What the Lord Requires, Part 3: To Persist in Prayer

Luke 11:1-13     

Not too long ago, I had a conversation with someone about all the funny superstitions our mothers had. Throw a little salt over your shoulder if you accidentally knock over the salt shaker. Never walk under a ladder or step on a sidewalk crack. Be sure to hold your breath when you drive past a cemetery,  lift your feet when driving over railroad tracks, and heaven help you if you should break a mirror. To name just a few.

We laughed about these things, but of course in some situations, superstitious acts are deadly serious. I remember a man who wore the same pajamas for a whole football season without washing them because he was convinced the mojo was too great for him to dare mess with.

People are hardwired to believe in some kind of supernatural power, and are always trying to harness it to meet their needs and fulfill their desires. In its most primitive form, it is a belief in magical things. Incantations and ritual actions that have to be performed in just the right way for the magic to work. That is why you have to throw the salt over your left shoulder, for goodness sake, not over the right one. You have to do it correctly.

The belief in magic is as old as humankind; it is the less-than-rational idea that you can control the forces of nature. Even though we have evolved well beyond such thinking, these notions linger, persist, especially in times of distress. We want to do like Dorothy and close our eyes, tap our heels together three times and say the magic words that will take us home, back to safety.

When we are a little more rational, though, we understand that there is no controlling the forces of nature – at least not by us – and that there are probably higher powers, rational powers, that we might appeal to. God, that is,. And so we address God, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes with the elegant phrases we have been taught to say, and ask for what we need.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Magical thinking still persists, though, when we believe that if we only say the right words in the right way God will relent and give us what we want. Like the genie from the lamp, who is obliged to grant you three wishes. And the disappointment is enormous when we fail to get the response we desire. “I tried prayer, and that didn’t work,” I have heard people say. “It didn’t work,” we say when we are desperately trying to grasp the inherent logic of the universe, and failing.

Prayer is, indeed, as old as humankind – which is to say that there has never been a time when the human race has not struggled with the questions of how and why we pray. Philip and Carol Zaleski begin their history of prayer with this sentence: “The story of prayer is the story of the impossible.” It is the story of how flesh and blood creatures lay siege to heaven, speak to the creator of all, and await a response.

We are generally taught to do it with humility, a certain decorum. Parents teach their children to fold their hands and bow their heads. Sometimes we kneel, or prostrate ourselves, before God, the kinds of postures that would be appropriate before a king or queen. We are not worthy, yet we dare to approach the throne and beg for what we need.

You may have had discussions, as I have, about whether one should say please when asking something of God. It is what we say to one another when we want to be polite. We are taught to say thank you to God – shouldn’t we also say please? We wonder about this because the prayers we have been taught to say never include this word.

Please give us our daily bread and please forgive us our sins and please do not lead us into temptation?

The word seems to me to change the meaning of the petitions, adding the suggestion that we really don’t expect God to respond as we wish. That only if we say it nicely enough will God consider granting our wishes. There may be some truth to this, because we know that God is not in our control. We have long ago given up the magical belief that the right words and actions can control the forces of the world. God’s ways are mysterious to us, strange to us.

In fact, we know God is completely independent and even begin to wonder at the fact that we bother to pray at all. We have no control over God; why bother to ask when God has already decided? This leads to what I might even call fatalism among some Christians, such that they reduce the prayer Jesus taught us to the single fragment, “Thy will be done,” and even then knowing that God surely doesn’t need us to give God permission to do this.

What is prayer for?

Most of us, in our private moments, have wondered this very thing. I imagine that his disciples wondered as well. And so they asked him. “Lord, teach us how to pray. Give us the words to say, because we are lost and need direction.” Then he gave them these words we know so well – so well we don’t even have to think about them as we say them.

And then, perhaps knowing that they still would struggle, he gave them a funny little parable. Parables about prayer almost have to be funny – we are talking about the impossible, after all! He asked them to imagine they had unexpected guests arrive in the middle of the night. And imagine that you have no food in the house to offer your guests, yet you are obligated to feed them. So what can you do, except go to your friend’s house, knock on his door and ask him for bread? If the whole household is asleep they may not hear you at first, so you must knock harder, call louder. You must bang on the door until you raise the household and get what you need – what choice do you have? Even if he hisses at you through the door, saying leave me alone, you must persist. You must ask.

And eventually this friend will get out of bed, climbing over his sleeping children to get you some bread – if not out of love then out of a sense of self-preservation. If you are persistent, sooner or later you will get a response. Now: if even you and your friends will do this, how much more will God, who is the definition of goodness, do for you?

Ask and it will be given to you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. This is his promise. And yet, we still wonder.

And yet, the question still persists: why pray?

In our own experience we can recall too many times when our prayers seemed to go unanswered, too many disappointments. Of course, it is in the nature of humans to dwell more on the disappointments than the blessings. It is typical of humans to take for granted the good gifts but be profoundly surprised at the times our requests seem to be denied.

There are no simple answers when it comes to prayer. After all, when we speak of prayer we are speaking of the impossible. Creatures of this finite realm trying to reach into the realm of infinity and force a change. Prayer is not logical, it is not simple, it is not comprehensible. And yet prayer is essential.

You must persist in knocking, calling, asking for what you need, as the parable says. What choice do you have? Knock harder. Call louder. Be bolder.

How we even dare to pray is a wonder. The scriptures say we are bold to approach the throne of grace with confidence, to find mercy there. And we are encouraged in this boldness. We believe that God actually wants us to be so audacious. Not just us modern folks – this, too, is old.

There is an old tale from the Hasidic Jewish tradition about a rabbi who approached an illiterate tailor to ask him what he did on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. He would be unable to read the prescribed prayers for forgiveness, since he was illiterate, so the rabbi wanted to know how he handled it. The tailor reluctantly told him, “I spoke to God and told him that the sins for which I am expected to repent are minor ones. I also said to him: ‘My sins are inconsequential; I may have kept leftover cloth or occasionally forgotten to recite some prayers. But you have committed really grave sins. You have removed mothers from their children, and children from their mothers. So let’s reach an agreement. If you’ll pardon me, I’m ready to pardon you.”

And the rabbi became angry and said to the tailor, “You are not only illiterate but foolish. You were too lenient with God. You should have insisted that he bring redemption to the whole Jewish people.”[1]

Be bold. Be audacious.

Prayer is a mystery and our belief in prayer is paradoxical. To say that prayer is efficacious and also that God is omnipotent – I don’t really know how these things reconcile. I believe that someday, in the sweet by and by, all these things will be explained to me.

But at its essence, prayer is about this: It is about our great need. And it is about God’s great power to meet our needs. And finally, it is about trust. Like a child who cries to be fed, to be held, we cry out to God for our needs and the needs of the world. There are a great many needs in this world, which we cannot fill on our own. There is a deep and wide brokenness in this world, which we cannot fix ourselves. Only God can heal the world, and our job, what the Lord requires of us, is to ask.

Photo: Andrea Rau, www.freebibleimages.org

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[1] Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski, Prayer: A History, p. 51.

What the Lord Requires, Part 1: To Love Unconditionally

Luke 10:25-37

You have probably heard a dozen sermons on this parable. You know what it’s about, I don’t need to tell you. Maybe we should just skip ahead to our next hymn and get out of here early today. It’s one of the most familiar stories in the Bible. Everyone – whether or not they ever go to church – knows what a Good Samaritan is:  a do-gooder; a helpful person.  It’s the name of hospitals and counseling centers and homeless shelters and more.  Never mind that it once was an oxymoron, as much as “jumbo shrimp” or “boneless ribs” or “entertaining sermon.”

We all know that the point of Jesus’ story is that people should be like that – the Good Samaritan – helpful to those in need.  It isn’t something I need to tell you today: you know this – and what’s more, the legal expert who approached Jesus knew it.

I don’t know exactly what was up with that legal expert.  Sometimes I think this young man was earnestly seeking to know what he must do to gain eternal life.  And other times I think that he was just trying to show off – the way we sometimes do in school when we try to ask the really good question that will make the teacher raise her eyebrows showing how impressed she is. 

I guess I just want to give him the benefit of the doubt – in both cases.  Being earnest is good, and even being a showoff is not really that bad.  Not as bad as what he was really up to. And we know what he was really up to.

The text actually tells us: he was testing Jesus.  And I don’t think he was testing his knowledge or his compassion.  It was something else.

I like this story in the Common English Bible because it uses this term to describe him: a legal expert.  It really drove home for me just what kind of person we are dealing with.  Knowing who this man is gives us a framework for beginning to understand his motivations and his mind.  We see that the conversation he strikes up with Jesus presents itself almost like a courtroom scene.  The lawyer stands up, legal pad in hand, to question the witness – Jesus.  The lawyer takes a step toward him and begins.  His first question is very direct:  What must I do to gain eternal life?

Eight simple words:  What must I do to gain eternal life?  Meaning that there is some thing, which is required, for me to do to acquire something desirable – eternal life.  So, Jesus, tell me what it is please.

Any lawyer will tell you that when you ask a question of a witness you should already know the answer because you don’t want to be surprised.  Surprises can really mess up your case.  So when the lawyer asks this question of Jesus, he already knows the answer.

He knows because he has done his homework; he knows because is an educated man; in fact, he’s a legal expert so when it comes to matters of what is required by law, he knows.   He is not asking Jesus because he is curious or because he is lacking this important piece of information.  And he is not asking Jesus because he would like to be sure that Jesus has sufficient knowledge.  He is asking Jesus because he wants to see if Jesus’ response will be sufficiently orthodox.  This is a test.

Of course, Jesus surely knew all that too.  And, in any event, Jesus didn’t seem interested in schooling this legal expert, or in playing any games.  So he does what he does so well: he reframes the conversation; he answers the man’s question with another question.  “What is written in the law?” You are, after all, a legal expert.  “How do you interpret it?”  Isn’t that the job of a legal expert?  Interpreting the law for others who are not expert?  You tell me what it is!

And of course the lawyer knows; he knows the Law of Moses inside out.  He gives a wonderful answer: Love the Lord with all that’s in you and love your neighbor as yourself.  This is the essence of the law.  The Law of Moses contains over 600 laws, spanning four books – Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy – and on these two hang all the rest.  The man got it right, so Jesus said, “Correct.  So do it.”

Now we know we’re all on the same page.  We all know that this is the answer to the question – love God and love your neighbor.  End of story.  We should all be like this.  But –

As it happens, that wasn’t what this was all about.  That wasn’t the point of this conversation.  So far, this lawyer has just been laying the groundwork.  Now he gets to his follow-up question.   He asks, “And who is my neighbor?”

Who is my neighbor? Whom does the law say that I need to concern myself with and offer my love to?  Who is it that is worthy of at least as much love as I am?  What is the definition of neighbor?  This is an important question, because the flip side of the question is this:  Whom can I exclude?  Whom can I throw under the bus? Who is expendable?

We need to know how to form the categories … we need to know where to draw the lines – the boundary lines.  Because it seems important to keep an accurate account of who’s in and who’s out.

It was certainly an important topic for the community in which Jesus lived and worked – a community that divided the world into Jews and non-Jews.

Samaritans were in the latter category.  Yes, they thought of themselves as Jews, but the Jews did not.  They believed in the God of Israel and lived by the Law of Moses and thought this was good and right, but the Jews did not.  The Samaritans might have said to the Jews, “Hey look!  We’re just alike,” but the Jews said, “No, we’re not.”

But, of course, it would be wrong for me to just pick on the Jews.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when African Americans were not welcome in the Presbyterian Church – a truly shameful part of our history.  There was a time when women were not permitted to be ordained – as deacons … as elders … as ministers – and, of course there were several precise reasons for drawing that line. 

We always have reasons when we make these distinctions. In retrospect we can see how flimsy they often are. I am grateful that we no longer promote those particular things, that we have moved beyond those prejudices.

But the thing is, we can’t leave this story in the past.  This story is why we cannot in good conscience ignore the crisis that is going on at our southern border.

People are being locked up in inhumane conditions – without adequate space, without adequate food and water, without the means to wash themselves. Children, even babies, have been separated from their parents and left uncared for. They are languishing in these facilities for weeks on end. And people are dying.

So the question is this: are these people our neighbors? And if they are, is this the way we love them?

Christians don’t need to agree with one another about the best way to address border policy. These are complicated matters. But all Christians must stand together and say this treatment of human beings is unacceptable.

Just as it was unacceptable for a priest or a Levite to walk past a man who was left for dead on the road from Jerusalem.

We all know this story very well, from more sermons and more Bible studies than we can count. Maybe there is nothing new I can tell you about the Good Samaritan. But today I just want you to hear one thing: This legal expert wants Jesus to tell him where the line falls. He wants Jesus to tell him who is his neighbor and who is not his neighbor. But Jesus just wants him to be a neighbor.

Such a small difference. But it makes all the difference in the world.

 Photo: Migrant detention center in McAllen, Texas. US Government, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

God’s Intervention, Part 4: Working Undercover

2 Kings 5:1-14            

Slaves and servants – the ones who are supposed to be invisible – step into the spotlight for a brief moment in this story from Kings. But first, let’s talk about Naaman.

Naaman is a great man in the land of Aram; a commander of the king’s army. He is high up on the pyramid. He is respected by all. Everything about Naaman’s life is great, except that he suffers from leprosy. Then one day he learns from an Israelite slave girl about a prophet who can cure him.

Naaman knows nothing about prophets, but he knows how to get things done. Naaman is an organization man, so he does what organization men do. He goes up the chain of command.

He tells his king about the prophet who can cure him. The king of Aram writes an official letter, on official letterhead, to the king of Israel. He sends Naaman off with the letter – and horses and chariots, and ten talents of silver, and six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. It goes without saying that an entourage of servants also went along with Naaman, in order to carry all his baggage. Naaman had a lot of baggage.

When he arrived in Israel he went directly to the king with the letter of introduction from his king, just like a royal ambassador.

The king of Israel received his letter and read it. “Dear King of Israel, please cure my loyal servant Naaman of his leprosy. Yours Truly, King of Aram.”

And the king of Israel flips out. “What? Who am I? God? I can work such miracles? Is the king of Aram trying to start a war with me?”

The prophet himself, Elisha, the one who can cure Naaman of his leprosy, seems to be forgotten. But Elisha gets word of the drama in the royal palace and sends his own letter to the king of Israel. “Dear King, chill out. Send this guy to me. I can take care of him.”

So Naaman and his horses and chariots and luggage and footmen all change course and head toward Elisha’s house. When they arrive, Elisha sends a servant out to meet them with instructions. Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River and you will be healed.

Imagine Naaman’s disappointment.

He went to a lot of trouble and expected more attention than this. The prophet, himself, didn’t even come out to greet him. He never got an opportunity to present all his gifts. There was no one there to impress with his power and wealth. Yes, Naaman came to Israel to be healed of his affliction, but he seemed to expect and want more.

There should have been some pageantry. Speechifying, arm-waving, maybe a light show. There should have been an audience to take it all in, applauding the great men doing their thing. Naaman was a great man, don’t forget. He didn’t come all this way just to dip his wrecked body in a pathetic little stream.

A man of Naaman’s position expects certain things; he has earned the right to expect certain things. But Naaman’s expectations are a little too rigid, a little too narrow and confining for the God of Israel – the God who moves freely and, sometimes, undercover.

This is a message with particular resonance for the church today. We expect certain things. We’ve been doing this for a long time and we’ve got it all pretty well organized: denominations, presbyteries, congregations, committees, and so on. We excel at order.

But our love of order can be an obstacle for us. Our expectations can become too rigid, too narrow, like Naaman. We might assume that, because we have been doing this for so long, we have the right to our expectations, like Naaman. But you see where his expectations got him? Going the wrong way. Naaman would have missed his chance at the cure if not for the invisible ones – the slave girl and his servants. At every critical juncture, they pointed Naaman in the direction of healing.

God was working through those invisible ones, the ones that people like Naaman would not normally turn to for guidance.

Who are the invisible ones we need to listen to? Where are the outsiders who might point us in the direction of God’s healing work in the world? Where and among whom is God moving in the world? This is essential for us to contemplate. If we don’t keep up with God’s movement in the world, then we will stop being a part of God’s healing work in the world. While we were tending to our order, our power structures and finances and property, God moved.

I do not mean to say that God has left us. But God does not sit complacently, waiting for us to do something new, either. God is the Lord of this entire world – all of it. This means God is free to go anywhere God chooses.

So I read with great interest this week about a new movement called Civic Saturdays. People gather together in a public location – a library, a small business, or a town square. This is what they do:

They sing together. They talk to one another. They listen to readings, followed by a sermon that ties together the readings and important issues of the world we are living in. Then they sing some more before they are sent out into the world to make a difference. Does any of this sound familiar?

People are looking for healing, and they are ready to be a part of this healing work wherever they can find it. Civic Saturdays offer people a chance to do this.

People are looking for meaning; they hunger for community and spiritual connection with others. These folks may or may not go to church on Sundays, but on Saturdays they are coming together for the sake of the healing of our world.

They are ordinary people with ordinary human needs – to love and be loved, to contribute and care. Just like us.

We all play a part in God’s undercover work in the world. Even if we don’t recognize it as such. Other people – outside the church’s structures and organizations – are playing a part in God’s undercover work in the world. Even if they don’t recognize it as such.

Isn’t it time to build some bridges so maybe we can work together?

God’s Intervention, Part 3: New Life in an Old Place

Luke 8:26-39     

In the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament, Chapter 16, there is a ritual prescribed for the atonement of sins. Two goats are presented to the Lord. One is offered as a sacrifice. The other goat is taken before the priest, who lays his hands on the head of the goat and recites the whole litany of the sins of the people. Once all the sins have been spoken and transferred onto the head of the goat, it is driven out into the wilderness, far away from the community. It is called the scapegoat.

Other ancient cultures had similar rituals. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, although we don’t think much of it now. Of course, the practice of scapegoating is still quite common, although not usually by conscious intention.

The herd of swine in this story from Luke sort of took the role of the scapegoat, didn’t it? In this outrageous story about a man tormented by demons, bound in chains by his community, crying out for help from Jesus. The demons that afflicted him are sent into the swine which then throw themselves into the lake. But the story makes me wonder who was the real scapegoat – the swine or the man?

It’s a crazy story. The episode comes at the end of a boat trip on a very stormy sea, Jesus and his disciples hit land in the country of the Gerasenes and are met at the shore by this local madman. He has been in this condition for a long time. They find him wild and naked, kept in chains for fear of what he might do. It isn’t really clear if they are trying to keep the community safe from this man or keep this man safe from himself. Perhaps it is both.

Then Jesus heals him of his affliction, casting out the legion of demons. The man suddenly becomes calm. The people of the city rush out to see what’s going on and they find him clothed, quiet and relaxed. He has been, at last, exorcised of the demons; he is once again himself. Although, to the Gerasenes, he seemed not at all himself – not the man they have known him to be. The scene they encounter is not what they expected, and they are afraid.

It seems a funny reaction to have, doesn’t it? But the truth is, in healing this man, Jesus has upset the careful equilibrium this community has come to rely on.

That’s the way systems work. Everyone has a role to play in a system – whether it’s a family, an office, a congregation. Some of these are official roles that everyone is aware of. But in other ways, we create unofficial, unspoken roles that just make the system work. Everyone fills their roles, strange as they may be, and the system runs like a well-oiled machine. Sometimes, it’s comical, the way it works.

There are a lot of funny movies about families coming together for the holidays and acting out all their flakiness. We laugh at them because there is something of ourselves that we recognize in their quirks. In every plot, we watch them draw close to the brink of disaster, then avoid going over the cliff, and all is well. They are still as flaky as ever, but it’s okay. It’s going to be okay, because every family, every group, every system has certain roles that just make things work, provide the necessary equilibrium.

Maybe you have seen this in your family. Maybe you have a bossy sister or a trouble-making brother, and somehow that never changes, no matter how old you get. When grown children come back home together, like in those silly Christmas movies, everyone is still expected to play the same role. No matter how much you might have changed since you were a child, when you all get together, the family still expects you to be that child, for the sake of the equilibrium.

Maybe you have seen this in the church. There are those people who can be counted on to bring deviled eggs to the potluck. There are the people who can be counted on to speak first in a small group. There are the ones who will notice if the scheduled ushers didn’t show up, and they will jump right in to fill the need. Everyone does their part, for the sake of the equilibrium. We expect them to.

Usually these expectations are pretty harmless. But not always. Sometimes one person is expected to carry far more than their fair share of the weight, for the sake of the equilibrium. And this is dysfunctional.

It may be helpful to say that the word dysfunction does not mean what you might think it means. When we say something is dysfunctional it might sound like we’re saying it is not functional. But, actually, dysfunctional means something is functioning through its brokenness, in pain.

Every group has some dysfunction in it. Some more, some less. But it happens sometimes that the way a group finds its equilibrium is when one individual carries the burden of the dysfunction. One person has to be sick.

The black sheep of the family. Or the one individual who seems to suffer lots of chronic illnesses. The one who is prone to uncontrollable anger. Or mental illness, or addiction. Sometimes, one person carries a burden for the whole group. In family psychology, this one person is called the identified patient.

And when a patient has been identified, the problem feels like it’s been contained. It feels like it can be managed. In a certain way, life becomes predictable, and even if it’s predictable in bad ways … that is good.

But if the identified patient refuses to carry the burden any longer and decides to get well, then anything can happen. We have lost our scapegoat and the real problems might be exposed.

This, I am suggesting, is what happened with the Gerasenes, when they found the man sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

They were afraid – this is a telling response. It reveals health and wholeness is not their highest priority. It reveals that there is still some sickness in this community that has been ignored for a long time. It might have looked like all the demons were drowned in the lake, but I suspect that there were still lots of demons in this place.

The nature of the sin-sickness of the world is that we resist becoming well. We find it easier to be sick. You might have doubts about this, but let me ask you this:

Why is it that we develop bad habits so much more easily than good habits? And why do we find good habits so easy to slough off, while bad habits are so hard to break? Individuals and systems resist wellness. To be well, healthy, whole, requires work. And in spite of the transformative promises that this work offers, it is work that we sometimes say no to.

Jesus brought the possibility of wellness to the Gerasenes. But they refused it. They didn’t want to have to figure out how to live in this new transformed reality.

It is interesting that the former demoniac seems to recognize this right away. He takes one look at the mob who has been seized with fear at the sight of him. Then he looks back at Jesus and he says, “Take me with you.” He does not want to be left here in a community that is afraid of his wellness.

But Jesus insists that he stay there. He is now made whole, he has been given new life. And his new life is to be a witness to his community. He now must take his new life into this old place.

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you,” Jesus says to the man. He now has a new role to play. He is not the madman chained out by the tombs; he is the witness to new life. The community might put up a lot of resistance to his new role, but now it’s up to you, Jesus tells him. I’ve done my part, you do yours.

God intervenes in the world by bringing new life. But, like it or not, we are expected to be partners with God in this work of renewal. Here, in the land of the Gerasenes, Jesus set one person on a new course, and asked him to go and help his whole community get on course. It’s a tall order, but it’s the way things actually change – one person at a time. One person can have extraordinary effects. As he taught in his little parable of the yeast, when you change a tiny thing, it can permeate and change the whole in dramatic ways.

When I was younger, I read Dear Abby and Ann Landers columns every day, and there were so many letters from people who were suffering in hurtful relationships. They always said they tried to get their spouse or their children or their parents to go to counseling with them, but they refused. Abby and Ann would always tell them, “If they won’t go with you, you should go anyway.” There is wisdom in this, because if even one person in the system changes, that can start the whole system changing.

God does intervene to bring healing to a broken world. And then it is up to us, the ones who have experienced this healing, to share it with others, to be the light. The world will resist healing, but keep shining your light anyway. The world will want you to go back to your old ways, playing your part in a broken system, but keep shining your light anyway.

You do not need to try to change the whole world. But if you clothe yourself in this new life, the world will change.

Photo: The two Yom Kippur goats. Source: Chabad.org

God’s Intervention, Part 2: X-Ray Vision

1 Kings 21:1-21 

I don’t know if Elijah loved his job, but I have my doubts. Who could love a job where you have to constantly haul yourself over to the worst king in the history of Israel and confront him with bad news? He might not have loved his job, but he was good at it.

He had to be the best because he was dealing with the worst. Ahab was bad enough on his own, but everything was made worse by the fact of Jezebel, his foreign bride. She worshiped strange gods – the Baals, as they are sometimes called – and had strange ideas about the powers of royalty. In other lands in those days, including Jezebel’s homeland, kings had unlimited powers. They could take whatever they wanted to take. And so, it seemed mighty peculiar to Jezebel to find Ahab sulking on his bed like a moody teenager because he couldn’t get Naboth to sell him a vineyard.

Just for the sake of clarity, there was actually no law prohibiting Naboth from selling his vineyard. But clearly, there was a high value placed on keeping the land in the family from generation to generation. And, if some portion of land was sold outside the family, the scriptures specify that every 50^th year the land is supposed to be returned to its original owners. No one knows exactly how this worked, or how well it worked, but the intended effect is to keep wealth disparities from getting out of hand. You could acquire property, sure. But you could not pass it down from generation to generation; there would come a point when you would have to give it back.

So I think it is not terribly strange that Naboth has declined the king’s offer to buy his vineyard. If he was not in need of cash, why would he sell it? It seems evident from the scriptures that such a thing is not in keeping with God’s desires.

Naboth might not have figured in the opinions of Queen Jezebel, though. Because, although Ahab might go no further in pursuing his desires, Jezebel comes from a different ethical worldview.

She sets in motion a plan to get rid of Naboth so they might seize his property. Everything goes according to plan and she tells Ahab, “Now go get your vineyard,” and he gets up from his brooding couch and goes happily skipping down the road, like a birthday boy, to see his brand new vineyard.

There he encounters Elijah. One more encounter with the prophet of God, man of courage.

Once again, Elijah has to stand before him, look this corrupt leader in the eye and say, I see you. I see what you did. God sees what you did.

It is the job of a prophet to put his or her life on the line for the sake of what is right and good.

It is the job of the prophet to speak God’s truth in places where it has been forgotten, where it has been rejected, or where people have simply decided to avert their eyes.

In the days of King Ahab, Jezebel simply rejected God’s truth. It was not her truth. Jezebel’s ethical worldview was a narrow one that consisted of herself and the very small group of people she chose to be included in it. Hers was a black-white zero-sum value system in which everyone was entitled to get whatever they could get in whatever way they could get it.

Ahab may not have subscribed to Jezebel’s rules. It’s hard to say. But if he did not approve of her ways, he at least decided to avert his eyes. Because if you didn’t see it, you don’t have to do anything about it. And you can even benefit from it. And if there are a few people who act like Jezebel, there are many of us who act like Ahab at times.

But God sees when we do this. Make no mistake. Other people might not, but God sees. And sometimes when you become aware of that, it is as if you have been met on the road by the prophet Elijah, convicted of your sin. It is up to each one of us, then, to decide how to move forward.

This situation with Naboth’s vineyard puts me in mind of one of Wendell Berry’s short stories. There is a character named Wheeler Catlett, who is faced with a problem and trying to work it out for the best. The problem is this: his friend Jack Beechum has died and Jack’s will has just been read. Jack left his farm to his only child, his daughter Clara. But he knows that Clara cares nothing for the farm. So Jack has written down his wishes that Clara sell the farm to his tenant farmers, Elton and Mary Penn. The Penns love the farm and it will be in good hands with them. Jack suggested, in his note, what he deemed to be a fair price, one that the Penns could afford.

But this was just in a handwritten note, not a part of his will. So Wheeler explains all this to Clara and her husband, hoping that there will be enough trust among the three of them to carry this out and see that Jack’s real will be seen to. But Clara cares nothing for the farm. She says to Wheeler, “I don’t doubt you are telling the truth. I don’t doubt that this is what my father wanted. I don’t doubt that he loved the Penns. But my father’s loves are not mine.

So that’s how it will be. The farm will be sold at auction so Clara and her husband can get the highest possible price. Now there will be others competing with Elton and Mary – a neighboring farmer, a man who has been buying up small farms to maximize his holdings; and a town doctor, who wants to invest in property, and wants to keep Elton and Mary as his tenants, to make money for him. This is not what Old Jack wanted – for his farm to be swallowed up into a giant farm, or for it to become a profit-making machine, exploiting the labors of others. But it didn’t matter what Jack wanted because, as Clara said, “My father’s loves are not mine.”

When I hear Clara say this, I think about how many different ways we say it, in words or in our actions, with respect to our relationship with our creator. That what God desires is not what we desire. That what God holds to be true is not of any consequence to us.

If these matters present us with any kind of ethical dilemma, we might decide that what God desires is just not practical or convenient for us. That God’s wishes are simply unrealistic in this world we live in, and I suppose God’s will often does seem unrealistic. People want what they want, the law is the law. What more can anyone expect of us?

In Wendell Berry’s story, Wheeler Catlett could have washed his hands of the affair after Clara said, “My father’s loves are not mine.” He could have told himself that he held up his end of the bargain, he fulfilled his duty to his friend, and that was it. He could have averted his eyes when they organized the auction, and he could have taken a drive out in the country on the day the auction took place across the street from his office. But Wheeler had met the prophet on the road, and he couldn’t see his way clear to doing that.

Instead, he talked it through with Elton and Mary. He talked to the other prospective buyers. He stood behind Elton at the auction to lend him strength. He took on some responsibility for making things right. And even though he knew it might not come out right, he knew he could at least try and so he did.

In the end, the Penns got the farm. They had to pay a good bit more than Jack had intended for them to pay, so they were in deep. Wheeler went back to his office and got on the phone with the bank. He set aside an amount of money he could afford, just in case there came a time when the Penns needed help.

Perhaps you would say it is unrealistic to expect Wheeler to do that. Surely it was. But he expected it of himself, because, I would say, he believed God desired it of him. And because it was what God desired for him, Wheeler was pleased to do it.

When you meet the prophet on the road, you might run the other way and look for cover. But other times, when the prophet looks you in the eye, you might see through God’s eyes. And you’ll be pleased to do it.

Photo Credit: By חדוה שנדרוביץ - Hedva Sanderovitz via the PikiWiki - Israel free image collection project, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15272824

God’s Intervention, Part 1: The Power of Love

Acts 2:1-21        

In my middle year of seminary, I participated in a required cross-cultural experience: a planned three-week trip to another country, someplace that is guaranteed to pull you out of your comfort zone; its primary purpose is to offer students a greater perspective on how faith intersects with culture.

The cross-cultural trip might be to India, South Africa, Israel, Guatemala – in my year it was Cuba. There we were kept busy for three weeks traveling around the island meeting with local government officials and church leaders, touring their big medical school and a farming cooperative, and visiting lots of churches.

We visited churches of all kinds – Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Pentecostal. From impressive cathedrals to tiny storefronts. One Sunday morning when we were in a city called Ciego de Avila, we managed a double-header.

Two congregations had invited us to worship, so our group split up and half of us attended worship at the Pentecostal church while the other half went to the Baptist church. At the Pentecostal church, we were greeted with kisses from perfect strangers – which seems to be the Pentecostal way, at least in Cuba. During the service we experienced what we hoped were minor communication problems that we tried to fumble our way through. Being a guest can be difficult when you don’t know for sure what is expected of you.

The Pentecostal service started earlier than the Baptist service, and so when our bus picked us up and returned to the Baptist church to collect the rest of our group, they were still in the middle of worship.  We were torn between wanting to join them in worship and not wanting to disturb their worship.

This Baptist church was one of the tiny storefront churches. The front windows were open, but covered with iron bars. This was often the case in Cuban stores and homes as well. The church was quite full, and to walk in and try to find a place to sit would have caused a disturbance, we were quite sure. So we remained outside. And it was behind iron bars that we stood on the sidewalk watching the worship going on inside.

Well, our efforts to be unobtrusive actually caused us to be somewhat obtrusive. Some of the Cubans began handing hymnals to us so we could sing with them. For reasons I don’t think I could explain, we did not pull the hymnals through the bars so we could hold them comfortably, but instead we reached our arms through the bars to hold the hymnals on the inside.

It was a strange experience of feeling together and yet separated. We were worshiping with our American and Cuban brothers and sisters inside the church and yet we were very aware of the bars that separated us. I suppose you could say those bars were symbolic of the barriers between our two countries, our two languages, our two cultures. It was just another aspect of the daily struggle we experienced during our time there.

We reached the point in the worship service where they began the celebration of communion. At this point, the bars felt even more like an unwanted obstruction. What would we do? Could we share communion with one another through a set of iron bars?

On the day of Pentecost, Jesus’ followers were still occupying that upper room, the place they had gathered with Jesus before his arrest, the place they had huddled in fear after the resurrection, the place they had returned to again and again during this in-between period. After he ascended, leaving his followers behind, they returned again to the upper room and devoted themselves to prayer. That is what they were doing when the feast of Pentecost arrived.

Pentecost was a religious festival, a reason for Jews from all over the diaspora to travel on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, bringing the first fruits of the harvest to the temple. While the disciples were cloistered in their room, the streets below them were crowded with a vibrant mix of people, cultures, languages.

There is no reason these men of Galilee should have been able to speak the native languages of all who were together in Jerusalem that day. But the Spirit gave them power to do so. God who knew their needs more completely that any of them did, gave them the ability to speak in a way that could be heard. And it really started something.

The good news began its travels across languages, across borders, across mountains and seas; across nationalities, across races, across religions and creeds. The word of the Lord, by the power of the Spirit had wings.

Jews and Christians, and Muslims, as well, are called the people of the word. Our faith is founded on our understanding of the word of God. Particularly for Jews and Christians, who share a common testament, and understand the very creation of the world as an act of divine speech. God said, “Let there be light;” then God said, “It is good.”

Later, God spoke to a man named Abram, and guided him to a place and a promise that would reach all the peoples of the world through all the generations of the world. God brought life to barren men and women, God sustained life in barren places, all for the sake of this promise.

Later still, God spoke through judges, priests, and prophets, mending what had been broken, healing what had been wounded, all for the sake of this promise.

And then God spoke through Jesus, whose words and actions, life, death and resurrection from the dead, transformed people and brought them together for a common purpose: to carry the good news of God’s redeeming love to every corner of the world.

And yet – we continue to divide ourselves, to erect barriers that separate us, to shut people out, away from the promise. In our efforts to separate ourselves from others, we try to put limits on God’s redeeming love.

For God, of course, there are no language or cultural barriers. As the creator of all that is, God understands us intimately, completely. God speaks our language fluently, whatever language it might be. And it is only through God, and the amazing power of the Spirit, that the promise truly lives, moves and grows.

For us, it is a matter of letting God. The first followers didn’t need to open the window to let the Spirit in, she burst in on her own. Yet, looked at another way, they did let the Spirit in – in the way they devoted themselves, together, to prayer.

Do we invite the Spirit in and let the Spirit take hold? Or do we erect barriers, like those bars across the windows of the Baptist Church in Ciego de Avila? How can we share together in the body of Christ when we allow barriers to separate us?

On that day in Ciego de Avila, we didn’t. As we stood outside those iron bars listening to the great thanksgiving prayer of communion, we began to see how absurd it was. The Cubans inside looked at us outside, and we knew they weren’t going to pass the bread and the cup through a set of bars. The time had come to be a disruption. We all began to pour through the door, just as the Spirit blew through the walls of that upper room in Jerusalem. We had no common language, but we shared an understanding that the presence of Christ in the sacrament, the work of the Holy Spirit, eliminates barriers.

There is no barrier that can keep out the power of God’s Spirit. There is no wall that can stop the power of God’s word in action, communicating the good news of our salvation. There is no thing – no hate, no fear, no doubt that can stop the power of God’s love. Let it in, let the Spirit move in us and around us. Let the power that is God’s love fill the world.

Photo Credit: Ciego De Avila. By Leon Petrosyan - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25287658