The Book of Judges: the oddness of scripture

“In those days there was no king in Israel

and everyone did as he saw fit.” –Judges 21:25

            This morning, I finally had a little time alone and just as I sat down to write, our kitten brought me a ball. She loves to play fetch, but most of the time she doesn’t bring the ball right to you. She drops it somewhere nearby and then watches to see if you will pick it up.  Today, the house to myself, I sit down at the counter with my Bible and my notebook and pen and suddenly there is a little gray and white cat, with her favorite green ball in her mouth, perched on the stool next to me.  She put the ball down on the stool and waited, watching me.

            And 15 minutes later I find myself still not reading or writing, but throwing the ball into the hall, again and again and watching her chase after it. Delighting in her oddness.  That is a gift, a blessing. And on a Sunday morning after church and biscuits and reading the funnies, what more should I hope for than to be given a few minutes of joy by one of God’s goofier creations. 

Ask for a sign, let it be high as the heaven or the depths below (cf. Is. 7:11).  

That’s what I did. And this is what I got. (And so much more…)

            What does that cute kitten have to do with the book of Judges? Well, I am still trying to figure that out. But, for now, let’s see where this blessing takes us.

One of the lessons I think I am learning from reading and contemplating scripture is this:  God is not out to get us!  God is not sitting on high judging our every move.  Like a good shepherd, He is always seeking us, trying to bring us always closer to Him, into the fold where we will be loved and cared for. 

How often do we ask: how do I know if this is God’s will for me? How do I know if this is the right choice?  Whether we are trying to discern a new vocation (or job), or where to go to college, or whether we should sell the house and move to the woods, many of us get tripped up by the fear that if we choose wrong God will hold it against us.  But that doesn’t seem to be the God we meet in scripture. Or the God I meet in life.   

             In the book of Judges we get a picture of Israel falling apart. They have followed Moses through the wilderness, followed Joshua into war to claim the Promised Land, and it seems that almost immediately after divvying it up amongst themselves they begin to collapse into selfishness and discord. Again and again in Judges we read: “The Israelites did what is evil in the eyes of the Lord” (cf. 2:13; 3:7; 4:1, etc).  This is a book about making bad choices.  But throughout this book –these often horrible choices-- God never abandons His people.  He keeps reaching out to them, sending help, lovingly guiding them, protecting them. This book is pretty short (only 21 chapters) and can easily be read in a couple of sittings.  There are several famous tales in it: Samson and Delilah being the most famous, but also the story of Gideon and the 300, Jotham’s allegory of the trees who want a king, and the tragic tale of Jephthah’s vow.  Yet regardless how heroic or painful the tales, over and over again the author returns to that same theme: Because everyone did as he saw fit, Israel began to do what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.

            This theme comes to a horrifying climax toward the end of the book (ch. 17-21), in two tales involving Levites (the priestly tribe of Israel).  The first is a tale of priestly corruption; a Levite agrees to serve as priest before a household idol in the home of a man named Micah. Basically, he becomes a priest for hire. Someone asks him what he is doing there, and he responds:

Micah pays me a wage and I act as his priest. (18:4)

There are several clues that something is terribly wrong here. First, this a clearly not what God intended for the Levites.  They were set apart to be His priests. Second, way back in Exodus we saw what happened when God’s people made idols.  Third, in Joshua we saw the trouble that arises when people set up strange altars (cf. 22:11ff). Last, consider the name Micah. It means: one who is like God.  A man who is like God hires a Levite to be his personal priest.  This is definitely not what God intended for His priestly people.

A few verses later this Levite is kidnapped by warriors from the tribe of Dan (still in search of a better piece of Promised Land).  These warriors want the Levite to now be their priest.  And like Micah, they seem to imagine that having a priest (regardless of how they got him) will gain them God’s blessing. But after marching against “a peaceful and trusting people” (18:27) whom they put to the sword and destroy, they rebuild their new town, and immediately erect Micah’s stolen idol for their own use (and set their new priest to work before it).  This is what happens to God’s people when they do whatever they like.

            After this tale, there is a second vision of priestly corruption that reveals greater societal corruption. It is the tale of Gibeah (ch.19) and contains echoes of the story of Sodom. In this tale a Levite and his concubine stay the night in Gibeah (an Israelite town) and while there some of the men of the town come and demand that their host send the Levite out for them to rape and have their way with him.  The host, unwilling to surrender his guest, offers the crowd his virgin daughter (like Lot in Genesis 19:8), but the men refuse his offer. So, the Levite “took hold of his concubine and brought her out to them.” (Judges 19:25) She is abused and raped and left for dead.  Though the host’s offer and the Levite’s act are both monstrous, the results are even more fearful. In the morning, scripture tells us, as the Levite leaves the house he finds the woman on the doorstep. He tells her to get up, but she makes no answer.  Which our clue that she has been killed. And yet the priest gathers her up, puts her on his donkey and takes her home.  What we see in the priest, this Levite, is a man devoid of humanity.  He cares only for himself. He does whatever he wills and has no fear of doing any evil in the sight of God. What he does next is even more frightening and strange.  He takes a knife and cuts his concubine limb from limb into twelve pieces and sends the pieces “throughout the territory of Israel.” (19:29)

            I read this story and asked myself –why is it here? Why would anyone include this in their sacred text?  If this is God’s word, then what is God telling us through it? 

When we make ourselves into gods, we lose our humanity.  We lose our place. We lose our Promised Land. Yes, we can do whatever we like –but in the end we won’t like what we do.

Judges is a vision of Israel collapsing almost as soon as it enters into the Promised Land.  And that makes me wonder if the promised land isn’t a place –it’s a way of life. Is it possible that the promised land is wherever we are as long as we are walking with the Lord –when and where we make Him our King, that is the promised land!

Again, I ask--what does this have to do with the goofiness of a kitten?

I’m not sure… But it got me writing.  For a few minutes I wasn’t living in my own ego. I stepped outside myself and just played. Present to the gift of the moment, I was set free from “ambition’s derelict dreams.” For a few minutes I was laughing and unconcerned about anything; maybe for a few minutes I was just present to the promise and the presence. Maybe. But I was certainly present to the cat.

                       

Cleansing the temple: The third Sunday of Lent

“Take all of this out of here and stop

making my Father’s house a market…”

–John 2:16

“Jews demand signs and Greeks look for

wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified…”
--I Corinthians 1:22-25

Lent has been a hard season for me for a few years now.  I often have the sense that there is enough sacrifice and suffering around me these days (year-round) that I find it hard to imagine giving up anything or taking on any new hardships.  Because of that, often the season is over before I realize it is here. Health of children, anxieties about work, struggles with family, with budgets, with plumbing and roof-leaks, my aging joints, all the day-to-day worries keep me so distracted and busy that I feel overwhelmed and incapable of anything more.  But what if that’s exactly when we need Lent? When we are overwhelmed by life and troubles, that’s precisely when we need to walk into that temple and make a cord of rope and drive out all those distractions –because what we need isn’t more money, or more time in the day, or more options, more exercise (or more vegetables even), not even more distractions;  what we need is less.

Growing up at the end of the ‘60s and into the ‘70s I always heard the story of Jesus cleansing the temple as a condemnation of greed and corrupt business practices; a metaphorical and metaphysical condemnation of profit and the marketplace.  And yes, there may be some elements of that here. Certainly there is a sense in the synoptic gospels of the merchants misbehaving. In all three, Jesus speaks of them turning His father’s house into a “den of thieves.” But, here in John he says only: “a marketplace.”

For context, I was reading Ben Witherington’s The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary.  In it, he says these sellers had only recently moved their work into the temple (around 30CE), possibly during the time of Caiaphas. He notes that the sellers were allowed into the temple either to allow temple authorities control over the activities, or to allow them to claim a cut of the profit (Worthington 315).

 Whatever the reason, the money changers and animal sellers were providing an actual and (for some) a very important service.  They provided Jews with the ability to change Roman (or foreign) coins in order to pay their temple tax. Coins with pagan mottos or an image of Caesar being unacceptable as an offering. They also provided animals (for a price) for those who couldn’t bring their own. They were providing a valuable service; and doing it in an approved way and in an approved place.  So, what was the objection?

            And on this particular Sunday in Lent, I find a possible clue in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  He tells us that some people will look for signs and others will seek wisdom, but all he has to offer them is this: Christ crucified. It will be a stumbling block to some, and foolishness to others, but that’s it.  The one essential thing; and everything else --the power and wisdom of God-- are found in it!  And as I contemplate Paul’s words, the story of the temple and the money changers seems to open up a little and reveal something more. Yes, there is a lesson here about corruption and church raffles, but there is something else. Something even more central, I think. A lesson about focus. Keep your eye on the ball.  Don’t de distracted by the non-essential.  There is one necessary thing. Stay focused. 

            Whether the sellers in the temple were corrupt or not, they were extraneous; they were not essential to the purpose of the temple. And I would imagine that they and their doves and sheep and even cows, were becoming a distraction. A distraction from the real sacrifice God seeks: our hearts. For me, these readings speak about many things, but the one thing, the essential thing I hear this third Sunday of Lent is this: Get rid of your distractions, drive them out of your heart, out of your mind, out of your temple. Make a place in your life for God. Even if it is just for an hour, just for ten minutes before work or 5 minutes before sleep. Make a place in your room, in your day, in your heart where you can go and be with God.  Let go of your worries about family and work and life and health and money and leaky roofs and broken plumbing and just be with God. Pray a rosary, meditate, read the gospels. But whatever you do, really do it. Don’t let the distractions of the day or the week or the year get in the way. Leave them behind –all of them—and give yourself to the Lord completely –even if it’s only for ten minutes. Who needs a pigeon? Give yourself to God.

            It’s not that the roof doesn’t matter. It’s not that your family doesn’t matter.  But we have to realize there is only one essential thing. And we better not let the marketplace (or the weight of the world) distract us from it.

Are you saved? Dwelling with God on the 4th Sunday of Lent

“For we are His handiwork, created in

Christ Jesus for the good works that

God has prepared in advance, that we

should live in them.” –Ephesians 4:10

Recently I have been doing a bit of driving –trips to the grocery store, the therapist, the pharmacy, down to Montrose to hear a lecture about Flannery O’Connor, even a drive to and from Dallas for a college visit.  And during these drives –especially if I am alone at night—I tend to turn on one of the Christian radio stations to hear someone preach about God. I started this habit back in my twenties. It just seemed more interesting than most pop music.  Regardless, the habit has stuck.  And I can be inspired by and learn something new from even the simplest sermon (or lesson). I’m not too picky. I like R.C. Sproul (Reformed), Chuck Swindall (Evangelical), Ed Young (Baptist), Charles Stanley (Southern Baptist), and a couple weeks ago I heard a woman from Africa teaching lessons from Genesis 12 and the call of “Papa Abraham.” I had never considered thinking of Abraham as “Papa Abraham,” but I liked it.  What first appealed to me was simply the “exotic” sound of her voice. It was something different from the usually Southern twang of many of these ministers.  But, I also liked the simple lessons about faith and following God that she was deriving from just a very few verses about “Papa Abraham.” So, I kept listening.

But, as I listen to these shows more than occasionally I will hear someone bring up the arguments of the Reformation as if they were still a sore subject. The other night, driving home from Sugarland I heard a preacher (not sure of the name) preaching on Revelations. As I listened he quickly came to the question of the whore of Babylon and how it was –what he called—the church of Rome.  On one level he was making a pretty good case starting with Constantine and the conversion of Rome; dwelling with particular emphasis on the mass baptism of Constantine’s army as a sign of the early Church getting way off on an extremely wrong foot.  

            I’m not certain if it was the same guy, but on another evening I heard the Church of Rome condemned for keeping the Bible out of the hands of the common people for so many centuries: 1. keeping it in Latin, and 2. keeping the right (or authority) to interpret scripture unto itself. Whether it was the same guy, it was definitely the same channel. I’ve head other ministers on that station (ministers I respect –like Sproul) deride the Roman Catholic church for its corruption and especially for still teaching that works are required for salvation.  And as I listen, I am often struck by the thought: you’re over-simplifying! It seems to me that these ministers were probably taught something during seminary and are simply repeating it without checking to see if its true (or ever was), and what the other side has to say for itself.  Heck, they don’t even acknowledge that the Lutherans and the Roman Catholics signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification back in 1999 (when John Paull II was still Pope).

            To be fair, I’ve also heard Catholic radio personalities (on EWTN) do the same thing from the other side.  They ridicule or deride their Protestant brethren for the teaching of justification by faith, and speak disdainfully of the very idea of sola scriptura –oversimplifying everything Luther or Calvin or even Barth might have taught. 

It feels like (on both sides) there is a refusal to listen, to engage the actual ideas of the other side, and a dangerous tendency to oversimplify. Who needs to actually read and contemplate the ideas of Luther or Calvin or a papal encyclical, when all you’re looking for is a straw man to knock over with a blast of your own hot air?    

            For instance, the other night on EWTN a Catholic apologist was citing several scripture passages as proof that Luther was all wrong about faith alone, and that clearly Jesus, Himself, was going to be looking at our works when it came time for the last judgment.

            For a Roman Catholic to think that Luther (or Lutherans) have failed to notice (or consider) Matthew 25: 31-46 is just absurd. A quick Google search will bring up articles and sermons by contemporary Protestant ministers preaching and teaching on the importance of works of mercy and love.  But look a little further and we find that Luther addressed this also; as did Calvin; with grace and inspiring insight. Whether we agree with an interpretation or not, what you will find in these writings is a brother or sister sincerely seeking God’s will and not just a cartoon enemy to be taped to a theological dart board.

The same could be said of those who have never read an encyclical or Papal letter, or the Catechism of the Catholic Church, yet wants to criticize her teachings. But who has time to consider what the other side of an issue when we are all in such a rush to jump to conclusions?

Which –by way of a lengthy introduction—brings me back to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and the very question of “good works.”

Paul states here that we are “saved through faith” (points for Luther & JPII) and adds that our faith comes not through any effort on our part, but as a “gift of God.”  How much clearer does the teacher have to be here? Suddenly I am wondering why the whole Reformation couldn’t have been handled over in an afternoon at the pub; a couple of pitchers of ale, a block of Limburger and a loaf of pumpernickel and it’s done! Thomas Moore still has his head and Servetus still… well, never mind. As we know, the pub was probably closed for a religious holiday.

(As a side-note, it is interesting what the church has paired this reading with, a passage from Second Chronicles (cf.36:14-16; 19-23) about the “works” of God’s people when they are left to their own devices: abominations and the polluting of the temple. Even when God sends prophets with warnings the people react only with mockery and scoffing. Sound familiar? So, God sends them the Babylonians and a little bit of captivity, as a gift –one might say; a very hard kind of grace.)

But then, what does all this say to us about our works? Aren’t they worth something? Or why bother?

Well, what does Paul say?  Paul says this: our works were prepared for us by God, “that we should live in them.” Our works are where we are to dwell –prepared for us before we were born.  What does that mean: “…Prepared in advance that we should live in them?”

I propose that the answer is found not in theological debates or creeds or encyclicals and catechisms. It is found in Jesus. In the person of Christ.  In the time of fulfillment personified; in the Kingdom of God made flesh.

When the “sheep” in the parable of the last judgment ask the King: When did we see you hungry and feed you? Naked and give you clothes? A stranger and make you welcome? A prisoner and visit you? Basically, they are asking Jesus: When, Lord, were we in your presence? When were we dwelling in the Kingdom of God? Living in the time of fulfillment? And what does Jesus say? He responds:

“In truth I tell you, when you did this for the least

Of these my brothers, you did it for me…” (Mt. 25:40)

Basically, He is answering: when you did this and this and… 

True, those works may not earn the Kingdom of God, but that may not be the point. The point just might be that they are the Kingdom of God. (How very Dante-esque, I must say!)

So, if we’ve signed a declaration of agreement, why do Catholics and Protestants keep arguing about these things? And why do they always seem to be scoffing and deriding each other’s ideas?  Why won’t they just sit down with a pitcher of Shiner and a plate of nachos and listen to each other? That’s probably a discussion for another time, but it reminds me of something Jesus says in Sunday’s Gospel:

“…the people preferred darkness.” (Jn 3:19)