Jeremiah 31:7-14 (first published 4 January 2004)
In Norse mythology, the world will end with an event called Ragnarok.
First, a great battle between good and evil will take place. Gods will
slay other gods, and such notables as Odin, Thor, and Loki will all die.
Finally, the entire world will be consumed in fire. Although a few gods
and humans do survive to repopulate a new heaven and earth, all their
descendants have to look forward to is another eventual conflagration.
The best that those who worship the gods faithfully and live their lives
honestly can hope for is a stalemate between good and evil. In contrast
to this rather pessimistic view of the future, the prophet Jeremiah offers
a message of hope to a people who have been taken into exile and are now
suffering at the hands of an oppressor. The Jews, whether in Babylonian
exile or still in the land of their ancestors, looked around them and saw
that they had lost their political freedom and their wealth. Although a
couple of attempts at armed revolution against their Babylonian overlords
were attempted in 587 and 582 B.C.E., these were quickly and decisively
crushed. It was apparent that the people had no hope in their own
strength. Where could they turn for hope? In verse 11 of today's
reading, Jeremiah provides the answer: "For the Lord has ransomed Jacob,
and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him." The people are too
weak to fend for themselves, so God will take up their cause. Throughout
history the powerful have oppressed the weak, and the trend continues
today. The Bible clearly teaches that God sides with the oppressed
against their oppressors, and those of us who consider ourselves
progressive Christians must learn to identify not with those most like us
in terms of nationality, skin color, or socio-economic station. Instead,
we must proclaim the message of hope to those who are in danger of losing
what hope they had. Our message to the oppressed is that God will deliver
them from hands that are too strong for them, if they will only put their
trust in God. Our message to the oppressors is that today's oppressed are
likely to become tomorrow's oppressors. It is important, then, that those
with economic and military might show restraint and compassion toward
those strength is small. The industrialized West cannot continue to run
rampant over the rest of the world without long-term consequences. It is
time for those of us who live in the West to side with the poor and weak,
for in doing so, we will find ourselves on God's side as well.
Psalm 147:12-20 (first published 4 January 2004)
When things are going great, it's hard to think that circumstances
might change. You have a great job, a great family, great kids. You are
in good health, you have a solid retirement plan, you have a great life.
If that's your current situation, enjoy it! Praise God for it! Walter
Bruegemann calls psalms like Psalm 147 psalms of orientation. In The
Message of the Psalms, he says, "[These psalms] affirm that the world
is a well-ordered, reliable, and life-giving system, because God has
ordained it that way and continues to preside effectively over the
process." The psalmist is rejoicing over God's provision for
the city of Jerusalem. God has strengthened the city's defenses, blessed
its people, and given it peace. Furthermore, God has granted the
unparalleled blessing of the law to its inhabitants. Even the weather is
great! When things are going so well, why can't they stay that way
forever? Since the days of the psalmist, and assuming that the psalm
dates to the preexilic period, the city has been ruled over by the
Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Seleucids, Romans, Byzantines, Turks,
British, Jordanians, and Israelis. Some of the inhabitants were happy
with each of these rulers, while others were not. Any way you look at it,
the lives of the inhabitants of Jerusalem have been anything but
well-ordered over much of the past 2,500 years. When things were going
great, the psalmist was able to say with pride, "God has not dealt thus
with any other nation," implying that Jerusalem and its inhabitants were
God's special people. In the light of its history since that time, one
could with justice still say, "God has not dealt thus with any other
nation," implying that Jerusalem and its inhabitants have suffered more
than perhaps any other city on earth. Both the Babylonians and the Romans
burned down the temple and other parts of the city, several Crusades were
launched over Jerusalem, and Israelis and Palestinians continue to fight
over it. Is there any hope that the words "God grants you peace within
your borders" will ever be true again? Ironically, the fact that
Jerusalem is considered holy to the three major Western
religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--has made it an object to be
fought over. Not until the citizens of the world, and adherents to all
these religions, can accept Jerusalem as a city belonging to the world,
not exclusively to one group of people, will Jerusalem ever be at peace
again. The Geneva Initiative, proposed by moderate Israelis and
Palestinians last month, is just such a plan: a Jerusalem shared by
Israeli and Palestinian states and open to Jews, Christians, Muslims, and
others. Moving beyond the city of Jerusalem itself, can we envision a
world where peace reigns? If we can, it won't be one in which some people
are incredibly rich while others are abjectly poor. It won't be one in
which there are oppressors and oppressed. It won't be one in which
discrimination against women, homosexuals, certain ethnic groups, or
followers of minority religions is allowed to exist. It won't be one in
which either individuals or nations are allowed to thumb their noses at
international law and judgment. We are very far from such a world now,
but the same God who brought peace and prosperity to Jerusalem for a brief
time more than two thousand years ago can bring peace and prosperity to
the whole world, if that God has followers who have faith that peace is
the destiny of the world that God desires.
Ephesians 1:3-14 (first published 4 January 2004)
In eleven months, voters in the United States will have the opportunity to vote for members of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House. Candidates for these various offices have already begun campaigning, and the airwaves, print media, and Internet will soon be full of messages for and against individual candidates. When voters elect a candidate to an office, they expect that individual to do a good job for the people who elected him or her. They were elected with specific goals in mind, and their job is to accomplish those goals. Ephesians 1:4 says that God chose us--the theological word is "elected" us--before the foundation of the world. Some people speak of election as though it pertained only to a future life with God in heaven, but we would do well to think of political elections when we hear the theological term. Just as politicians are elected to do a job, so are God's people today elected to do a job, but what job is it? According to this passage in Ephesians, we have first been chosen to be holy. Those who are holy are set apart: set apart from the world, set apart to God. That doesn't mean we are to hole up in a church building as often as possible, hiding from the world. It means we are to move about in the world and do the work of Christ, which is to love the whole world. We are also chosen to be blameless. Blamelessness is not the same as perfection. A runner that comes in last place in a race can be blameless if she has run the best race she was able to. Blamelessness has as much to do with effort as with results. Blamelessness doesn't preclude failure, but it does exclude giving up or refusing even to try. We are also to live "for the praise of God's glory." As a new year begins, let each of us ask ourselves: Am I doing all I can so that God will be glorified? Not, Am I advancing my career? or Am I making as much money as I can? In the end, most of our careers will be forgotten, except insofar as they affected people for better or for worse. Aside from a few multibillionaires, the amount of money we amass in our lifetimes will fade from people's memories rather quickly. What won't be forgotten is the positive impact we have on others in the name of God. People may forget our names, and that's as it should be, but they will continue to see the results of our work in the lives of those we've influenced, the lives they've influenced, and so forth. As we begin a new year, let's remember that we've been chosen to do a job. Your job is not the same as my job, but we're equally responsible to God for figuring out what God wants us to do and doing it as best we can. We've been chosen, and we've been given the necessary resources to do the job God has called us to. What are we waiting for?!
The hit movie of the season is Avatar, a spectacular 3-D, largely animated picture that claims to be the most expensive movie ever made. That expense went into the technology used to create a realistic alternative world inhabited in part by avatars. In the movie, avatars are constructed beings that are controlled by the minds of humans. In the parlance of computer-based alternative reality games and world, avatars are the digital representations of specific people. In Hinduism, avatars are gods who appear temporarily in human form. In many ways Jesus is portrayed in the Gospel of John as an avatar in this latter sense. Unlike the Synoptic Gospels, which present Jesus as a divinely inspired (literally, by the Holy Spirit) human messiah, in the fourth gospel Jesus is divinity encased in a human body which cannot contain the divine glory within. In retrospect, says the gospel, the disciples remembered that they saw the divine glory on many occasions, a glory that was explicable only on the assumption that Jesus was in fact much more than a mere human being. One interesting way to meditate on the Incarnation is to consider it as the answer to the question, "What would God do if God were on earth?" The answer? Look at how Jesus lived. In John's gospel, he reveals his divine nature through a series of seven signs, beginning with the wedding in Cana and culminating in the revivification of Lazarus. Most of the signs revolve around meeting human needs, from the seemingly trivial (running out of wine at a wedding), to the acute (feeding the hungry or healing a sick servant), to the chronic (healing lameness or blindness), to dealing with life's ultimate challenge: death. Even the lone sign that does not seem to address an immediate need, Jesus' walking on the water, may be seen as an indication of God's ultimate control over creation and thus over the totality of human experience. If we focus too much on trying to understand the doctrine of the Incarnation, we may find ourselves in danger of missing perhaps the most important application. God cares for human needs, great and small, and God calls people of faith to care for human needs as well. In this new year, let us commit ourselves anew to the service of others in the name of Jesus.