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

How about New York Cheesecake as part of a religious celebration?  When Christians celebrate Pentecost, that particular dessert rarely figures into the equation.  However, the observance of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot often has mouths savoring that delicious treat.

[photo by Monika Grabkowska at Unsplash]

Can we imagine cheesecake as a holy food?  It puts a whole new spin on the psalm saying, “O taste and see that the Lord is good” (34:8).

Okay, backing up a bit…  Shavuot is the Hebrew word for “weeks.”  It is one of the three festivals in the Hebrew scriptures required for pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem.  The other two are Passover (or Pesach) and the Feast of Tabernacles (or Sukkot).

Shavuot was originally a harvest festival when the first of the crops sprouted, thus the term “firstfruits,” which were brought to the temple.  It was observed seven weeks and one day after Passover—fifty days.  In Greek, “Pentecost” means fifty.  For the church, Pentecost is today.  For Jews, Shavuot ended yesterday at sundown; it is celebrated for two days.  The timing difference is due to Shavuot being counted after Passover and Pentecost being counted after Easter.

When the Romans destroyed the temple in the year 70, there was nowhere to bring the firstfruits.  Consequently, the focus shifted to the revelation of Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai.  Other than the exodus from Egypt, this is the premier event giving identity to the Jewish people.  The giving of the word is the aspect I wish to make my focus.

Lacking any specific requirements, Shavuot is kept by special services, recognizing it as a day of rest, and among other events, enjoying holiday meals.  Dairy foods are highlighted, thus the mention of cheesecake!

Still, the divine encounter with Moses, associated with the day of Pentecost, is front and center.  That is given special attention.  One way of giving that attention is by pulling an all-nighter while engaged in the study of scripture.  Some might suggest having coffee and strong tea on hand!

[As an aside, I have a story about strong tea—quite strong tea, which Turkish tea is.  Banu’s parents were visiting us from Istanbul when we lived in Jamestown (about 20 years ago now).  Turks drink a lot of tea, which is fine with me, because I love tea.  They use small glasses, which we had.  Then I got the smart idea of filling up a large mug.  Turkish tea, with its elevated volume of caffeine, has an even greater diuretic effect.  Suffice to say, I made a greater than usual amount of trips to the bathroom that evening.]

There is a legend saying God offered the Torah to 70 different nations, doing so in their own languages.  All refused to accept it.  However, when God approached Israel at Sinai, the word was welcomed.  In Exodus 19:8 we read, “The people all answered as one, ‘Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.’  Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.”

By the way, that puts a different spin on Israel being God’s “chosen” people.  They “chose” to follow the Torah.  (Perhaps the word is better translated as “instructions” or “teachings.”)

Naomi Wolf, who throughout her life has been a decidedly left-wing feminist (though doesn’t one have to be leftist to be a feminist!), has over the past couple of years, rediscovered her faith.  She speaks of the “Hebrew Bible [as] more about love and less about rules.  The rules are the guardrails for the love.  And God is always seeking out ordinary people—while clothed in his own Person.”[1]  I really like that definition of Torah: rules as guardrails for love.

In the New Testament, in Acts 2, we see Jews from many far-flung nations gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of Pentecost.  We are told how the Holy Spirit rushed in like a violent wind with fire.  Descending upon them all, they spoke in tongues in their native languages, praising the Lord.

Incidentally, in verse 1 we hear, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.”  Were they doing the all-night study?  Maybe they had some strong tea.

Pentecost is often considered to be the birthday of the church.  After the fire fell, the Spirit being poured out on all flesh, the number of believers began to increase exponentially.  Starting in Jerusalem, the church quickly spread out in all directions.

The legend of the nations refusing the word of the Lord was reversed.

Can we see, or better, can we hear those with their own languages understanding each other?  The nations represented did not all live in blissful accord with one other.  Understanding that, the Pax Romana, the “Roman peace” of the Empire imposed in a somewhat and imperfectly harmonious way a sense of stability and prosperity.

We often hear of the Roman Empire as the enemy of the church.  That wasn’t always the case, through it’s true there were some emperors who made a special effort at persecution.  Having said that, the Empire greatly aided in spreading the gospel.  There are many ways in which this happened, but I’ll limit myself to three.

First, the Romans had an impressive and well-maintained network of roads.  This aided people in their travels, including folks like the apostle Paul and his friends.

Secondly, the imperial economy enabled commerce from a vast expanse of territory on three continents.  There was a great exchange of peoples, with various nationalities, beliefs, social classes, whatever—but it made no difference, because the gospel of Jesus Christ appeals to all.

The last one I’ll mention deals with language, since that’s the theme we’ve been addressing.  In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great did his part in spreading Greek culture throughout the Middle East and into Egypt.  Of course, the local languages remained, but the Romans used Greek as the primary language in the eastern half of the empire.  When you want to carry a message, it helps if there’s a common tongue to express it!

Can we not say we see the Spirit of the Lord at work?  Can we imagine the Spirit giving birth to the word of revolution?

I’m not really speaking of revolution on a national scale.  Rather for each of us, it must start from within: a revolution within our minds, hearts, and spirits.

That is the promise and power of Shavuot, of Pentecost.

In Deuteronomy 26, we see instructions on how the firstfruits are to be handled.  With verses 5 to 9, we have a confession of faith, an affirmation of faith.  “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor” (v. 5).  The reference is to Jacob.  (By the way, Aram was a region encompassing Syria and northern modern-day Iraq.)

There follows a sketch of historical events.  The Israelites, having settled in Egypt, became numerous and the Egyptians in turn subjected them to slavery.  But the Lord heard their cry and delivered them.  They were brought into “a land flowing with milk and honey” (v. 9).  Acknowledging the goodness of God, the Israelites present before the Lord “the first of the fruit of the ground” (v. 10).

The passage ends at verse 11, “Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.”  We often see special provisions for the poor, the orphan, the widow, and so on.  However, here we see singled out “the aliens who reside among you.”

There is the reminder just as the Lord had mercy on the Israelites while aliens in Egypt, so they are to extend that same mercy to the aliens in their midst, to the sojourners among them.

That is a big part of the promise and power of Shavuot, of Pentecost: the word empowering us to reach out to all nations.

The empowering word is ultimately focused in the Living Word.

John 7 declares, “On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me’” (v. 37).

“Come, Thou Fount of every blessing / Tune my heart to sing Thy grace / Streams of mercy, never ceasing / Call for songs of loudest praise.”

The festival referred to isn’t Pentecost, rather it is the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the three mentioned earlier requiring observation for those at all capable of making the trip to the temple.

Jesus continues, “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’” (v. 38).  Which scripture is meant is a mystery.  It doesn’t appear in the Bible.  A number of suggestions have been made.  Perhaps the most likely is Exodus 17:6, where Moses strikes the rock and water comes gushing out.

[I mentioned this last month.  Due to their bitter thirst, the people threaten to stone Moses.  The Lord has Moses whack the stone.]

We are told, “Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive, for as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified” (v. 39).  That doesn’t mean the Spirit did not exist, but instead the Spirit had not yet been given.  This is, so to speak, a pre-Pentecost statement.

Later in his gospel, John has the final conversation between Jesus and his disciples.  Jesus says, “When the Advocate [that is, the Helper or Comforter] comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.  You also are to testify, because you have been with me from the beginning” (14:26-27).

The Spirit will speak the word on behalf of Jesus, on behalf of the Messiah.  We also are to speak the word.  We are to testify, to give witness, on behalf of Jesus.

Are we thirsty for the water of the Spirit?  We can be a well springing up with the Holy Spirit.

There is a word pointing to a reality beyond our imagining, beyond our usual frame of reference.  It bears an unveiling; it displays the debris.  It burns away the impurities.  We are given power to say no to squandering our lives and resources on meaningless consumption.  We are given courage to embrace a lifestyle not dictated by marketing trends or unhealthy spending habits.

It is the word come alive.  It is the word revealed at Sinai, the word spoken at Pentecost.  It is not simply the word to be read.  It is the word desiring to befriend us, to unleash our creativity.

That is the word we desperately need when it calls our name.

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

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/

A text in 1 Kings 2 comes from the synagogue Sabbath reading for yesterday the 7th.  It features Jacob’s final words to his sons and David’s final words to his son, Solomon.  As a meditation for the beginning of the new year, deathbed instructions might seem to be an unusual choice, to say the least.

I should add that the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah (that is, “head of the year”) falls at various times in September.  The current year on the Jewish calendar is 5783.

I imagine there were quite a few of us who were happy to pronounce the death sentence on 2020.  Some probably wanted to drive a stake through its heart to make sure the monster had been slain!

Still, taking into consideration the coming of Covid into the world, there is always much to celebrate about God’s good creation, which we’ll hear more about later.

David couches his closing wishes in terms of strength, courage, and faithfulness.  “Hear my words, beloved son, and you will follow the way of the Lord.  In pursuing them, you will guarantee that my lineage will continue through you.”  That’s no big responsibility.

What follows is a list of names and how Solomon is to deal with each of them.  I’m reminded of how certain Roman emperors decided the fate of gladiators.  Thumbs up, and they lived.  Thumbs down, and that’s all she wrote.

(At least, that’s how the story goes!)

First on the list is Joab, one of David’s mighty commanders.  He retaliated “in time of peace for blood that had been shed in war” (v. 5).  Very briefly: Joab killed Abner and Amasa, two military leaders, and Absalom, David’s rebellious son.  This was despite David’s explicit instructions.  He made it clear that he did not want any of them to be slain.

Joab, known for his violent temperament, was unable to let go of blood vengeance, however justified it might have seemed.  David didn’t want to be seen responsible for “innocent blood.”  The verdict: “do not let his gray head go down to Sheol in peace” (v. 6).  Thumbs down.

However, Barzillai treated David honorably, so permit his sons to live in peace with you.  Thumbs up.

And then there is Shimei, who uttered a curse on David, but later tried to make nice.  David promised he would do no harm to him.  He wouldn’t touch a hair on his head but said nothing about how his offspring would treat Shimei while he visits the beauty parlor.  So, thumbs down.

I just said Joab was unable to let go of blood vengeance.  He dragged what happened in time of war into a time of peace.

Is he the only one who couldn’t let go?  Could not the king have behaved any differently?  Was he truly compelled to settle those scores?  I don’t know; perhaps by the standards of his time, it was to be expected.  Nevertheless, it seems like he could have acted in a nobler manner—perhaps in a spirit of royal largesse?

I doubt any of us have the blood of queens and kings flowing through our veins, but how often do we dwell in the past?  How often are we trapped by the past?

We have now entered 2023.  On every New Year’s Day, I am reminded of the song by that name which was done by the band U2.  Bono sings, “All is quiet on New Year’s Day / A world in white gets underway.  I want to be with you / Be with you night and day.  Nothing changes on New Year’s Day / On New Year’s Day.”

Other people have their own memories or practices when January rolls around.  This year there is the realization of that song being released forty years ago.  Forty years ago!  In 1983, I was a freshman in college.  Tempus fugit.

In his masterpiece, The Sabbath (which reads almost like poetry), the beloved twentieth century rabbi Abraham Heschel suggests, “Time to us is sarcasm, a slick treacherous monster with a jaw like a furnace incinerating every moment of our lives.”[1]  He isn’t saying time is evil, rather it’s our reaction to it.

“We know what to do with space,” Heschel comments, “but do not know what to do about time, except to make it subservient to space.  Most of us seem to labor for the sake of things of space.  As a result we suffer from a deeply rooted dread of time and stand aghast when compelled to look into its face.”

It’s fascinating.  Genesis has God pronouncing aspects of creation—that is, space—as “good.”  Creation of earth and sea, plants and animals, are pronounced “good.”  “And God saw that it was good.”  Even after the creation of the human race, all is pronounced “very good.”

It is only the Sabbath—time—that is hallowed, pronounced holy.  The word in Hebrew has to do with being sanctified, being set apart.  It is set apart from all we can see.

We so often want to grasp time, as if it were an object.  We want to stop it, or at least slow it down, and just take a breath.  We want that fire-breathing monster consuming every moment to be held at bay.  Time flies, like a dragon.

Are we indeed unwilling to let go?  Do we need to, so to speak, die to the past before we can truly live?

Today is the Baptism of the Lord.  We hear the story of another dying to the past.  We engage with a narrative of one passing through a portal.  The heavens themselves open up like a shower from on high, and there is a powerful proclamation of perpetual passion.

John offers a baptism for the forgiveness of sin.  He offers a baptism of repentance.  He questions Jesus when he comes to him for this ritual.  Wait, we’ve got this totally backward.  I’m supposed to be the forerunner for you.  You should be the one dunking me into the river!

He doesn’t need to do this for his own sake, but Jesus models moving from the death of sin.  He shows the way from the grave of the past to the life of the future.

A couple of decades later, regarding baptism, the apostle Paul establishes the connection, he develops the theology, between the dying of Jesus and his being raised from the grave by God to an indestructible life.

In his letter to the Roman church, Paul shares the glorious news, “We were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life” (6:4).

In the letter to the Colossians, he says in similar words, “When you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead” (2:12).

There are two key events of the Christian faith: Christmas and Easter.  Christmas, of course, tells the story of God becoming incarnate.  It is God becoming enfleshed as the baby of Bethlehem.

More to our point here is the story of Easter.  Jesus was dead, with no life whatsoever, dead as a doornail.  His mission had apparently ended in utter and complete failure.  Jesus was right when he spoke the words, “It is finished.”  It’s difficult to do worse than that.  We go from the bitter tears of defeat of Holy Saturday to the inexpressible and impossible euphoria of Easter Sunday.

So again, here we are in 2023.  We have been focused on Covid.  In some ways, we have been focused on death.  We’ve had lockdowns.  Many small businesses have not survived.  So many children held out of school have seemingly fallen hopelessly behind.  Getting close to each other has been forbidden.  We have been told to not shake hands!

(Please note: I do understand the logic expressed here.)

The 20s have indeed gotten off to an alarming start.  One cause for concern is that over the past couple of years or so, we’ve become used to accepting ever increasing levels of control and surveillance from the government and from big tech.

By the grace of God, we are becoming ever more aware of our ability to recognize and challenge the lies.  Banu and I invite you to join us.  By the grace of God, death is being exposed.

In the movie, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Winona Ryder plays Mina and Gary Oldman plays Dracula.  In Mina, Dracula sees his centuries-dead wife, Elisabeth, as having returned.  In the scene in which Dracula pledges his eternal love for Mina, she pleads with him, “take me away from all this death.”  Of course, she’s putting that request to the wrong fellow!

We all have been so focused on death, I fear we might have forgotten how to live.

That is the meaning of baptism, however.  It is more than an emphasis on space, an emphasis on physicality.  It also deals with time.  It is the movement from a season of death to a season of life.  That is what it means to be saved.  Salvation is not a one-time reality.  Salvation is ongoing.  Salvation is what we look to in the future.

Still, salvation does require the element of choice.  It requires what the baptism of John models for those coming after, that is, repentance.  Repentance isn’t a furious escape from a hammer descending from above.  It is a turning around, an about face.  And it doesn’t happen once and for all time.  It also is a lifestyle—a lifestyle which is based in joy.

Our focus on death requires repentance, salvation.  Joy is the defeat of death.  It is time to repent as a congregation, shake off the dust of death, and enter into a 2023 full of the life that God wants to show us.  Whatever we think is enough, God says I have more.  It is time for the remnant to rise from the dead and share in the promises of the Kingdom here and now.

[1] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951), 5.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[2] Heschel, 15.

[3] Heschel, 89.

[4] Heschel, 5.

[5] “redeem” is εξαγοράζω (exagorazō)

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

[7] Ingram, 30.

[8] Heschel, 76.

Enriched flour (composed of wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, and folic acid), soybean oil with TBHQ for freshness (by the way, TBHQ is tertiary butylhydroquinone), sugar, salt, leavening (which in turn contains sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, and monocalcium phosphate), high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, cornstarch, and soy lecithin.

Would anyone care to guess what this list is all about?  Well, it’s the list of ingredients on a box of Keebler Club Crackers.

In recent years, there has been increasing attention to the food that Americans eat, especially the highly processed food we consume.  There’s a witches’ brew of chemicals—some benign, some quite harmful—all mixed up in it, along with added salt and sugar.

Some time ago, I saw an interview with a retired lieutenant general who said the number one reason that people are refused admission to the armed forces is because they’re too overweight.  On a side note, he said something I had never heard before.  In the 1940s, one of the main reasons for Americans being refused admission was malnourishment.  The military considered it to be a question of national security, so it pushed for the free lunch program in public schools.

Maybe it will take the military to push the food industry, and all of us, to get our act together and quit eating so much junk food!  (Although, what can I say?  I do like cookies.)

Throughout history, cultures have addressed the stuff we put into our bodies in a multitude of ways.  What one group of people rejects as vile and disgusting is considered by others to be a treat that is absolutely scrumptious!

Ancient Israelites and modern-day Jews provide a classic example of distinctions in food.  Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 go into some detail.

These laws regarding what is proper and improper, what is ritually clean and unclean, to eat—they’re just part of a whole vision of life.  Along with birth, death, sex, economics, and everything but the kitchen sink, instructions about food demonstrate the way the people of Israel, who are called to holiness, should live.  In fact, the last part of Leviticus, starting with chapter 17, is referred to as the Holiness Code.

But maybe you’re wondering, “What is all this talk about food?  To remind us to eat healthy?”  Okay, that’s part of it.  Still, what we consume helps to define us.  You know, you are what you eat?  It may be largely an accident of geography, but different cultures are associated with certain kinds of food.  Thinking of cuisine, what comes to mind when I say Chinese…or Mexican…or Turkish?

However, there are other factors when it comes to eating.  What we eat can reflect many values, be they religious, political, ecological, or whatever.

So what’s going on with Peter in Acts 11?  It looks like he’s behaving—and eating—the way he’s supposed to.  It looks like he’s doing his very best to avoid food that is ritually unclean.  He hasn’t defiled himself by eating improper stuff; he has kept kosher.  But then, he has a vision!  (More on that in a moment.)

In chapter 10, we’re told the story of Cornelius, who lives in Caesarea.  He’s what people refer to as a “God-fearer.”  God-fearers are Gentiles attracted by the Jewish faith and who live according to its principles.  The Bible calls Cornelius “devout”; he gives alms generously and observes the hours of prayer (v. 2).

During one of these times of prayer, an angel appears to him, telling him to send for Peter, who’s staying in Joppa, about 30 miles down the coast.  He has a message that Cornelius needs to hear.  It just so happens, as Peter re-tells the story in chapter 11, that while he’s been praying, Cornelius’ guys show up.  And he has quite a story of his own!

It seems that he’s had a vision of “something like a large sheet coming down from heaven,” which contains animals of all kinds (v. 5).  Peter sees critters with feet that run, wings that flap, and scales that are…just scaly!  (This is not a vegetarian friendly vision!)  The heavenly voice rings the dinner bell, and says, “Come and get it!”

As I suggested a moment ago, there are plenty of items on the menu that have Peter saying, “Thanks, but no thanks!”  Then we’re told this: “a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’  This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven” (vv. 9-10).  It came from heaven.  That’s an interesting origin for all of this unclean stuff!

When Peter’s Gentile visitors arrive and tell him about Cornelius, something clicks inside him: one of those “a-ha” moments.  And after he returns with them, as he is speaking, he says that “the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning” (v. 15).

What has happened to Peter?  Dan Clendenin frames it like so, how “the purity laws lent themselves to a spiritual stratification or hierarchy between the ritually ‘clean’ who considered themselves close to God, and the ‘unclean’ who were shunned as impure sinners far from God.  Instead of expressing the holiness of God, ritual purity became a means of excluding people considered dirty, polluted, or contaminated.”[1]

So in case you haven’t figured this out by now, this isn’t about food; it’s about people.  Notice the language of verse 3; look at how Peter is confronted.  The Good News Bible puts it this way: “You were a guest in the home of uncircumcised Gentiles, and you even ate with them!”  Peter, what in the world were you thinking?

Clendenin goes on, “In word and in deed Jesus ignored, disregarded and perhaps even actively demolished these distinctions of ritual purity as a measure of spiritual status.  And as Peter learned in his encounter with Cornelius, Jesus asked him to do the same.”

Jesus is all about removing distinctions that cause damage.  It’s obvious that we do have differences and distinctions but encouraging the ones that crush human life are not to be tolerated.

On that note about differences, there’s the story about the student who is speaking with the rabbi.  “Teacher,” he says, “you have told us that we are all made in the image of God.”  “That’s right,” the rabbi responds.  The student asks, “Then why do people come in so many different colors, have so many different sizes, and have so many different customs?”  The rabbi answers, “Because we are all made in the image of God.”

Just like anything that is alive, our identity continues to change—one would hope becoming bigger in heart and spirit.  Think about it.  Do we describe ourselves the same way as we did when we were children?  (I hope not!  I hope we’ve learned a few things!)  What about when we were teenagers?  And through adulthood, our identity continues to evolve.

That’s where the church is in Acts 11.  They have to decide if they will let themselves grow in identity—who they say they are, how they define themselves—or will they turn inward?  When Banu and I did interim pastor training, that was something we were called to encourage, discovering and renewing your identity, at the individual level and at the congregational level.  We forget who we are, and we forget that we need to continue moving.

Remember, this isn’t something that Peter has welcomed.  He has struggled against this expansion of his vision.  (It had to happen three times, which is always a good symbolic number.)  But despite his resistance, he realizes that this change in table manners is a good thing!

What about us?  Do we need a change in table manners?

Do we have any purity laws of our own, ones that crush human life?  Do we have any convenient rules we rely on to avoid the love-affirming, community-building, Holy Spirit-obeying way of life we know we should follow?  Are there any people, or groups of people, that we think of as unworthy—and we move heaven and earth to avoid?  (I include myself in this!)

I don’t know the answer to all those questions.  I suspect that, if we’re honest with ourselves, much of it is true.

“A second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’”  The New Testament church has to deal with this again:  “Who do we welcome to the table?”  That’s something I’ve been hearing from Banu in recent times: who is at my table?  That’s a good question for all of us.  Who is at our table?

What is it within us that seeks to exclude?  What is it that we regard with fear and loathing?  Who is it that we regard with fear and loathing?

Remember, as I said earlier, Jesus is all about removing distinctions that cause damage.  As I said in the story about the student and the rabbi, God creates us with differences and diversities; we just need to not encourage the ones that lead us away from love.

I want to finish with a Polynesian prayer of confession of sin.

“Lord, you have made us known to friends we did not know, and you have given us seats in homes which are not our own.  You have brought the distant near—and made brothers and sisters of strangers.  Forgive us, Lord… we did not introduce you.”

Thanks be to God, who is always willing to teach us table manners!

[1] www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20070430JJ.shtml

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.

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/

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

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

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

Labor unions weren’t exactly a high priority.

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

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

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

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

We tend to be more comfortable with priests than with prophets.

Some might quickly say that their church (or other religious tradition) has no priests.  Being a Presbyterian, I would be one of those folks to make that claim.  I’m not necessarily speaking of a man (or woman) who has been ordained to that office.  I’m thinking of a priestly function or priestly posture.  Likewise, I’m not necessarily thinking of a person identified as a prophet.  Again, it’s more of a prophetic function or posture.

Given the way I’m using the words right now, I can even imagine priests and prophets existing outside of any faith or spiritual context.

This is admittedly a crude oversimplification, but I’m thinking of a priest as one who serves the system—who keeps the system running.  I’m thinking of a prophet as one who questions or critiques the system.  The prophet doesn’t necessarily want to overthrow the system.  That approach might better fit the profile of revolutionary.  If you’re wondering what I mean by all of this, as I often say, hold that thought.  Stay tuned.

Before I go any further, I need to address an unfortunate way John’s use of the word “Jew” has too often been misunderstood.  The Greek word is ΄Ιουδαιος (’Ioudaios), which does mean “Jews,” but when it appears in the gospel of John, it’s mainly used for the enemies of Jesus.  The word can also mean “Judeans,” a word which has not led to the persecution of Jews through the centuries, especially by Christians.  It has led to a history of anti-Semitism.

A Judean was from Judea, just as a Samaritan was from Samaria.  If we feel like we can’t use the word “Judean,” we must recognize that “Jew” (as portraying an enemy of Jesus) only speaks of a tiny minority of Jews and/or Jewish leaders.  After all, it should be remembered that Jesus himself was a Jew.  Amazing!  Not only that, he was a faithful, observant Jew.

The second half of John 2 describes what’s been called the cleansing of the temple.  Notice how it starts: “The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem” (v. 13).  Passover is one of the high holy days.  Jesus, as a faithful Jew, goes to celebrate.

Everything’s going fine; he’s with the crowds of worshippers who have come from parts near and far.  When Jesus enters the temple, his mood suddenly changes.  He sees the moneychangers at work.  They’re taking the peoples’ ordinary currency, with its images of Roman emperors and Greek gods (which would be idolatrous for purchasing animals for sacrifice) and exchanging it for Judean shekels.  And also, is it possible they’re ripping people off?  Of course, we also have to deal with the animals, producing their smells and solids.

Jesus goes ballistic.  He does his best impression of a bull in a china shop.  He takes off, flipping over tables, scattering coins, shouting at the merchants, and brandishing a whip.  Does he actually flog those fellows?  St. Augustine thought so.  He said Jesus “made a scourge of small cords, and with it lashed the unruly, who were making merchandise of God’s temple.”[1]  When the smoke clears, the place looks like the scene of an action movie.

On the matter of Jesus wielding that whip, some have said it justifies the use of violence, even to the point of punishing heretics and waging war.  “If Jesus was violent,” it’s been reasoned, “what’s to stop us?”

Others have a more nuanced perspective.  After all, it wouldn’t have been a surprise to Jesus that animals were being sold for sacrifice.  There was no need for Jesus to throw a “temple tantrum.”  James McGrath has noted, “The sale of animals was essential for the temple’s main function as a place for the offering of animal sacrifices…  Both the selling of animals for sacrifices and the payment of the temple tax were activities required by Jewish law and central to the temple’s functions.”[2]

Maybe Jesus doesn’t fly off the handle.  This all might have been premeditated.  Maybe it was to make a point.  That would seem to be more in fitting with Jesus’ character.  And about Jesus being violent, there’s a long tradition holding that he was being nonviolent.  No one could have weapons of any kind in the temple area.  The Romans had their own security measures.

As you walk in, they scan you with the metal detector and ask, “Do you have any items to declare?”

That whip Jesus had could only be made with material on hand—stuff like strips of animal bedding.  (A lethal weapon, it was not.)  Not only did Jesus refrain from beating the people, as Andy Alexis-Baker says, we don’t see “Jesus beating the animals; but instead he saves their lives from sacrificial slaughter in a monetary and religious system.  The fact that he deliberately refrains from overturning caged pigeons shows his carefulness with the animals.”[3]

He has no doubt watched too many of those Sarah McLachlan commercials with the sad doggies.

Is Jesus protesting worship which consists of the sacrifice of animals?  In chapter 4, we see him speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well.

He says to her, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.  But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (vv. 22-24).

To worship God means to worship in spirit and truth.  There isn’t much there about killing animals.  Maybe Jesus is trying to open our minds to a higher understanding, a more open awareness.  God doesn’t require us to slay our fellow creatures.

We hear Jesus saying, “Take these things out of here!  Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” (v. 16).  Our Old Testament reading has the final words in the book of Zechariah.  It’s part of a longer section on the day of the Lord.  The Lord will return to bless Israel and to defeat their enemies.  On that day, ordinary objects in the temple will be considered sacred.  What’s more, “there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day” (14:21).

Perhaps we see a promise of the day when exchanging of goods will no longer be necessary?  The slaughter of animals will be a thing of the past?

Whatever the case, we’re dealing with something grander in scope.  Whatever the case, we’re dealing with a challenge to the system.  In return, Jesus is demanded to explain himself.  “What sign can you show us for doing this?” (v. 18).  The word “sign” (σημειον, semeion), apart from the ordinary understanding, can also be a miracle or wonder by which God authenticates someone.  It shows that God is behind this.

They want to know why he’s there, messing up the program.

The first half of chapter 2 is about the wedding in Cana, where Jesus turns the water into wine.  We’re told this is “the first of his signs” (v. 11).  His second sign doesn’t come until chapter 4, when he heals the son of a nobleman (vv. 46-54).  So in case you were wondering, Jesus doesn’t give these guys a sign.

Instead, as he so often does, he reframes the question.  “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (v. 19).  Aha!  One of his interrogators slips away to grab a security guard.  He points Jesus out, saying, “You better search this guy again.  He’s threatening to blow up the temple!”  Of course, they misunderstand him.  He’s referring to the temple that is his body.  This is John’s way of pointing to the resurrection.

["Rage, the Flower Thrower" by Banksy]

I hope we realize that we all are temples.  As temples of the Holy Spirit, we in a sense, house God.  That’s what temples have always been for—to in some way, house a deity.  In our case, true deity, true divinity, dwells within us.

The chapter ends by saying, “Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone” (vv. 24-25).  Jesus doesn’t put his faith in others, but he isn’t ridiculing his fellow humans.  It’s simply a recognition that, for all their efforts, they aren’t God.  People fail.  People fail us, and we fail them.  It’s just reality.  Jesus puts his faith in God.

On a side note, we so often disappoint each other because we want what only God can provide.  We subconsciously want each other to be God.  Our love falls short.

On the matter of love, I need to ask, “How does the cleansing of the temple demonstrate love?”  It might not seem like it all the time, but Jesus always acts with love.  He chooses to follow the path of love, not that of sin.

Jesus knows the opposition he would face in challenging the system.  He goes in with eyes open.  It’s not that he hates the system.  He wants it to operate in a loving and compassionate way.  He longs to show those in the system that it can be better—that they can be better.  Jesus wants them to risk being more.  He dares them to be more.  He dares them to be more human, which really is a high bar.

Here’s where we return to my opening statements about priests and prophets, or more precisely, their postures or functions.  The priestly function or spirit desires normalcy, a sane and orderly running of the system.  That in itself is a very good thing.  Systems are good.

Nothing could work—nothing could live—without say, the water system.  Take away H₂O with its liquid, gas, and solid states, and see what happens.  We have the body’s digestive system, which is obviously necessary.  We have the political system, which is simply the way we structure our society.  It dates back to when protohumans lived in groups.

Too often, though, systems we create deviate from the beneficial, just, and even holy treatment we owe each other.  They become harmful and not helpful.

That’s when the prophetic spirit is required.  It challenges; it seeks to go deeper.  As I said earlier, the prophetic spirit doesn’t necessarily want to overthrow the system.  However, it does point to qualities that have long outlived their usefulness—that is, if they were ever useful for anything but cruelty and tyranny and ungodliness.

The true prophet is in the system, but not of the system.  What I mean by that is similar to what Richard Rohr says about being “on the edge of the inside.”  Prophets “cannot be fully insiders, but they cannot throw rocks from outside either…  Only with great respect for and understanding of the rules can a prophet know how to properly break those very same rules—for the sake of a greater purpose and value.”

Think of it.  Are you more likely to listen to someone who respects you and speaks your language (so to speak!), or to someone who disrespects you and thinks you’re an idiot?

Being in the system means having learned how it operates.  Being of the system means not being able to imagine anything outside of it.  It means not being able to visualize something new, something different.  Think of the times when Jesus apparently broke the Sabbath.  He healed people on the Sabbath.  He was working!  Yet, he was showing the deeper, more faithful meaning of Sabbath.

May I suggest that many people who are accused of hating America really do not?  There are some, of course, who do hate America; I’m not talking about that.  I’m speaking of those who simply want America to be a kinder and more decent place, a more virtuous place.  There is indeed a prophetic spirit which calls us to be our best selves, to heed our better angels.

If we can see how the cleansing of the temple demonstrates love, we also should ask, “What does love require of us?”  It’s the question Jesus is fond of asking!  It’s the question Jesus is fond of asking me, and truth be told, it sometimes makes me uncomfortable.  Love exacts a high price.  Perhaps, in their heart of hearts, some of those in the temple that day behaved in such a defensive manner because they understood that.

What is it about our temples that need cleansing?

Are we carrying on with business as usual?  Are we welcoming the unexpected and unwanted visitor—maybe one who’s cracking the whip and upsetting our plans?  All of that is part of the work of God.  All of that is part of the sacrifice, not of animals slain, but of love spent.

May we welcome, may we receive, the Lord who resurrects the ruined temples of our lives.

[1] www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.xi.html

[2] www.bibleodyssey.org/en/passages/main-articles/jesus-and-the-moneychangers

[3] Andy Alexis-Baker, “Violence, Nonviolence and the Temple Incident in John 2:13-15, Biblical Interpretation, 20:1, 2 (2012), 91.