When Anthony "Spud" Webb first walked onto the Atlanta Hawks' basketball court, many people laughed. Here was a 5'6" man, more than a foot shorter than the average basketball player, wanting to play the game. No one doubted that he had basketball talent, but he was far too small to play in the NBA, most people thought. Most people were wrong. Spud Webb not only played the game, he excelled at it. He was the starting point guard for the Atlanta Hawks and the Sacramento Kings for eleven seasons, averaging almost 10 points and more than 5 assists per game. In his first NBA season he decided to enter the slam dunk competition. Again people snickered. How could a player whose flat-footed reach was barely 7 feet dunk a basketball in a 10-foot rim? Spud showed them how, putting on an exhibition and walking away with the trophy. Spud Webb is now an inspirational speaker, traveling the world to let people know that they can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. When God appeared to Abraham near the oaks of Mamre, he had a message for Abraham and Sarah: by this time next year Sarah would bear her firstborn son. The message was so ludicrous that Sarah, listening from her tent, laughed to herself. "I'm too old," she said, "and I've even gone through menopause. It's just not possible that I could bear a child." Abraham and Sarah were people with great faith, and they had seen God accomplish great works in their lives, but this was just too much to believe. "Believe it!" God said. "When I return next year, Sarah will have a son." We're familiar with this story, so we know that Sarah did in fact bear a son, Isaac. From our comfortable position a few thousand years after the fact, we look with wonder at Sarah. "How could she not believe?" we ask ourselves. "God had done so much for her in the past, so why should she doubt now?" We ought to ask ourselves the same thing. Why do we sometimes laugh incredulously when God tells us to do something. "Oh no, God, I can't do that!" we say. "I'm not smart enough," or "I don't have the talent," or "It will never work out." If we'll examine our lives closely, we'll see that God has already done fairly amazing things both for us and through us. Why should we doubt God's ability to do another amazing feat? Go ahead, chuckle at the improbability of what God wants you to do, then launch out and try it anyway, just to see what happens. If you think something God is telling you is inconceivable, you may find that, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, the word does not mean what you think it means.
"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones." The editor of the notes to the Psalms in the Oxford Annotated Bible says that with a slight emendation, the word "death" can be changed to "fidelity," which the editor believes is more in keeping with the overall thrust of the psalm. If the verse is rendered as the editor suggests, then its point is that God honors the faithful one who fulfills his or her vows to God. I see two problems with this interpretation. First, the emendation in question is not exactly "slight," since it involves three or four letters, and there is little graphic similarity between the reading of the current Hebrew text and the proposed reading. Second, though "fidelity" fits the immediate context well enough, the emphasis on God's salvation from death runs throughout the psalm. In fact, the psalm in its entirety is a thanksgiving psalm to God for delivering the psalmist from death. The verse as it is traditionally read fits very well in the context, detailing the reason for fulfilling the vow and offering a sacrifice of thanksgiving. But what exactly does the verse mean? Contrary to what one might suppose from reading the verse divorced from its context, it is not talking about the value that God places on the end of a pious person's life, though that may be true as well (and it is often quoted in that sense). What the verse is actually saying is that God values the lives of those who show loyalty to him. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry's loyalty to Professor Dumbledore causes Dumbledore's phoenix to come to him in his hour of need. "You must have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber," Dumbledore says to Harry. "Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you." Similarly, God sends help to God's children in their time of need. That help may come through an unexpected circumstance. It may come through a previously unknown inner strength that delivers you from your crisis. It may come through another person. Regardless of the means by which God sends help, God is always present with us as well, through good times and bad, through hours of joy and hours of darkness. When we come to the end of our time on earth, we have the confidence that God will be with us then as well, and our deaths will indeed be precious in the sight of the Lord.
For another discussion of this passage, click here.
In the 1980s Twilight Zone episode called "Button, Button," a couple in serious financial straits are visited by a man who offers them the deal of a lifetime. He leaves a box with a button on it with them for one day, and he tells them that if they will just push the button, someone they don't know will die, and he will give them $200,000. The couple discusses the offer after the man leaves, and they argue back and forth over the merits and ethics of the offer. Finally they push the button. The stranger appears at their door shortly thereafter with the money and asks for the box back. After the wife gives him the box, she asks what he intends to do with it. "Don't worry," he says, "I'll give it to someone who doesn't know you." In today's reading from Romans, Paul says that although it might be possible to find someone who was willing to die for a righteous person, it's unlikely that anyone could be found who would die for someone who had little redeeming value. But that's exactly what Christ did, and that demonstrates God's love for us, Paul says. "God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us." Jesus' willingness to die for the human race has inspired Christians through the centuries to suffer martyrdom and to die in order to save others. The fact that our society honors those who give their lives to save others shows that the Christian message has made an impact on our society. Unfortunately, that impact hasn't been big enough. If being willing to die to save a stranger is an example of emulating Christ, then being willing to kill a stranger is just the opposite. It is a repudiation of the example of Jesus, and it flies in the face of the Christian message. Somehow, however, many Christians fail to realize that their support for wars, for arms deals with other countries, and for political intrigues to oust properly elected leaders of nations who don't share our ideological bent supports those who drove the nails into the hands and feet of Jesus on the cross. The Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus were killing someone they didn't know, and they didn't care. When we drop a bomb on our enemies, whether they are soldiers or civilians, we are siding with the Romans. We have just passed Memorial Day in the U.S., and Flag Day and Independence Day are quickly approaching. As Christians who are serious about following the example of Christ, we must remind our brothers and sisters that there is a difference between praying for the safety of our loved ones and supporting war and other policies that are contrary to the spirit of Christ. When we pray for our soldiers serving in dangerous places around the world, let's also pray for the inhabitants of those countries in which they are stationed, that God would protect them and their families as well. Let's pray that our leaders will put as much money and effort into making peace as they do into making war. Let's pray that the flow of arms to both our allies and our enemies alike will stop. Most of all, let's pray that God will help our fellow believers see that while dying for strangers is a way of following Jesus' example, killing strangers is not.
For other discussions of this passage, click here and here.
The churches I grew up in put a premium on "soul winning," the practice of convincing someone without a church home (or with only a nominal connection to a church) to repent of their sins and accept Christ as savior. One of the passages most often used to encourage people to "evangelize" their friends and neighbors is taken from today's reading: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." The question I never heard anybody ask, though, was this: what are the laborers supposed to do? If I had asked, I'm sure someone would have answered, "We're supposed to win souls for Christ." The manner in which this was to be accomplished was also clear: sharing personal testimonies, Bible verses, or evangelistic tracts. Looking at the larger context of the passage, however, I think our evaluation of what the laborers were called to do was incorrect, or at least incomplete. When Jesus sent out laborers, he gave them specific instructions. They were to cast out demons, heal the sick, tell people about the kingdom of God, and raise the dead. In other words, they were to address people's greatest needs: mental and emotional stability, physical health, hopelessness, and fear of death. A theory of evangelism that focuses exclusively on the spoken word might provide hope, but it doesn't meet any of the other real needs that people have (and the list here is hardly exhaustive). If we are to be laborers in God's field, we had better be prepared to do more than just talk. We need to be sensitive to the health needs--both physical and mental--of those around us. We need to be able to help them address their financial or employment needs. We need to provide food and shelter if they need it. God is looking for laborers who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work hard to demonstrate what the kingdom of God is all about. God is looking for workers, not a debating society.