Gracious Holiness

Haggai 2:10-19 depends on some ideas of ritual purity which are rather foreign to us. As I mentioned in some of my posts on Leviticus a few months ago, sin and impurity were seen almost like a disease or pollutant. It could easily spread from one object or place to another and if it contaminated the house of God, it could threaten to drive the presence of God right out of Israel's midst. It is this basic idea which underlies the questions which God commands Haggai to ask of the priests.

"If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?" The priests answered and said, "No." Then Haggai said, "If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?" The priests answered and said "It does become unclean."

In short, impurity is contagious. Holiness is not. If someone touches something common with something holy, it does not make the common object holy. But if someone becomes unclean and touches something common then that common object does become unclean.

God says through Haggai that this is how it is with the people of Israel as well.

"So it is with this people, and with this nation before me, declares the Lord, and so with every work of their hands. And what they offer there is unclean." 

We have heard previously in Haggai that the people have begun to rebuild the temple. This verse seems to imply that they have also started to offer sacrifices there as well. One would think that this would be a good thing but God declares that "every work of their hands" is unclean because they themselves are unclean. They are polluting the very sacrifice which is meant to bring cleansing, not because they are offering the sacrifice wrongly but merely because they are an unclean people. It is God's presence alone which can sanctify this people and their gifts but it is their own impurity which drives God's presence away. In essence, it seems a hopeless situation.

But God promises to bless the people anyway. Rebuilding the temple and offering sacrifices isn't enough to make room for God because no matter what works are done they are offered by unclean hands. But God ignores that reality and promises to dwell with the people and bless them despite their impurity. God chooses to enter into the very contaminant of sin and impurity which should guarantee God's absence.

This passage in Haggai reminds me of a story in the first chapter of Mark's gospel. A leprous man came to Jesus asking to be cleansed. Mark tells us that Jesus was moved with pity and reached out and touched the man. According to Jewish ritual law, this action should have made Jesus unclean. Instead, just the opposite happens. The leper is cleansed.

In many ways, this is the essence of the gospel. We live in a world fouled by the stench of injustice and contaminated by the sins of misdirected love. Even whatever good works we might offer, are stained by the brokenness of our frail nature and the corrosive systems that surround us. These are the things that should drive a holy God away from us. Instead, this God steps into our world and into our flesh and even into our death and bursts the bonds of all our corruption and weakness with the new breath of resurrection life. This is grace. Grace that is greater than all our sin...

And I think this grace of God says something about what it means to be the holy people of God too. Often, in our "holiness tradition" as Nazarenes especially, we have envisioned holiness as a separateness from our culture. Undoubtedly, there is something to be said for being a people who live differently than those around us. But perhaps we should consider what it means for our notions of holiness to accommodate this passage from Haggai and the story from Mark as well. If we are the body of the Christ whose touch cleansed the leper rather than being contaminated by him then perhaps we can rub shoulders with those who might threaten our "purity" without fear. Maybe if we remember that we serve a  God who sanctifies the un-sanctifiable, namely us, then we will understand that holiness is not something we maintain by our own act of separation. It is not the absence of certain things. It is the presence of the sanctifying Spirit of God in our lives; a presence which is not threatened by the impurity of our world. It is a presence which can bring healing if the Body of Christ which it inhabits will only be moved by pity and reach out to those who are hurting.

Hearing in the Present

As I mentioned last week, the people of Israel have returned from their exile in Babylon (which has in turn been conquered by Persia). They have had time to begin rebuilding their own homes and livelihood and now, through the prophet Haggai, God has called upon the people to begin rebuilding God's house, the temple. The people have been stirred by God's call and have begun to carry out that task.

The second chapter of Haggai begins by noting that it is only about a month after this rebuilding project began and the naysayers are hard at work. God commands Haggai to say:

"Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?"

Apparently, nostalgia was as prevalent in 520 B.C. as it is today. These people who have been returned from exile, at least the few who are old enough to remember the former temple, are longing for the "glory days". They see this puny temple that is being rebuilt and they know that it will never compare to the temple Solomon had built. And they are right. That house was built by one of Israel's greatest kings at the height of Israel's power. It was constructed with stone and overlaid with fine cedar and cypress imported from foreign lands much of which was itself overlaid with gold. It was a house filled with luxury and ornate craftsmanship; a symbol of the wealth and strength of Solomon's empire. The temple described in Haggai is built with nothing more than the timber that the people can collect from nearby forests. It is as nothing in the eyes of those who beheld the glory of the former temple.

But God tells the people through Haggai that it is not the appearance of the house that matters but the One who dwells in it. This is the God who brought the people up out of their slavery in Egypt. This is the God who reigns sovereign over the nations. This God says:

"Work, for I am with you... My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not."

The current temple may not be much to look at. It may not resemble the glory of that former temple. But the same God who enabled Solomon to build that former temple is the God who continues to dwell with this people even now. And that, Haggai says, should be their ultimate source of strength and hope. The temple was never supposed to be about the temple. It was always supposed to be God's presence with the people. It was only God's presence that made this temple or this people what they were.

There is a question, or a variety of questions with the same underlying theme,  I am asked frequently by folks in my church.

"Pastor, what do you think will happen to our church?"

Its a question that I sense is filled with pain, anxiety, and a longing for days gone by. It is a question that remembers the "glory days" of our church; a time when the building was so full there was felt a need for a new one, a time when church was a regular part of people's lives, and perhaps a time when it seemed just a little easier to be a Christian and to invite others to be as well. It is a question for which I do not have an answer. Like the days of Haggai, like all times really, these are uncertain times.

But in these uncertain times...in these times most of all... God still speaks. God reminds us that it was never about the temple. It was never about the attendance numbers or the building or the pastor or all the things good things we could do as a church. It has always been and will always be about the presence of God among us. The God who delivered us from our slavery resides among us. The God who will one day shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land and all the nations resides among us. And this God who resides among us promises us that "the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former."

Our task in these uncertain times is not to get back to the days of old. It is to hear God's voice in the present, to be stirred, and to begin the work of rebuilding, however, un-glamorous that work may seem. For our focus, our hope, our foundation as the Church is and must always be responding to the presence and the voice of God among us.

Rebuilding God's House

God speaks. The people are stirred. God's house is built.

This seems to me to be the essence of Haggai chapter 1.

God speaks by the prophet Haggai to a particular people in a particular time and place. The book of Haggai begins by noting that particularity quite precisely. "In the second year of Darius, the king, in the sixth month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubabbel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest...". That is, in 520 B.C. God spoke through Haggai to the governor and priest of a people recently returned from exile. God's people have been allowed to return to their homeland by Cyrus, ruler of Persia. We get the sense that they have had the opportunity to rebuild in that homeland but that the situation is still far from ideal. These people dwell there not as an independent nation but as a sub-province of the mighty Persian empire and Haggai tells us that the people live with drought and famine. In other words, they are a people who are making it but whose future is still very uncertain.

In the midst of that uncertainty, God speaks to this people. God calls the people to turn their attention away from their own homes and uncertain futures and toward God's house. The people have had time after returning from exile to rebuild their own homes but God's house, the temple, still lies in ruins. God declares by the prophet Haggai that now is the time for God's house to be rebuilt.

Haggai tells us that the message God spoke through him stirred the people. Zerubabbel, Joshua, and all the people responded to God's call and began to rebuild the temple.

God spoke. The people were stirred. God's house began to be rebuilt.

What a novel idea.

If God could speak to a people in 520 B.C in a little sub-province of the Persian empire and their spirit could be stirred and they could begin to rebuild God's house, perhaps the same could happen in 2013 in a little town in central Illinois.

Of course, for us to begin rebuilding God's house is not a matter of constructing a building. The New Testament tells us repeatedly that WE are God's house. WE are the place that God's Spirit dwells. If God is to have a house, WE are the ones who must be rebuilt. But that is not a rebuilding we can accomplish ourselves. First, God must speak. Which means we must listen.

Water and Grace

The people are whispering about John. "Is he the one? Is this the Christ we've been looking for?"

John answers in very strong terms. He is not the one. In fact, the One will be so incomparably greater than John that John will not even be worthy to untie the strap of his sandal. John has only baptized with water but the One who is coming will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He will separate the wheat from the chaff and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. 

These are images of judgment but it is judgment for the purpose of refinement and purification, not mere destruction. John is proclaiming that the One who comes after him will purify Israel. He will be the refiner's fire spoken of in Malachi. He will purge Israel of its corruption. He will baptize, not merely with water, but with God's own Holy Spirit thus making real holiness possible. 

Shortly after John's proclamation of the One, Jesus appears on the scene. After having been baptized by John, the heavens are opened, the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus, and a voice from heaven proclaims "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased." The first phrase this voice speaks is supplied by Psalm 2:7. This Psalm spoke of the special relationship between God and God's anointed king; a relationship so unique in its closeness that God referred to the king as his son. Luke's point is fairly obvious. This is the One about whom John had been speaking. He is the Lord's anointed. 

But if you read Luke 3:15-22, you'll notice that the story doesn't run quite as smoothly as I've presented it here. There is an interruption between John's proclamation and his baptism of Jesus. V. 18-20 tell us that Herod had locked up John in prison because John had reproved Herod for his relationship with Herodias, his brother's wife. Chronologically speaking, these verses do not belong here. That is, this imprisonment of John obviously comes later. Why does Luke interrupt his story about Jesus' baptism by John with this aside about John's later fate? 

Luke is too polished a story teller for this to be an accident. This is not an "Oh, by the way, let me tell you what ends up happening to John while I'm thinking about it." Luke has placed this story about John's imprisonment here intentionally. It is a foreshadowing of what is to come. Luke intends for us to connect Jesus' baptism with John's imprisonment. Jesus is, indeed, the Lord's anointed but his path will be similar to John's. By being baptized by John, Jesus has essentially cast his lot with John. While John proclaims the very real difference between himself and Jesus, Jesus' baptism signifies what is the same. Like John, Jesus will be a prophetic voice at odds with the powers that be and his prophetic voice will earn him a fate similar to John's. 

I believe we are doing something similar when we are baptized into Christ. Just as Jesus identifies with John in his baptism, I believe we are identifying with Jesus in our own baptism. We confess that this Jesus is the Lord's Christ, the one who is filled with the Holy Spirit, the one who can refine us and baptize us with the Holy Spirit. And in making that confession, we also confess that we know where this path leads; that this journey must go through the cross. There is no confessing Jesus as Lord without also confessing him as crucified. When we are baptized, we confess that we want to be identified with this Jesus, this crucified Messiah. We signify that we intend to join his movement toward the cross. 

This Sunday, we will baptize our youngest daughter just as we have our other two children. The sheer cuteness of a child only a few months old, the mundane simplicity of plain water poured from a pitcher into a waiting basin, the day to day grind it takes to raise a child, and the weekly repetitions and routines of frail, human attempts at worship all threaten to drown out the gravity of that moment when a parent chooses to baptize a child. For in that moment, we will be committing her to the way of Jesus and his kingdom and, in so doing, we acknowledge that we are setting her feet - those weak and helpless feet of our precious baby girl, feet not yet able to support the weight of her own body - along a path that must eventually bear the weight of a cross. If that seems a painfully stark contrast, I mean for it to be. Far too often we forget - I forget - what it means to call ourselves both parents and disciples of Jesus. When we baptize Esther, we confess that she is on loan to us. That she is God's first and ours second. That we are only stewards. As such, it is not our task to make her happy or successful. It is to reveal to her the way of the crucified messiah by continually walking that path toward the cross ourselves. 

Of course, there will be a day (and many after that initial one) when Esther will choose or reject this path for herself. Jess and I will not always be able to make this confession on her behalf as we do now. However, we baptize her now believing that long before we ever chose to walk this cross-shaped path, Christ walked it on our behalf. Before Christ called us to identify with his suffering, he identified with us in our suffering. The Son of God cast his lot with us human beings choosing to have his fate bound to ours, his divinity bound to our flesh. It is only possible for us to choose him because he first chose us. That is why Esther can be baptized into the Body of Christ before she is even old enough to be aware of her own body. God has already chosen her - just as he chose all of us - by his grace, apart from any of our own doing. We will baptize our daughter because it is among our deepest of hopes that Esther will walk in that grace for all of her days. 

Truth Happens

The Corinthians have accused Paul of flattery - and not the "No, that looks really good on you" kind of flattery.  This is a serious accusation - the "He's just a flip-flopper who panders to whoever is listening so you can't really trust what he says" kind of flattery we associate with politicians.  The Corinthians are questioning whether Paul's word is trustworthy ...and with good reason.

As we read between the lines of the Corinthian letters, we can make a very educated guess about Paul's relationship with this Church and why they would make such an accusation.  In 2 Corinthians, Paul mentions both a "painful visit" with the Corinthians as well as a "painful letter" he has written to them (now lost to us) indicating the rocky nature of his relationship with this church.  Then in 1:16 Paul says "I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea."  We can gather from what Paul has written that neither of those visits to Corinth took place. Considering the poor state of Paul's relationship with this church, it is easy to see how his failure to follow through on two promised visits would only add insult to injury.  We can imagine the Corinthians saying "He visits when he says he won't be here for a while and then doesn't visit when he says he's going to be here.  How do we know if we can even trust this guy?".

Paul's response to this accusation is unexpected.  If someone accused of me of not being trustworthy my response would likely be to defend myself by trying to demonstrate how I had been consistent even if it didn't appear that way.  I would want to explain my rationale for why I did what I did.  And for a moment it appears this is what Paul is going to do as well.

"Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time?"

But instead of continuing in that line of thought he begins to discuss the faithfulness of God in Jesus Christ.

"As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee."

Where we would expect Paul to say "Trust me!  I know what I am doing!" he essentially says "Trust God because you know what God has already done among you!".  Where we expect Paul to talk about his faithfulness he instead talks about God's faithfulness.  But this is not a mere distraction on Paul's part.  He is not simply dodging a difficult question.  He is asking the Corinthians to reconsider how they judge his trustworthiness.

The fundamental question here is whether or not Paul's word can can be trusted.  Paul's answer:  "Just look at the impact my words have had among you and decide for yourself."  A more literal rendering of v. 18 is especially helpful in seeing this:  "God is faithful because our word to you has not been Yes and No."  God's faithfulness has been exhibited in Paul's words and the Corinthians response to those words.  They have come to believe in Jesus Christ in whom all the promises of God find their fulfillment, their "Yes".  God has established the Corinthians in Christ and they have received the Holy Spirit because of Paul's preaching.  Instead of pointing to his own ability to keep his promises, Paul has pointed to God's ability to keep God's promises through Paul's preaching.  God has given Paul's word the ultimate stamp of trustworthiness, far greater than Paul could ever give himself, because of what God has done through that word among the Corinthians.  Paul is essentially saying "What more validation do you want?".

In short, Paul is turning the question upside down.  The Corinthians want to determine the truth of Paul's words by treating them as an object to be dissected, analyzed, and evaluated against their own standards of truth.  But Paul says the real test of his words' truth is not what the Corinthians can do to his words but what his words have done to them ... and by the grace of God those words have saved them.

Perhaps this has profound consequences for the ways we think about Truth as well.  Like the Corinthians, we often think of Truth as an object to be discovered and dissected.  We evaluate statements,beliefs, and practices based on our understanding of what is true.  Obviously, there is some need for this kind of interaction with Truth in our lives.  But maybe the greatest truths aren't the ones we can hold at arm's length to be dissected and evaluated from a distance but the ones that get inside us and dissect and evaluate us.  Maybe Truth is not primarily about what we know.  Maybe Truth is something that happens to us like it happened to the Corinthians.  Truth is whatever sets us free.

The Super Bowl and Spiritual Disciplines

I've come to realize that one of the reasons I love sports is because it reminds me what marvelously adaptable creatures God has made us human beings to be.

Last night, I joined the other 110 million+ viewers who watched the Super Bowl and as I did I considered what an absurd set of skills it is that these guys have.  I think to myself "Why in the world should any human being have the ability to throw this oddly shaped ball 40 yards down the field to a quickly moving target sometimes through a window of space between defenders that isn't much larger than the ball itself all while a few 300-pound men are trying to clobber him?" Why should any human being be able to do this?

We take it for granted because sports is such a part of our culture that we've come to expect these guys to make plays like this.  But if you really think about it, there is no real purpose, no innate reason why any human being should be able to throw a ball that far and that accurately.  In fact, as any athlete will tell you, there is nothing natural about what they do.  There is no denying some people start out life more physically gifted than others but no one makes it very far without lots and lots and lots of practice.  Eli can make that throw because he has thrown a football literally tens of thousands of times in his young life.  Even for Eli who comes from a football family, this was not a gift with which he was naturally born. It was a skill he practiced until it became natural.  He made throw after throw after throw until all that throwing shaped him into the kind of player who could make this kind of throw.  Adaptability.

I use sports as an example because its something I understand but the same is basically true of most great demonstrations of human skill whether it be in music, art, writing, etc.  In fact, I would argue that its not just a matter of skills we develop but that it is our very selves, whatever you want to call that - our soul, spirit, personality - that are adaptable.  We really are like clay in some ways.  Who we are is shaped by what we do and we will be shaped most by those practices we choose to engage in repeatedly throughout the course of our lives.  God has made us to be truly adaptable creatures.

For me, this is one of the best arguments for why spiritual disciplines are a necessity.  Our goal as Christians is to be a Christ-like people.  But we have to recognize that doesn't just happen.  Yes, we are saved by grace and not our works.  Yes, it is God who works to transform us into his likeness.  But that transformation takes place as we offer ourselves to God over and over again throughout the course of a lifetime.  We pray and read Scripture and serve others and repeat countless times over the course of our lives not because we want to become really good at prayer or reading Scripture or because we believe those things win us any points with God but because we believe those things are opportunities for God to shape us to be more like Christ.

But this isn't just a matter of individual disciplines either.  Its about our disciplines together as a community as well.  Eli Manning has not only thrown a football ten of thousands of times in his life.  He probably has also run that specific play and others like it with his team hundreds or thousands of times.  They have run that play so many times that everyone knows where everyone else is supposed to be.  They have run it so many times that everyone knows how to adjust given different coverages and situations.  They have run it so much that it has become natural for them to work together in this way.

Such is the life of the Church.  We are a people engaging in private prayer and study so that we may be shaped into Christ's likeness.  We are, however, also a people who bring our different gifts and skills together while we worship together, share life together, and love together.  We come together because we can't be fully shaped into the kind of player, the kind of Christian we need to be if we are only practicing by ourselves.  This salvation that we've been delivered into is a sort of team sport and we can only really practice who God wants us to be when we practice together.

To All People

Paul has a right to be paid for his work as a minister.   That's the essence of Paul's rather forceful argument in the first 14 verses of 1 Corinthians 9.  Paul first cites the other apostles as precedent.  They apparently were not only paid for their own work but were compensated well enough to have their spouses travel with them as well.  Paul then cites other careers; soldiers, farmers, and shepherds all receive a reward for their work.  Paul ups the ante a bit more by saying this is not merely a matter of human practice but a matter of the Law.  He cites Deuteronomy 25:4 "You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain."  This meant that an ox was allowed to eat some of the very grain it was helping to prepare for human consumption as reward for its labor.  Surely if the law takes care to make provision for a farm animal to receive the proper reward for its work then at least as much would be true for a minister of the gospel.  Finally, Paul cites those employed in service in the Temple who share in the food from the sacrificial offering as reward for their work.  Paul says "In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel."  Right here in the middle of 1 Corinthians, Paul gives his best argument for a pastoral pay day.  What pastor wouldn't love to preach from this passage of Scripture?

But then we keep reading and find out that Paul hasn't collected on this pay day and doesn't intend to do so.  He says "But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision."  So then why this long argument for why he should be paid?

It seems that Paul, somewhat ironically, is actually defending his right to be paid in order to argue for his right to not be paid.  Or to put it more precisely, he is defending his authority as an apostle in spite of not having taken any money from the Corinthians.  It is important to remember that Paul as a preacher did not fit into a predefined role in his culture.  There was no widely recognized office of "pastor" or "elder" at this point in history with accompanying expectations of financial compensation.  Paul was a free lance missionary.  In the Corinthians view, what Paul was doing was probably most like the teachers of philosophy or rhetoric of the day; the best ones found wealthy patrons to support them with a steady income while the rest had to move from student to student to find pay.  The least employable teachers might have to take up a more menial task alongside teaching in order to bolster their income.  Of course, this is precisely what Paul had done working as a tent-maker while also preaching the gospel.  The Corinthians reasoned in reverse that perhaps if Paul had to supplement his income by such a lowly trade then perhaps he didn't really have much authority as an apostle or should not even be called an apostle.  The point of Paul's argument then is to show that he has every right to be paid and he has not foregone payment because of any lack of authority.  Instead, he has done so in order not to be a burden to the Corinthians.

But Paul's going without payment actually runs much deeper than merely avoiding financial burden for the Corinthians.  It is an embodiment of the very gospel Paul preached to them.  Repeatedly throughout Corinthians Paul has insisted that living out the gospel means not insisting on one's own status and rights but acting out of love for the benefit of others.  Paul argues in the opening chapters of the epistle that this is what Jesus has done for us; lowering himself to be crucified on our behalf.  Paul says his ministry fits the same pattern:  "That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel."

Now Paul is calling upon the Corinthians to do the same thing: to forego their rights and act out of love for the benefit of others.  This is where we realize that this chapter is not an aside disconnected from what has gone before.  In the previous chapter, Paul has just been exhorting the "mature" in Corinth to give up their right to eat meat in order to benefit those who are "weak" in their faith.  Chapter 9 serves as a model of Paul having done that very thing for the Corinthians themselves.  Although Paul may have moved onto the seemingly unrelated topic of his authority to receive payment, he does so in such a way that continues to address the Corinthians' fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel.  He is reminding the Corinthians (and us) yet again that the gospel is not yet another tool to be used in our own self-advancement.  It is actually about precisely the opposite of that.  The gospel way of life is one of humbling ourselves for the benefit of others.

Paul goes on to talk about how he is so radically free in the gospel that he has made himself servant to all, so free that he is able to change for others for the sake of the gospel.

"To the Jews I became a Jew, in order to win Jews.  To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.  To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.  To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak.  I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings"

It seems to me that one of our favorite hobbies as Christians is to fight over really inconsequential things as if they were essential.  As American Christians especially, we are pretty fond of insisting on our rights. What would the Church be like if instead of squabbling over every little detail to which we think we are entitled our language could sound more like Paul's?  What if we were so free in the gospel we could say:

"To the liberal I became a liberal, in order to win liberals.  To the conservative, I became a conservative.... To the foreigner... To the un-churched... To the skeptic...To the uneducated...  To the weak... To the poor..."

What if we could say about everything we do "I do it all for the sake of the gospel."?

Knowledge Serving Love

As Paul continues to respond to questions the Corinthians have written to him about, he addresses yet another issue in 1 Corinthians 8 that in itself is of virtually no relevance to us whatsoever - meat sacrificed to idols.  In the first century, it was common civic practice for Roman citizens to eat meat that had been sacrificed to some Roman god.  In fact, by many estimates it may have been nearly impossible in a thoroughly Greco-Roman city like Corinth to obtain any meat at the local market that hadn't been sacrificed to an idol.  This was simply the way meat was processed in much of the ancient world.  Additionally, participating in the ceremonies and festivals that produced this meat was an important civic duty.  Abstaining from these feasts would have been seen as unpatriotic.  For the wealthier Corinthians especially, the networking that occurred during these feasts was vital to their social standing.  If they attended the feast but refused the meat offered then they would be seen as not being gracious toward their host and would be dishonored among their peers.  If they avoided the feasts altogether then they would likely be branded as someone who was self-serving and didn't have the best interest of the city or the empire at heart.

But it seems that the congregation at Corinth was divided about whether or not eating meat sacrificed to an idol was acceptable Christian behavior .  Apparently some felt that it was not acceptable and that it was equivalent to participating in the worship of the idol itself.  Another group, probably the wealthier Corinthians who depended upon these feasts for their social standing, argued that this was non-sense.  "After all", we can infer them arguing from what Paul has written, "we all know that there is only one God.  These idols aren't real gods so they pose no real danger.  Therefore, we should all eat meat sacrificed to idols to demonstrate our knowledge about God.  Anyone who refuses to eat meat sacrificed to idols is simply weak in their faith and needs to mature so that they too can eat meat."

Its actually not a bad argument and Paul doesn't disagree with the logic itself.  Its very likely that Paul actually agrees with the Corinthians who say there is no real danger in eating meat that has been sacrificed to an idol.  But he does disagree with the foundation upon which they are basing their actions.  We see this in Paul's profound words in the opening verses of this chapter.

"We know that all of us posses knowledge.  This knowledge puffs up but love builds up.  If anyone imagines that he knows something he does not yet know as he ought to know.  But if anyone loves God, he is known by God."

Paul is agreeing with the meat-eating Corinthians in one sense, saying "Yes, you are right.  We all have the knowledge that there is only one God and that idols have no real power."   But then he immediately lets them know that they are using this knowledge incorrectly.  Instead of using this knowledge to serve others and build each other up they are using it to puff themselves up and tear down others they consider weak.  Paul essentially goes on to say that anyone who thinks they are "in the know" has actually missed the point entirely because the Christian life is not about being "in the know", it is about being known by God and loving as God loves.  In a few short sentences, Paul has completely turned the tables on the Corinthians' logic.  The meat eating Corinthians have built an ethic with knowledge as its supreme foundation.  Everything else is forced to serve this knowledge.  Paul says they've got it backwards because the Christian ethic is not built solely on knowledge (though its important) but has love as its ultimate foundation.  Christian wisdom is meant to be employed in the service of Christian love, not the other way around.  Furthermore, Paul reminds us that salvation does not consist in our knowledge of God but in God's knowing and loving us.  We have not saved ourselves by finding God.  It is God who has acted first and foremost to save us and the one who loves demonstrates this work of grace in their life.

As a result, even though Paul agrees with the meat-eating Corinthians in principle he tells them that they must stop eating meat sacrificed to idols because "by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died."  Paul's language could not be much stronger.  Paul is not talking about those who are "weak" merely "being offended" by those who eat meat.  Paul is concerned that if those who are less mature in their faith are coaxed back into the pagan temples as a show of spiritual maturity before they are ready then they may not become more spiritually mature but instead may slip right back into their old life.  (Paul's thinking is probably akin to what might happen if a group of Christians who were able to handle alcohol maturely were convincing a new Christian into going out for a drink with them not knowing that this new Christian was a recovering alcoholic.)  In such a case the meat-eating Corinthians would quite literally be using their knowledge to destroy the very salvation that Jesus' death has provided for their brother in Christ.

Obviously, the issue of meat sacrificed to idols is largely irrelevant to us today but the larger issue of the role of knowledge in the Christian community certainly is not.  Ever been in a Sunday School class that seemed to be little more than a contest to prove who had the most knowledge of the Bible?  Ever heard a preacher who seemed to be more concerned with showing off than making disciples?  Ever seen a "mature" Christian belittle the genuine questions of a younger/newer Christian?  I have.  A lot actually.  In fact, I've been that person more times than I would like to admit.  The truth is that this is yet another Corinthian issue that is still abundant in the Church today.  We still find it much easier and alluring to be "in the know" than to be a people of love.  Perhaps because knowledge can so easily give us a sense of self-importance and strength while love most often makes us feel vulnerable and even weak.  So we end up establishing a pecking order of status in the Church based on Christian knowledge just like the world outside the Church might establish a pecking order based on wealth or success.  But to truly be "in the know" in the Christian sense is to recognize that it is not about what we know but who knows us.  And anyone who truly knows and is known by God is a person who knows and is known by grace and extends that same grace to others.  Christian knowledge and wisdom are important but we have misused them if they ever serve any purpose other than building up our brothers and sisters in Christ.

More Intimacy with Jesus

Last week, I wrote about Intimacy, Mary, and Uninvited Guests.  This week, as we begin the season of Epiphany, I am returning to the place in 1 Corinthians where we left off last Epiphany: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, a passage that also speaks to intimacy - even a surprising kind of intimacy with Jesus.

Paul writes this portion of his letter to the Corinthians because they are apparently defending their right to go to prostitutes.  It may be shocking to our modern Christian ears to hear that a church was openly defending its right to engage in prostitution.  However, prostitution was not only legal in Roman society, it was probably a regular practice for most males in the gentile culture of the time.  Therefore, the Corinthians are not arguing for something exceptional but want to continue what was typical in their context.

It even seems likely that they have argued for this right by way of their understanding of the gospel Paul preached to them.  They're thinking probably went something along the lines of "Salvation in Christ is a strictly spiritual matter that has nothing to do with our physical bodies.".  The slogan "All things are lawful for me" that begins v. 12 may even be something Paul himself said (sounds a lot like Paul's letter to the Galatians) that the Corinthians have now turned against him to justify their sexual practice.  But Paul turns this slogan around to show the Corinthians that they are viewing the matter from the wrong perspective. "All things are lawful for me but not all things are beneficial.  All things are lawful for me but I will not be mastered by anything."  Sexuality (and the Christian life as a whole, for that matter) is not merely a matter of what is permitted but what is beneficial and to do everything I am permitted to do is not freedom but slavery to my own desires.

Similarly, the saying "Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food and God will destroy them both" may have been a twist on a stoic maxim that the Corinthians used to argue for the inconsequential nature of their physical actions since God would destroy the physical body anyway.  The line of reasoning would go on to say that just as the stomach is for food so also the body is made for sex.  But Paul interrupts this slogan by saying that "the body is not made for porneia (sexual immorality) but for the Lord and the Lord for the body"!

That surely had to be a twist the Corinthians didn't expect.  The body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body?!  Contrary to the Corinthians belief, the physical body is not inconsequential to God.  Instead of destroying the body Paul says that God will raise us up, body included, just as Jesus was resurrected to new life.

Paul continues by saying that our bodies are also members of Christ.  Therefore, for the Corinthians to go to a prostitute is the same as uniting the body of Christ to a prostitute.  This is because sex is not merely a physical activity without spiritual ramifications.  It is the uniting of two people as one flesh.  Perhaps what is most fascinating here is that Paul uses the same word (kollomenos) to describe one's uniting with a prostitute as he does to describe the union between us and Christ in two statements that are clearly meant to mirror each other.  "The one who unites with a prostitute is one in body with her".  "The one who unites himself with the Lord is one in Spirit with him."  That idea alone - that our union with Christ is somehow analogous to sexual union with a prostitute - ought to be enough to make us rethink sex and spirituality.

I don't imagine that I'll ever have anyone in my congregation try to convince me that engaging in prostitution is a suitable Christian practice but that doesn't mean we don't misunderstand sex and spirituality in many of the same ways.  We too often see the gospel as a merely spiritual matter that has little to no consequences for our physical bodies.  As a result, when the Church does teach that some physical actions are acceptable and other are not, as it does with sex, it seems forced - like an arbitrary list of rules that are leftovers from outdated cultural mores.

One of the things that I love about Paul in this passage of Scripture is that he doesn't simply impose a list of Jewish sexual norms on the Corinthians.  He could have just pulled out a few chapters of Leviticus and said "Here.  These are the rules you are supposed to follow when it comes to sex." but he didn't do that.  Instead, he made an argument about how the Lordship of Christ informed the Corinthians' sexuality.  Undoubtedly, the conclusions to which Paul comes regarding sex are shaped by his own Jewish heritage but he doesn't call on the Corinthians to simply agree with him by his authority as an apostle.  He does call upon them to consider how the resurrection, their union with Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit among them to make them the body of Christ all impact how they understand their physical bodies in relation to salvation.

Unfortunately, as Christians we often do exactly what Paul did not.  We take some verses of Scripture, even Paul's own words, and say "Here are the rules for Christian sexuality" and expect them to be accepted simply by our authority as the Church.  Rules aren't bad things.  Sometimes, especially when we are young and immature, rules protect us from harm before we can fully understand the reason we need those rules.  But at some point our faith needs to move beyond that and we need to begin reason about how the life, death, and resurrection of the one we call Lord radically changes our understanding of reality.

We might begin by asking what it says about sex that Paul can compare our union with Christ to sexual union.  But perhaps the more rarely asked question is what it says about our relationship with Christ that Paul can compare it to sex.  How is our intimacy with Jesus akin to sexual intimacy?

A New Moses and a New Exodus

In Luke 9:28-36, the passage normally referred to as the transfiguration (though Luke does not use that word as Matthew and Mark do), Jesus, Peter, James, and John go up on a mountain to pray. This should be our first clue that something important is about to happen since important things happen on mountains in the Bible. One especially important event in Israel's story took place on a mountain; the giving of the Law to Moses. Luke tells us that while Jesus was praying the appearance of his face became different and his clothing became white and gleaming. Moses, too, found that his face was radiant after he had received the ten commandments from God. Then we find out that Moses and Elijah, two of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament, show up and begin speaking with Jesus. Furthermore, their conversation with one another centers around the exodus (many translations have the word "departure" in v. 31 but the Greek word is the same one used to refer to God's deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt) which Jesus is about to accomplish in Jerusalem. At this point, Peter, James, and John awaken from the sleep that had overcome them. Peter, stumbling over his own excitement at what he sees, wants to hang on to this moment so he suggests that they build three tabernacles (again, some translations simply say "shelters" but the word is the same one used to refer to the tent that represented God's presence with Israel while Moses was their leader). Finally, a cloud envelops them much as it enveloped Moses on Mount Sinai and a voice speaks from the cloud saying "This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!" These are similar to the words spoken from heaven at Jesus' baptism only now the command "Listen to Him!" is added, echoing the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15 when he spoke of the prophet that God would raise up like him for the people of Israel.

Sensing a theme here? Jesus is the new Moses and God is accomplishing a new exodus, a new great deliverance, and a new people. God had worked through Moses not only to deliver the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt but also to call them into covenant community by giving them the Law and teaching them how to live as God's holy people. Now God would do the same thing through Jesus. Only instead of delivering Israel from physical slavery through miraculous plagues and giving laws on stone tablets now God would deliver all people from their slavery to sin through the death and resurrection of Jesus and fill them with his Spirit so that they might live his life of holiness.

Of course, no single passage of scripture can exhaust all that there is to say about who Jesus is or who we are through him but this passage captures much of both. Jesus is the mighty deliverer who has the power to break the chains of our bondage to sin and death. We, the Church, are the new exodus community that has been and is being delivered so that we might be free to live the abundant life to which Jesus calls us and help deliver others from their bondage as well.

Just Good Enough?

You can hear Simon Peter's grudging reluctance in Luke 5:1-11 Peter and his fellow fishermen have already been working all night without any reward for their labor. They are tired and disappointed and want to go home to get some rest. But Jesus had started teaching while they were washing their nets and a crowd had gathered to hear him speak. It was such a crowd, in fact, that Jesus had commandeered a boat, Peter's boat, so that he could teach from a few feet off shore, providing enough space between himself and the crowd so that everyone could hear. Peter must have been eager for Jesus to finish speaking so that he could haul in his boat for the day and head home. Instead, when Jesus is finished speaking, he makes yet another request of Peter. Jesus asks Peter to put the boat out into deeper water and to cast his nets again. That must have been the last thing Peter wanted to do. "Lord, we worked had all night and caught nothing but I will do as you say and let down the nets." Maybe Peter felt obligated to do as Jesus said because Jesus had healed his mother in law. Maybe Peter was tired but obedient because he knew that Jesus could do the miraculous. Or maybe Peter thought Jesus should stick to his area of expertise, religious teaching, and leave Peter to his, catching fish. What could Jesus possibly know about these waters, that Peter, the professional fisherman, did not? Whatever was going through Peter's mind, he reluctantly forced his tired body to follow Jesus' command and the result was a catch of fish so large that it nearly broke his nets and sunk his boats.

Of course, the real catch here was not the fish but Peter himself. The real miracle was not a quantity of fish so large that it resulted in broken nets but that Peter recognized his own brokenness. Somehow a net full of fish caused Peter to say to Jesus "Go away from me Lord for I am sinful man, O Lord!" Somewhere in the midst of hauling in that once in a lifetime catch, Peter moved from reluctant recipient to genuine disciple. Any other day, I have to imagine Peter's first thought would have been to rush this massive catch of fish to market or to whoever his regular buyer was so that he could profit from this enormous good fortune. But Luke says "When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him". Peter left behind what must have been the largest, most profitable catch of his life as a fisherman, as well as all he had ever invested in, his nets and his boats, to follow Jesus.

We often have a tendency to think of life in terms of good or bad. We think that as long as we fill our lives with good things and avoid bad things then we are on the right track. But sometimes the biggest distractions in our lives aren't bad things but good things that we give too much importance. Peter's catch of fish was a good thing, a very good thing, probably the highlight of his career. But Peter could see enough to know that it wasn't the best thing in front of him. So Peter left everything and followed Jesus.

Pushing Jesus Over a Cliff?

If someone in your family suddenly made it big, maybe they signed an NFL contract or landed a record deal or just won the lottery, you'd expect at least a small portion of their good fortune to overflow to you, wouldn't you? I'm not talking about a distant cousin here. If a sibling or parent or that favorite aunt was suddenly rolling in millions while you continued to toil in your less than lucrative job trying to pay off the mortgage and the car payments and the college loans, you might expect that your suddenly fortunate family member might make at least a little of that debt disappear for you, right?

In Luke 4:21-30, the people of Nazareth are like family members who have just watched one of their kin make it big. This passage is a continuation of the story I preached from two weeks ago. In that passage, Jesus stands up to read from the book of Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth, the town where he grew up. These words are about the God-sent, Spirit-anointed, messiah who will proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, and freedom to the oppressed and Jesus says that these words have been fulfilled in their hearing. In other words, Jesus is that deliverer that Isaiah was talking about.

We might expect that this is the reason that the people want to push him off a cliff by the end of this story. After all, the Pharisees are constantly questioning Jesus' authority and claims about himself and by the end of the gospel Jesus is put on trial for blasphemy. However, that is not what is going on here at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. No, at first, the people are thrilled that Jesus has made this claim about himself. That is because Jesus' Jewish audience would have seen themselves as the poor, captive, and oppressed that he was talking about. Every first century Jew knew that those words from the prophet Isaiah were about poor, afflicted Israel that had been enslaved in Egpyt, exiled in Babylon, and was now being oppressed by Rome. Those present in the synagogue would have heard Jesus saying that he had been sent to deliver them. That is why Luke says that "they were amazed at the gracious words that were falling from his lips; and they were saying, 'Is this not Joseph's son?" Translation: "Israel's deliverer is from our own town and from a family we all know? That is good news for Israel but especially good news for us!" Those at the synagogue figured if Jesus was going to be a big time king someday soon then they all stood to benefit from their close connection to him. You can almost hear them saying "We believe in you Jesus! Just remember us when you're a big star!"

Of course, none of this is lost on Jesus. He knows what kind of expectations he has stirred up with these words from Isaiah. He knows that the people of Nazareth will expect favors and kickbacks from him. And, as usual, Jesus refuses to conform to expectations. Instead, Jesus tells two short stories:

I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. ²⁷And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian."

In both of these stories, God's prophetic messengers go to Gentiles instead of God's people Israel. Jesus' message is clear. Like Elijah and Elisha before, Jesus' prophetic ministry is not only to Israel but also to the Gentiles. The promise of good news, deliverance, liberation, and freedom is not only for Israel but for all who will respond to Jesus. It is this message, that Jesus is the messiah and deliverer for all people and not just Israel, that so enrages Jesus' audience that they seek to kill him by pushing him over a cliff.

Maybe none of us has tried to shove Jesus off a cliff lately but isn't it easy to make the same mistake that crowd in Nazareth made; to see in Jesus only what he can do for us and to discard him when we see that he will no longer be a benefit to us? In this passage, the Spirit of Jesus is speaking to his Church, saying "I didn't come just for you. I came so that you might learn to live for others."

Jesus' Mother and Jars of Water

The Gospel of John is an endlessly symbolic book. Rarely, it seems, does anything in this book have only a plain, literal meaning. Often the stories in John's Gospel have layers of meaning that mesh a simpler truth with a deeper and richer symbolic truth. In my experience, if there is something that seems odd in John's Gospel or seemingly insignificant details receive inordinate attention, it is because John wishes to draw our attention to something we might otherwise miss. In my opinion, there are two such oddities in John 2:1-11; one is the conversation between Jesus and his mother, the second is the attention given to some stone water jars.

Jesus, his family, and his disciples are guests at a wedding in Cana. Somehow Mary, Jesus' mother, becomes aware of a shortage of wine and feels that she needs to make Jesus aware of the matter. This in itself is interesting because it suggests that Mary believes Jesus can do something about it. John tells us that this is Jesus' first public miracle but it seems that Mary is already privately aware of what Jesus can do. However, Jesus seems put off by his own mother's faith in him. He responds as if the shortage is wine is not his concern. Nevertheless, Mary persists in her faith telling the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them. In this exchange, Mary and Jesus seem to relate to each other as any thing but mother and son. Instead, Mary's interaction with Jesus sounds more like that of a disciple.

The other oddity of this story is the amount of space John uses to describe the jars which will contain the water which Jesus turns into wine. John gives us all kinds of descriptive details concerning these jars that might otherwise seem completely irrelevant to the rest of the story; they are stone, there are six of them, they are used for Jewish purification rituals, and they each contain twenty or thirty gallons. However, these details cause our minds to linger on these jars as we hear the story John tells. It is not only significant that Jesus turns water into wine. It is significant that Jesus uses these jars to do so.

I think John is using both of these oddities to point us toward the same truth; that our relationship to Jesus as Lord takes precedence over our usual relationships and rituals. Mary seems to know, even at this early stage in John's Gospel, that she can not relate to her son as any other mother would. She comes to him less with a mother's request and more with a disciple's faith. Even the incredibly important mother-son relationship must submit to the Lordship of Christ. Similarly, John also subordinates concerns of ritual purity to Christ. The water jars that John mentions were used for an important cleansing ritual; to use them for anything else would have likely been an offense to Torah observant Jews. However, it is these jars that Jesus has filled with water that he will turn to wine. Jesus' first miracle sets aside important Jewish laws of ritual purity so that he can provide more wine to keep the party going.

Jesus overturns our typical way of doing things, our normal way of relating to each other and to God. But in doing so, he is making possible the great wedding feast to which we have all been invited.

King of Outcasts

As Christians, we expect the sinless, Son of God, perfect, king of all creation kind of Jesus. He's the one we are accustomed to hearing about. That's what we look for when we read the gospels. So at Jesus' baptism, when we read that there is a voice from heaven that says to Jesus "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased" we are not surprised. What could be more fitting to describe Jesus than the combination of a quote from Psalm 2, which describes the coronation of the king of Israel, and Isaiah 42, which describes the king who will enact God's justice?

But often etched between the kingly connotations of Jesus' ministry are hints of scandal. His baptism is no exception. He is baptized by his oddball cousin. Luke doesn't tell us as much about John the baptist's strange appearance (camels hair for clothing and a diet of locusts and honey) as Matthew does but he does tell us that John does his preaching and baptizing in the wilderness which seems like kind of an odd place to try to draw a crowd. If John wanted to draw a crowd concerned about religion, he would have done much better preaching in Jerusalem near the Temple where religion was the hot topic. Its no surprise then that the crowds John does draw to hear his message consist of tax collectors and soldiers, folks who aren't exactly held up as examples of religious faithfulness in 1st century Jewish culture. And just in case we missed all this, Luke drives the point home by reminding us in the verse immediately preceding Jesus' baptism that John himself ends up imprisoned by Herod, the current king of the Jews.

It is with this crowd of miscreants and reprobates that Jesus lines up in the desert to be baptized by a man who will soon be considered an outlaw. In doing so, Jesus publicly demonstrates that he wishes to be identified with John and those he baptizes. It is John's ministry; one of repentance and real love for others, and not the ministry of the Temple, which will be the forerunner of Jesus's own ministry. It is with this crowd, a people tired of corrupt religion but so hungry for a real transformation in their lives that they will travel out into the wilderness and be dunked in a dirty river to find it, that Jesus wishes to be associated. In being baptized by John, the beloved Son who pleases the Father has cast his lot with those who have been left out by the established religion of their day.

A Second Touch

It is at least partially because of passages of scripture like the 8th chapter of Mark's gospel that I love to study the Bible and am thankful that such study is an enormous part of my life's work. Mark 8 is a literary masterpiece.

At first glance, Mark 8 begins with the kind of story that we expect to find in the gospel. It is a story which many people who don't attend church or study scripture have probably at least heard before. In fact, this story is so common to accounts of Jesus' life that we've already heard a similar story once before in Mark gospel. Just a chapter and a half earlier (Mark 6:33-44) we heard a story about how Jesus fed five thousand men plus the women and children who were with them. Now at the beginning of chapter 8, Mark tells an almost identical story about a crowd of four thousand people. And therein lies the first clue that there is more going on in this passage than just another miraculous feeding.

This miracle begins much like the one in chapter 6. Jesus feels compassion for the people because they have been several days without food and are far from home. Now at this point, if we have been paying much attention at all to Mark's story, we should be able to anticipate what Jesus is going to do next. After all, he fed well over five thousand people not much earlier in the story. Certainly, he can handle four thousand. We would expect Jesus' disciples to anticipate this as well since they were there when Jesus performed the earlier miracle. But much to our astonishment, when Jesus states that he wants to feed the people the disciples don't say "Awesome! Jesus is about to do another miracle!" Incredulously, they say "Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?" What? Are you kidding me? Didn't you guys see what Jesus did before? I can only imagine Jesus rolling his eyes in strained patience as he says again "How many loaves do you have?".

After Jesus feeds this mass of people, Mark decides to show that the Pharisees aren't too far ahead of the disciples in their understanding of Jesus. The Pharisees come to Jesus and ask him for a sign from heaven. I suppose feeding four thousand people out of almost nothing wasn't quite good enough for them. Not surprisingly, Jesus refuses to show off for them when he has just done a miracle and they completely missed the significance of it.

Unfortunately for the disciples, Mark isn't quite done emphasizing their cluelessness just yet. Jesus and the disciples are headed to the other side of the lake in a boat. On the way, Jesus tells the disciples to be on guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod. Yeast was seen as a corrupting agent in ancient Jewish culture. One's entire household had to be rid of leaven before the passover meal so that the unleavened preparation would not be contaminated by it. Therefore, Jesus is using leaven as metaphor for the disciples to guard against the corrupting influences of the Pharisees and Herod. He is saying that the house of Israel must be cleansed of their corrupt way of doing things. However, the disciples think that Jesus is scolding them for not bringing more than one loaf of bread with them for the journey. I have to imagine that even Jesus' patience wore thin that day. "Why are you talking about not having enough bread? Didn't you see what I just did? Twice!"

Next Jesus and the disciples encounter a blind man. Again, the healing of a blind man is exactly the kind of story we find in the gospels again and again but this particular episode has a twist. Apparently, Jesus' first touch of the blind man is not enough to heal him. When Jesus asks the man if he can see after he touched his eyes, the man says "I see men, for I see them like trees walking around" The man has sight now but its still a little fuzzy. Is Jesus suddenly experiencing a lack of healing power? Jesus places his hands on the man a second time and this time the man is able to see everything clearly? Why the need for a second touch?

The very next story that Mark tells is a conversation between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus asks them "Who do people say that I am?" They tell him "John the baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets." But then Jesus cuts to the chase and asks the disciples directly "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answers boldly "You are the Christ". This is a high point in Mark's gospel for the disciples. Finally, they seem to be getting it. After failing to grasp Jesus' amazing power in so many previous episodes, Peter finally gets it right. He is the first human character to recognize Jesus for who he really is.

But then Jesus begins to talk about how he must suffer and die. Peter isn't too fond of that kind of talk. And not just because Peter isn't willing to die for Jesus. He may very well be ready to do just that. But Jesus can not die. Peter has just proclaimed his belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the conquering hero whom God has sent to deliver Israel. Peter might die along side of Jesus in battle but Jesus can't die because if he does then that means that all of Peter's hopes and dreams for Israel will have failed. If Jesus dies, then its game over, there is no hope for Israel to be an independent nation with a God given king instead of the pagan Roman emperor and Peter takes Jesus aside to tell him as much.

Jesus' response is to actually call Peter Satan because he has his mind on man's interests rather than the interests of God. Once again, Peter has misunderstood who Jesus is and what his mission is all about. Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ demonstrates that he has begun to see Jesus for who he really is but like the blind man in the previous story, his vision is still a bit blurry. Although, Peter is beginning to see, he will need a second touch, the touch of the resurrection if he is going to see Jesus clearly.

So it is with us as well. Most of us in the Church today have been following Jesus for a very long time; many of us our whole lives. As a result, we think we know Jesus. But incredulously, when we come to difficult points in our lives or the life of our church, times very much like ones that Jesus has carried us through before, we wonder how Jesus could possibly do anything for us. Jesus response: Give me what little you have and watch me multiply it just as I have done for you time and time before. But even when we are obedient to that command, even when we finally see Jesus in all his glory and power and like Peter we are eager to confess Jesus as the Christ, the savior who has come to deliver us, even then our vision of Jesus is not yet complete. We need a second touch of healing for we need to see that Jesus is not all glory and power; that he is also compassion, mercy, brokenness, and weakness. And he calls us to be the same if we are to be his followers. Only when we take up our own cross and trust in Jesus to lead the way no matter the costs will we really be able to see him clearly.

Contagious Holiness

Cleansing is central to the episode recorded in Mark 1:40-45. A leper comes to Jesus and says "If you are willing, you can make me clean". Jesus responds "I am willing, be cleansed". Mark then tells us that "Immediately, the leprosy left him and he was cleansed". Finally, Jesus tells the former leper that he must go show himself to the priest and offer for his cleansing what Moses commanded.

In first century Judaism, it would have been difficult to find categories that were more important than that of clean and unclean. Ritual cleanliness and purity were almost synonymous with holiness and therefore with Israel's understanding of its mission as God's people. To be unclean, like the leper in this story, was to be excluded from participation in God's covenant relationship with Israel.

In this passage, Jesus seems to simultaneously challenge and uphold these notions of purity and cleanliness. As has already been noted, cleansing is central to the story. It is important that this leper be made clean. Furthermore, after the man is cleansed, Jesus tells him to go show himself to the priest and take actions in accordance with the law of ritual purity.

Nevertherless, Jesus' response to this leper is not completely in line with first century Jewish standards. The standard response would have been to avoid the leper completely. Instead, Jesus is moved with compassion and reaches out to touch the man. This contact with the leper should have made Jesus unclean but what actually happens is the reverse. Jesus makes the leper clean.

Passages like this one can and should go a long way in guiding those of us in the so called "holiness tradition." Too often, our ideas of holiness are much like those of Jesus' contemporaries. We try to maintain a certain level of purity by keeping ourselves separate from everything in the world that might make us unclean. While holiness is certainly an important and essential part of our mission as the Church, we should not underestimate the power of Jesus at work within us to make clean those with whom we come in contact. If Jesus' touch has been powerful enough to cleanse us, why shouldn't we assume that it will be powerful enough to cleanse all those to whom we reach out in Jesus' name? A truly scriptural holiness ethic should not lead us to separate ourselves from the world with all of its impurities. It should lead us to engage our world with the love and compassion of Jesus.

Kingdom of Fishermen

Mark 1:14-15 tell us that after John the baptist was arrested, Jesus began to preach the gospel in Galilee saying "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel." This is how Mark chooses to sum up Jesus' proclamation and ministry. As the first words out of Jesus' mouth in Mark's narrative, they are paradigmatic for all that Jesus is about. Jesus has come to proclaim that God's reign has come to earth. The day for which Israel has been waiting has finally arrived. God would finally reign with his righteousness and peace over all the earth.

There could hardly be a more important announcement that could be made. God's reign coming to earth would be the most transformative, cataclysmic, and world-changing event in history. We would expect some pretty awesome displays of power from someone who is making such a major claim about himself. In fact, the few verses leading up to this point in Mark's story already lead us to expect pretty tremendous things. We've already seen the sky ripped open, seen the Spirit of God descend, and heard a voice from heaven. So now that Jesus has made the biggest claim of all, that God's reign itself is at hand, we might expect some unimaginable demonstration of Jesus' strength and authority to come next in Mark's story.

Instead, Jesus goes and calls some fisherman to follow him so that he can make them fishers of men. Where are the miraculous displays of power? Where are the world changing events? If Jesus is going to begin campaigning for the reign of God on earth by surrounding himself with a select group of disciples, he could at least find some people with more power and influence than mere fisherman! How are they going to help him change the world? How will they help Jesus bring God's reign to earth?

That is one of the things I find continually fascinating about God's kingdom as opposed to the fading kingdoms of this world. We build our kingdoms on power, wealth, fear, military might, and political influence but eventually someone else is able to accumulate more of those than we can and our kingdom fails. God builds his kingdom out of fishermen who follow the crucified and risen Lord and it is the one kingdom that will never fail.

Jacob's Dream Fulfilled in Jesus

So much of John's gospel seems to involve conversations that are taking place on two different levels; one is plain and literal while the other is more complex and cryptic. On one level, the conversation between Nathanael and Jesus in John 1:43-51 is a simple one that demonstrates Jesus' unique knowledge and authority which in turn causes Nathanael to confess that Jesus is the Son of God and King of Israel. That alone is a remarkable confession but it seems that the gospel writer may be saying even more than that to us if we listen carefully.

The biggest clue is in v.51 of John 1 where Jesus' words allude to a dream that Jacob has in Genesis 28. In this dream, Jacob sees angels ascending and descending a ladder that is reaching to heaven. God stands above the ladder and reiterates the same promise to Jacob that he had made to Abraham and Isaac before him; that he would give Jacob land and numerous descendants through whom all the peoples of the earth would be blessed. Jacob then awakens from his dreams and declares that surely God was in the place where he had been sleeping.

Once we have been clued in by the obvious allusion to Jacob's dreams in Jesus' words, it becomes easier to notice other parallels between this passage and the story of Jacob, each of them in Jesus' words to Nathanael. In Jesus' first words to Nathanael in v. 47, Jesus declares that Nathanael is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit which is the same word used to desribe Jacob's action in stealing his blessing from his father. Therefore, Nathanael, who confesses Jesus as Son of God and King of Israel, is presented in contrast to Jacob and his descendants, the Israelites (Jacob's name being changed to Israel after wrestling with God just a few chapters later). Even though Nathanael is an Israelite himself, he is set apart by his response to Jesus.

Additionatlly, in John's passage Jesus knows Nathanael before he has even spoken a word and Jesus tells Nathanael that he saw him under the fig tree before Philip had even called him to come meet Jesus. This is in sharp constrast to Jacob's father Isaac who is nearly blind and does not even know one of his sons from the other. Therefore, Jesus and Nathanael are held up as Israelites who are greater than the patriarchs of Israel themselves. There is no deceit in Nathanael as there was in Jacob and Jesus demonstrates just the opposite of the blindness and lack of knowledge that is demonstrated by Isaac.

What is John's point in all of this? John is making a theological point about who Jesus is; he is the patriarch of Israel in a way that Isaac and Jacob never could be. He is the Son of God and King of Israel just as Nathanael confesses him to be. But it is likely that John is also addressing a specific need in his own community. As far as we can tell historically, it seems as if the believers for whom John initially wrote this gospel were in conflict with the Jews of the day who did not believe that Jesus was the messiah. Because Judaism was beginning to define itself as something separate from Christianity, these early Christians had probably been kicked out of the local synagogues where they were accustomed to hearing scripture and praising God. Therefore, John is reassuring these believers that they have made the right choice in following Jesus. Just because they have been excluded from synagogue does not mean that God has abandoned them or that Jesus was a false prophet as they were probably being told by the same people who had expelled them. Instead, John boldly declares that Jesus is the true patriarch of Israel and that Nathanael's response to Jesus is one that these believers should continue to emulate. John is reassuring them that what Jacob only knew in a dream, they have come to know in flesh and blood in the person of Jesus.

Mark's Christology

Mark wastes no time in his gospel. Immediately, Mark wants us to know who he understands Jesus to be. The first eleven verses of Mark's gospel are jammed pack with Christology. Mark is presenting Jesus to us as the Spirit-filled Messiah, even the presence of God himself, who will deliver Israel from its exile.

The most explicit statement about Jesus is probably the one verse introduction of the gospel in which Jesus is descibed as Christ (which means Messiah) and the Son of God. However, in the following verses Mark continues to present Jesus as the Christ in more subtle and symbolic ways. This is true especially of the quotations from Isaiah and Malachi in verses 2 and 3 which Mark clearly uses to desribe John the baptist as the one who is preparing the way for the Lord, Yahweh, the God of Israel(You can read more about the quotation from Isaiah here.) The fascinating thing is that immediately after John the baptist finishes talking about the mighty one who will come after him, Mark inserts Jesus into the scene. Thus Mark presents Jesus as Yahweh himself, the one for whom John was preparing the way.

The barrage of Christology then continues with the short, two-verse description of Jesus' baptism. As Jesus comes up out of the water the heavens are torn apart (possibly a reference to Isaiah 64:1?), the Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove, and a voice declares from heaven "You are my beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased." Only eleven verses into Mark's gospel, there can be little doubt for Mark's audience that he intends to present Jesus as God's Spirit-filled agent of deliverance.

It was how Jesus would accomplish that deliverance that would have been scandalous to Jesus' contemporaries and a continual challenge for Mark's audience. But Mark makes an intentional link between his presentation of Jesus as Messiah and his death on the cross. Mark places three literary parallels to Jesus' baptism in his description of Jesus' crucifixion. First, the curtain temple is torn in two from top to bottom at Jesus' death just as the heavens are torn open at his baptism (these are the only two places this word is used in all of Mark's gospel). Second, the centurion who is standing in front of Jesus says "Truly this man was the Son of God!" echoing the voice from heaven at Jesus' baptism. Finally, Mark 15:37 says that Jesus breathed his last. In English, this has no apparent connection to the baptism passage but this Greek word is a combination of a preposition and the word for spirit. Read very literally, it says that Jesus "spirited-out", thus linking his death once again to his baptism when the Spirit first descended upon Jesus in Mark's gospel.

This has at least two imporant consequences for our understanding of Jesus, the Spirit, and the Church. The first is that Jesus' presentation as Messiah, deliverer, and Son of God can not be separated from his crucifxion. It's not that his crucifixion made him these things. After all, the Spirit descended upon him long before his crucifixion. However, it is to say that the all-powerful and glorious God of all creation has forever linked himself to the shame and profanity of the cross. We can not know the resurrected king of glory without knowing the peasant crucified as a rebel.

Secondly, the "bookends" of Mark's gospel communicate to us that the Spirit of God has been poured out on creation, let loose in the world. The Spirit of Yahweh which dwelt in the temple, the same Spirit which rested on Jesus and empowered him throughout his ministry, has now been breathed out by Jesus and ripped out of its place through the Temple curtain. That Spirit now rests on Jesus' disciples, empowering us to continue the same minsitry that he began.