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

Isaiah 5 begins with a very clear image.  “I will sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill” (v. 1).  Aside from singing to a beloved one, we definitely have a vineyard in view.

So guess what?  I started thinking of vineyards!

Certainly, there are places in the world noted for their vineyards and the wine produced by them.  Here are just a few: France, Spain, Italy, Germany (by the way, they’ve had a little success with beer), Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, and others.  Then there’s the United States.  Of course, the most celebrated wines come from California.  Other states make the list, including Tennessee.  There’s a winery less than ten minutes from my Mom’s house.

When we moved to the Empire State, we discovered there’s more than a few vineyards here.  Traveling on I-90 between Buffalo and Erie, PA, you will see some wine-producing country in Chautauqua County.  And then, the Finger Lakes!

[back to nature and a little strand]

When we served churches near Keuka Lake, there were vineyards opposite two places where we lived.  At one, the vineyard had gone back to nature, being overgrown.  At the other, there was a vineyard in operation.  We even had a strand of grapes behind the house!

So what does the prophet have to say about the vineyard and the expectation of fine wine?  There are some sobering words.

It seems the beloved took all the proper steps in planting the vineyard.  The beloved one “dug it and cleared it of stones…  planted it with choice vines…  built a watchtower…  hewed out a wine vat” (v. 2).  The preparations have been made.  Well, grapes have indeed grown, but they’re rotten.

With a sense of extreme exasperation, questions are cried out.  “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?  When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield rotten grapes?” (v. 4).

I can imagine one lover saying to another, “After all I’ve done for you, and this is how you repay me?”

I want to change gears for a moment and point some other notable examples of vineyards in the Bible.  In Psalm 80, we see a quick reference to Israel’s history.  “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.  You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land” (vv. 8-9).  It was glorious.  However, wickedness destroyed it.  There follows a plea for restoration and new growth.

In the gospels, Jesus tells the parable of the wicked tenants.  (I’m following Matthew’s version, 21:33-41.)  A rich man leaves them in charge of his vineyard while he travels far away.  When harvest time comes, he sends servants to collect the grapes.  The tenants beat and kill them.  They do the same when another group is sent.  The landowner then sends his son, thinking they will respect him.  They kill him, too!  Finally, the tenants are put “to a miserable death” (v. 41).

A similar fate of destruction is pronounced on the vineyard we’ve been considering.  Verses 5 and 6 contain some less than tasty consequences.  “I will remove its hedge…  I will make it a wasteland…  it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns…”  It sounds like the vineyard we lived near that had reverted back to nature.  At least the birds and the deer enjoyed it.

Here’s a nice final touch.  “I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.”  Now that’s harsh!

The passage on the vineyard ends with verse 7, and it has an exclamation of pain and perhaps missed opportunity.  It is set up with this preface, “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his cherished garden.”

(Here’s an FYI.  Judah was the southern kingdom, and Israel was the northern.  They split apart after the death of Solomon, some two centuries earlier.  Israel was conquered by the Assyrians in the 730s and 720s BC.  The prophet Isaiah, who lived in Judah, was active during this time.)

The people of Judah are his cherished garden, or his pleasant plant—his delectable plant.

As you might know, I love to use puns, plays on words.  In that regard, I am following one of the finest and noblest scriptural traditions.  The Hebrew scriptures are chock full of puns, especially in the writings of the prophets.  The final line of verse 7 is a good, yet tragic, example.

He expected justice but saw bloodshed; righteousness but heard a cry!  It doesn’t really carry over into English.  It loses something in the translation.  It loses a lot in the translation.

The Lord expected justice— מׅשְׁפָּט(mishpat).  But the Lord saw bloodshed— מׅשְׁפָּח (mishpach).  Expected mishpat.  But saw mishpach.

The Lord expected righteousness— צְדָקָה(tsdedaqa).  But the Lord heard a cry— צְעָקָה (tse`aqa).  Expected tsdedaqa.  But heard tse`aqa.

That is the power of the pun.  At the same time, we have an example of the power of poetry.  Poetry can express a nuance, a surprising discovery, a reimagining that a more prosaic approach fails to convey.  It can express a wonderful and delightful turn of phrase, even a mind-expanding trip down the rabbit hole.

The rest of the chapter features a laundry list of social injustices, of ill-treatments of fellow human beings when fidelity to the Lord is cast aside.

It might be asked, considering the array of choices, why focus on just two verses?  When we read the Bible with earnest intent, it is a common thing to have words jump out at you.  Actually, it should be expected to happen on a not uncommon basis.

In this case, that applies to verses 18 and 19.  Here’s how it appears in the New English Bible.  “Shame on you! you who drag wickedness along like a tethered sheep and sin like a heifer on a rope, who say, ‘Let the Lord make haste, let him speed up his work for us to see it, let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel be soon fulfilled, so that we may know it.’”

Here’s how Eugene Peterson put it in his paraphrase, The Message.  “Doom to you who use lies to sell evil, who haul sin to market by the truckload, Who say, ‘What’s God waiting for?  Let him get a move on so we can see it.  Whatever The Holy of Israel has cooked up, we’d like to check it out.’”

If it hasn’t already become crystal clear, the folks hauling those carts are being chastised for their evil words and evil doings.  Sentences beginning with “woe,” “shame,” and “doom” usually aren’t followed by words we want to hear.  Dragging iniquity with cords of falsehood, dragging sin like one would do with a cart, can only be perceived as a failure of character—having a moral compass in need of repair, or at least a bit of tweaking.

However, is it possible to envision something a bit less dire?  Could dragging along that cart suggest another type of fault?

At least one thing I would propose it shows is an inability, or unwillingness, to release the past.  And that could comprise any number of things.  Perhaps we have become comfortable with how things have “always” been done.  I will definitely admit, change is not always easy.

Nonetheless, perhaps we become too comfortable.  One of the crazy things about comfort is we can even get used to the boring and the bad.  We can have a strange security in the insecure.  For example, we can expect—we can become familiar with—abusive relationships.  We might think we don’t deserve any better.

I want to use myself as a case study.

Our retirement from the Presbyterian Church (USA) presents a dramatic new chapter in our lives.  For 26 years, I have been a pastor in a parish setting.  It has provided me with a level of comfort.  That will be changing.

Certainly, different churches have their own qualities, their own DNA.  But my job description, for the most part, has remained the same.  Now, I can’t rely on the security of how I did things before.  Clearly, I have learned things along the way.  I will use them in the future.

Still, I am being asked to take a leap of faith.  It is both daunting and delightful.

I’ve been speaking of my own situation.  However, all of us have stories that are analogous in one way or another.  It might deal with family situations, career, moving to a different part of the country, a different part of the word, saying goodbye, saying hello.

It might deal with congregations.  As just noted, change is not always easy.  In fact, it can be scary or tedious or offensive—offensive in the sense of welcoming those we do not wish to welcome.  It can be a choosing to survive, or even to thrive.  Sometimes it might even call for dramatic decisions, a genuine leap of faith.  Such is the power of change.

There can also be impatience.  We might want God to hurry up, to speed up the process so we can see it.  We might say along with those the prophet is admonishing, “Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel hasten to fulfillment, that we may know it!”  God, get a move on!  I want to jump to the conclusion.  This in-between stuff is too messy.  Here’s an idea, Lord.  Why don’t you make the decision for me?

So we’re back to dragging that cart.

If we hang on to that cart, if we hang on to those ropes, it’s safe to say we haven’t been caring for the vineyard, which is the house of Israel.  It’s safe to say we haven’t been tending God’s cherished garden, which are the people of Judah.  To the extent we identify ourselves with the covenant of the Lord, that also includes us!  We haven’t been caring for ourselves the way God intends.

To the extent we hang on to that cart, that we hang on to those ropes, to that same extent we sin.  There’s something to understand about sin.  In both the Hebrew ( חָטָא, chata) and Greek (άμαρτανω, hamartanō) words, sin means “missing the mark.”  It means throwing the dart at the bullseye and winding up in the outer ring—maybe even missing the dartboard altogether.  It doesn’t mean we’re a bunch of irredeemable reprobates.

If it seems like all of this is too heavy a burden to bear, here’s some good news.  We have someone who will take the load.  Our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, promises, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).  Jesus knew all about vineyards.  Tending them is hard work.  That’s true in the literal sense and in the symbolic, spiritual sense.

He continues, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (vv. 29-30).  And this, coming from the one who turned water into wine, and it was fine wine at that.

That last line, in which the people want the Lord’s plan to hurry up so they can know it, “know” has a special meaning.  It is “know,” in the sense of “experiencing.”  It’s not just head knowledge; it is knowledge appealing to all we are.  We must know God—we must know Jesus—so that we can more fully invite others to join the covenant family.  We can lend a hand in tending the vineyard with heart and soul.

I want to start today with a little story.  Here’s something from the “sorry if you’ve already heard this one” department.

A woman was leaving a convenience store with her morning coffee.  She noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery.  A long black hearse was followed by a second long black hearse about 50 feet behind.  Behind that hearse was a solitary woman walking a very mean looking dog on a leash.  Behind those two were 200 women walking in single file.  The woman’s curiosity got the best of her.

She respectfully approached the woman walking the dog and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss, and I know this is a bad time to disturb you, but I’ve never seen a funeral procession like this.  Whose funeral is it?”

The woman replied, “Well, that first hearse is for my husband.”  “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened to him?”  The woman replied, “My dog attacked and killed him.”  She inquired further, “Well, who’s in the second hearse?”  The woman answered, “My mother-in-law.  She was trying to help my husband when the dog turned on her.”

A tender and thoughtful moment of silence passed between the two women.  Then the one with her morning cup of coffee asked, “May I borrow your dog?”  The answer she received: “Get in line.”

And now we have the obligatory light bulb joke.  Question: How many mothers-in-law does it take to change a light bulb?  Answer: One.  She holds it in place, remains completely still, and waits for the world to revolve around her.[1]

(Sincere apologies to all you mothers-in-law!  I can honestly say that my dear departed mother-in-law gave me very little grief.  Of course, the fact that we quite literally did not speak the same language and lived on opposite sides of the globe might have had something to do with it!)

The book of Ruth concerns a daughter-in-law and mother-in-law whose relationship, far from being worthy of jokes, instead becomes an intimate friendship.  The story of Ruth and Naomi is one of both tremendous loss and of tremendous gain.  As we will see, Naomi has a very good influence on Ruth!

[photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash]

I consider the book of Job to be one of the world’s great pieces of literature.  Likewise, it’s been said of the book of Ruth that it’s “a perfect example of the art of telling a story.”[2]  It’s often referred to as a “novella,” a short novel.  Nobody really knows who wrote it or when it was written.

It’s possible it was written before the Jews were driven into exile by the Babylonians, in the 590s and 580s BC.  That might suggest the importance of establishing King David’s ancestry.  If it were written after the exile, the emphasis could be the importance of showing how a non-Israelite could be a devoted worshipper of the Lord.

These aren’t idle speculations.  Both of these ideas figure into the storyline of the book.

Something significant to take from the book is that Ruth rid herself of the shackles of the accepted structure.  She broke the chains.  She went against convention.  The same can be said of Naomi, her mother-in-law, her partner in crime, so to speak.

Besides Ruth and Naomi, there’s one more major figure in our little adventure.  That is Boaz, a wealthy relative of Naomi’s.  He eventually fulfills the law in Deuteronomy 25, which says that a brother (or in this case, a close relative) must take his brother’s wife if she is widowed, as Ruth was, and has no sons.  That way, the dead man’s bloodline can go on.

We are half way through the third month in the biblical year, Sivan.  The book of Ruth is traditionally associated with Sivan, in large part because it is the month with the holiday Shavuot.

Shavuot (or Pentecost) is seen as the day the Lord revealed the Torah to Israel at Mt. Sinai.  Torah is usually translated as “law,” but “instructions” or “teachings” probably better catch the spirit.  I like Naomi Wolf’s comment, that the “Hebrew Bible…is more about love and less about rules.  The rules are the guardrails for the love.”[3]

Here is a summary of the story of Ruth.  (It really is a very short book.  It takes less than fifteen minutes to read.)

A famine forces Naomi and her husband to go to Moab.  There they have two sons, who take Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth.  Naomi’s husband dies, and soon after, so do her two sons.  The women leave for Judah.  Naomi tells her daughters-in-law to return home.  However, Ruth refuses.

She utters some of the classic lines in the Bible.  “Do not press me to leave you, to turn back from following you!  Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried.  May the Lord do thus to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” (1:16-17).

Upon returning to Bethlehem, Naomi utters one of the classic laments in the Bible.  “Call me no longer Naomi [which means “pleasant”]; call me Mara [meaning “bitter”], for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.  I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty; why call me Naomi when the Lord has dealt harshly with me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” (1:20-21).

They are impoverished, so Ruth goes out to glean in the barley fields.  In case you didn’t know, gleaning means following the reapers after they have harvested the grain.  They gather whatever scraps have been left behind.  It is hard, tedious work.

Here’s where Boaz enters the picture.  As I said before, he’s a rich guy, but he is also kind.  He is a devoted follower of the Lord.  Ruth catches his eye.  He finds out she is Naomi’s daughter-in-law, and he learns her story.  He looks out for her and makes sure she is well treated.

Ruth tells Naomi about Boaz, and Naomi responds, “Darling, you just struck gold!”  Understand, being widows, they have very few options in their culture.  Naomi hatches a plan.  I admire her ingenuity, so I will quote it at length.

“‘Now here is our kinsman Boaz, with whose young women you have been working.  See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor.  Now wash and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking.  When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do.’  She said to her, ‘All that you say I will do.’

“So she went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had instructed her.  When Boaz had eaten and drunk and was in a contented mood, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain.  Then she came stealthily and uncovered his feet and lay down” (3:2-7).  Uncovering his feet could be a sexual expression, but being that Boaz is an honorable man, it might simply mean she’s available for marriage.

Whatever the case, Ruth was being ruthless.  Well, you know, “ruthless” in a good way!

And regarding the “contented mood” Boaz was in after eating and drinking, the Hebrew word[4] has also been translated “he felt at peace with the world.”  One couldn’t ask for a better starting point for Ruth.

As mentioned earlier, Boaz wants to make sure to follow the law in Deuteronomy 25—it is called the “levirate law.”  “Levirate” means “brother-in-law.”  Very often, the wishes of the woman were disregarded.  That makes it all the more important that Naomi’s scheme works!

The story has a happy ending.  Boaz and Ruth are married, and the son they have is named Obed.  His son is Jesse; and his son is David.  Think of the improbable chain of events that have transpired.  A famine results in refugees going to Moab.  Marriage and death lead to a return to Judah.  A chance encounter with a super wealthy man leads to marriage—and that to a foreigner.  David’s bloodline carries this unlikely sequence.  And by the way, Jesus as a descendant of David, has a lineage with even more twists and turns.

Samjung Kang-Hamilton, professor at Abilene Christian University, points out the importance of the book.  “One of the most amazing features of the story is that Ruth is not an Israelite at all, but a Moabite, a convert, an outsider.  But she becomes the model of the outsider who comes into the community and by her commitments, her love and trust and risk-taking, becomes a model for all within the community.”[5]

There are very few instances where a non-Israelite, a Gentile, is held up as an example of ardent faithfulness to the Lord of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel.

She notes something from chapter 4.  “The elders of the people [in Bethlehem] welcome the Moabite woman into the community in an extraordinary way.  They pray that she will resemble the people’s ancestors, Rachel and Leah.  That is, they pray that she will be remembered in her own right as an extraordinary woman.”[6]

They extend their blessing to her.  Kang-Hamilton adds something to that thought.  “They pray that she will be like Tamar.  According to her story in Gen 38, Tamar acted in extremely risky ways to bring about justice and family harmony.  Yet the Bible recognizes that God can make something positive out of the messiest situations, we can be part of that cleaning-up process if we want to be.  Ruth was too.”

Something to be said of Boaz—we don’t know if he is a widower.  Was he ever married?  Yet, here’s this beautiful younger woman.  He no doubt feels a strong attraction, but he sees beyond outward appearances.  I think we all know women can be gorgeous at skin surface, but inside, not so much.  Obviously, the same can be said of the male of the species.

Ruth is the perfect example of the woman of strength [the woman of noble conduct] who is saluted in Proverbs 31 as “far more precious than jewels” (v. 10).

As noted earlier, Ruth rid herself of the shackles of the accepted structure.  She broke the chains.  Going back to the comparison of the word of the Lord being revealed at Sinai, so Ruth also receives the word when it is revealed to her.  That word gives her power.

We must be the same, when wave after wave of lies and desperation and counterfeit lives wash over us.  When we get used to one level of depravity, here comes another.  We need the word which gives us power over all that rot—gives us power over the rot threatening from within.  We need to be ruthless!

So take Ruth as our example of pressing forward and doing so vigorously.  See her, the great-grandmother of David, the one who was fulfilled in the Son of David, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Jesus the Messiah is the one who gives us the power to rid ourselves of the shackles of the accepted structures all around us.  Let us do so in the strength and the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[1] www.motherinlawstories.com/mother-in-law_jokes_page.htm

[2] Dorothea Ward Harvey, “Ruth, Book of,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 4 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962), 131.

[3] naomiwolf.substack.com/p/do-we-resemble-god

[4] יָטַב (yatab)

[5] Samjung Kang-Hamilton, “A Stranger’s Journey: Lessons from Ruth,” Restoration Quarterly 62:1 (2020), 49.

[6] Kang-Hamilton, 53.

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/

I recently watched Lawrence of Arabia in its entirety: I had only seen bits and pieces before.  (It clocks in at 3 and a half hours.)  It’s a great movie, and I could give a summary of the plot, but I want to focus on one aspect of the voyage to Aqaba.  It was occupied by the Ottoman Turks during World War 1.  It had a strategic position on the Red Sea coast.  Aqaba was primarily defended against a naval invasion, since approaches from the desert were thought to be too hazardous.

“Wadi Rum, Aqaba, Jordan” photo by Juli Kosolapova on Unsplash

Nonetheless, that’s the route T. E. Lawrence and his Bedouin allies took.  I have never made a desert trek, let alone one as grueling as through the deserts of Arabia.  Clearly, the most important commodity is water.  I recall the scenes of the burning sun and frightening heat, the whipping wind of the sandstorms, and the camels laboring in that oven.

There is another desert trek that comes to mind, and it involves Moses and the children of Israel, having fled the slavery of Egypt.  They have been in the wilderness for three days, without finding water—at least, not water fit to drink.  Exodus 15 tells us of the people’s grumbling.  I think “grumbling” would be putting it lightly!

Imagine three days without water.  Imagine their thirst and the thirst of their animals.  When they do come upon water, it is useless.  It is bitter, so they named the place Marah, meaning “bitter.”  Moses finds a tree with curative properties, after some prompting by the Lord.  It is used to render the water clean, potable.  Theologians, scientists, and madmen have weighed in on the nature of this plant.  Ultimately, its power flows from the obedience of Moses to the Lord’s direction.

“If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you” (v. 26).

I am the Lord your healer.  I am Yahweh Rapha (רָפָא).  Listen to my voice because I am the Lord who heals you.  The foul, bitter water is healed.

So they are indeed on this trek into the desert, into the wilderness.  The Hebrew word for “wilderness” is מִדְבָּר (midbar).  It has a secondary meaning of “mouth,” as used in speaking, as opposed to eating or breathing.  God is speaking to them in the wilderness.  Do they have the ears to hear?  What about us?  Do we have the ears to hear?

However, the Israelites are moving their mouths.  They are grumbling; they are raising Cain!  Still, as we saw, it is difficult to blame them.  Thirst can have one doing things one would not ordinarily do.

Quickly looking ahead, in chapter 16, the problem is hunger.  The Lord provides quail and manna.  The Lord is their provider.  In chapter 17, the multitude again faces lack of water.  Moses cries out that they’re ready to stone him.  The Lord has him get a big stick and give the stone a good whack.  Water comes surging out.

(Don’t say God lacks a wonderful sense of humor.)

The biblical month of Iyar began at sundown on Friday.  Iyar is the second month on the calendar.  It has a focus on healing.  It is also a month of transition.  In the case of Moses and the people of Israel, it is a transition from slavery to freedom, from the diseases in Egypt to healing in the wilderness.

What transitions are we in need of?  What healings are we in need of?  Are we willing to receive them?

Speaking of willingness to receive, John tells us the story of Jesus at the pool of Beth-zatha, or Bethesda.  We will see that water and healing are, once more, again linked.

Banu and I have been watching the tv show, The Chosen.  It is a series about Jesus and the people who met him.  It is very well done.  Not to give offense, but many Christian movies have one-dimensional story lines and bad acting.

Season 2, episode 4 is called “The Perfect Opportunity.”[1]  It begins with a scene of a little boy running to climb a tree.  However, a branch snaps and he falls to the ground and is left paralyzed.  He has to be carried wherever he goes.  Jumping ahead, his mother dies while giving birth to his little brother.  We see the boys as they grow up.  The older brother is identified as Jesse.

As young men, they come upon a Roman soldier beating and kicking the crap out of a Jewish man.  You can see the hatred in the younger brother’s eyes.

The lame brother winds up at a pool surrounded by others in need of healing.  The younger brother takes his anger at the Roman occupiers and joins a group where he receives military training.  Again, we see the two as they age.  Jesse is never able to get in the pool, which periodically bubbles up.  The water is said to have healing properties.  It was likely an underground spring.  As time goes by, his hair gets more and more disheveled, and his clothes get grungier and grungier.  His hair starts turning gray.

It turns out the younger brother is Simon the Zealot.  Of course, the scriptures don’t say the two are brothers, but the creative imagining works well in the episode’s plot.

Now, back to the gospel!

Jesus visits the pool and sees the man, as we’re told, who has been ill for thirty-eight years.  Verse 4 is left out of many translations since it’s often considered to have been added later.  Here it is following verse 3: “many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people [lay] waiting for the stirring of the water, for an angel of the Lord went down from time to time into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had.”

Jesus sees the man, knowing he’s been there for a long time.  I don’t imagine Jesus needs any special insight.  Just looking at the poor fellow speaks volumes!

Now, back to the idea of willingness to receive, Jesus puts the question to him, “Do you want to be made well?” (v. 6).  Do you want to be healed?  He doesn’t exactly answer the question.  Rather, he laments that he’s never been able to get to the water in time.  No one helps him.  Jesus doesn’t use any special medicine; he doesn’t wave a magic wand; he doesn’t utter any exceptional words.  He just tells the guy to get up, pick up your bed, and go for a walk.

Returning to the episode of The Chosen, long ago Simon wrote a letter to Jesse saying if he ever stood on two legs, that would mean Messiah has come.  Simon is with a hit squad to assassinate a Roman magistrate.  Just as the signal is given, Simon sees Jesse walking around.  He abandons his life with the Zealots—he knows Messiah has come.  He casts in his lot with this wandering rabbi, Jesus.

This is the month of Iyar.  There is healing.  There is transition.  The children of Israel had healing.  They had transition.  The lame man had healing.  He had transition.  Simon the Zealot had healing.  He had transition.  He was healed of his violence.  He had transition to following Jesus.

I asked before, “What transitions are we in need of?  What healings are we in need of?  Are we willing to receive them?”

Over these three past years, I’ve had a bit of transition and healing.  Please forgive me; I know some of my comments might be hard to hear.

When Covid started, I supported the lockdowns.  I can’t say I didn’t have greatly mixed feelings about being told we couldn’t worship together in person.  Still, I was reluctantly okay with casting a wide net, even knowing the devastating effect it would have on small local businesses.

We weren’t allowed to touch each other; in fact, we had to maintain a distance of at least six feet.  I will confess that when a friend of ours feared she might have locked her mom’s keys in her car, I reflexively put my arm around her shoulders to console her.  (As it turned out, it was a false alarm.  The keys were quickly found!)

Children, when finally allowed to attend school, in many places found themselves behind plexiglass walls, aside from falling miserably behind in their studies.

And I won’t get started on the vaccines.

So, I feel like I’ve had my own transition and healing.  I’ve had my own taste of that fresh, flowing water.

After the incident at Marah, when the Israelites finally had fresh water, we are told, “Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there by the water” (v. 27).  They arrived at an oasis, which relatively speaking would have been small, considering the large number of travelers.  Twelve springs wouldn’t have produced an abundance of water, but it seems to have been enough.

That seems to be the way God deals with us.  We usually have just enough.  In chapter 16, when God provides the quail and manna, the people are warned against keeping some manna until morning.  They are either greedy or afraid God won’t take care of them.  Whatever the case, the manna rots and is infested with worms and maggots.

We have just enough, and indeed much more than enough, when we come to Christ—when we approach him for the water that is always fresh and never runs dry.  As it says, “On the last day of the [Feast of Tabernacles], the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.  As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’” (Jn 7:37-38).

photo by Sergio Cerrato on Pixabay

Jesus says to us, “Come to me and drink, and I will give you life.”

[1] www.imdb.com/title/tt14457406/?ref_=ttep_ep4

On Palm Sunday, we remember an ancient practice.  When the conquering hero would ride into town, people would welcome him by carpeting his path with palm leaves.  In the case of Jesus, the people are expressing their hopes.  He’s there to lead them against the Romans!

Of course, he’s not mounted on a mighty stallion; he’s riding a lowly donkey.  Connection has been made to the book of Zechariah, which says in chapter 9, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!  Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!  Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (v. 9).

In his gospel, St. Mark tells us, as Jesus rides a colt into town, “Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.  Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (11:8-9).

Are the people cheering really interested in being his disciples?  What would that mean for them?

Maybe they don’t realize this is the one who said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:44).  And I guess that includes the Romans.

I’m not the first to point out how the crowd on Palm Sunday bears little resemblance to the crowd on Good Friday.  Or does it?  In neither case is the spirit of discipleship demonstrated.  Jesus shows how fleeting and fickle fame really is.  In a matter of days, the people go from calling for a crown on his head—to calling for his head.  In doing this, the crowd has a mind of its own.

A text in the book of Isaiah has an interesting Hebrew word.  In verse 4, we hear, “The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher.”  The word used for “teacher” (לׅמֻּד, limmud) can also mean “disciple,” one who is taught.  God has given me the tongue of a disciple.  That word is also at the end of the verse.  “Morning by morning he wakens—wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.”  Those who are taught:  to listen as disciples.

According to the prophet, the teacher is a disciple.  The disciple is a teacher.  This is a person who always wants to learn, and who always wants to share what has been learned.  We’re reminded that “the speaker is aware of his need to learn, and has the humility to confess that need.” (201)

The path of discipleship is one of endless training.  It is one of endless training of others.  That’s a calling that we share with the prophet, the Servant of the Lord.  Being a disciple of Christ means wanting to be like Christ.  That requires both meekness and courage.

On the point of the crowd having a mind of its own, I have a story to tell, one I’m not too happy about.  It involves the Texas state Capitol, the KKK, some hardened clumps of dirt, and a moment about which I’m not terribly proud.

[some photos of "KKK day"]

In 1983, during my freshman year of college, I went with a friend (and more than a thousand other people) to watch the Ku Klux Klan as they marched on the Capitol building in Austin.  Police and news helicopters were flying all over the place.  It felt almost like we were about to be occupied by an army!

Among the crowds were people carrying signs, people yelling at the Klansmen, and others (like me) who were just curious and wanted to see what was going on.  As the marchers made their way toward the Capitol building, they moved through thicker and thicker crowds along the road.  You could feel the hatred in the air.  It was just a matter of time before someone got bored with hurling insults and decided to hurl something else.

It began with a couple of small stones and quickly escalated into a barrage of rocks.  Even though the Klansmen came equipped with plexiglass shields (maybe they expected this kind of reception!), some projectiles managed to hit home.  There was more than one bloody face among them.  (I should say they were wearing their pointy hoods, but they were unmasked).

When they reached the spot where their cars and vans were parked, demonstrators started smashing the windows.  It was the final angry act of the day.

There’s one moment, though, in that afternoon of violence that remains with me.  At one point, when the Klansmen had circled around behind the Capitol, people were running in all directions.  I had stopped and was surveying the scene (being careful to avoid the crossfire of rocks!).  Suddenly, a young black man who was about my age stopped running and knelt about ten yards from me.  He was gathering some hard, dry clumps of dirt to fire at our white-robed friends.

He must have noticed out of the corner of his eye someone was standing there; he just froze and looked up at me.  There we were—two young guys, one white and one black—the black one probably wondering what the white one would do.  And what the white one did was to give the black one a little smile, as if to say, “Go for it!”  He returned the smile, picked up his weapons, and disappeared into the crowd.

I believe now, as I did then, that the constitutional right to peacefully assemble is vitally important.  To my mind, today we find that right under renewed attack.  Even a group I find as repugnant and honestly pathetic as the Ku Klux Klan has the right to express its opinion, as long as they’re not advocating violence.  (Admittedly, that’s a tough sell with a group like the Klan.)

The irony on that day was the KKK was being peaceful, if it’s possible for them.  Those bedsheets stir up the legacy of terrorism.  Still, at the very least, they were just walking; they weren’t shouting or shaking their fists.  The onlookers were the ones who were violent.  And I was a part of that violence.  In my own way, I became a contributor to mob mentality.  That’s not a good feeling.  I allowed the crowd to do my thinking for me.

For those interested in being interim pastors, the Presbyterian Church requires two weeks of training, at least six months apart.  One of the main things we looked at was the congregation as a system: a family system, an emotional system, and so on.  We also looked at how systems get stuck—how they get paralyzed and can’t seem to progress.

There are a number of reasons, but one of them is something I’ve been talking about.  It’s the mentality of the mob, the herd mentality.  Maybe some of us have had an experience of church like this.  There can be a group dynamic in which the congregation bands together and shames those who have questions.  There can be cult-like behavior.  Compulsion is used to whip people into shape.

Many studies have been done about herd mentality.  As individuals, we can feel anonymous in a crowd—or on the internet.  No one knows who we are.  Sometimes it leads us to do things, that if we were by ourselves, in person and alone, we would never dream of doing.

This doesn’t have to work for the bad.  When the community of faith works in a healthy way, those things we would never dream of doing are awesome and beautiful.

For example, by ourselves, it takes added courage to protest for justice.  With others, we are heartened in an amazing way.  By ourselves, singing and praising the Lord is definitely a beautiful and soul-enriching thing.  But with others, singing and praising becomes a powerful and magnificent wave.

In the Palm Sunday story, along with the sincere adoration of Jesus, can’t we also sense an element of desperation—the desperation of a people who feel beaten down?  When these desperate people realize that Jesus won’t comply with their wishes, things get ugly.  They get anxious, with a vengeance.  (But we’ll hold off on that one for right now.  That’s the story of Good Friday!)

When we’re anxious, we become reactive, as opposed to responsive.  A good way to think of it is to compare “reacting” to a knee-jerk “reaction.”  It’s automatic.  It doesn’t take any thought.  When we respond, we’re taking a moment to actually think things through, to weigh the options.

Being reactive is often a good thing; it can save our lives.  If your hand is on a hot stove, that’s probably not the time to think through and weigh your options.  It’s not the time to run a systems analysis.  Get your hand off the stove!

Getting back to my story about the Klan, we see an extreme example of reactivity.  (I would say that throwing rocks at people qualifies as “extreme.”)

Going along with this, we see violence cloaked with righteousness.  Too often it seems like justice has to be served by wiping out somebody else.  It helps if the other one can fit the bill of “morally reprehensible.”  If I disagree with you, then you’re my enemy.  Forget for a moment what Jesus says about loving our enemies.

Church consultant Speed Leas has done a lot of work on congregational conflict.  He is best known for devising his five levels of conflict.  At level five, he says that situations sometimes get to the point where people “won’t stop fighting because they feel it’s immoral to stop.  They believe they are called by God to destroy the evil.”

At our interim pastor training, a story was told of a minister who, after leaving a church, moved to the other side of the country.  However, there was a husband and wife determined to track him down.  To put it bluntly, they decided to stalk him.  Upon discovering his new address, they came up with a plan.  They took a frozen fish, allowed it to thaw, put it in a package, and mailed it to him.

What could have been their motivation?  Maybe they felt like he didn’t pass the smell test.  Or perhaps there’s another explanation.  Could it be the couple had a reputation for always carping about something?

As we can see, giving in to the herd mentality can lead to some unpleasant, even fishy, outcomes.

So, today on this Palm Sunday, where are we?  (Presumably, not gathering up rocks or thawing out fish!)

The Franciscan priest Richard Rohr reminds us, “Once we let the group substitute for an inner life or our own faith journey, all we need to do is ‘attend.’  For several centuries, church has been more a matter of attendance at a service than an observably different lifestyle.” (276)

Sometimes we’ve been swept along with the herd; we’ve disappeared into the crowd.  At such times, we have lost ourselves; we have forgotten who we are and whose we are.  Sadly (and speaking for myself), we might have chosen the path of cowardice.

But much more importantly, we have also experienced communion, the solidarity of the saints.  We have discovered and welcomed the courage of Christ.

So, regardless of what the herd says or does, be it the cheering and joy of Palm Sunday or the jeering and rage of Good Friday, we take hold of Christ and confidently say with the prophet in Isaiah 50, “The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame” (v. 7).

Psalm 51 has been called “one of the most moving prayers in the Old Testament.”[1]  It hits all the right notes.  There’s a full admission of guilt, acknowledgment that no pardon is deserved, and loving joy because God does forgive.  There’s an expressed awareness that “unless a radical change is wrought by God, the future will be but a repetition of the past.”  That’s why the psalmist “appeals to God for a clean heart and a new spirit.”[2]

This is the psalm which appears in the liturgy with Ash Wednesday, which by the way probably never makes the list on anyone’s favorite holidays.  There is a cruel and kind revelation about our very existence, who we are, down to the bone.  “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  There can be no pretensions.

A key verse in our psalm is verse 14.  The psalmist seems to be on the precipice of some kind of horror, something to be dreaded.  “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,” is the cry, “O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.”

Opinions differ as to what “bloodshed” here is all about.  Is it something the psalmist has done—or something feared yet to happen?  Is it a comment about the whole nation, something we frequently see in Old Testament prayers?  I would say there’s room for both.

Still, there is a painful, agonizing note sounded by an individual.  The caption of the psalm refers to it as King David’s plea for pardon after raping Bathsheba.  The prophet Nathan has confronted the king and exposed his guilt.  There’s nothing to say.  He has been caught red-handed, so to speak.

Lest we think we are free of the shedding of blood, reflect on this.  Even with inflation, have you ever thought of how so many items are priced so cheaply?   Consider the overwhelmingly vast number of goods coming from a single country.  We support that country, which commits plenty of bloodshed, both literally and figuratively.

Recall verse 1, how this whole thing gets kicked off: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.”  The Hebrew word for “abundant mercy” (or in the New Jerusalem Bible, “tenderness”) is רַחַם (raham).  It means “womb.”  O God, according to your compassion for your unborn child…

Recalling David’s violation of Bathsheba, the Lord can be seen (or is seen) as a female who has suffered that grievous harm—one who has been violated in that most violent way.

The king can’t undo the past; he knows a radically new way is called for.

As we recite the psalm on Ash Wednesday, we should note not all of the psalm is used.  We stop at verse 17.  Here are verses 16 and 17: “For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

As we scroll through this poem, time and time again, we see calls for radical openness.  I encourage you to read every verse and then pause and reflect on it.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity…

Against you, you alone, have I sinned…

You desire truth in the inward being…

Create in me a clean heart…

Restore to me the joy of your salvation…  (I think the point is made.)

For that vision, for that reality to come alive, some radical change—as already mentioned—must come to pass.  That sounds great, but then here are verses 18 and 19.  These last two verses are often seen as having been added later, as a sort of appendix.

“Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem; then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.”  We might ask, “Okay, so what’s the point?”  It sounds like a perfectly acceptable and necessary part of repentance.

I would suggest there is a chasm between these two verses and what has gone before.  I know not everyone agrees with me.  They might say I’m overstating the case, pretending I’m looking at the Grand Canyon, as opposed to a babbling brook.  And that’s fine.  But see for yourself.

On the one hand, “For you have no delight in sacrifice…”  And on the other, “Then you will delight in right sacrifices…”

On the one hand, “If I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased…”  And on the other, “You will delight in burnt offerings…”

“The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit.”

With those last two verses, there is a sense of “but then…  There’s nothing wrong with the way we served God in the past.”

At the Missionaries of Prayer website, there’s a post titled, “Prophetic Word—Why am I Attracted to This?”[3]

Why am I attracted to this?  That’s a question for each of us.

Why am I attracted to this?  Suggestions are offered.  Why am I attracted to this church…  this person…  this place?  What do I really want?

“You need to know the answer to this, for yourself.  Because this will help to make or break you.  Only you know the answer.”

This is hard.  It is deeply uncomfortable.  I want the safe.  I want the secure.  I want what verses 18 and 19 promise: the tried and true.  I don’t like being dangled over the cliff, held only by spirit, held only by the Spirit.  How badly I want to say, “In with the old, out with the new.”

Last week, we had a dinner in which a young woman invited many of her friends.  Some of them were sharing experiences they had with the Holy Spirit.  I appreciated a comment by another young woman who said she was asking her husband if they should leave.  With these other people uttering such profound insights (my words, not hers), she said she felt “shallow.”  She felt inadequate.  As I just suggested, I have had feelings like that.

The author of the article says, “We need to grow up.  Christianity is not comfortable.  Growth and change are not comfortable so if every now and then your pastor is not preaching a message that stretches you and causes you to think about your life or calls you to repentance, then something is wrong.  It means you’re only hearing the parts of the Bible that makes you feel good but there are large sections not being preached.  And that should bother you.”

And that should bother me.  As the apostle Paul said, “woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!” (1 Co 9:16).  That’s a stark warning.

God forbid I give you easy answers.  God forbid I don’t encourage painful and probing questions.

Adam Neder, professor at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, says, “If our way of talking about God leaves [us] unaware of the threat he poses to our lives, perhaps that is because we no longer perceive the threat he poses to our lives.”[4]  Can we see God as a threat to our lives?  What could that mean?

I would suggest we often—or perhaps always—believe our lives are limited to the way we sleepwalk through life.  We don’t necessarily have to get into some deep philosophical discussion.  A trip to the grocery store can be quite revealing.  We see people rushing around, impatient, not smiling, without joy.  What would happen if we conducted an experiment?  What would happen if we decided to slow down?

The late Thomas Merton wrote, “Our ordinary waking life is a bare existence in which, most of the time, we seem to be absent from ourselves and from reality because we are involved in the vain preoccupations which dog the steps of every living [person].  But there are times when we seem suddenly to awake and discover the full meaning of our own present reality…  In the light of such an experience it is easy to see the futility of all the trifles that occupy our minds.  We recapture something of the calm and balance that ought always to be ours, and we understand that life is far too great a gift to be squandered on anything less than perfection.”[5]

Thank the Lord that God is a threat to that substitute for real life, our life hidden in Christ.  We fear the dangerous and delightful depth expressed by the worship chorus, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. / Cast me not away from Thy presence, O Lord / and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. / Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, / and renew a right spirit within me.”

At the beginning I used the quote, “unless a radical change is wrought by God, the future will be but a repetition of the past.”  The psalmist ready to move on.  There’s no looking back.  The past has involved David’s being a rapist and a murderer.  The threat God poses is seen and welcomed.  “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice” (v. 8).

To insert a New Testament perspective: “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!” (2 Co 5:17).

So, what now?  As the song says, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going, / And soon all those around can warm up in its glowing. / That’s how it is with God’s love once you’ve experienced it; / You spread His love to everyone; You want to pass it on.”  Pass it on.  “I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you” (v. 13).

We aren’t made righteous in the eyes of God just for the fun of it.  If we have truly experienced it, our lives will be changed.  We won’t be able to do otherwise.  We need not feel inadequate, as did the young woman at our dinner.  We are made more than sufficient, more than conquerors.

[1] A. A. Anderson, The Book of Psalms, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1992), 389.

[2] Anderson, 398.

[3] www.missionariesofprayer.org/2022/10/prophetic-word-why-am-i-attracted-to-this/

[4] Adam Neder, “Theology as a Way of Life,” Theology Matters 28:3 (Summer 2022), 4.

[5] Thomas Merton, The Ascent to Truth (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1951), 10.

Have you ever been so confused that you didn’t know up from down, black from white, in from out?  Have you ever forgotten someone’s name?  I’m sure we’ve all done that.  However, I’m not talking about someone we’ve only met once or twice.  I’m talking about someone we really know—a person whose name we ought to remember.  I’ll admit, that’s been me on more than one occasion!

Now that is being confused.  We could think of other examples of confusion, unless we’re too confused to do so.

In 1 Kings 19, we catch someone in his own state of confusion, the prophet Elijah.  We’ll get to that later on.

Here’s a bit of the back-story.  Ahab is king, and Jezebel is his foreign wife.  Her father is a priest of the goddess Astarte.  Astarte, also known as Asherah, is the consort, the companion, of Baal.  At this time, the land is experiencing a terrible drought.  Elijah, the prophet of the Lord, says the rain will come only when he gives the word.  The priests of Baal can call on their god all they want.  Only the prophet of Yahweh can announce the end of this vicious drought.

In chapter 18, we have a quite bloody scene.  Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to see which god can burn up the sacrificial offering which has been laid out.  When fire from heaven descends and consumes the offering, Elijah is proven right.  In a moment that can only be called zealous, he has the other prophets put to death.

But before all the butchery, there is a note of humor!  While the prophets of Baal are crying out to their god, Elijah decides to be a comedian.  He says, “Cry aloud!  Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened” (v. 27).  Some translations, instead of “he has wandered away,”[1] have “he is relieving himself,” or he “is out sitting on the toilet”! (New Living Translation, Living Bible)

[not the same Baal, but maybe the point is made]

So basically, that is what’s been going on as we get to chapter 19.

The king lets the queen know what Elijah has done.  To say that Jezebel is displeased with Elijah would be an understatement.  She sends a messenger to tell the prophet, “You’re a dead man.”

So, on the heels of his greatest victory, Elijah takes to his heels!  He has defeated the prophets of Baal; the rains have returned at his word, but he is scared for his life.  He takes off, and not only does he take off; he leaves the country.  Elijah flees all the way to Beer-sheba, about one hundred miles away, in the southern kingdom of Judah.

Something to understand about Elijah is he is considered perhaps the foremost of the prophets.  For example, in the book of Malachi, his return is expected.  “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.  He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse” (4:5-6).  Receive his family counseling or else!

On the nights when the Passover seder is observed, a chair is always left empty for Elijah.

In the New Testament, Jesus says Elijah has come in the person of John the Baptist.  This is right after he has taken Peter, James, and John up the mountain where the Transfiguration occurs, and Moses and Elijah have had a little conversation with Jesus (Mt 17).

So Elijah winds up with some hefty credentials!

Very briefly, he leaves his servant in Beer-sheba, and strikes off alone into the wilderness where he finds “a solitary broom tree,” also known as a juniper tree (v. 4).  He lies down, ready to die.  An angel visits, giving him food and water, and lets him know he must continue his journey.  Elijah travels “forty days and forty nights,” symbolic in the Bible of a very long time (v. 8).

He takes refuge in a cave at Mount Horeb, where Moses received the Ten Commandments.

“Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’” (v. 9).  Here’s his response.  It’s rather lengthy, and we’ll hear it again.  “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword.  I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away” (v. 10).

What are you doing here?

On the face of it, the answer seems obvious.  He just woke up; he had been asleep.  Of course, that’s not really the question.  Aside from the “here,” there’s the desire to know, “why are you here”?  Putting a finer point on it, we might see it as, “Why did you run from Jezebel?”  Why were you afraid?  Why did you fear?

Is it possible that the full weight of hearing a death sentence pronounced shook his resolve?  Does it make it more real?

The Lord tells Elijah to take his place on the mountain, as Moses did centuries earlier, because there’s about to be a divine visitation.  Where is the Lord?  A storm arrives, leaving destruction in its wake.  But no, the Lord isn’t there.  Then there’s an earthquake, shaking up the place, sending boulders loose.  After that, a raging fire breaks out, filling the sky with smoke.  Still, neither one is a sign of God’s presence.

After all the drama—after the blowing, shaking, and burning—there is an eerie stillness.  Remember if there’s anyone who can appreciate spectacle, it’s Elijah.  We are introduced to him just as he’s going to confront the king regarding the drought.  And of course, there’s the high drama when he faces the prophets of Baal.

As verse 12 puts it, there was “after the fire a sound of sheer silence.”  The King James Version has the familiar “after the fire a still small voice.”

[photo by Kelly3339 on Pixabay]

“When Elijah heard it…”  He heard in the quiet of the hush.  He listened to the absence of sound.  Elijah…  Elijah…  Elijah!

“What are you doing here?”

I said earlier Elijah has his own state of confusion.  This, I would submit, is evidence of such.  I also would submit there’s a bit of speculation on my part!

What is Elijah’s response?  “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword.  I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away” (v. 14).  Wait, haven’t we heard that before?

Elijah repeats his previous answer verbatim.  (Here’s more speculation.)  It seems to be rehearsed.  Does he have nothing else to say?  Is he making excuses?  Could he be trying to prove his worth?  Is he trying to convince himself of something?  Is he trying to convince the Lord?

Thinking of Elijah’s repeated answer as a narrative as to where he is, I wonder if there’s a narrative I hold onto?  Do I have a story I repeat to deflect those kinds of questions and concerns?  Why am I here?  Why do I run, not necessarily from Jezebel, but from whatever?  Why do I fear?  Are there excuses I make?

However, more importantly, whose am I?  To whom do I belong?

In the collected Letters and Papers from Prison, there is a poem by Dietrich Bonhoeffer which he wrote about nine months before being executed by the Nazis.  He was killed mere weeks before his prison camp was liberated by the Allies.  Here are the final lines of the poem, titled “Who am I?”[2]

“Who am I?  This or the Other? / Am I one person today and tomorrow another? / Am I both at once?  A hypocrite before others, / And before myself a contemptible, woebegone weakling? / Or is something within me like a beaten army / Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

“Who am I?  They mock me, these lonely questions of mine, / Whoever I am, Thou Knowest, O God, I am thine.”

Can anyone relate to the thought, “Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?”  I think Elijah demonstrates that vividly.  In ways, I feel like I also display that quality.

And then, those final words.  “Who am I?  They mock me, these lonely questions of mine, / Whoever I am, Thou Knowest, O God, I am thine.”

The Lord answers Elijah.  The Lord gives him a mission.  He is to be a kingmaker: Hazael in Aram and Jehu in Israel.  As his protégé, he is to anoint Elisha.

To Elijah, the Lord affirms, you are my prophet.  You are my servant.  However, you aren’t the only faithful one.  Verse 18 says, “Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”  That’s both a comfort and a correction.

The Lord uses the language of “kiss,” with all the intimacy and consequences it carries.  Every mouth that has not kissed Baal.  The faithful ones have not given themselves to this foreign god, this false god.  They have not pledged their allegiance.  They have not promised their hearts.

We should take note: in Hebrew thought, “heart” is not the seat of emotion.  It is not where we feel love, the way we reckon it.  It is the source of attention, choice, concern, imagination, understanding.  It is where we love God and love our neighbor.  Pledging ourselves to a false god, to an idol, interferes with all of that.  Indeed, it sends it in the wrong direction.

We have here a tale of rediscovery.  Despite his protests to the contrary, Elijah’s actions reveal he has forgotten he is a prophet of God.  He flees in disorder from victory already achieved.  Elijah is reminded who he is.  True to his nature as one with a flair for the dramatic, when he ascends from the earth, he does so in a chariot of fire.

So often, we forget who we are.  As the children of God, as the saved of our Lord Jesus Christ, as those sustained by the Holy Spirit—when we remember that and act on it—confusion is set aside.  Harmony and order are set in place.

Though we might flee in disorder from victory already achieved, Jesus makes us more than conquerors.

What are you doing here?

Whatever I am doing, whoever I am, Thou Knowest, O God, I am thine.

[1] the word for “wander” is שִֺיג, sig

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison: The Enlarged Edition (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 348.

If there’s one part of the Bible that English-speaking people are familiar with, it’s today’s text from the Psalms.  Even in America, with our dwindling knowledge of the Bible, the 23rd psalm is something almost everyone has at least a passing awareness of.  But it isn’t from the translations done in recent centuries—it’s the King James Version.  (People often request this psalm for funerals.  For those services, that’s the only version I’ve ever used.)

One thing that really stands out is in verse 4: “Even though I walk in the darkest valley.”  That might be a better translation, but it’s not as dramatic as “the valley of the shadow of death.”  In my opinion—and I don’t think I’m alone on this—it’s not as powerful.  It’s not as artistic.  The phrase literally reads: “the ravine of blackest shadow.”  Friends, that’s pretty dark!

Those considerations aside, we can see a sense of movement throughout the psalm.  That would be in keeping with the image of the shepherd guiding the sheep, moving through grassy meadows, by tranquil streams, and yes, through the darkest of valleys.

However, one doesn’t usually think of shepherds as preparing tables for their sheep, anointing their heads with oil, or pouring them cups that overflow.  And here’s a shot in the dark: sheep aren’t usually known for their desire to spend time in the house of the Lord!

A quick lesson in Hebrew might help.  Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, is written with all consonants.  The vowels consist of points—dots—that were added up to centuries later.  Clearly, a change in vowels makes a difference in the sound and meaning of words.  Change one letter, and we go from “sack” to “sock.”  Same consonants, different vowels.

Before printing presses came along in the 1500s, copies of the scriptures were done by hand.  Sometimes a copyist would receive a manuscript that was difficult to read.  A dot might be misplaced.  That could change the pronunciation and the meaning.  It’s possible that happened here.

The word translated “shepherd” in verse 1 is the Hebrew term רֺעׅי (ro`i).  With a slight vowel change, we wind up with the word רֵעַ (re`i), which means “companion” or “friend.”  In fact, it’s the same word used in Leviticus 19:18, which says to “love your neighbor as yourself.”  If Yahweh, the Lord, is our re`i—our companion, our friend, our neighbor—that puts loving our neighbor in a very different light.

We can see the 23rd psalm as a song of pilgrimage, of travel to the holy place.  We are on a journey, and we are not alone.  The Lord is our companion, and we need nothing else.  Whether by peaceful waters in pleasant meadows or in the loneliest, most terrifying abyss, God is with us.  And God—as shepherd, companion, or both—provides for us, even when those bent on our destruction are all around.

So far, I’ve given an example of how Psalm 23 is used liturgically, in worship.  I used a funeral service as a case in point.  I just mentioned how it can be looked at academically.  Examining the Hebrew text can yield new ways of understanding the psalm.  But all that stuff isn’t enough.  We need more in order to learn how to live when we are in the darkest of ravines.

Again, on the point of funerals.  I recently met with daughters of a beloved woman who passed away a few days earlier.  She had celebrated her 97th birthday the previous month.  She had a special interest in music; a piano graced her living room.

She had been living in a retirement center when she needed help in daily tasks.  After a stay in the hospital, it was clear she wouldn’t be going back.  Arrangements were made for hospice care, and she would be returning to her home, after six years away. The daughters said she didn’t last long, but she was overjoyed to be back in her own house those final days.

I remember visiting her in the hospital, when she told me before going to sleep the night before, she wondered if she would wake up.  She said she was ready to go, even though she wasn’t ready to go.

Some people are graced to walk through the deepest shadow with a sense of wonder and profound gratitude.

What does it mean to live with the awareness that the Lord is our shepherd, our companion, and our host?  What does it mean to know that we do not want—that we do not lack?  And even more, what does all that mean if we’re in the presence of our enemies?  What response does it encourage or require?

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he comes from a different direction.  “Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.  Live as children of light” (5:8).  If living as “children of light” isn’t sufficiently clear, he goes on to say, “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them” (vv. 10-11).

Works of darkness are “unfruitful”; they aren’t creative.  They don’t accomplish anything worthwhile.  Works of darkness are the methods of control and force and manipulation we so often use.

Imagine, preparing a table in the presence of our enemies.  Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama, who died in 2009, once said, “People enjoying such a feast would make themselves an easy target for their adversaries!”[1]  It would be like squirrels, happily crunching on seeds and nuts, completely unaware of the cat sneaking up behind them!

But that’s okay, he says, because “this is none other than an expression of the supreme wisdom and strength of God, whose foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and whose weakness is stronger than human strength.”  In verse 4, when the psalmist says to God, “I fear no evil,” what reason is given?  I have security through advanced firepower?  Or, I have enough money to bribe anyone?

Or maybe is it “for you are with me”?  Koyama adds, “God’s vulnerability is stronger than human invulnerability.  Through a banquet table—not guns and warplanes—God wills to transform us and our world.”

It’s indeed a blessing, a gift of grace, that none of us is dependent upon our own experience, our own devices—certainly not our own strength—to secure the friendship of God.  It’s been said that, as the psalmist finds out, God satisfies every need and transforms all circumstances.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long” (v. 6).  By the time we get to this final verse, we see that the psalmist is “no longer hunted down by…enemies, but…is literally pursued by the goodness of God.”[2]  (I’ll say more about that in a moment.)

Considering that this is a beloved psalm, most people probably don’t want to hear this.  But is it possible that when the psalmist speaks of having a fine meal while foes are nearby, it’s not just an expression of trust in God?  Could it also be a case of “who’s laughing now”?  There are plenty of prayers for revenge in the Psalms.  The Lord could be vindicating his servant.

And to be honest, “follow” is too weak a word.  The Hebrew word, רָדַף (radaf), is better translated as “pursue” or “chase.”  The same word is used after the Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, and we see the Egyptians “pursuing” the Israelites (Ex 14:9, 23).  It’s almost always used in a military context.  Someone is being hunted down.

One notable exception is in Psalm 34, where we are told, “Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it” (v. 14).  I myself can relate to needing, and wanting, God’s goodness and mercy chasing after me.

I can think of times when I’ve been petty and spiteful.  I’ve enjoyed the blessings of God, knowing that others have gone wanting; they’ve gone lacking.  And I haven’t lifted a finger to help.  I can only speak for myself, but I want the goodness of God to keep chasing me, no matter where I try to hide.  I want to be the rabbit tracked by the hound of heaven.  I need that light to shine on me when I’m in death’s shadow.

Christoph Blumhardt was a German Lutheran theologian in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century.  He has a fitting thought for the Easter season.  “Christ’s resurrection,” he says, “is not just something that happened in the past.  There is resurrection today just as much as there was back then, after Christ’s death.  Our renewal is real to the extent that we find ourselves in an entirely different order.”[3]

Here’s a question.  What does Blumhardt mean when he says there’s resurrection today, as surely as when Christ rose from the grave?  What about that?  What are some ways in which there is new life, where once there had been only death?

That leads to another question.  When he says, “Our renewal is real to the extent that we find ourselves in an entirely different order,” what is that?  What is an entirely different order?  I imagine that could be a lot of things, but let’s stick with what our treasured 23rd psalm gives us regarding traveling the dark path.

Blumhardt adds that “[o]ur task…is to demonstrate the power of the resurrection.”[4]  When we allow the power of Christ to have freedom within us, enemies are no longer feared or despised.  Evil is de-fanged, in whatever valley of death-shadow we find ourselves.  That may be brokenness in body or heart or spirit.  We also (amazingly!) find it within ourselves to reach out to those we once considered repellent.

Our friend Kosuke Koyama reminds us, “The table that God prepares for us culminates in the eucharistic table of the Lord,” the table of the Lord’s Supper.  “This sacrament is the ultimate symbol of God’s hospitality, demonstrated in full view of the enemy.”  I don’t care who we consider our enemy to be.  When we dine together at the table “prepared by the very life of God,” enemies become friends.

When we come to the table of the Lord, we come as the one being chased by the goodness and mercy of God.  We dine with the risen Lord, who gives us the power to rise from the shadow of death.  We come to the table, trusting that in the journey of our life, God is our beloved, our companion, our shepherd.

[1] www.religion-online.org/article/you-prepare-a-table-for-me-psalms-23/

[2] A. A. Anderson, The Book of Psalms, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1981), 199.

[3] Christoph Blumhardt, Jesus is the Victor (Farmington, PA: The Bruderhof Foundation, 2004), 23.

[4] Blumhardt, 25.

I want to begin with a story about Ayn Rand, or rather, my time as an avid reader of her books.  This was mainly when I was a freshman in college.

First of all, let me give you an idea of who she was.  Ayn Rand was born in Russia in 1905 and moved to America as a young woman.  She died in 1982.

She wrote books of fiction primarily.  She believed selfishness is a noble virtue.  We are not each other’s keeper.  It’s true only to the extent it serves our own self-interest.  The same can be said of charity.  Those receiving charity should be worthy of it.

Government should be as small as possible, for example, there should be no oversight for worker safety, protection of the environment, etc.  That is to be left solely in private hands, to business.  Also, reason alone gives direction for life.  No faith, no poetic insight, no feelings should be used.  To say she was no fan of the church is putting it mildly.

That is an admittedly very quick and, no doubt at some points, imprecise picture of her.  Having said that, as a semi-disciple of hers, I often found myself thinking, “What would Ayn Rand do?”  I was channeling my thoughts along paths she laid out.  I had fenced myself in.

To show how ridiculous I had become, one day I was with some friends, eating lunch in the cafeteria.  I had my copy of Atlas Shrugged, one of her best-known books.  Pushing the book over to one of my companions, I only half-jokingly asked him to “read us some scripture.”

I really wasn’t ascribing some divine origin to Rand’s work (which actually would have driven her nuts), but it does show how straitjacketed my thinking had turned out to be.  In a sense, I fell prey to what the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians, “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (3:6).  He is referring specifically to the law of Moses (at least, how it was often interpreted), but it can also apply to any rigid, freedom-restricting rules to live by.

(By the way, my infatuation with the writing of Ayn Rand began to fade about a year later.  My conscience started bothering me!)

Regarding our scripture text, it’s known that Paul wrote several letters to the church in Corinth.  In 1 Corinthians, he mentions a letter he wrote previously (5:9).  Then we have the letter we call 1 Corinthians.  In 2 Corinthians, he speaks of a painful letter (2:3-4, 9, 7:8, 12).  He wanted to address some troublesome issues in the church.  The letter had a severe tone; he said he wrote “out of much distress and anguish of heart and with many tears” (2:4).  And now, we have the letter known to us as 2 Corinthians.

We pick up Paul’s discussion right after he refers to the parade of “peddlers of God’s word” (2:17), preachers and teachers who have been performing with their dog and pony shows.  He asks if the folks in Corinth want him and his companions to present letters of recommendation.  Do they need someone to vouch for them?  They should have checked out those other characters.

Paul says, “I’ll tell you who vouches for us: the Spirit of God.”  He denies that they are “competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God” (3:5).  He says they can’t take credit for anything.  Everything is only due to God.

The apostle sets the stage with the glowing face of Moses, who had gone up the mountain to meet the Lord.  This was when Moses received the big ten, which were literally engraved in stone.  Being in the presence of God had an illuminating effect on Moses.  He was beaming!

I’ll wager none of us have had that experience.  We speak of someone lighting up a room when they enter.  This might be taking it too far.

The people would agree with that.  When Moses came down from the mountain, tablets in hand, he could tell by the reaction, the looks on people’s faces, that they were totally freaked out.  Moses still didn’t know why.  Was there something on his clothes?  Did he smell bad?

Eventually, he figured it out.  After he finished laying down the law, Moses took a veil and covered his face.  When he would go inside his tent, he would remove the veil.  If he had a message from the Lord, he would go outside and deliver it, and then to reduce the level of freaking out, he would replace the veil.  He would cover up his shining face.

Today is the Transfiguration of the Lord, when Jesus also made a trip up the mountain, and his entire body glowed.  Maybe we can see how this story of Moses is the Old Testament scripture for today.  Still, Paul speaks of the shining face of Moses as a glory, to be sure, but a glory that is fading.

Scott Hoezee, who teaches at Calvin Seminary, speaks to that point of a glory fading away.  “Great though the reception of the Law had been,” he says, “and wonderful though it was that Israel really was now a nation (in fulfillment of what God had promised in Genesis 12 to Abram), the fact is this was not the end of the line. This was not the end-all and be-all of God’s ultimate plans for this fallen creation.”[1]

Paul makes a rather stark statement about the law of Moses.  He labels it “the ministry of death” (v. 7).  It’s not that he hates the law.  It’s not like he’s saying to avoid it, or it will kill you.  In another place, he speaks glowingly of it.  He says, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (Ro 7:12).

In fact, the word translated as “law” (תּוֺרׇה, torah) could be easily rendered as “direction” or “instruction.”  That fits right in with Paul’s description in Galatians as the law being a tutor or a schoolmaster, guiding us to Christ (Ga 3:24).

He’s exaggerating to point out that the law is powerless to make us righteous.  It’s true: the people of Israel couldn’t bear to look at Moses’ face because it was so glorious.  Yet, the apostle asks, “how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory?” (v. 8).

If the term “ministry of death” was stark, we can see Paul apparently piling it on in the next few verses.  His analysis, his perspective, of the people of Israel is “their minds were hardened.  Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside” (v. 14).  He goes even farther.  “Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed” (vv. 15-16).

It sounds like there is a Christian triumphalism going on.  Those poor foolish Jews—no, those bad Jews—need to be taken in hand.  Certainly, that’s one way this has been interpreted.  And when the Jewish people have been taken in hand, it has rarely been a tender hand!  So, I would be delinquent if I didn’t address how this passage has been misused through the centuries.

A veil lies over our minds if we fall into an anti-Jewish reading of the text.  It’s not unlike the veil I placed on my mind by blindly following the nonsense of Ayn Rand.  (With apologies to Ayn Rand fans!)

Back to Paul’s point in bringing this up, he had the perfect example of removing the veil, of having one’s eyes opened—himself!  On the road to Damascus, he literally saw the light.  His startling and dramatic language (some might say overly dramatic) is meant to highlight the awesomely dramatic difference between the law and Christ.

Our friend Scott Hoezee applies this to us.  “The only reason you keep looking to the Law as the source of your salvation is because your heart still has a veil over it—you’re not seeing clearly.”  Can we see how we allow Law to govern us?  We follow a method.  We have some strict and inflexible guidelines as we run through the maze of life, like rats in a lab.

God wants to unlock us.

We are reminded that “far from having to then turn back to our own sorry reflections in the mirror only to be reminded how far short we fall of the glory of God in our own lives—the glory of Christ is contagious!”  I want that contagion to infect me.  I don’t want my immune system to protect me from that contagious glory.

The apostle encourages us, saying, “all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (v. 18).

“From one degree of glory to another.”  To experience ever-increasing glory: only unlocked and unveiled children of God can enjoy that privilege.  Only they can enjoy that grace.

A few moments ago, I said how I would be delinquent if I didn’t acknowledge the ways in which our scripture has been twisted to stir up hostility toward the Jewish people.  As I’ve sometimes noted, events happen that just can’t be ignored.  The Russian invasion of Ukraine with its sadness and horror is one of those events.

Paul has spoken of minds being veiled, minds being hardened.  He has spoken of the ministry of death.  I dare say those have been on vivid and terrifying display these past days.

Ultimately, however, what we have seen is a demonstration of cowardice.  Vladimir Putin’s choices are not an exhibition of strength of spirit, but rather a weakness of character.

Clearly, he isn’t alone on the world stage in choosing to follow a Law that enslaves, a letter that kills.  He isn’t alone in that among the entire human race.  I know none of us is plotting the invasion of another country!  Still, at some level, as said before, God wants to unlock us.  We are in need of that holy contagion; we need to be infected with the glory of Christ.  The Lord gives us the ability to be of service to each other, not of laying down oppressive rules, but of turning to Christ, who sets the captives free.

We can take heart, knowing that “the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (v. 17).

[1] cepreaching.org/commentary/2016-02-01/2-corinthians-312-42/