Saturday Night Theologian
17 October 2004

Jeremiah 31:27-34

This brief, well-known passage from Jeremiah contains at least four important points that were surprising, perhaps even shocking, in Jeremiah's day and continue to be remarkable today. First, Jeremiah demonstrates that he was not a one-note prophet. Pegged by his contemporaries as a prophet of gloom and doom regarding Judah, he steps into another role here as a prophet of hope. He would not just record God's proclamation of judgment, characterized by plucking up, breaking down, overthrowing, destroying, and bringing evil upon Judah; he also had a positive message, that God would one day build and plant Judah. Second, in contrast to the tradition of corporate responsibility for sin, Jeremiah proclaimed the radically new doctrine of individual responsibility. His contemporaries could no longer blame their woes on their ancestors. If God was punishing the people today, Jeremiah said, it was because the people living today deserved it. Third, Jeremiah rejected the concept of an eternal covenant with a chosen people. The people had broken that covenant, Jeremiah proclaimed, and God was replacing it with a new covenant inscribed on the heart rather than on stone. The implication was that one was not in a covenant relationship with God as a result of birth but as a result of a conscious decision to follow God. This concept would later open the door for the world to accept the message of God's salvation. Fourth, Jeremiah has God say something truly remarkable to Judah, though it is not evident in English translation. In verse 32, God, talking about the earlier covenant with Israel, says, "I was their husband." The Hebrew word "to be a husband" is related to the noun "husband, lord," which also happens to be the name of a Canaanite god, Baal. Although the word was a perfectly good Hebrew word, Jeremiah's hearers couldn't have failed to notice the connection with the god Baal who was associated in the minds of many in Judah with the sins of the Northern Kingdom, Israel. The point seems to be that whatever the positive aspects of Baal were in the estimation of Baal's worshipers, God is the one who truly possesses those characteristics. These four points have important applications today. First, Christians today who want to speak prophetically to the world should be careful not to be Johnny one-notes. God has positive as well as negative messages, often for the same people, and we need to be sensitive to both types of message. Second, we should not be afraid to abandon outmoded, traditional ways of thinking if God reveals something new to us, particularly when this "new" revelation is actually a proper understanding of an "old" revelation. The full equality of women in the church and in society is a good example of a new way of thinking that should replace the traditional belief in the inferior status of women. Third, we need to embrace the concept that God's covenant really is for everyone, not just those of us living in the industrialized world, not just the reasonably affluent and privileged, not just those whose first language is English. God wants to have a relationship with rich and poor, people of any color, people of every nation and tongue. Fourth, Christians need to get beyond petty comparisons between our religion and that of others. Too many comparative religion classes teach that Christians believe A, B, and C, while Muslims (or Jews, or Buddhists, etc.) believe D, E, and F, and we're right and they're wrong. Christianity has much in common with all of the major religions of the world, and where we differ, we need to listen attentively to the testimony of the adherents of other faiths to see if we can gain insights from them that will help us understand our own religious tradition better.

Psalm 119:97-104

I was in a meeting earlier this week with a group of people I'd never met before, and one of them began his prayer with words something like this: "Lord, thank you for your law, because we know that obedience to your law is what you truly desire, and it is the only thing that can make us happy." As the meeting went on, I soon learned what his interpretation of God's law meant. It meant overthrowing the secular state and replacing it with a government based on divine law, interpreted (of course) by people who believed like he did. I think his approach to the law is an incredibly bad and dangerous way to look at the law. Nevertheless, I do think that the law can be quite positive, if viewed from a proper perspective. The psalmist begins this section (the mem section, so-called because every verse in the section begins with the Hebrew letter mem) with the rhapsodic, "Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all day long." The psalmist proceeds to detail how the law is beneficial in his daily life: it makes him wiser than his enemies, it gives him more understanding than his teachers, it makes him wiser than the aged, and it keeps him from evil. Certainly he attributes his observance of the law to his understanding, but even more he credits the fact that he meditates on the law. The law is not a set of principles to be memorized and followed blindly. Rather, it is a collection of teachings to be considered carefully and applied thoughtfully. When we think about applying the teachings of God found in the Bible to our lives today, the psalmist's focus on meditation is crucial. It is absolutely essential to think carefully and prayerfully about a biblical passage before applying it blindly. When one passage contradicts another, which takes precedence? When statements in the Bible appear to contradict modern science, what should we do? A partial answer to these questions is that the first question provides the key for dealing with the second. If the Bible speaks with different voices in different places, it must not be the magical, flawless book that fundamentalist Christians say it is. No, it is something more. It is a sacred, meaningful account of divine-human interaction over the course of over a thousand years, told from the human perspective. When we understand the Bible in these terms, the issue of "contradictions" with science drops away. The Bible no more conflicts with science than Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night" conflicts with an astronomer's picture of the universe. The two deal with different subjects, both important, but neither the purview of the other. The Bible is sacred in part because if we read it carefully, ponder it, consider it, and ruminate on it, God will often reveal truth to us. How do we recognize God's truth? One way is to realize the fact that God's truth has little to do with philosophical or theological pronouncements and much to do with practical application of the scripture to life. To borrow a term from the liberation theologians, God's truth has more to do with orthopraxy (right practice) than orthodoxy (right belief).

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

In 1054 the Christian church split into two factions, the western Roman Catholic Church and the eastern Orthodox Church. Earlier splits over doctrinal and practical matters had split the church for periods of time, but this split was called the Great Schism because it forever divided the eastern and western churches. Over what weighty matters was the seamless garment of the church rent asunder? Over such issues as the date of Easter, whether to use leavened or unleavened bread for communion, and whether or not to include the filioque ("and the Son") clause in the Creed (does the Spirit proceed from the Father alone or the Father and the Son?). Pope Leo IX and Patriarch Michael Cerularius excommunicated one another, and the split became official. Probably all educated interpreters of the Bible believe that their overall interpretation of scripture, or at least their approach to interpretation, is correct, while those that are radically different are wrong. We are always ready to attribute those with "itching ears" to those with whom we disagree, and of course they do the same. As progressive Christians, however, we should strive for harmony among Christians with different ideas, while still maintaining our own strongly held beliefs. Two key verses stand out in this passage. First, after stating that all scripture is inspired and useful, Paul says that the purpose of the scripture is that every believer might be "proficient, equipped for every good work." In other words, it is not profitable to argue to the death over the meaning of passages that have little or no effect on how one puts the passage into practical use. Friendly discussions are interesting and even useful, if both sides know how to listen carefully to their opponents' arguments and glean truth. However, the bottom line in interpretation is, "how does it affect how I live my life?" Second, the tendency of people to gather around themselves "teachers to suit their own desires" is telling and troubling. Human desires tend to be selfish, so it is only natural that people will be tempted to find teachers who tell them things that they want to hear, things that will profit them personally (in the literal sense of the word "profit"). How else can one explain the popularity of the health and wealth gospel, which is so obviously contrary to the overall teaching of both the Old Testament and the New Testament? It has been said that the purpose of a preacher is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. If our teaching doesn't challenge our hearers to abandon their selfish ways and life lives of self-sacrifice, it is a good bet that we are engaged in ear-tickling rather than evangelism (preaching the gospel message).

Luke 18:1-8

In The Shawshank Redemption, prisoner Andy Dufresne is put in charge of the prison library. Every week he writes a letter to the state legislature asking for funds to buy books for the prison library. After six years with no response, he receives several boxes of books and records, a check for $200, and a note requesting that he stop sending letters to the legislature. Andy's response is to start sending two letters a week! Like this vignette from the movie, Jesus' parable of the importunate widow is a humorous story of perseverance and hope. The widow presents her case over and over to a judge who respects neither God nor humans. Nevertheless, in order to preserve his own sanity, the judge finally decides the case in favor of the persistent widow. Jesus' point in the story is that if people can wear down uncaring judges, how much more readily will God respond to our requests, since God really does care about us. This is a message about perseverance, but it's also a message about hope. The widow was in a situation in which she was powerless to act. Only the judge could bring relief. The fact that the woman persisted with her request shows that she never gave up hope that justice would be done. In real life, justice is not always done, but like the widow, we must fight on anyway in the hope that God will change human hearts. Or maybe we'll just wear them down!