Marshall Matt Dillon and Festus. Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor and Big
Al. Batman and Robin. Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. Lucy and
Ethel. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Abraham and Lot. The star and
the sidekick. The leading man or woman seems to always get the glory.
If only one of the pair is mentioned, it's never the sidekick. After
all, it's I Love Lucy, not I Love Lucy and Ethel. The
author of Genesis describes the start of the journey to the Promised
Land and its participants in this way: "So Abram went, as the LORD had
told him; and Lot went with him." Abraham, the father of three faiths,
went where God told him. Lot tagged along. There's no mention in the
story that God ever spoke directly to Lot (all Lot gets is the angel of
destruction, not God Almighty), and as the story progresses Lot ends up
on the short end of the stick time and time again. Lot is captured by
the enemies of the king of Sodom, and Abraham has to rescue him. What a
humiliating experience, to have to be bailed out by your uncle! Then
the cities of the plain, where Lot has chosen to live, are annihilated
by fire from the sky. Adding insult to injury, after being ordered not
to, Lot's wife looks back on the ruin of Sodom and Gomorrah and is
transformed into a pillar of salt. Finally, after Lot and his daughters
settle in a cave, because he doesn't think its safe for them in the
local villages, his daughters get him drunk and he impregnates them, the
final humiliation. Why did all these bad things happen to Lot? As far
as we can tell, he had the same commitment as Abraham. After all, he
too left his homeland to journey to a new world, surrounded by people
who spoke other languages and had different customs. Lot was explicitly
counted as righteous, in contrast to the other inhabitants of Sodom,
which is why God spared his life. Yet things just go from bad to worse
for him, and the last we hear of Lot, he's still living in the cave with
his daughters and sons/grandsons. Paul singles out Abraham as the great
example of faith from the past, and that he was, but sometimes I think
Abraham might be a little too high to shoot for in my own life.
Kierkegaard describes Abraham as the prototypical "knight of faith,"
willing to sacrifice his own son Isaac on the altar because God asked
him to. I couldn't do that. I could sacrifice myself, but not my
children. If I heard God telling me to, I'd check myself into the
nearest mental hospital, because I'd be sure that I must be hearing a
voice other than God's. Yes, Abraham is a great example of faith, but
he's also a person that seems to get all the breaks. Everything works
out for him. He lies about his wife being his sister, and he's
rewarded. He has one son at the age of 86 and another when he's 100.
He grows richer and richer, and he dies a very wealthy man, contented
with his life. As far as we know, Lot dies in a cave. Yet Lot is also
a person of faith, and though he may not be a better role model than
Abraham, he's probably a more realistic one. Lot goes through life as a
sidekick, constantly overshadowed by his richer, more talented uncle who
is apparently God's favorite. Lot makes mistakes, and he suffers for
them. Sometimes Lot also suffers for the mistakes of others. Who told
his wife to turn around and look at the burning city? Not Lot! He had
lost all his possessions; he just wanted to escape with his family, but
he couldn't even accomplish that, and yet Lot perseveres. Like the Dude
in The Big Lebowski, Lot abides. Lot, the man of faith, gets
knocked down, and he gets up. His father dies when he's young, but he
makes a life for himself in a new land. He loses everything, more than
once, but he keeps going. Things don't always work out for Lot, just
like things don't always work out for most people of faith, but Lot does
the only thing he can. He keeps on living the life of faith, maybe not
laughing in the face of fate, but at least grinning and bearing it,
hoping against hope that somehow, in God's great plan, God has a place
for him. Just like us.
Psalm 121 (first published 20 February 2005)
Many people in the ancient world believed that their gods lived on the
tops of mountains. The Greek gods lived on Mt. Olympus. The Canaanite
gods lived on Mt. Zaphon. The Hebrew God was identified Mt. Sinai in the
pre-kingdom period and with Mt. Zion at a later time. Pilgrims who made
the journey to Jerusalem to attend one of the three annual feasts had to
travel uphill as they approached the city. This increase in altitude was
so noticeable that the songs the pilgrims sang on their way to Jerusalem
were called "Songs of Ascent." When they arrived in the city, they had to
make their way uphill again to approach the temple mount, or Mt. Zion.
Psalm 121 is one of several entrance liturgies that are found in the
Psalter. It begins with a brief statement from the worshiper concerning
the source of help. It is not to be found in the mountains, that is, not
with any Canaanite gods or with the gods of other nations who dwell on
high. Help comes only from Yahweh, the maker of heaven and earth. In the
liturgy found in the psalm, the priest follows with a statement
proclaiming God's vigilance ("he who keeps you will not slumber"),
protection ("the sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night"),
and care ("the Lord will keep you from evil"). As worshipers enter the
temple, the priest tells them that they have entered the mountain
sanctuary of God, where they will be safe, protected, and taken care of.
The church today should be a sanctuary to which all people seeking God can
turn, but unfortunately it isn't always. Some churches today are "niche
churches," targeting a specific group of people for ministry. Now there
is nothing wrong with trying to reach a particular type of person,
particularly if the target audience consists of people who are routinely
ignored or ostracized by other churches. The danger lies in being so
focused on a particular group of people that others don't feel welcome.
I'm not talking about people who visit a church and don't feel comfortable
with the style of worship. There are many different worship styles, and
different people prefer different styles, but a huge difference exists
between not feeling comfortable and not feeling welcome. Other churches
preach a "gospel" of inequality, one in which different classes of church
members are recognized. For example, men might be elevated over women, or
married people might be elevated over divorced or single people. Still
other churches ostracize "sinners," as if we weren't all sinners. People
in this type of church claim to hate the sin but love the sinner, but what
the "sinners" usually perceive is in fact hatred of themselves as people.
If they're gay they're not welcome. If they're hooked on drugs they're
not welcome. If they're an unmarried couple that lives together they're
not welcome. If they have a prison record they're not welcome. If they
have a mental illness they're not welcome. If they vote for the wrong
political party they're not welcome. We sometimes refer to the church
building as a sanctuary, and it truly should be a sanctuary in two senses
of the word. First, it should be a place where people encounter the holy.
Second, it should be a place where anyone can come and feel safe,
protected, and loved.
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 (first published 20 February 2005)
In the Apocalypse of Abraham, a Jewish pseudepigraphical book
dating to the early Christian era, Abraham is living in Haran in the house
of his father Terah, serving the pagan gods of his father. One day
Abraham finds a stone idol fallen to the ground, and when he and Terah try
to put it back in its proper place, its head falls off. Terah carves a
new body, attaches the old head, and smashes the original body to pieces.
Later Abraham observes that a wooden idol that has fallen into the fire is
unable to save itself from burning. Abraham draws the conclusion that the
idols are not really gods at all, and he says facetiously to his father,
"Father Terah, do not bless your god Mar-Umath [the stone idol], do not
praise him! Rather praise your god Bar-Eshath [the wooden idol] because,
in his love for you he threw himself into the fire in order to cook you
food." As a result of his rejection of the gods of his father, the one
true God appears to him. This story is consistent with a tradition
preserved in one of the Palestinian targums (Aramaic translations) that
Terah was an idolater who was destroyed by God and that Abraham recognized
the folly of idolatry prior to beginning his journey to Canaan. These
speculations concerning the origin of Abraham's faith make good stories,
but they are just that: speculations. In truth, it really doesn't matter
how Abraham came to have faith. Whether it was the result of a gradual
process of spiritual enlightenment, whether he learned it from another
person, or whether he received some kind of divine revelation is unclear.
The bottom line is that he believed that God wanted him to go, so he
packed up his family and his possessions and he went. Paul points out
that Abraham believed God prior to receiving the covenant symbol of
circumcision, so the comment in Genesis 15:6 that Abraham's faith was accepted by God
as righteousness proves to Paul that we are all made right with God by
faith, not by works. The debate over faith and works is as old as the
church, and it continues today. James' point that faith without works is
not real faith is certainly valid, but Paul has grasped a concept that is
as revolutionary now as it was then. We can't do anything to earn favor
with God. We are all idolaters, worshiping gods that are no longer stone
or wood but that turn us from the real God just the same. When in the
midst of fabulous wealth we pray for continued financial blessings, we are
worshiping the god of greed. When we see God's hand guiding us up the
ladder of success, stepping over others or tossing them out of our path on
the way up, we are worshiping the god of success. When we ask for divine
help in gaining control over others, we are worshiping the god of power.
When we pray for our military around the world and don't pray for the
people who are the targets of their bullets and bombs, we are worshiping
the god of nationalism. When we feel content about our own righteousness
and look down on others who are not as good as we are we are worshiping
the god of self-sufficiency. These gods sometimes get us in their grips
so completely that we can't even see the one true God. That's when we
must have faith: faith that God will forgive our idolatry and guide us to
a proper understanding of the divine, faith that God can help us bridge
the gap that separates us from God and from one another, and yes, faith
that leads us to do all we can to share this God with others.
John 3:1-17 (first published 20 February 2005)
In 1976 Chuck Colson published a book called Born Again. It described his personal encounter with God in the wake of his role in the national tragedy of Watergate. When Jimmy Carter ran for president, he was the first major candidate to talk openly about being "born again." Many Christians today would describe themselves as "born again" to new life in God through Jesus Christ. The phrase comes from the story of Nicodemus' encounter with Jesus in the third chapter of John. The interesting thing about the modern use of the phrase is that it signifies a misunderstanding of the main point of the story. Nicodemus, a Pharisee whom Jesus describes as a "leader of the Jews," comes to Jesus "by night," signifying his spiritual ignorance. When Nicodemus affirms Jesus' relationship with God, Jesus tells him that he must be born anothen. This word in Greek can mean either "again" or "from above." Nicodemus understands it to mean the former; Jesus means the latter. Nicodemus' failure to understand the word is demonstrated when he asks, "Can one enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus, of course, is talking about a spiritual rebirth, not a physical one. One must be born of both water and Spirit, he tells Nicodemus. Though the reference to water is probably an allusion to baptism, it is also used to speak of physical birth, in contrast to spiritual birth, as Jesus' next, parallel, statement shows: "What is born of the flesh (= water) is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit." He then proceeds to make another play on words, this time based on the Greek word meaning both "wind" and "spirit." Christians who use the phrase "born again" today do so in large part because the King James Version mistranslated it, so it has become standard in the English language. Furthermore, they understand that it means a spiritual rebirth, so I am not arguing that they have fallen into Nicodemus' error (which he seems to have overcome, based on the other references to him in the gospel of John). I do believe, however, that substituting "born from above" for "born again" in everyday parlance might lead to a better understanding of the divine-human encounter. The phrase "born again" can lead to an unhealthy emphasis on a spiritual birthdate (e.g., "I was saved on July 16, 2004"). While it is true that many people experience God for the first time (at least in their own understanding) at a particular moment in their lives, others would describe their spiritual journey as a gradual awakening, one in which they can't point to a specific day and time of conversion. Those who have experienced a "crisis conversion" (as it is sometimes called) must realize that their personal experience is not prescriptive for others, and I speak as a person who comes out of a tradition that emphasizes the "crisis conversion" and who can point to a specific day and time of conversion. To me, the phrase "born from above" can express a repeated, or even continual, process of divine-human interaction better than "born again" does. Moreover, it is a better reminder that the source of our new life is "from above," from beyond ourselves, from God.