry of Plenty, running the economy and keeping the population poor and dependent.  There is the Ministry of Love, in charge of arrest, torture, and execution to make sure folks stay in line.

Finally, as especially relevant to our story, there is the Ministry of Truth, which has as its purpose the spreading of propaganda and lies.  One of its primary purposes is to take language and continuously remove any nuance of independent expression.  We might add, cracking down on misinformation, however that’s defined.  Three slogans encapsulate the effort: war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.

(Safe and effective.  I am the science.)

I wonder if the drive for what we think of as “progress” is not also a factor.  We think of economic success by figuring out at what rate the economy is growing.  Growing more quickly is better than growing more slowly.  It’s always about growing.  Can’t enough be enough—at least, for a little while?  The earth and our fellow creatures would thank us.  How much do we care about them?

Rabbi Shai Held, a widely respected figure in Jewish thought, has spoken of the Tower of Babel as a “tower of uniformity,” saying its meaning concerns “the importance of individuals and the horrors of totalitarianism.”[1]  He expands on this idea, saying, “An inevitable consequence of uniformity is anonymity.  If everyone says the same words and thinks the same thoughts, then a society emerges in which there is no room for individual tastes, thoughts, and aspirations or for individual projects and creativity.  All difference is (coercively) erased.”[2]

When we take all of that into consideration, the words “this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them,” have an ominous sound.

Rabbi Held comments on something remarkable.  No names are mentioned in the story “because there are no individuals.  This is especially ironic (and tragic) in light of the people’s express wish to ‘make a name’ for themselves…  When people are anonymous, they are reduced to insignificance.  If no one is anyone in particular, then who cares what happens to them?”

Something else to understand is that by coming together in one place, the people have rejected the call of God to go forth throughout the world.  After the flood, “God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’” (Gn 9:1).  It’s difficult to impose unity if your population is spread all over the place.

When the Lord imposes the punishment / blessing, all the work comes to a screeching halt.  Building plans aren’t very useful if no one can read them!

I wonder, can we see this scattering of peoples and confusing of languages as acts of love?  Here’s one more thought from Rabbi Held: “To try and eradicate human uniqueness is to declare war on God’s image and thus to declare war on God.”  One of the age-old temptations of the human race is trying to put ourselves in the place of God—to idolize ourselves.  That could manifest itself by idolizing a single person, or a single group: to idolize or obey a kind of “Big Brother.”

When we do that, we do violence to the beautiful and wondrous creation that each of us is.  There is a Jewish saying, “To save one person is to save an entire world.”  I’ve often thought about that.  We live in our own world.  It’s not that we ignore the rest of the world, but we are a world unto ourselves.  Every single human has experiences of their own.  We each have our own experiences of the divine.  We are loved by Jesus in our own exclusive way.

The day of Pentecost in Acts 2 is seen as a reversal of Babel.  There is a reunification of language, although it’s not done by human effort—it is not an achievement.  It is a gift granted by the Spirit of God.  “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability” (v. 4).  The people are still speaking different languages, but they comprehend each other!

The language beyond all languages is the heavenly language.

[photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash]

We can see the Babel project as an endeavor to overstep our place, to overstep our boundaries.  However, Brent Strawn who teaches at Duke Divinity School, has another perspective.  Rather than a case of hubris, outrageous arrogance, it can be seen as a case of sloth, under-reaching what God has set out for us.

He says, “Maybe at those times when we aren’t one, it is because we’ve fallen short of making every effort to be what we are in Christ.  Maybe when we aren’t one, instead of giving up on the unity that God desires and provides—maybe instead of refusing to believe in that unity when we don’t experience it—maybe we ought, instead, to grieve over it.”[3]

It is right and proper and essential to grieve.  It is necessary to lament.

“Grieve that we don’t have it, grieve that we aren’t yet one.  Worry about it, wonder about it, and redouble—make that re-triple—our efforts, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

In the book of Acts, St. Peter quotes the prophet Joel, “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh” (v. 17).  People will prophesy, see visions, dream dreams.  Signs will appear in the heaven and on earth: “blood, and fire, and smoky mist.  The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day” (vv. 19-20).

It sounds like a 70s disaster movie!

But wait for the finale.  “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (v. 21).  Calling on the name of the Lord.

We are freed from the compulsion to make a name for ourselves.  We are liberated, knowing that our Lord has cherished and named us like none other in the cosmos.  It is a name of endearment, known only to the Holy One.

Let all of you understand, you are the child of God.  There can be no better name than that.  That is the one language we speak.

[1] Rabbi Shai Held, “Tower of Uniformity: What Really Went Wrong at Babel,” Christian Century 134:23 (8 Nov 2017), 12.

[2] Held, 13.

[3] Brent Strawn, “Unity, Diversity, and the Holy Spirit,” Journal for Preachers 40:4 (2017), 13.

I have a little story regarding my choice of scriptures.  On Christmas morning, I was about to read the Bible, and I had a thought about where to go.  Mind you, I don’t recommend this to anyone.  Still, I had the urge to just open the Bible and see what page presented itself.  Without paying any attention, I opened the book to a random spot and let my finger fall.

Lo, and behold, it fell on Proverbs 7.  It’s the story of a woman sometimes called Dame Folly, or Madam Folly.  I reflected and thought, “This doesn’t seem very Christmassy.”  Immediately after that, in chapter 8, we have a portrait of Lady Wisdom, as she’s usually named.  Foolishness is followed by wisdom.  I read both chapters and concluded, “This might be something to follow up on.”

The opening chapters of the book of Proverbs present a father teaching his son about wisdom.  It’s the imparting of knowledge from parent to child.  (We could also see it, with some modifications, as involving mothers and daughters.)

A scenario is presented in which the father is looking out his window and watching the world go by.  He spots “a young man without sense” (v. 7).  He’s wandering through the streets, approaching a particular woman’s house.  I like the image used: “in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness” (v. 9).  Another version says, “at twilight, as the day faded, at dusk as the night grew dark” (Revised English Bible).  To borrow from Shakespeare, “something wicked this way comes.”

What was this young man without sense, this simple boy, doing hanging around in that neighborhood anyway?

When I was young, my mother often spoke pearls of wisdom to me.  One of them referred to doing something “accidentally on purpose.”  Accidentally on purpose.  That might apply to meeting a certain someone, maybe a potential boyfriend or girlfriend, “accidentally on purpose.”  Maybe someone could “accidentally on purpose” forget to attend a meeting they wanted to avoid.

Could it be this young man “accidentally on purpose” wanted to encounter this enticing woman?  We hear the lines from the hymn, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, / Prone to leave the God I love.”  Well, if that was the young man’s wish, as the day faded, then his wish was granted.

Regarding Dame Folly herself, I won’t dwell too long on the less-than-delicate details.  Suffice it to say, she wears suggestive clothing and awaits her prey.  Upon spotting him, she “seizes him and kisses him” (v. 13).  She tells him she has just fulfilled her religious obligations, and she has everything prepared for him.  Best of all, she assures him, no one will catch them in the act.  Conveniently, her husband is away on a long trip.

Therefore, Dame Folly says, “Come, let us take our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with love” (v. 18).  The other version I mentioned says, “Come!  Let us drown ourselves in pleasure, let us abandon ourselves to a night of love.”  “Abandon” is probably the right word.  The father instructs his son to not imitate him, because he “goes like an ox to the slaughter,” “like a bird rushing into a snare” (vv. 22-23).  He is a moth drawn to the flame.

The father concludes his story, “many are those she has laid low, and numerous are her victims.  Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death” (vv. 26-27).  Eugene Peterson put it in terms quite colorful in his paraphrase The Message: “She runs a halfway house to hell, fits you out with a shroud and a coffin.”

And that’s why it might be a good idea to bring your girlfriend home to meet mother and father!

Now, let’s go from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Lady Wisdom is presented in ways almost parallel to Dame Folly.  They’re like twins whose paths in life have radically diverged.  They both make their appeals to all, especially to the simple.  The two sisters (if I may continue the metaphor), present what they have to offer.  Unlike her foolish counterpart, Lady Wisdom wishes not to entrap, but to enlighten.

She calls out, “O simple ones, learn prudence; acquire intelligence, you who lack it” (8:5).  The Hebrew word for “prudence” is עׇרְמׇה (`armah).  It has the connotations of “guile” or “craftiness.”  There’s a sense of “trickery”—but it’s a good trickery, one that doesn’t leave you…well, feeling foolish!

Lady Wisdom is able and willing to go where Dame Folly is unable and unwilling to go.  Folly—foolishness—can offer short-term excitement, a short-term sense of well-being.  Wisdom hangs in for the long haul.  Folly is a fair-weather friend.  Wisdom is there in both good times and bad.

“Wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her” (v. 11).  All that glitters is not gold.  (Thinking about my mom has me dispensing all sorts of sage knowledge.)  “I, wisdom, live with prudence” (v. 12).  There’s our Hebrew friend prudence again!  More than we might realize the Lord surprises us.  We think what we want turns out to be less than the best, even positively harmful, but the Lord tricks us (remember, tricks in a good way!)—the Lord amazes us and gives us something beyond belief.

So far, we’ve seen wisdom personified, as Lady Wisdom.  With verse 22, wisdom seems to almost leap off the page and be considered as a divine life form.  No longer personified, wisdom is something greater, though not necessarily female.

Here’s a quick word of explanation.  Hebrew, like Spanish for example, has masculine and feminine nouns.  The Hebrew word for “wisdom” (חׇכְמׇה, chakmah) is feminine.  That’s not the only consideration.  Some speak of the so-called masculine and feminine in God.  Some even imagine Lady Wisdom portrayed as a goddess.

She says of herself, “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.  Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth” (vv. 22-23).  We get a story reminiscent of Genesis.  The word for “set up” (נׇסַךְ, nasak) literally means “poured out.”  That is, poured out, as in the pouring out of the Spirit.

She says she “was daily [the Lord’s] delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race” (vv. 30-31).  This is a picture of uninhibited, unrestrained joy.  It is the oblivious wonder of children, the abandonment to astonishment.

Dame Folly urges the young man to join her in drowning themselves in pleasure, in abandoning themselves to a night of love.  Of course, there’s no mention of consequences.  To modify the tourist slogan, “What happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas.”

At the end of the chapter, Lady Wisdom says, “Happy is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors.  For whoever finds me finds life.…  all who hate me love death” (vv. 34-36).  Whoever hangs around wisdom finds life.  How different are the ones who hang around Dame Folly.

Del Hungerford speaks quite literally of hanging around wisdom.  She says, “I’m standing in a clearing in a forest, looking up at the sky, watching clouds dance to the music in heaven.  Everything reacts to the worship, and I love to watch how it all responds.

“After a moment, I sense Wisdom next to me.  Together, we enjoy the activity in the atmosphere around us.  I think of teachings about getting to know Wisdom.”[1]

She really is listening to wisdom.  Earlier, I spoke of thinking about what we want.  Wisdom issues a warning.  “Remember, the motive is always known.  If the motive is incorrect and people are lazy or want it for selfish gain, it won’t do them any good.”[2]  Dame Folly whispers in our ears.  Something might be good, in and of itself, but it might not be good for us—at least, not at that time.

Wisdom continues, “Also, remember that for those constant requests ‘I must have…’  When they get what they ask for but their character doesn’t match, it will destroy them…  When people’s motives are not pure, too much of a good thing can have a very devastating effect…”

Ask yourself this question, ‘Do you want something because you’re trying to gain a position in the earthly realm, or are you trying to build relationship with YHVH [Yahweh] and then out of that relationship, you’re given responsibility?’”

She replied, “I think I’d rather have the second choice since relationship is most important.  When you understand true character, you know what to expect.”[3]

Along with Lady Wisdom, Jesus also speaks as the very voice of divine wisdom.  As wisdom incarnate, Jesus is humble, not “loud and wayward,” as is Dame Folly.  He presents a model of being teachable, heeding Lady Wisdom’s call to “take my instruction.”

The best teachers always practice the art of teachability.  Here’s one example among many that comes to mind: the professor of the one economics course I took in college did not seem to practice that art!  He would get visibly irritated if he had to answer more than one or two questions during a class period.  His philosophy was to just plow through the material, whether or not the students knew what in the world he was talking about.

It seems our culture increasingly is becoming one in which asking questions is discouraged.  A society like that is ruled by fear.  Honesty isn’t encouraged; compliance is.

The best teachers remain open to new ideas.  That’s especially evident in Jesus’ encounters with society’s outcasts.  I think Jesus not only gives benefit, but receives benefit, by his interaction with the poor and the unwanted.  He learns things that the high and mighty can never understand.

I asked, “What does wisdom look like?”  Consider this.  What positions have we rethought and changed our minds about in the last few years?  What does this say about us and our journey?  I can think of a couple of changes I made in the past year, although it wasn’t entirely of my own choosing.  At some level, the decision was made for me.  I think I just needed to say, “Yes.”

Without going into all the details, I can say I’ve come to agree with those I once thought of as disagreeable and to disagree with those I once thought of as agreeable.  In a sense, I have repented—which doesn’t have to carry some dark, heavy weight of turning from evil to good.  It simply means “to turn” or to “change one’s mind.”[4]

Back to Hungerford’s encounter with Wisdom.  Wisdom wondered if she was concerned about gaining worldly position or developing a relationship with God.  As you recall, she preferred the relationship.

That is the call of wisdom; wisdom wants to know us.  “I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me” (8:17).  Wisdom is calling for us.  Wisdom is calling our name.  We develop our relationship with wisdom.  We develop our relationship with the Lord.  It is a lifelong quest.  Out of that relationship, as noted, we are given responsibility.

We are responsible to each other.  We are to speak words that “are righteous,” with “nothing twisted or crooked in them” (v. 8).  Whether it’s accidentally on purpose or deliberately on purpose, we are called to lift each other up, to pray for each other and to be a help.

I will close with a prayer from the website, Missionaries of Prayer.  This is titled, “Ask for Wisdom.”[5]

Holy Spirit, bring revelation to me on where I am stuck.  Show me the places where I need to leave.  Relationships that I need to leave.  Groups or movements that I need to leave.  Mindset that I need to leave behind.

I ask you now for a fresh start.  Give me wisdom to know the next step to take.  Where do I go from here?  How do I move forward?  Lord, I quiet my heart and listen for your still small voice as you guide me and lead me into a year of wholeness and peace, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

[1] Del Hungerford, Accessing the Kingdom Realms (CreateSpace Publishing, 2017), Kindle edition, Chapter 13, section 1, paragraphs 1-2.

[2] Hungerford, 13.1.9

[3] Hungerford, 13.1.10

[4] שׁוּב (shuv) Hebrew and μετανοια (metanoia) Greek, respectively

[5] www.missionariesofprayer.org/2022/01/prophetic-word-ask-for-wisdom/

During the decade of the 90s, a term that became deeply entrenched in our political and cultural discussion was the term “family values.”  Many of the people who became the strongest advocates of “family values” held up, as examples of the model family, something that has largely disappeared in America: a husband and wife with no previous marriages, 2.5 kids, a dog, and a white picket fence.

[Do family values include standing under the mistletoe?]

“Family values” is usually closely linked with one’s reading of “biblical values.”  The interesting thing about this is that actual biblical families are rarely mentioned as models.  Maybe that’s a good thing, though it isn’t very honest.  Those families tend to be too messy; they have too much conflict and dysfunction.  In that sense, they tend to resemble American families!

A good case in point is the family in Genesis 21.  We’ve got all the ingredients necessary for some serious family therapy: jealousy, rivalry, power plays, squabbling over who’s the favored son, and feelings of betrayal.  I want to focus on the father, Abraham, because it is Father’s Day and because he is the one in the middle of the whole mess.

To be honest, there are two qualities of this family that don’t exist in American life—at least not legally—polygamy and slavery!  Another aspect, surrogate, or substitute, motherhood, is usually performed in a way quite different from the method described in the Bible.  Most wives today wouldn’t suggest to their husbands that they have sex with another woman (indeed a much younger woman) in order to produce a child!

And by the way, if you have access to Hulu, check out the quite excellent TV series, The Handmaid’s Tale.  The show illustrates with brutal honesty what’s behind our story and others like it.

Today’s account really starts in chapter 16.  God has already promised Abraham he will father a son, which so far in life hasn’t happened.  (On a side note, that’s something else from The Handmaid’s Tale.  Failure to conceive was always due to a barren woman, not a sterile man.)

Abraham believes Eliezer of Damascus, a trusted servant, will be his heir.  But God assures him his heir will be his own offspring.  As you might guess, Sarah hasn’t given birth, but they do have a young woman as a servant.  So here’s the plan: following the custom of the day, Abraham is to take Hagar as his wife, and maybe she can have his baby.  The scripture doesn’t talk about Abraham’s response.  He doesn’t seem to offer much of an argument!

The son who is born, Ishmael, is legally Abraham’s heir.  And the same custom that provides for a male heir provided by a surrogate also forbids the expulsion of the slave wife and her child.  That partly explains Abraham’s distress when Sarah demands he do that very thing.[1]

But even before Ishmael is born, some of that serious jealousy and rivalry I spoke of earlier has already begun.  In a society in which women are valued largely for their ability to reproduce, as breeding stock, Hagar is empowered in a way Sarah, even with all her wealth, is not.

The three of them are driven by different forces.  Sarah feels a sense of desperation and outrage at her fate.  Hagar, the one with the least amount of say, has been forced to share her bed with her elderly master and now faces the wrath of Sarah.  And Abraham is torn by his love for Sarah, his respect for custom, and the bond that now exists with Hagar.  When Sarah complains, he simply withdraws and says, “Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please” (16:6).  In other words, “I don’t want to get involved; leave me out of it.”

Sarah proceeds to make life a living hell for her servant, and Hagar runs away into the wilderness.  It’s there she encounters God who tells her to return but also says she, too, will produce offspring that “cannot be counted for multitude” (16:10).  This encounter is important—Hagar is one of the few people in the entire Bible who gives God a name (El roi, “God of vision” or “God who sees,” 16:13).

Let’s jump ahead a few years, to today’s scripture reading in chapter 21.  The Lord has told Abraham and Sarah she really will have a son, and he will be the true heir.  Isaac is born, and the rivalry between the two wives now involves their two sons.

Things reach a melting point at the feast celebrating the day Isaac is weaned.  The party’s going fine until Sarah notices something that gets her really ticked off.  She sees, as the scripture puts it, Ishmael “playing” (v. 9).

What we have is a play on words, a pun.  The term for “playing” (מְעַחֶק, m^etsahaq) comes from the word meaning “laugh” (צָחַק, tsahaq), which is where Isaac’s name (יִצְחָק, yitshaq) comes from.  Some say “playing” can also mean “mocking.”  Some even think “playing” means Ishmael doing something even worse to his little half-brother!   In any event, Sarah demands that Hagar and Ishmael be driven out, this time, for good.

I’ve taken this time talking about Hagar’s expulsion because it’s a turning point in the story of this family.  It also helps us understand Abraham.  As I said at the beginning, I especially want to focus on him, today being Father’s Day.

[Max, the father of our dog, Ronan]

My sermon title asks the question, “What kind of father is that?”  If Abraham is intended, a rather harsh reply would be: “not a very good one.”  What kind of father would allow his own son to be driven away and abandoned in the wilderness?  What kind of father would allow the mother of his son to be treated that way?

(Even worse than that, later we have the truly horrific event of the binding of Isaac in which he is being prepared for ritual sacrifice by his father’s hand.)

Still, Abraham is chosen to be a blessing to “all the families of the earth” (12:3).  It’s God, not Abraham, who has the responsibility of bringing this to pass.  Abraham’s responsibility is to follow where God leads.  And despite himself, he succeeds.  And to his credit, we shouldn’t forget Abraham didn’t exactly ask for all of this.

Thinking about Abraham and the question, “What kind of father is that?” has led me to think of my own experience.  It’s led me to think of my own father.  And I’m glad to say: my mother never encouraged him to take another wife and to father a son with whom I now have a bitter rivalry!  I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have gone along with the idea!

On Father’s Day we are encouraged to praise the glories of fatherhood, which is fitting.  But there are others who go in the opposite direction and talk about how their dad was the biggest jerk who ever lived.  Thankfully, I’m not in that category!

What I will say is that my father is someone I know really loved me.  Having been adopted as a baby, I later came to understand all the hoops he and my mother had to jump through in order to get me.  I know I was truly wanted.

When I was young, we did the usual father-son stuff: going fishing, throwing the football, etc.  But as I approached adolescence, sometimes it seemed like we were on different planets.  (I realize, I was the only teen who ever felt that way!)  For example, he might be explaining how to fix something, and I’d be looking at our dog and wondering, “What would be like to think with her brain?”

Something happened in 1985.  Within the span of one or two months, both my father and I came to Christ.  Our relationship had never been a bad one; it just hadn’t evolved very much.  We didn’t have many deep conversations.  But Jesus Christ changed that.  We felt free to open up to each other.  And I rediscovered something I had believed as a little kid: my dad was a pretty cool guy!

Just as it was faith that redeemed our relationship, so it’s faith that redeems Abraham.  He and his family provide ample proof that “family” can be quite creepy.  In fact, we can be quite vicious to each other.  I like commercials with the promise, “We treat you like family.”  I’m not sure that’s necessarily a good thing!  But by the grace of God, we can rise above that.

[Where along the scale of creepiness would this family fall?]

“What kind of father is that?”  We all can ask that question of our own fathers.  Each has a different answer.  But regardless of our own particular cases, there is a Father we all share.

According to the apostle Paul, this one is “the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction” (2 Co 1:3-4).  That’s a lot of consolation.  We might be forgiven if we don’t see Abraham in that light, and as hinted before, perhaps our own fathers.

Aside from binding and healing our wounds, this consolation has another role: we are to pass it on.  Paul continues, saying God’s consolation is given “so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God” (v. 4).  If we haven’t experienced consolation, if we haven’t experienced comfort and solace, that well will run dry before we know it.

The Father’s gracious provision enters a perpetual cycle through the risen Son.  “For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ” (v. 5).

What kind of Father is that?  Fortunately, we need not be a father to share in the self-giving that best epitomizes the character of “father.”  We need not be male to share in that.  By the way, Jesus modeled qualities which are too often labeled “feminine.”  It simply who he was.

Our final hymn today is “This is My Father’s World.”  (I realize, this being Father’s Day, it is a bit “on the nose”!)

We might see many families, as well as our society itself, being plagued by vicious dysfunction.  The second stanza has something to say about that:

“This is my Father’s world: Oh, let me ne’er forget / That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet. / This is my Father’s world: The battle is not done; / Jesus who died shall be satisfied, And earth and heaven be one.”

[Love above all. My son and I. A picture taken in my mother's house in Kinshasa. Photo by Kaysha on Unsplash.]

As the church, as our best selves, we’re called to rescue the image of God as Father.  So much violence has been done in that name.  But the God of Jesus Christ is the Father who loves, protects, liberates, enlightens, saves.  With joy and confidence, we can ask, “What kind of father is that?”

[1] John Bright, A History of Israel, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia:  Westminster Press, 1981), 79.

I want to steal Banu’s answer to something I asked her.  “What comes to mind when you hear the words, ‘creation and Pentecost?’”  “How about when you hear the words, ‘Earth and Holy Spirit?’”

[photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash]

She spoke of a portal to heaven being opened.  She spoke of the Spirit covering the earth as the waters cover the sea.  I mentioned the book of the prophet Joel, which assures the outpouring of the Spirit “on all flesh.”

This pouring out has sons and daughters prophesying, the elderly dreaming dreams, and the young seeing visions.  There is a note on male and female slaves also receiving the outpouring of the Spirit.  Maybe we can translate that to “everyone, both great and small”!

The promise of “all flesh” receiving the Spirit only refers to human flesh.  Is it possible the animal kingdom could also be intended?  I’m not sure.  I think the animals already have their act together.  It’s the human race that needs to be filled with the Holy Spirit of wind and fire—the wind to steer us straight and the fire to burn away the impurities.

Unfortunately, the church (at least, the church in the West), has rarely thought of creation and Pentecost, Earth and Holy Spirit, as going together.  Happily, that is increasingly no longer the case.

Regarding Joel, we really have no idea when his book was written.  Unlike many of the other prophets, there is no helpful mention of historical markers, such as who was king during that time.  There is, however, mention of a devasting ecological disaster—wave after wave of locusts have swept through and ravaged the crops.  The destruction has been frightful.

They are described in rather stark language.  “They have the appearance of horses, and like war-horses they charge.  As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle” (2:4-5).

I think I’m safe in saying these critters are unwelcome guests!

These locusts are seen as God’s call to repentance.  Joel doesn’t go into much detail as to what the people need to repent of, as some other prophets do.  He just speaks of disobedience in general.  An interesting thing is that this call to penitence involves nature itself—the invasion of locusts and the resulting devastation of the nation’s harvest.

Likewise, the sign of the salvation by God also involves nature.  “I will repay you,” says the Lord, “for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you.  You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.  And my people shall never again be put to shame” (vv. 25-26).

Before he gets that far, the prophet has a message for creation itself.  He addresses nature.  “Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things!  Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield” (vv. 21-22).  When we look at the reading in Romans, I’ll say more about why I’ve highlighted this.

We might want to dismiss Joel’s speech as flowery symbolism.  He attributes emotion to his non-human, even non-living audience.  (At least, not living the way we think of it.)  Fear not!  Be glad and rejoice!

However, we are today understanding more about these things.  For example, there have been experiments in which rats have been observed consciously sacrificing themselves for others.  (I should add, that wasn’t the expectation at the beginning of the experiment!  No one actually thought the rats would give up their lives to save one of their fellows.)

In the recent movie, My Octopus Teacher (2020), the filmmaker befriends a creature that apparently has a high level of sentience.[1]  I’ll think twice before eating calamari again!  (And I do understand that calamari are squid; but they’re close enough!)

I grieve for trees that are cut down.  I see them as having some level of consciousness.

My point is that we too readily disregard our fellow earthlings.  Sometimes I think of war and the toll it takes.  Obviously, the loss of human life is both horrific and unnecessary.  When we go to war, it shows a failure of imagination and creativity.  Do we ever consider the mass murder we commit against animals and plants?

Actually, the Bible itself makes an issue of that very thing.  In the law of Moses, in Deuteronomy 20, there’s a section on the rules of warfare.  An environmental clause was inserted.  The Israelites are told, “If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them.”

When an army lays siege to a city, it is blockaded.  Supplies are cut off, including food.  Sometimes the water supply is hindered.  The strategy is if the population is starved, denied vital necessities, eventually it will have to submit.

The verse goes on, “Although you may take food from [the trees], you must not cut them down.  Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you?” (v. 19).  I’m not sure how often that warning—that wisdom—was heeded.  We can learn a lot from it.  It’s an early version of the Geneva Conventions.

Now to my point about emphasizing addressing creation itself in Romans 8.  St. Paul speaks of the present suffering as not even close to the glory which will be revealed, adding that “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God” (v. 19).  The creation waits with eager longing.  There is an intelligence at work, an intelligence that yearns, and it yearns for the unveiling of God’s children.

I wonder how often we act like the children, the daughters and sons, of God in our care of creation.  We are reminded of that ancient command in Genesis 1 in which the human race was told to “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (v. 26).  We should remember that there is a difference between dominion and domination.

There is a reason given for creation’s longing.  It has been “subjected to futility” (v. 20).  That word “futility” (ματαιοτης, mataiotēs) means “vanity” or “emptiness.”  One translation says, “creation was condemned to lose its purpose” (Good News Bible).  Of course, we’re the ones who lost sight of creation’s purpose!  We too often lose sight of our own purpose.

Verse 20 goes on to say the creation was subjected “not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it.”  As they ask in the crime novels trying to solve a murder, “Whodunnit?”  Who subjected creation to futility?  Was it we humans, or was it God?  Majority opinion goes with the latter.  It’s unclear why God would do such a thing.  One explanation is the ones put in charge by God—us.  We are the ones who screwed it up.

We dump plastic into the soil and into the sea.  We pave over the earth with reckless abandon.  We do chemistry experiments with our atmosphere, altering its composition.  We even inject ourselves with chemicals, the long-term effects of which we really don’t know.

Despite our failings as caretakers, God has made sure that the futility, the purposelessness, we have inflicted has been done “in hope.”  The story isn’t over.  Ultimately, despite our destruction (including self-destruction, God forbid), creation will endure.  Creation will be repaired and renewed.

If all of this is giving you a headache, or maybe giving you a pain in the rear end, take heart!  You’re not alone!  The apostle Paul understands, and it’s causing him to groan.  Actually, what he does is to give us a three-fold list of groaning: “the whole creation” (v. 22), “we ourselves” (v. 23), and “the Spirit” (v. 26).

I won’t into great detail about all of this groaning.  All of these “groaning” words are related to στεναζω (stenazō), which besides meaning “to groan,” also means “to sigh.”  The creation groans with labor pains.  We groan, awaiting our adoption, the final redemption of our bodies.  And that bit about our bodies is important.  Remember, in Jesus the Christ, God chose to be manifest in flesh—to appear in matter, to become part of creation.  Resurrection is not about the spirit; it is about the body.

Lastly, there is the Spirit, who helps in our weakness, not knowing how to pray as we ought.  The Spirit intercedes with sighs (as just mentioned) “too deep for words.”  Some say that refers to glossolalia, speaking in tongues.  However, speaking in tongues is an occasion of elation, as Paul says elsewhere.  In this context, the word is used as an expression of pain, of great discomfort.

The Holy Spirit grieves for us; the Spirit grieves for the creation.  Yet, as I said before, this is not the end of the story.  At this point, let me return to my original question I put to Banu.  That portal to heaven is open.  The Spirit is poured out as the waters cover the sea.

[photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash]

Our duty, our calling, our joy isn’t simply to each other.  The gospel, the good news, goes throughout all the earth.  “God so loved the world (the cosmos)…”  Pentecost is a powerful reminder of the awesome privilege we have.  God issues the invitation to join in repairing and renewing the world.

[1] www.imdb.com/title/tt12888462

The first nine verses of Genesis 11 tell the story of the Tower of Babel.  We hear that “the whole earth had one language and the same words” (v. 1).  With that kind of unity, it looked like anything was possible!  The people moved to a plain, and at the town hall meeting, someone said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (v. 4).

The place erupted with cheering and for the entire night, they partied like it was 1999.  (Yes, an unexpected Prince reference.)

After the groundbreaking, things went pretty much according to plan.  There were a few setbacks, but the important driving force was the mission to make a name for themselves.  All other considerations were secondary.  In his article, “Mankind’s War against Humanity,” Yonason Goldson draws inspiration from Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch.  According to the rabbinical critique of the tower builders, “if a brick were accidentally dropped from the top of the tower, the people would weep over the futility of the labor invested to carry it up.  But if a worker lost his footing and fell to his death, no one gave him a second thought.”

Labor unions weren’t exactly a high priority.

Still, there was one observer who had a beef with what was going on, and it went beyond worker safety.  The Lord wasn’t happy with the overall vision of this construction project.  “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them” (v. 6).  The Lord made the decision to “confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech” (v. 7).

We might want to ask, “What the heck?  What’s wrong with everyone pulling together as a team?”  However, it wasn’t the unity which enriches that was guiding them.  As Goldson says, “The unity that should have uplifted humankind became twisted into a vehicle for corruption of the human spirit.  The solution was not to confound or confuse their language, as the popular translation suggests.  Rather, it was to mix together a multiplicity of words and thoughts so that understanding would become more elusive and, consequently, require more effort to achieve.”

A unity insisting on groupthink is a distortion.  Control of language and definitions is an effective means of controlling people.  When individual languages disappear, we lose the unique concepts and insights the speakers of those tongues were able to achieve.

Daring to question the party line, the approved ideology, can be hazardous to one’s health.  At the very least, it presents a golden opportunity to be shamed and excluded.  It seems that we today are not unlike that.  Thus we have, not a petulant deity, but a loving and liberating God who provides the blessing of “babeling.”  It is a blessing, not a curse, to be scattered and abandon “building the city” based solely on ourselves—not based on the justice and peace ultimately inspired by God.