Monte Canfield's Blog

Friday, October 23, 2009

Testing God

Moses Striking the Rock in Horeb

by Gustave Doré, 1865

The first essay in this series is Birth of the Israelite Nation. The second is Torah: Instruction for Living. The third essay is Manna: Bread for Life. This is the fourth essay in a series of essays that cover the origin of the Israelite nation and conclude with a discussion of the Ten Commandments.

This essay concentrates on just on the first half of Chapter 17 of the Book of Exodus, just seven verses.

Remember the pattern I told you about that was developing during this time between God and the Israelites? Remembering that will help us understand the importance of this brief episode within the exodus from Egypt. So let's look at it quickly.

The pattern is that first the people experience a crisis; followed by distress. This leads to complaint, which God hears. God then speaks and solves the problem, resolving the crisis and relieving the distress. This, usually, but not consistently, is followed by joy, praise, and thanksgiving: in other words, God's grace results in the worship of him by his people.

In this episode most of the pattern is present, but it does not end in worship, which is not a good sign, and certainly will not endear the people to Moses, nor to God. Here is what happens.

The first thing we notice is positive. The people are finally beginning to learn the need to follow God's instructions. God has just provided for their nourishment with manna and quails while they were in the Wilderness of Sin, so they had ample evidence, once again, of his ability to take care of them.

And, apparently, they took some comfort in that fact, for the text tells us, 17:1 From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They are on the move again at God's command. They are following God's orders without complaint, leaving a place where they know that they will find food each day for an unknown future. That took no small amount of courage given what they had already endured.

They do not know what they will find where they are going; actually, except for the increasingly vague goal of finding the "Promised Land," they don't even know where they are going! But they go. They are learning to trust God. We should give them no small amount of credit for that. I am not so sure that we would be so bold or brave.

After a while they stopped at Rephidim, where we are told there was "no water for them to drink." Crisis. Distress. And a familiar grounds for complaint. Once again, God does not simply lead them to an oasis, but rather to a place where there appears to be no water. They, like us, do not always understand why God does what he does. It is likely that God is testing them, but the text doesn't say. Will they trust him to provide yet again having come this far in faith? Well, they don't!

So, what happens? Complaint, of course. They quarrel with Moses, telling him "Give us water to drink!" In what is becoming a typical fashion, Moses replies, "Why are you quarreling with me!?" But then he adds, "Why do you test the Lord!?"

Moses is clearly saying that confronting him, Moses, is the same thing as confronting God. Moses is on shaky ground here because Moses knows that he can do nothing without God. In a sense this is, as it was in Chapter 16, equating his authority with God's.

The text doesn't say what God thinks about that. But, needless to say, the people aren't persuaded that Moses is God and they accuse Moses of bringing them out of Egypt to kill them all, including their children and livestock.

This time Moses cries out to God, not that they need water, even though that is the whole point of their complaint! - but that he is afraid for his own life! So Moses cried out to the LORD, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me."

Now, while we know God cares very much about Moses' life, that is not what God thinks Moses should be worrying about right now. After all, Moses is God's chosen instrument, and God intends to use Moses for God's purposes. Moses has some things to learn too.

So God ignores Moses' fears and concentrates instead on the real problem, which, if solved, should alleviate Moses' fear as well. God is a lot like that now, isn't he? We take him one problem; he solves another that we don't bring up, and, surprise!, the original problem goes away!

So God says, "... Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink."

You'll notice a couple of things right away. First, God makes it clear that, regardless whether or not Moses thinks he may be killed by the people, Moses is still the leader. He is to "go ahead" of the people, and to take with him some elders, who, I presume, will be witnesses. He is also to take the staff God gave him, the same staff that God has used to work many prior miracles, both in Egypt and when escaping from it. The staff clearly is associated with God's power, and the people know that.

Here, at a rock at Horab [Also called Sinai. They are now camped near the foot of Mt. Sinai] we will see, once again, God's grace in action. God tells Moses that he, God, will be standing there on the rock. God will, again, be present with his people in their time of need.

The text tells us simply that "Moses did so." It says he struck the rock "in the sight of the elders of Israel." They, as well as Moses, witnessed the power of the Lord. We know what happened next. Water flowed from the rock and the problem was solved. The thirst of the people was quenched. And the people got off of Moses' back. Once more God's gift of grace prevailed over the chaos of the desert. That's what we know. But the text says nothing at all about that! That positive conclusion is assumed by the writer!

If you want to "prove" what happened from the Bible text you have to jump ahead all the way to Numbers, Chapter 20, which gives more detail of this episode. There it says, at verse 11, "Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff; water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their livestock drank." But here, in Exodus, our writer assumes that we know that when the Lord says he will provide, He provides!

All our narrator tells us is that Moses gave this place two names, and they are not ones you might expect. He did not name it "God provides" or "God gave us to drink" or some such positive thing. Rather he named the place "Massah and Meribah," which means "Test and Quarrel." The episode ends telling us that Moses gave the place these names "because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, 'Is the Lord among us or not?'"

The problem is that we don't precisely know that. We know that they quarreled with Moses. And we know that Moses told them they were testing the Lord. But the text nowhere actually tells us that they "quarreled" with the Lord, or even that they thought that they were. They were angry with Moses. And nowhere does it say that they "tested" the Lord.

But Moses isn't wrong since they knew that Moses could do nothing, and had no power, without God. So while the text is distressingly vague and imprecise, once again, they did not trust that God would provide food and drink. Moses is right when he says at verse 7, that they were asking, without actually saying so, "Is the Lord with us or not?"

And, when we ask that question, we are, in fact, testing God because if we have faith we know that the question is rhetorical. The assumed answer from one who believes in God is, "Of course God is with us."

But what does "testing God" really imply? Using this example let's examine its implications more closely. Implied in the question "Is the Lord with us?" is that he may not be. The testing of God comes in seeking "proof" that he is with us. That is, we decide that we need for God to act or to show his hand in a particular way at a particular time to solve a particular "need" we feel we have.

In essence, while we never think of it that way, when we ask "Is the Lord with us?" we are trying to control God, to get him to be with us in this or that thing, when maybe God does not think that is the right thing for us to be doing at all, or that his intervention is the wrong thing for us.

The way the Israelites tried to do this was to demand that he prove his presence by providing them with water in the desert yet again. And if God does act to provide the water this yields two possible conclusions which are diametrically opposed to each other. The fact that he did provide water no doubt led some of the Israelites to believe that they could force God to act. They had yet to learn the other possible conclusion: that God did it out of his love for them; not because of their coercion.

We have a lot to learn in this area as well. We often test God, but, of course, we either don't realize we are doing it, or we deny that we are. here are some simple examples: if we don't take ordinary precautions in our lives; if we don't buy insurance; or have a doctor check out a potential problem, or act recklessly with the lives or well being of others, then we test God.

We say, "If God is with me, God will take care of me" even when we act rashly or foolishly. We say, "If its my time to go; well, its my time to go. God makes that decision, not me," even as we continue to do harmful things to our bodies, against all common sense, knowing that we are by our own destructive actions influencing when it is "our time to go." Yet we still want and expect God to be there for us when the results of our foolishness come home to roost.

Remember the story about the guy in the flood? He sat on the roof of his house as the flood waters continued to rise. A boat came by to get him; then a helicopter, then another boat. Each time he refused help saying, "God will take care of me!" He was swept away and drowned. At the pearly gates he asked St. Peter why God let him drown. And a voice came from a cloud saying, "I sent a boat and a helicopter and another boat to save you. What more did you expect me to do?"

When we test God we try to hold Him hostage. We try to determine how he should act if he is God. This places God in the role of a servant; expected to respond to our every beck and call. If he doesn't answer our prayers the way we want him to, then we say he doesn't care; or that He isn't there.

Such attitudes can even lead to cruel feelings about others. Some people will say, "If God does not heal you, or protect you from that problem, it is because you do not have enough faith!" Implicit in that stupid statement is the idea that, if a person has enough faith, they can command God to do whatever they want. It assumes that God's will always coincides with ours. And it assumes that we can make his will coincide with our wishes through our prayers.

Sorry, but God doesn't work that way. God is God. And we aren't. And unless we figure that out we are going to be pretty confused about what faith is and isn't; what prayer can and can't do, and probably be pretty disappointed in a God who intends to remain independent of his creatures' demands.

Faith is trust in God to provide even when he decides not to provide in the way we want! Faith is hard. If anyone told you it was easy, he or she lied. In this episode we confront an Israelite people who are stubborn, demanding, and arrogant. They demand that God perform in a particular way at a particular time. They want God to be their puppet, their slave, their provider - on their terms.

This time God provides. But not for the reasons that they think. The naming of the place Massah and Meribah tells us that Moses knew, and the later writer of this story knew, the shame of treating God this way. This place would forever be known not for the gift of water; but for the arrogance of the demand of the people.

And when we, as they did, decide that if we do not have what we want - money, health, power, well being - then God is not with us, then we, too, have reduced faith to some sort of prosperity sham. We are saying that unless everything happens for good to me, when and how I want it, then God is not with me.

There are more than enough preachers out there getting rich telling us that "if we just believe" then the prosperity, the health and the well being that we "deserve because of our faith" will roll right in. That sounds foolish when it is baldly exposed as I just did. And it is foolish. But the truth is that millions of well meaning believers are being fed that hogwash every day, and they are believing it. Feel good, narcissistic religion is all the rage. And what do you suppose God thinks of that?

The truth is that God is with us. The truth is that God cares for us. The truth is that God provides for us. But the truth is, as well, that God will be God and that we cannot control him. The Israelites will have to learn this the hard way. So did Job. And so must we.

Next: We will skip the rest of Chapter 17 and Chapter 18 which would be a detour in this series, and go directly to the heart of the Exodus experience at the base of Mr. Sinai, where the 10 Commandments will be given. We will also take an important look at how this part of the Bible was put together from many traditions, which greatly influence how the story is told.

God bless.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Manna: Bread for Life. But is it enough?

"Gathering of Manna" by Nicolas Poussin (The Louvre, Paris)

The first essay in this series is Birth of the Israelite Nation. The second is Torah: Instruction for Living. This is the third in a series of essays that cover the origin of the Israelite nation and conclude with a discussion of the Ten Commandments.

Today we will look at a small part of Chapter 16 of Exodus in some detail because it forms the foundation of the relationship which God will have with his people throughout the entire time of wandering in the Wilderness.

The issue is TRUST. Will the people trust God? Will God trust the people to believe that he can provide; and, therefore, will they keep his commandments? The object of the issue is FOOD; the necessary nourishment to sustain life.

After God made the bitter water sweet at Marah and led the Hebrews to the oasis at Elim where they rested a short while, they set out from Elim and came to the Wilderness known as Sin. (It does not mean "sin" as we know the word.)

This was about a month and a half after they left Egypt. There they complained again; this time because there was no food. They accused Moses and Aaron of leading them out to die; and they longed for the "flesh pots" and bread of Egypt. There, at least, they had meat and bread.

This time Moses did not "cry out to the Lord," but God heard the people's complaint. God said to Moses, "I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instructions or not."

Moses passed this word on to the people, telling them that, in this way, they shall know that it was God who brought them out of Egypt, and that they shall see God's glory.

He also cautioned them against complaining about him and Aaron, since, when they did that, they were actually complaining against God: "Your complaint is not against us, but against the Lord." Then Moses had them look toward the wilderness, not Egypt, where they saw God's glory in the cloud.

That evening a great cloud of quail covered the camp, so they had meat to eat. And the next morning all the surfaces of the wilderness were covered with a fine flaky substance which they could use like flour and eat. They did not know what it was, but Moses told them it was "the bread the Lord has given to you to eat." They called it "manna." man huh in Hebrew means "What is it?"

Then Moses gave them God's specific instructions to gather no more than each family needed. They did not follow the instructions, some gathering more, some less. But, miraculously, when they measured it all had enough, but no more.

They were told to use all of it and not try to store it. But they disobeyed, only to find it had bred worms by morning and was foul. It could not be hoarded. Moses was angry at them for continuing to disobey God's instructions.

Part of the gathering instructions included gathering twice as much the day before the Sabbath and none on that day of rest. They actually did what they were told, and the extra did not spoil. Even so, the people went to gather more of the manna on the Sabbath, but found none.

This time the Lord was angry, telling Moses, "How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and instructions? See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath, therefore on the sixth day he gives you food for two days; each of you stay where you are; do not leave your place on the seventh day." Apparently God's anger had some effect, for we are told "So the people rested on the seventh day."

The remainder of the chapter describes God's command to keep some of the manna in a jar to remind future generations that God took care of them in the wilderness. We are told that the Hebrews ate manna in the wilderness for 40 years. ("40 years" can mean in Hebrew either a literal 40 year period or simply "a long time.") Later, in Joshua, we learn that on the day the Hebrews ate the produce of the Promised Land the manna ceased.

I am not sure how important this sub-story within the Exodus story is when Jewish children are taught. But this indelible subplot about Manna is one that for centuries has been told to every Christian child and is one of the great stories from which Christianity has taken many lessons. For Christians like myself it forms the basis of some of the most fundamental understandings of how people relate to God, and how we relate to Christ.

Jesus said that "It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven" (John 6:32) and, tellingly, a short while later, he added: "I am the bread that came down from heaven." (John 6:41) The stories of feeding the 4000 and the 5000 also make it clear to Christians that Christ is the one who provides for the daily necessities of life.

And the Lord's prayer incorporates the idea that we are to be satisfied with looking to God for our daily bread, or, translated literally, "our bread for each day." So too in the Christian celebration of the Eucharist, (Holy Communion) we break and distribute the bread to all, equally, sharing so that each has enough. The language and symbolism of bread from God is strong in many basic Christian rituals.

There are important lessons to be learned here. Foremost is the lesson that we often must travel from bondage through wilderness in order to get to the promised land. We wish it were not so, but the realities of life seldom allow us to go from slavery to delightful freedom. Most of our lives are full of wilderness experiences.

The issue is not whether we will have them, because we will. The issue is who we will turn to and trust during those times. The times of wilderness and crisis are the very times when we need to lean most heavily on God. And, ironically, they are usually the times when we turn from him, choosing to try to "tough it out" on our own. The crisis of faith often occurs in just this time between bondage and well being. The challenge we face is not really so different from the one faced by the Israelites.

Another of the things that happened to them also happens to us. When faced with crisis in the wilderness they looked back through rose-tinted glasses at the time of bondage. At least in Egypt the flesh pots were full of meat, and there was bread. Forgotten were all the evils they were subjected to in the old days. So too we, when challenged by the desert of the transition from bondage to new freedom, sometimes look back and see only the good of the past time of bondage; forgetting that it was mostly not so good.

After all, we tell ourselves, it can't be worse than the present uncertainty. Again, the issue is trust. Can we trust that the Lord will provide and get us through to the good future he promises? We have to trust the Lord to provide on a daily basis. Such trust is often in short supply.

The Lord's instructions not to hoard but to share are also difficult for the Israelites. Any who have been members of churches or synagogues know something about that problem. It is clear that we are to be generous, self-sacrificing, and open in our giving to others.

Yet it is very hard to give generously when we don't have a lot ourselves; even when we know full well that we have much, much more than the vast majority of the people on the entire planet.

It is hard not to hoard, to try to gather just a little more for ourselves, even when we know that it is taking from others. Sometimes we joke about the "starving children in Africa" when we throw away more food in a week than many of them eat in a month.

But there is truth in the saying: there ARE starving children in Africa, and right here in America, if we bother to look. Yet we tell ourselves we have to be sure that we have enough. We reason that we have gone without this or that long enough; that we are only being prudent, saving for a rainy day. Still, the children starve.

The temptation is to try to serve two masters: God and Pharaoh, or in this case: God and our selves. We want to put our trust in two bread supplies at once: in the bread of heaven and in the bread earned by the sweat of our brows.

But this story and many of the stories told in the Bible teach us that trying to have it both ways leads only to anxiety.

We may not want to hear it, and we may never do anything about it, but the gospel message is that only one master, only one bread supplier is needed. This story says, and the gospel message of Jesus says, that God knows what we need and faithfully supplies everything required for life for those who totally trust Him. Few, if any of us, are willing to put that truth to the test!

Thus it should not surprise us that, after the miracle of the multiplying of the loaves to feed the 5000 that Mark tells us the disciples did not understand its meaning. They did not understand, we are told, because "their hearts were hardened." Like the Israelites, and like the disciples, our "hard hearts" make us rely on our own capacities and to make our own bread, and to hoard it at the expense of others.

Nor should it surprise us that the Israelites tried to hoard the manna and to harvest it on a day for which God had already supplied enough. We too always try to have it both ways. Sometimes it works. But it is not the way God would have us live.

One final thing I think we need to get out of this story about the manna is the fact that, when God is in control, food abounds even in the wilderness. The wilderness, feared from the beginning of time by God's creatures as an area of death and desolation, is, after all, also part of God's creation.

Just so, if we are traveling with God, the wildernesses of our lives are also part of his creation and he is in control of them. Through trust in him we shall find in the worst wildernesses of our lives food and water to sustain us -- and a guide to take us by the hand and lead us out of the wilderness into the promised land.

If this story tells us nothing else it tells us that God is present in our daily lives, not just some abstract being remote from what is important to us. We always find that hard to believe. We even seem ashamed to ask for our daily bread.

The illusion of self reliance and total independence from others is a very strong thread woven into the fabric of this country, and we are a "pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps" kind of people. Which is well and good to a point. But the truth is that the gospel message is something quite different than American rugged individualism and pride.

It is a message of TRUST: trust in God to provide and sustain and lead. Not abstractly. But concretely. Every day. Day in. Day out. If we pray "Give us this day our daily bread" do we understand that? That daily bread is there for those who trust God to provide. That is Good News, if we are bold enough to believe it!

Next: Water from a Rock and Testing and Quarreling in the Desert

God bless.

Torah: Instruction for Living

The first essay in this series is Birth of the Israelite Nation. This is the second in a series of essays that cover the origin of the Israelite nation and conclude with a discussion of the Ten Commandments.

When I was a pastor I keep a little clipping taped to my computer monitor in my office. It said, "Put it up to a vote, and the people will always vote to go back to Egypt." That was no idle speculation for the Israelites. As problems mounted in the desert at one point the vast majority were ready to return to familiar bondage in Egypt.

We should ask ourselves if we too would vote to go back to the familiar bondage of the past. I think that when things get tough many of us would. The bondage of the past might be awful, but it is something we know and think we understand. The future God offers to us is unknown; and the unknown is frightening.

God saved the Israelites from the slavery and bondage of Egypt. God did it alone, using Moses as his instrument. Moses had absolutely no power to do anything for the people without God. And the people did nothing to save themselves from the Egyptians. Nothing at all.

Why did God do it? Why bother to save this unruly brood of complainers? There were many reasons, but two stand out. The obvious one in the text is that God wanted to show Pharaoh who was boss. He wanted to demonstrate that no evil could stand against his righteous power. Moses reminds God of this fact later in the story when he convinces God to change his mind about consuming his own people lest he look bad in the eyes of Egypt.

But, underlying that reason is a far more basic reason that is not so obvious. The world was out of whack. God's own creation was being corrupted yet again, particularly due to the evil power exerted by the Pharaohs of the world. God intended to restore His creation to its original intent.

Thus, if we simply look at the struggles in Exodus to free the chosen people from bondage in Egypt as of little consequence; and if the crossing of the Red Sea is nothing more than a curiosity - something to argue over whether or not it is even true - then we miss the whole point that the text is trying to tell us.

These struggles and this event are meant by the writers of Exodus to be seen as being cosmic in their scope. The God of Salvation who wins the freedom for the Israelites is also the God of Creation intent on restoring the good order of things which he created originally. And his chosen instrument for that restoration was to be the people who descended from Abraham, with whom he had established his covenant.

God chose these people as his own. They were to become a new nation, a new people, destined to set the example for the rest of the world; and destined to "be a blessing to all nations" according to the original covenant some 400 years before with Abraham. Nothing in God's intentions implied in any way that the chosen people were to "do their own thing." They were to do God's will. That is why he saved them.

Thus, their freedom was never viewed by God as the freedom to do as they pleased. The issue was never bondage versus "no boundaries;" but rather bondage to Pharaoh versus freedom to serve God. The whole purpose of the Exodus was to create a people with one goal: to be obedient to God.

The story of the wanderings in the wilderness is the story of a people growing up; learning to trust and to serve their God, making mistakes, stumbling, and yet learning all the while. The question for them is the question for us: "Whom will you serve?" That is always the question.

If the purpose of salvation for the Israelite nation was to be obedient to God, it is clear from the text that they struggle, right from the beginning, with doing that.

Yes, immediately after the crossing of the Red Sea they do get it right, until the next crisis. At the next crisis, which was no small thing, they were in the desert without drinkable water, they complained. Chances are that we would have too. We have to be very cautious about feeling smug about how we are when compared to how they were.

From the very beginning of the book of Exodus there was a pattern starting to form, a pattern that will continue throughout not only Exodus, but throughout the entire Pentateuch - the first five books of the Bible - and into Joshua and Judges.

Here is the pattern. First there is a crisis; followed by distress. This leads to complaint, which God hears. God then solves the problem, resolving the crisis and relieving the distress. This, usually, but certainly not always, is followed by joy, praise, and thanksgiving: in other words, God's grace results in worship by his people. At least that is how it is supposed to work.

At the end of Chapter 15 we saw the first crisis in the wilderness: bitter water that is unfit to drink. So the crisis leads to distress and the people go to Moses. But Moses has no power to do anything alone, so he complains to God.

And, what happens? God hears and solves the problem, showing Moses a particular piece of wood which, when thrown into the brackish water, sweetens it and makes it drinkable. Crisis solved. Interestingly, the people do not break out in thanksgiving or anything like it. I guess they felt that they were entitled to the water.

God does not get angry at their lack of thanksgiving this time. In fact, He leads them onward to a marvelous oasis at Elim, complete with twelve springs of water and 70 palm trees for shade. Nothing is said in the text about how they felt about that. But I imagine that they felt about like we do: the crisis is solved so we forget about who solved it and get on with our lives.

Another thing happened at Marah that is vitally important to understanding our story. God laid down some ground rules. Call them "Instructions for the Journey." Whatever you call them these rules begin to set the boundaries for what will be later known as the "Torah," the instructions for living that God sets before the Israelites.

We usually translate the word "Torah" as "law." And, at least in one sense, that is a true translation. But it is not enough to say "law" in English and capture the real meaning of "Torah" in Hebrew. "Torah" means more than "law" as we understand that term. "Torah" means "instruction," or "teaching." In other words, the "Torah" is God's own teaching, God's own instruction, to the Israelites on "How to Live the Good Life."

Regardless of how we define Torah, as law or instruction or teaching, let me just impress one thing on you: The law follows salvation. The law is the result of grace. We are mightily confused about that in Christianity. We are constantly talking about the law versus grace. But what Jesus in the New Testament was railing against was the corruption and narrow interpretation of Torah, not the reasonable application of Torah to everyday life.

In Chapter 15 God said, after he solved the problem with the bitter water, and after he delivered them through the Red Sea; in other words, after he saved them by his grace: "If you will listen carefully to the voice of your God, and do right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians." Now, listen carefully to the next line: "For I am the Lord who heals you!"

God is saying that he is the one who makes them whole, who restores them to abundant life. This is the God of Grace, the God who gives wholeness, completeness, integrity. This is the Creator God who restores, redeems and saves. The word in Hebrew for "heals" is the same word we also translate in English as "saves." God heals and saves.

And that is what the Israelites had to figure out. God offered them protection, salvation, healing and wholeness, but the price they had to pay for that was obedience. What will they do? Will they obey and follow the God who saved them, or will they pressure Moses to take them back to Egypt?

They will have to learn that there is no cheap grace. Just so, there is no cheap, easy healing. But there is real healing for those who trust God. God says that those who trust his decrees and make the break with Pharaoh will find themselves at the oasis with an abundance of sweet water. And from there they will just have to trust him to take care of them. That is the choice. Return to a known bondage or trust God to lead them to an unknown future. They must choose.

So it is with us. We can continue to allow ourselves to be seduced by the evil idols of indulgence, by our own society's "fleshpots of Egypt," or we can chose to follow "Torah," God's own instruction as to how to live. Which will it be for us?

Next: Manna from Heaven: But is it enough?

God bless.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Birth of the Israelite Nation

Fresco of Crossing the Red Sea, by Rosselli, Sistine Chapel

Introductions, while seldom thrilling, are necessary. This is the introduction to a series of essays that cover the origin of the Israelite nation and conclude with a discussion of the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments are usually misunderstood and have often been abused by ignorant people. That problem largely stems from taking them out of context. We are not going to make that mistake. And we are not going to make anachronistic assumptions about their universal application in the present.

This series is not a review of history. There is a kind of "history" in it, of course. But much more than that, it is a story about God and faith. For Christians and Jews this is our story; the story of the formation of the nation of Israel, our ancestors in faith. More importantly, this is the story about God, seeking to redeem his creation and re-establish the covenant with the children of Abraham, his chosen people, not for their sake, but for the sake of the world.

The events we will discuss took place 3400 years ago. They are embellished in myth and shrouded in mystery, sifted and filtered through oral traditions and then written by many redactors. Some of the story is likely "true" in the literal sense, while much of it is clearly mythic saga. Regardless, for believers this story abounds in theological truth and is as relevant today as it was then.

Let me give you a very brief introduction to the Book of Exodus so that, when I plop us down at the beginning of Chapter 15, you won't be totally lost.

The Hebrew people who would come to be known as Israelites were in Egypt about 400 years. After the death of Joseph, they remained in Egypt and grew large in numbers. But they were slaves to Pharaoh, and were severely oppressed. Our story begins when Pharaoh decreed that all newborn Israelite boys must be drowned in the Nile.

After his birth, Moses, born to Levitical parents, was hidden by his mother for three months, and then placed into the Nile in a papyrus basket, where the daughter of Pharaoh found him. Rather than killing the baby, Pharaoh's daughter decided to keep him. Ironically, Moses' own mother was called to nurse and raise the child, returning him to Pharaoh's daughter when he was grown.

As a young man, after killing an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, Moses fled Egypt for Midian. There he married Zipporah, daughter of the priest Reuel. Meanwhile, the oppression continued in Egypt. God heard the cries of the people, and remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

At Mt. Horab, God appeared to Moses in a burning bush, telling Moses that he intended to deliver his people from bondage in Egypt; and that he was sending Moses to bring them out of Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey.

Moses, reluctant to go, finally agreed after God allowed his brother, Aaron, to go with him to be Moses' spokesman. Once in Egypt, through Moses God confronted Pharaoh with a series of devastating plagues, each based on God's demand that Pharaoh "let my people go." The tenth and final plague was that death would sweep through the land and kill every first-born child, mirroring what Pharaoh had decreed when Moses' mother had hidden Moses as a baby.

To protect the first-born of the Israelites, the Lord instructed them to slaughter a lamb and spread its blood on the doorposts and lintels of their houses, and that death would "pass over" the households where the blood was spread. This they did. This is the origin of Passover.

Pharaoh finally agreed to let them go, and to take their cattle with them. Pharaoh instructed the Egyptians to give them gold and jewelry and to be rid of them. They also took with them unleavened bread to eat, for they left in haste. This became ritualized into the Passover observance as the Feast of Unleavened bread.

God then led them out of Egypt, guided by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, so that they might travel swiftly. When they had gone as far as the Red Sea, Pharaoh changed his mind about letting them go, and led his army after them.

As the Egyptians closed in, the Israelites were scared witless, but Moses held firm in faith. At the last minute God gave Moses the power to use his staff to divide the sea. The entire Israelite nation then walked safely on dry ground through the sea; but, as they pursued them, the Egyptian chariots and soldiers bogged down in the mud of the sea bed.

Moses then commanded the sea to return to normal and the Egyptian army drowned. Chapter 14 ends: "Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses."

Chapter 15 begins with a long prayer of thanksgiving spoken by Moses, a song to God for the deliverance of the Israelites from Pharaoh. It begins, "I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. The LORD is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him."

The praise did not last. A few verses later the Bible reads "Then Moses ordered Israel to set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter. That is why it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?"

So when the people complained to him, Moses complained to God. "He cried out to the LORD; and the LORD showed him a piece of wood; he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet."

And it was there and then that God began his training of this rag tag bunch which was to be God's own chosen people: "There the LORD made for them a statute and an ordinance and there he put them to the test. He said, 'If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in his sight, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the LORD who heals you.'"

So here we see a developing relationship between the Israelites and God. God provides salvation which leads to thanksgiving and worship by the people. The Bible says the thanksgiving lasted only three days. But the number of days aren't what's important. What's important is that the thanksgiving lasted only until the next crisis.

To us the Israelites seem terribly insensitive to the grace from God that they have just received. They have been safely led out of Egypt and the oppression they endured. They have been saved from Pharaoh's army; and they have been given water to drink in the desert. God's grace abounds; but their thanksgiving is short lived.

What we need to acknowledge is that we are the same way. People, including us, always complain about the next thing. That has not changed.

For example, we may worry about a deadly disease we might have. And we pray and pray and make bargains with God. We make all sorts of commitments we have every intention of keeping: maybe including going to Church or Synagogue regularly, studying the Bible, treating people better, appreciating the simple things of life. We may not blatantly bargain with God, but that is often not far back in our minds, which God, of course, knows. Seldom do we say, "Thy will be done" and mean it.

Then we find out we don't have that disease; or, that we do, but that we can be healed. And, in a month,or maybe a year, we look up and notice that we are back to the same old routine. We have done some of the things we promised for a while; but then there were other priorities. There are lots of other examples I could cite. But I don't think we need more examples. You and I live them.

We forget the truth of the saying that "God cures every disease except the last one." We are too busy thinking that this one is the last one; and too busy worrying about how to get God to keep it from being so. True thanksgiving has nothing to do with bargaining with God. We'll discuss that a bit more as we go along in this series because it is at the heart of our relationship with God.

Next time we will look at key elements of what God expects from the people. Then, with that context, we will look at the next series of complaints. It is here, in the complaints and God's responses to them that we shall see a pattern which will develop in the relationship between God and his chosen people. It is out of the pattern of this relationship that the Ten Commandments will be born.

God bless.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Billy Currington: Ten Great Songs

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Billy Currington

This is just a little break from some of the heavier, more serious essays I have been publishing lately. Even old theologians need a break now and then. But don't fret. I am going to publish a series of essays here soon that I have been writing for inclusion in a book I have decided to work on. So I will be asking you to put on your thinking caps again soon enough. Today I am suggesting you just relax and enjoy a great young musical talent: country singer/songwriter Billy Currington.

I have listened to country music almost my entire life. I seldom listen to modern country music because so much of it is not really country at all. There are so many "cross over" artists from Pop and Rock that it is pretty rare when a genuine new country talent arises. And if it were not for Mike Rodgers putting a YouTube video of one of Billy's songs on Mike's latest post I would have missed hearing this one.

But I am glad Mike did, because Billy Currington is the genuine article. He has a pure country voice that reminds me of a young George Strait. He has three albums to date, one in 2003, one in 2005, and his last in 2008. A little background on him is found here.

If country music isn't your thing, well, I will try to understand, but won't really be able to! ;-) So just give the first song or two a chance and see if you can't be pursuaded.

Sit back now, put on the headphones, or a good set of speakers, and listen to one who is going to be around a long, long time. Open OS in another tab and go about your business; that is if you can keep your mind off the music and that pure country voice. Country has a winner here, folks.

Thanks again, Mike.

I hope you all enjoy this music.

Monte

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Ethics: “Written on Our Hearts"

W. C. Fields once quipped that he spent a lot of time studying the Bible — to find the loopholes! Surveys indicate that fully 65-70 % of Americans believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth.

Perhaps the only difference between the loophole seekers of Field’s time and the relativists of today is that today almost nobody reads the Bible, churched and unchurched alike.

Loopholes aren’t necessary when you don’t think there is a source of absolute truth in the first place. When everything is relative; when you are your own judge of what is right and what is wrong; you don’t need loopholes; and you don’t need the Bible.

One of the results of this view has been a general relaxing of ethical standards to the point where many things which were seen as moral issues are seen now as simply being individual choices that are neither moral nor immoral.

Some of this is good, particularly when morality has been used to mask prejudice by those who insist that their morality must be our morality.

But I also believe that this relaxation of ethical standards leads to a general reluctance, even to an unwillingness, to distinguish between right and wrong. And, ultimately, that reluctance becomes the new standard of the American way of life.

Today we know that literally thousands of eye witnesses attest to the brutal ethnic cleansing in Darfur. We hear of women being raped, entire villages being burned, men, women and children slaughtered. Women, children and old people who are not killed are driven to the border by the tens of thousands.

And we ask: Should we become more directly involved? Should we commit ground troops? Aren't problems in Africa really none of our business? Hasn’t it always been a mess? Aren’t we making it worse if we intervene? Do you know what we should do?

I don’t know exactly what we should do in Darfur except that talk, some humanitarian assistance and whatever other small things we are doing is not enough.

Let me tell you what else I know. I know that abuse of power is wrong; I know that murdering people is wrong; I know that raping women is wrong; I know that starving people, including children, is wrong; I know that driving people from their homes, and burning their villages is wrong.

And I think that knowing that I could begin to develop a response to the evil being done there that was appropriate to the severity of the problem, which the United States has chosen not to do.

I also know that it is wrong to sell dope to kids; to cheat on your spouse; to treat other people like trash; to pay sweat shop wages; to embezzle funds; to love money more than you love anything else; to lie on your income tax and to cheat, steal, burn, rape, pillage, or lord your power over another. And my list goes on and on and on. So does yours.

You see, while we may not agree on how to solve what is wrong in the world, and while we may not agree on what caused that wrong, we do know that some things are right and some things are absolutely wrong. And we know that everything is not relative.

How do we know? I am not sure about anybody else, but in my case I know because the Bible tells me so. And if you are not Christian, but have taken another path of faith, then the sacred writings of that faith, its books and teachings, likely also tell you that the kinds of things I recite are wrong.

If you are an ethical humanist likely you know right from wrong because you learned the morality taught by your parents and/or in the public schools, the standards outlined within the community in which you lived, and the standards of conduct supported by our national ethic.

All of those sources of ethical teaching are now often ignored. New meanings of "tolerance" and "live and let live" are the mantras most taught today.

Whether this is "good" or "bad" is left to each individual to decide for herself. Is something crude or demeaning? Who knows? Is something insulting and disgusting? Who knows? Is there a standard against which we can judge civil behavior, respect for others, respect for privacy, self, relationships, ideals, manners, or conduct of behavior? Who knows?

Interestingly, in this country people used to turn to the Church as the place where values, standards, morals and absolutes drawn from the teachings of Jesus and the teachings in the Bible were taught as correct beliefs that grounded ethical deportment. Unfortunately, the American Church is badly split into different subsets, with wildly differing ideas about ethics.

The Christian right has always been a place where a strict and literal interpretation of the Bible was the distinguishing mark of those churches.

That is still true, but the Christian right has also moved far, far beyond limiting the force of its opinion to the members of its churches. Rather the right has decided that the morality that they profess is to be compelled upon all of society, forced, if necessary, by secular laws.

The irony of this is that the very churches that used to say that the Christian's duty was to live according to Biblical mandates and to shun involvement in the secular world are precisely the same churches that now have decided that everyone else's morality must be their own.

Call them what you will: the Moral Majority, the Christian Right, the Conservative Church, but they have turned the intent of the founders of those denominations on its head and have created an image of "Christian" which is not only narrow, prejudiced and based on lousy scholarship, but which hurts liberal mainline Christians like me because all Christians are then assumed to believe what they believe.

Still, there should be places where Christians like me can feel comfortable, and to a certain extent there are. There are several denominations and many individual churches that still offer a plainly spoken understanding of the message of Christ and of the ethical teachings of the Bible. But they are an ever shrinking minority of Christian churches in America today.

Some of that erosion of mainline Churches can be blamed on trying to counteract the image of the church upheld by the loud and insistent churches on the Christian Right.

But some of the shrinking of the size of mainline churches has to be laid at the feet of the mainline churches themselves. Unfortunately, too many of the mainline churches have decided that to be attractive to people they have to be sloppy in their teachings.

I have attended many of those churches where the fundamental leadership idea is to never, never offend anyone. So, whatever you do, do not preach about values, ethics, or morality and certainly never say that there is such a thing as ethical truth. Better we should feel good about our church experience than actually be good in our lives.

In other words, too many mainline churches would rather provide a feel good experience than focus on the requirements of discipleship. After all, which would you rather attend: a barbeque followed by singing about feeling good about yourself, or a talk about how a Christian should behave?

There was a Yale law professor, an eminent ethicist by the name of Arthur Leff, who struggled mightily with the issue of the relativizing of ethics in America. His was a secular, agnostic, view and I bring it forward here to make the point that this issue transcends all facets of American life, and supersedes all ideologies.

Leff gave a wonderful lecture way back in 1979 that is all too relevant today, poignantly so. He titled his lecture, which has become a classic in the field of legal ethics, "Unspeakable Ethics - Unnatural Law."

Leff said, "I want to believe, and so do you, in a complete transcendent, set of propositions about right and wrong, findable rules that authoritatively direct us how to live righteously. I also want to believe, and so do you, in no such thing; but rather that we are wholly free, not only to choose for ourselves what we ought to do, but to decide for ourselves, individually and as a species, what we ought to do."

In other words, we want it both ways. We want an external set of universally valid ethical rules and we want to be free to do what we want to do, and to be free to create ourselves in our own image using whatever ethical rules we wish to use at any given time.

In his lecture, Leff struggled with the dilemma he posed, largely, I think, because in his universe there was no one "out there" who could lay down the standards, no God to stand behind the authority of what is right or wrong.

With "no God" we invite the "chip on the shoulder" response which Leff calls the "Sez who?" argument. "Who are you who says that I should not beat my wife to a pulp?" If there is no God, who is to judge whether that is right or wrong?

If God is dead, or irrelevant, then we lose the battle to a nihilism which rejects any outside "evaluator" who makes judgments about how we ought, or ought not, live.

Professor Leff, good soul that he was, came to an interesting conclusion, both depressing in that it has no foundation that he would admit guided him, but admirable in that he comes to a personal decision in spite of feeling that he cannot model any reason for anyone to agree with him.

"All I can say is this: it looks as if we are all we have. Given what we know about ourselves, and each other, this is an extraordinarily unappetizing prospect; looking around the world, it appears that if all men are brothers, the ruling model is Cain and Abel. Neither reason, nor love, nor even terror, seems to have worked to make us “good,” and worse than that, there is no reason why any thing should. Only if ethics were something unspeakable by us could law be unnatural, and therefore unchallengeable. As things stand now, everything is up for grabs. Nevertheless:
Napalming babies is bad.
Starving the poor is wicked.
Buying and selling each other is depraved.
Those who stood up and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, ...have earned salvation....
Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned.
There is in the world such a thing as evil."

Then Leff said to his audience: "All together now: Sez who?"

He ended by saying "God help us."

An amazing final statement by a brilliant agnostic, isn't it? I say "Amen" to his "God help us" because we have not come very far since 1979, and, in fact, I think that we are worse off.

The Scriptural text (Jeremiah 31: 27 -33; see addendum) that prompted this essay comes from a time in the history of Israel when relativists held sway. Israel had been devastated and many of its leaders were hauled away in chains into exile. Its cities were destroyed and made virtually unfit for habitation.

There was no leadership remaining worthy of the name: government officials, judges, lawyers, priests and prophets could be bought. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer and ultimately got squashed.

The "leaders" argued constantly over how to run the land, who was to get rich and who was to be killed, who was to lead and who was to follow, who to tax and who went to jail or was executed. Does that sound at all familiar?

Into this mess came Jeremiah, promising a day when cities would be rebuilt and reinhabited, farms replanted, cattle reintroduced; a time of prosperity and peace.

But how could that possibly happen? Who would make it happen? Would there be a new David? Perhaps a new messiah, a powerful military leader that would rise out of the dust of defeat and lead Israel to glory days once more?

No. Jeremiah promised nothing like that. Instead Jeremiah said that God was sick of the old ways of the people and of their abuse of the old Covenant. So God said he would make a new Covenant with the people.

Now, this "new" Covenant wasn't really new. The rules would be the same, but this time the responsibility to uphold the Covenant would be placed not on the leaders and prophets, but on each individual, personally, by God.

God said, once again, "I will be your God, and you will be my people." And they asked, "But, how, Lord, can this be when we broke the last Covenant with you?" And he said, freely paraphrasing here: "You broke my heart. You took my Commandments and stepped all over them; you failed to listen to my prophets. I had written down on tablets I gave to Moses what you should do, and you refused to read or to listen."

But this time, Jeremiah says, God will do something remarkable. God will make it impossible for you to ignore his Commandments, because this time, God will "write them on your hearts."

God said that no longer will you have to squabble over what is right or what is wrong; you won't have to parse every phrase, argue every passage. You will know in your own heart what is right and what is wrong, what to do and what not to do.

What God was saying was really rather simple. This new Covenant was to become a part of us, part of our character. When confronted with a moral problem we won't have to say, "Excuse me a minute, I have to look up whether or not it is right to steal."

Under the new Covenant we'll just know it is wrong because it will be "written on our hearts."

The knowledge of the Law of God, the Torah, the instruction of God as to how to live a godly life, will become a matter of our very being, of our character. Torah will simply be part of us.

When Professor Leff stood before a packed house of lawyers and said that, in spite of every relativist, elusive moral position, he knew that "napalming babies" was wrong, he showed personal courage. But when asked "Why is it wrong?" he could only lead the audience in saying "Sez who?"

His last sentence in that seminal lecture left open a tiny shaft of light to shine on the enigma. "God help us," he said. "God help us" works for me because when I am asked that question my answer is "Says God. That's who!"

And I believe that whenever we go through a litany of things we know are either right or wrong, you, I, and any who know right from wrong are seeing this new Covenant taking hold in our hearts. This Covenant with the Holy One is being "written on our hearts" all these centuries later.

I believe that it is the only means we have, that anyone has, of rising above the slashing, beating, shooting, "solutions" to which modern society has sunk. We who take a stand, even if we do not acknowledge it, have the Torah, the instruction of God, written on our hearts. That's how I see it anyway.

Name it what you will. Credit whatever source you wish to credit, or none at all. But just think about this: What do you call that sense of outrage when you learn about women being beaten, raped and killed?

What do you call it when that small voice inside of you tells you to give back to the cashier the $30 extra change she mistakenly gave you for a $50 when you know you gave her a $20?

What do you call that strength that comes to you when you remain faithful to your beliefs in the face of enormous temptation to let them slide?

From where comes that resolve to not use corporal punishment on your child? That anger when you learn that torture has been covered over by our government? That decision to try to seek reconciliation with someone who has hurt you badly? That hollow pain you feel when you see an animal mistreated, or watch someone abuse a pet?

In things small and large there are some things that are just not right.

And, whatever you call it when you know that is true, I call it a covenant with God that is being written on your heart.

Peace,

Monte

Addendum

Jeremiah 31: 27-33

27 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. 28 And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the LORD. 29 In those days they shall no longer say: "The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." 30 But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge. 31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Bound by Death

Death. Death is, of course, part of life on this blue sphere. Yet the existential reality of our own death is something most of us try to avoid thinking about. But sooner or later thinking about it cannot be avoided. Time does not allow that. At 70, believe me, you can't avoid thinking about the time you may have left on this earth. But long before now I thought about it, even as a child. And I imagine that many of you did too.

One thing I have learned over the decades God has given me to live is that throughout history humankind has been trapped in the inexorable march of time. Time becomes the ultimate thief as it carries its victims to meet their ultimate enemy: death. However much we try to ignore it or hide from it, cover it up or delay it, mock it or claim we don't think about it, death awaits.

Death awaits us because time truly waits for no one. We think about time as being the past, the present and the future. But when we think about time more deeply we realize that "the present" eludes us. While we march ever onward through time toward death, we live only in the fleeting present. Yet, "the present" is a most elusive concept to grasp. Even as you read these words they are past the moment you process them. The thought that you are having right now, having thought it, is past.

There is something inevitable, inexorable, and ultimately disconcerting, in that. The truth of the ever fleeting present is that we can't slow it down or speed it up and if we stop to think about it, it is already over. And, when we realize that truth, when we look at where we are "at present" in our individual life journeys, most of us have those times when we shudder and say, "My God, where has my life gone?" Or, "Is this all there is?"

In those dark moments of personal awareness of our own inevitable mortality, we can too often allow our present to be paralyzed by the remembrance of our frivolous use of time past, and of the inevitability of the death that awaits us in the future. In such times we are what I call "bound by death," paralyzed by the human condition itself.

In his 1933 masterpiece "Man's Fate," (La Condition Humaine), French novelist, Andre Malraux, wrote about the human condition from the point of view of a protagonist who was paralyzed in just that way. At the end of the book, having seen his friends, his loves, and his noble humanistic causes all wiped out, Malraux' hero speaks the bitter lament of a man without hope, hope in humanity, or in God.

"You know the phrase, 'It takes nine months to make a man, and a single day to kill him.' Listen: it does not take nine months, it takes fifty years of sacrifice, of will, of, of...many things! And when this man is complete, when there is nothing left in him of childhood, nor of adolescence, when he is really a man -- he is good for nothing but to die...."

Here is a man who has given his life to a cause he believed in, an important human vision, only to see those he loves blown into what he can only assume to be oblivion. His present is frozen; frozen by a past made meaningless by the reality of the present. The only future he can see is one that leads to death. In him there is no hope, nothing to cling to, nothing to motivate him to create a future for himself. He tried that once, and it destroyed him.

No one has written more profoundly about the reality of death and the relentless human desire to ignore, postpone, and deny death than the great Canadian cultural anthropologist and sociologist, Ernest Becker. He published his greatest book, "The Denial of Death" in 1973 when he, at age 49, was himself dying of cancer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for that work in 1974, two months after he died.

Becker argued that our entire outlook on life is tinted by our constant attempts to deny one inevitable fact of our existence: that we die. He came to believe that the human psyche needs a belief system in order to deal with the very idea of death. Otherwise, he argued, humans could not function in the world. However, he ultimately rejected the value of such belief systems because he said that reliance on a belief system makes it impossible to attain genuine self knowledge and awareness.

Having said that the reliance on belief systems to deal with death precludes true self awareness he strove to find meaning elsewhere. A strong ethical humanist, he felt that humanity must find the answer to the denial of death within the heroism of humans and thus free itself of the burden of the fear, and the denial, of death.

Yet, in the end, he could find nothing that even selfless heroism could do to alter the fear and denial of death other than to offer a final bow to the inevitable. He wrote, "The most that any one of us can seem to do is to fashion something, an object of ourselves, and drop it into the confusion, make an offering of it, so to speak, to the life force."

Many people then and now find that good enough. Some believe that we can pass the best of each of us, our knowledge, our writings, our ethics, our philosophies, our loves, on to our children, our wider families, and even the world. Some feel that, in doing that they have achieved true self knowledge. In other words, some variation of Becker's idea appeals to a lot of people.

Becker's ideas reflect the views on death of one influential ethical humanist. However, the vast majority of people on the planet have belief systems that allow them to face death with greater optimism than did Becker.

And those believers do not feel that they have forsaken self knowledge or self awareness by having faith. In fact, they would argue that their belief system is part and parcel of their self knowledge, and that true self discovery requires belief.

The vast majority of faith systems in the world today deal with death not by denying it but by asserting that death is not final, that there is some form of afterlife, offered to us by God, or gods, a life force, a higher power, or an ultimate source of life.

The shape of that afterlife and the nature of that higher power varies widely among religions. But all those who believe in an afterlife believe that death is not the end, but is a portal through which we pass.

As a Christian theologian I am somewhat versed in how death is viewed in other faiths. However I am no expert in that and will not write about it here.

What I can tell you is how orthodox Christianity views death and how that faith, my faith, deals with it. So what follows is a brief explanation of the Christian way of dealing with death.

If you are a Christian there are fundamental things that you believe about death and how it can be overcome, i.e., essential beliefs about life and death that distinguish a Christian faith perspective.

The Christian hope for eternal life is grounded in the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, whom Christians confess as Lord and Savior. This belief is not based only upon the truth of his teachings or on his high ethical standards, as important as those are to other aspects of the faith. Rather it is based on the belief that Jesus is the Son of God, who, in total trust and obedience to the will of the Father, died upon the cross for the sins of all humanity.

And Christians believe that God raised him from the dead, in loving response to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Christians believe that in so doing God broke once and for all the bonds of death for all who believe in Jesus, the Christ.

Before Jesus was raised there was hope for a general resurrection of the dead. Martha reflected that hope after her brother, Lazarus, died. And Jesus told her "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" Martha replied, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God ...."

However, the raising of Lazarus was not a resurrection. It was a resuscitation. Lazarus was raised from his tomb, but he would one day die. Christians believe, therefore, that the raising of Jesus was the first resurrection. St. Paul confirms this by calling Jesus' resurrection the "first fruits" from the dead, and reiterates that those who believe in the Christ shall not die but shall be resurrected as he has been.

This is important to Christians because a lone resurrection would have little to no meaning for us. As Hans Kung has said, "An isolated resurrection in itself would have little point, unless it were a resurrection FOR US. Jesus' resurrection is the ground of hope in the resurrection for ALL who believe in him."

This, then, is what Christians call Resurrection Faith. It is this faith that we too shall be raised which grounds Christian hope.

Ultimately, belief that Jesus was raised is precisely that: Belief. And many good men and women, like Ernest Becker, do not make that "leap of faith" that defines a Christian.

Such a trust in God, cannot be found in books, in science, or in study. It comes from the heart. It is essentially intuitive. Once one has faith, of course, one can seek further understanding through study. As St. Anselm advised, religion is "Faith seeking Understanding."

One cannot study his or her way to faith in the Risen Christ. One can read about the Resurrection and decide whether one believes it to be true, but there will not be any "proof" of it.

The resurrection is not a "provable" event, notwithstanding the number of devout Christians who try, year after year, to "prove" the truth of the resurrection using various kinds of "arguments" which are not proofs at all, but are really only different ways of stating the faith.

Notwithstanding the lack of "scientific evidence," of which there is next to none about any event in ancient history which we nonetheless accept as "true," I, and other Christians, believe that the resurrection is true. I believe it because of the testimony of the Gospel writers, and of the other witnesses, such as St. Paul, who said that they saw the Risen Christ. In other words, I trust that testimony, that kerygma, (proclamation), of the faith.

Christians also believe it because we feel Christ is working in our lives today, and in the lives of those we trust and love. We believe it because the Church itself has been created as the Living Body of the Living Christ. And we continue to testify to the living presence of Christ in the Word and Sacraments of our worship, especially in the sharing of the bread and wine, the symbolic body and blood of our Savior.

We also believe that the resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate divine revelation of God to us. It is through this unique revelation of the power and glory of God that we are freed in the present to have the hope of eternal life, even in the face of the fact that we shall surely die, because we believe that death is not the end of our lives.

This hope is born out of our trust in God's righteousness, in God's goodness, and, most of all, in God's love for us. For believers death is but a narrow gate, a passageway through which we pass into the closer presence of Christ.

For those who trust that God raised Jesus, the fleeting present in which we all live can be a freeing moment. There is still the inevitability of death, but, as St. Paul says, "Death has lost its sting."

And, because of Christian hope, the present can take on new meaning, can become something more than a time for remembering the mistakes of the past, or living in paralyzing fear of the future. Instead it can become a time of worship, thanksgiving, praise and service in the name of the One who has overcome death for us.

When Thomas refused to believe that Christ was risen Jesus appeared before him and invited him to put out his hand and touch his wounded side, saying "Do not doubt, but believe." Thomas did not put his hand in Jesus' side. Instead Thomas believed and answered him saying simply, "My Lord and my God!"

More telling for Christians is what Jesus said next to Thomas, which is often overlooked, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

There are many ways in which people deal with the inevitability of death. Each person must decide just how they will face the reality of their own death. I have found a way of dealing with death that gives me hope. For me faith is the best of the alternatives. Through my faith I find hope, and the promise of eternal life.

God bless you all,

Monte

Thursday, September 17, 2009

The Limits of Worldly Wisdom

Worldly wisdom and faith do not mix well. I want to use the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as examples of this. Rather than rely on worldly wisdom to plot his course in life, Jesus turns our expectations upside down, and stands worldly wisdom on its head. He does this because worldly wisdom cannot guide us through the pains and losses of our lives into the hope we need to move beyond the pain. However you define worldly wisdom, the Bible is clear that Jesus didn’t have it.

There is no place in the Bible where this is more evident than in the Beatitudes, that series of blessings (which we call the beatitudes) and woes (which we usually ignore!) that are sometimes called the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon on the Plain. But wherever it took place, and there is no reason to assume that he didn’t preach the same sermon in two different places, nothing in that sermon agrees with worldly wisdom.

Think about it. Jesus says that the poor, and the hungry, and the grieving are blessed; and, on the other side of that coin, woe upon (or cursed be) those who are now rich, or who are full, or who are respected by society.

Before we go on, please note this carefully: If you are going to understand this, you have to understand clearly that Jesus is not saying that this is the way things should be – that is that the poor should be blessed, or that those who mourn should be blessed and comforted, or that those who have no standing in the society should be treated with respect.

He is saying that this is how things are now in the Kingdom of God. The poor are blessed, the hungry are blessed, the reviled are blessed, those who mourn are blessed. Jesus says that God is doing this in the world, right now: blessing those who have received little blessing in their lives, and cursing those who believe that, just because they “have it made” in the material things of the world, they have it made with God. They don’t.

Here is cause for hope for those who have experienced little of the blessings in this life, for those who have known some blessings and have had them torn from their grasp, for those who weep and mourn and are not now consoled in their weary lives.

Do you think that this is just another exercise in biblical theology that does not apply to you? Sorry. But I know better. I know that a lot of you don’t feel nearly as good as you act when you post and comment here. I know that you are trying your best to look good, to appear “just fine, thank you,” to the rest of us. We all try to keep that stiff upper lip. But, look behind that facade and we may discover that not all of us are in nearly as good a shape as we pretend to be.

Some of you are in pain; hoping that the posts and comments and the sense of fellowship here might just cut through the pain and give you a little peace. Others are here knowing that, with their world in shambles around them, maybe for a few minutes or hours they can concentrate on something, someone, else, and maybe, with a little luck and God’s help they might just be able to forget: if only for a brief while. And some of you are numb with grief, or fear, or depression.

I know all about your tricks and denials and attempts to appear stronger than you are, because I have been there, done that – right here in my own interactions with you. There have been times when I am in so much pain tears form in my eyes as I type, times when I am afraid to even admit to myself how hard it is to accept that I will likely get worse, not better. But, strange as it sounds, I’m glad that I know that little secret about you and me, because I don’t much care for the alternative.

It seems to me that it would be such a terrible grind, such a phony existence, to live in a world where everybody smiles so much you think their lips will crack off: where everybody is always so very, very happy, so totally successful in the ways of the world, and so pleased just to be wonderful "me."

I think that would be a dangerous place in which to write or try to reach out to others. Just one cancer that can’t be cured, one heart attack that can’t be stopped, one stroke that leaves a loved one paralyzed, one case of Alzheimer’s, one firing, one divorce, one act of adultery, one “F” in chemistry, one beating by one's spouse, one death, one – of anything bad – cracks the phony façade and crumbles the clay feet of the health and wealth preachers who are in such amazing abundance in this country.

It doesn’t take a whole lot of thought to realize that this pain we feel, however much we hide it, is real, and that it is interconnected. Those secret, personal, disorders that you brought here with you, the ones you imagine no one else has had, or if they did, that they handled so much better than you are handling them; that pain that you know not how to name, that you are ashamed to name to anyone – all those very real and disturbing concerns -- tip you off that something isn’t quite right with the world, or with the world’s great desire to sweep things like those under the rug.

No, shocked as you may be to hear it, it isn’t just you that feel this way. Something is not right with the world and, chances are, the something that is not right in your life is also not right in thousands, maybe millions, of others. But, who will listen? Who will validate those lonely and empty feelings in your heart, that hunger in your soul for something better, that thirst that the things of this world cannot quench?

The good book says that Jesus came down and talked to them where they were, on the plain, on a level place, looking them straight in the eyes; feeling what they felt, seeing what they saw. And then he said outrageous things, like: “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh”.

And those who weren’t weeping, who had nothing that they figured they needed to weep about, laughed. And Jesus said, "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.” And the Bible doesn’t say so, but I imagine that they laughed again. "What utter nonsense,” they thought.

The poet, W. H. Auden once said, “Seeing the joy of a bubble-brained world, I was glad I could be unhappy”. Or, as Jesus put it, “Fortunate are you that weep now.” He didn’t say, “in this bubble-brained world,” but he must have thought it. Blessed are you if you have noticed that people are hurting, dying, in pain, and mourning. Fortunate.

Jesus knew that there was something much more dangerous than tears. And that is the dangerous deception that our world is secure, stable, and is, after all, the best of all possible worlds. That deception says that if we just act happy, we’ll be happy; that if we ignore the pain, it will go away; and that, if we feel the pain, we are weak: so just don’t feel the pain. And, above all, do not put yourself in a position now where you will feel pain later. Avoid love, for the price of love is the pain of later loss.

Jesus didn’t see it that way. He said, “Woe to you that laugh now.” Woe to you if you feel too good, if you are settled too comfortably into the way things are, the way, you think, you have made them; the way, you think, you deserve them to be.

Against this self-congratulatory self-deception Jesus hurls, “Woe to you that laugh now. Fortunate are you who weep.” You are lucky, he says, if you embrace your loss, feel the pain now, touch it, grieve over it, weep. And then he says, “You shall laugh.” You shall see a new world, rising out of the ashes of the old; joy rising out of the ashes of the pain.

But you can’t believe that hopeful word until you have embraced the grief. First you must go through the grief, recognize it, own it, and know it. To hope too soon, to laugh too easily, to fake the happiness, all that is self-deception. Weep now, that you may laugh later.

Maybe that doesn’t make a lot of sense to some of you. But it does to me. I do a lot of counseling. The number one symptom I deal with is depression. The reasons people say they are depressed are about as myriad as the stars, but the symptom is depression. And the number one cause of the depression isn’t what the counselees think it is; it is failure to deal with the pain, to own it, to admit it, and then, hopefully, to place it in God’s hands.

One can try to heal too soon. I have seen it countless times. “But, Monte, she’s been gone over two years; I’m not doing well with this grief. All my friends say I should be over it by now.” Well, he isn’t, because he’s been listening to his friends; and they started telling him that he needed to get on with his life after his wife had been dead three months. And he’s been taking their advice, denying the grief, and faking it ever since.

Jesus has a different answer. Jesus says, “weep now; tomorrow you will laugh.” He says that your faith will give you hope in the midst of your chemotherapy, in the quiet of your hospital room, in the still darkness of your lonely nights. There, when you need it the most and expect it the least, hope will come.

We cynically downplay our losses, and try to bravely cover-up the pain, but we seldom think or talk of the promise. And the promise is joy, and the laughter that goes with it. Jesus says laughter is the fruit of the serious admission of our pain, and then of the embracing of the hope of the promise made to us by God. You will laugh, not because the pain is not real, but because God is rummaging around in the ruins of your life, putting things together, and getting ready to bring to you new life, in this life and in the next.

Can all this be true? Can we be like the alcoholic who has to “hit bottom,” and cry out in pain, and then, and only then, can he be healed? Is it true that our futures will not be bought by anything that we can bring to the bargaining table, or purchase with the almighty dollar, but only by the grace of God? Is it true that we can’t buy laughter, or peace for our weary souls, or any of the things that will pull us out of the pain? Is it true that faith in the grace of God will sustain us through the deserts of our lives and bring us to a new oasis of life on the other side? Is that true?

You know I believe the truth of those promises. The issue is what do you think about them?

If the Beatitudes tell us nothing else they say that God wills the dismantling of our uncomfortable pretense, of our false bravado; and urges upon us the embracing and owning of the pain, and then letting it go and letting God have it.

When we do we will laugh, laugh like Sarah when she bore a son at a time when worldly wisdom said she could not; laugh like the disciples laughed only three days after they had wept the tears of sorrow over Jesus’ death on the cross even as the world laughed at the possibility of his Resurrection; laugh as we shall laugh when the prophecy of St. John is fulfilled and we inherit this promise:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new...." (Rev. 21.1-5a)

May God bless us in our weeping and in our laughter.

Addendum:

Luke 6. 17-26

17 He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. 20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. 24 "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 "Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

Monday, September 14, 2009

When I Was Young: Pop Hits of the 60s

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Aren't you just a bit tired of being wound tight as a drum and frazzled by the all the insane political infighting, screams of "You lie!", two wars, the swine flu, and the apparent total disconnect from reality of a large portion of our population right now? I know that I am.

So.......I spent Sunday evening putting together a bit of a lull in all the craziness. I did this for me as well as for you. And like my Sinatra Playlist, there is no socially responsible agenda here. There is nothing to think about in this post unless you know this music. If you are it might bring back some great memories of a time that will likely seem like both long ago and only yesterday.

I was 22 when I entered the 1960s. This is the music of that formative decade of my life. This music is called Popular Music, or "Pop." It is the music of the people; the music you got over the radio when you were riding in the car; it is Top Ten and Top 100 Billboard Magazine music; it is the music of American Bandstand and music sung on TV prime time variety shows. It is the music you found yourself memorizing and singing in the shower, humming on the way to work, or when you were working in the garden. It is simply the music most listened to by much of middle America in the 1960s. Little of it is "cutting edge," but some of it is; and all of it was influential and set the tone for the next generation of popular music.

I have not put into the Playlist one song by each artist or group so I could have 20 different artists. Rather I have included a representative group of songs by a few of the artists who rose above most others on the popular music airwaves.

We start with the only seminal work of the Beach Boys: "Good Vibrations." From there it is only some of the very best of The Mamas and the Papas, The Association, The Lovin' Spoonful, Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, and Bobby Darin. And while all those individuals and groups were "Pop" they each represent a very distinctive style within the genre. No one could confuse one with the other.

Are they the only singers and groups that were important in the 60s? Of course not. There were dozens of others in the Pop music genre alone. Not represented here are very important musical genres of the 60s: Rock, R&B, Soul, Jazz, Rockabilly, Standards and Country to name a few. But this Playlist does represent the Popular music that most of America listened to in the 60s.

So sit back, and allow yourself to be propelled into the magic of the songs of my young adulthood. Just slip on some headphones, or turn on some nice speakers, and listen. Open OS or any other site in another tab and go about reading, writing or whatever else you want to do. The list will keep playing until you want to stop it.

Monte Canfield's Blog

Friday, October 23, 2009

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

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Torah: Instruction for Living

Monday, October 19, 2009

Birth of the Israelite Nation

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Billy Currington: Ten Great Songs

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Ethics: “Written on Our Hearts"

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Bound by Death

Thursday, September 17, 2009

The Limits of Worldly Wisdom

Monday, September 14, 2009

When I Was Young: Pop Hits of the 60s

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