Acts 8:26-40 (first published 14 May 2006)
What sorts of people do churches, either implicitly or overtly, bar
from full participation in the congregation? Some churches bar divorced
men and women from communion, while others bar them from positions of
leadership. Other churches do their best to keep homosexuals out of their
congregations. Some churches still contrive to make African Americans or
other ethnic minorities feel unwelcome. Many churches, while allowing
women as members, refuse to grant them equal opportunities to serve God in
every area of ministry. Still other churches bar illegal immigrants, or
people who don't speak English, or the poor from either membership or
positions of authority within the church. In making these distinctions
among different types of people, the church is following the example set
in Deuteronomy 23:1-8, where people with various physical handicaps or
from certain ethnic backgrounds were prevented from full participation in
the community. Some of the prophets countered this message of exclusion
with a message of inclusion, and Isaiah 56:3-8 explicitly reverses the
message of Deuteronomy, asserting that all who are willing to worship God
are welcome. The Ethiopian eunuch, because of his physical deformity, was
a person who would have been excluded from full participation in the
covenant community under the Deuteronomic theory of community. Despite
that difficult reality, he took the opportunity to worship God to the
extent possible, and he read the scriptures enthusiastically and
expectantly, believing that God had a word even for him, a eunuch.
Philip interprets the passage that the eunuch is reading, from Isaiah 53,
as an indication that Christ's sacrifice is offered to all who will come.
The eunuch learns that day that though many people, even religious people,
may exclude him from the house of God, God welcomes him with open arms.
Do our churches follow the same example?
Psalm 22:25-31 (first published 14 May 2006)
The U.S. House of Representatives this week passed an extension of certain tax cuts, which will drain another $70 billion from the budget. Who will benefit, and who will suffer from these tax cuts? A typical, middle class family will see net savings of less than $100. The extremely wealthy, those making $1 million per year or more, will reap as much as $40,000 in tax rebates. And the poor? As tax revenues decline, services to the poor will be cut even further. Is this the way to celebrate God's blessings, by rewarding the rich and punishing the poor? The psalmist doesn't think so. After describing his own desperate situation, he receives a prophetic word that God will deliver him (unstated, but implied by the change in attitude in the middle of verse 21). He shows his gratitude to God by offering a sacrifice, one in which the poor may benefit: "The poor shall eat (the cooked sacrifice) and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord." When God blesses us, what do we do to show our gratitude? Some people thank God heartily for the blessing and keep the benefits for themselves. Others give generously to the church, which may be either good or bad, depending on how the church chooses to use the gift. Others might give directly to a worthy charity, or even directly to someone in need. The important thing for us to remember is that when God blesses us, we need to share that blessing with others, especially those most in need.
When I first started learning Greek more than thirty years ago, the
first book of the New Testament that I translated was 1 John. The
reason my teacher chose 1 John is obvious to anyone who's studied New
Testament Greek. It's a short book with a simple, repetitive vocabulary
and a simple, or even simplistic, style. Common words in the book
include love (both the noun and the verb), life, light,
fellowship/communion, truth, and abide. The message of the book is
straightforward and is expressed well in today's reading: "God is love,
and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them." Love
should characterize the life of anyone who claims to be a child of God.
One problem modern readers have with a message like this is that they
tend to think of love as an emotion or feeling rather than a commitment
or a way of life. Thus they can say, "I love God with all my heart, and
I love all people too," but then they act as though they didn't care a
whit about their fellow inhabitants of the globe. The author of this
passage foresaw the potential danger of equating the ideal of the
Christian life with love. "Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their
brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or
sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen."
Those who fail to show concern for the poor, according to the author,
don't really love God, despite their protestations. Those who
discriminate against ethnic minorities, or women, or the LGBT community
don't love God. Those who favor dropping bombs on people from other
countries, or assassinating them, because it's simpler than building a
legal case against criminals and bringing them to actual justice don't
love God. The list goes on, but there's an inherent danger in this sort
of analysis. It's easy to point the finger at the shortcomings of
others and say, "See, you don't really love God," but it's harder to see
our own shortcomings. The fact of the matter is that we all have a
tendency toward selfishness, which is the opposite of love. If "love"
is the first key word in the first passage quoted above, the second key
word is "abide." This word suggests a lifestyle characterized by love
rather than occasional discrete acts of love. Giving money to the less
fortunate once a year is an act of love, but working throughout the year
to advance the cause of social justice for the poor comes closer to the
idea of abiding in love. When I think of the meaning of "abide," I
can't help but call to mind The Dude in the movie The Big
Lebowski. The Dude floats through life on an even keel. He has his
routine, he has his friends, and he has his favorite rug. Despite the
various catastrophes that he confronts throughout the movie, this is how
he sums up his approach to life: "The Dude abides." To abide in love
means to live a life characterized by constant love for one's fellow
travelers. Yes, there will be opportunities for spontaneous acts of
love along the way, but those who truly abide in love will approach all
of life's interactions with an attitude of concern and compassion for
all they encounter. No one does this perfectly, of course, so in a real
sense we all fail to love our neighbor--and thus God--from time to time,
but abiding in love is the goal toward which we strive as we move
through our lives and run across people who aren't always easy to love.
John 15:1-8 (first published 14 May 2006)
The recent discovery of the Gospel of Judas has raised interest in the teachings of the Gnostics, a diverse group of people in the early Christian centuries whose followers believed that salvation could only be attained by means of secret knowledge passed on by Jesus to his disciples, or perhaps to certain disciples. From a Gnostic perspective, the problem with the world was that the divine spirit had been split up in the distant past and imprisoned in human bodies. The spirit was eternal, but the flesh that surrounded it was weak. The ultimate purpose of life was to free the various bits of the spirit that were trapped in human flesh by enlightening people with secret knowledge. In a very real sense, each person's salvation was achieved individually, because the specific pieces of knowledge had to be accepted by each person in order to liberate the spirit within. Today's reading from John describes a much more communal setting, one in which individual believes all share a common relationship with Jesus, described in terms of a vine and its branches. Unlike Gnosticism, which has a strongly individualistic component, the community that the gospel describes is based on people remaining together and following the teachings of Jesus as a group of people bound to one another and to Christ. Knowledge can be a very good thing, if it helps us to understand ourselves, others, and God better. However, it can be a bad thing as well, if we become smug and conceited, thinking of ourselves as smarter than our neighbors or, even worse, holier.