Creatures of Habit

Creatures of habit,
Day after day
Go about life,
The same old way.

Nothing disturbs
Their orderly routine
All must be neat,
And all must be clean.

They’re making their lists
And checking them twice,
Trying to make sure
Their work will suffice.

Impatient by nature
They don’t suffer fools
Gladly or otherwise
Because of the rules.

A place for everything
For all there’s a place
Don’t touch the guest towels
But please wash your face.

They insist on living
Orderly lives,
And of course only marry
Orderly wives.

Their homes antiseptic
Their cars always clean,
Their food always healthy
Their meat always lean.

Like ants in an ant hill,
Repeating their tasks
Rest in repetition
Ignore the mask.

Chaos is forbidden
Experiment absurd
Don’t ask for creative
Don’t mention the word.
Creatures of habit,
By whose design?
Is this just human,
Or is it divine?

What if we found
That ordering our sphere,
Is just a misnomer
For controlling our fear?

Fear of the truth,
Fear of falling
Fear of the unknown,
Fear of our calling

Fearing to let go,
Fearing to try,
Fearing to live,
And fearing to die.

An unknown poet said it
Muse in the machine
It suggests new direction
By which we come clean.

“It’s the heart afraid of breaking.
That never learns to dance,
It’s the dream afraid of waking
That never takes a chance.

“It’s the one who won’t be taken
Who cannot seem to give,
And the soul afraid of dying,
That never learns to live.”

Perhaps if we surrender
Control of our lives,
And offer ourselves
To all seeing eyes

We’ll find a new freedom
Though not out of bounds
For when he controls us
The order’s profound.


Let go of the death grip,
You have on your life
Inhibit your habits
Without artifice.

Accept serendipity,
Free by design
Eat the new manna
Drink the new wine.

Come to the manger
Kneel at the throne
Realize your ruler
Won’t leave you alone.

Celebrate Christmas
Deliverance declare
You’re freed to inhabit
A creature’s full share.

Dec. 1 2005

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" though first published in 1813 was in fact written in 1796-97 and originally entitled "First Impressions". It has consistently been Jane Austen's most popular novel and portrays life in the genteel but rural English society of the late 18th and early 19th century. It tells in a memorable way the story of the initial misunderstandings and later mutual enlightenment between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. The title "Pride and Prejudice" refers particularly to the ways in which Elizabeth and Darcy first view each other, but it applies equally to the way a class-oriented society works and gets in the way of people of different socio-economic strata really getting to know each other.

Jane Austen's gave her own opinion of the work, in a letter to her sister Cassandra immediately after its publication stressing: "Upon the whole... I am well satisfied enough. The work is rather too light, and bright, and sparkling; it wants [i.e. needs] shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn specious nonsense, about something unconnected with the story: an essay on writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparté, or anything that would form a contrast and bring the reader with increased delight to the playfulness and general epigrammatism of the general style".

This story is indeed bright, and mostly cheerful, in a way that the recently released "Oliver Twist" is not. Though there are some cads in Jane Austen's masterpiece, there is no real wickedness to be confronted, unlike in "Oliver Twist". It is no easy thing to successfully film a classic novel, but I am happy to say that this film nearly lives up to the level of the novel itself, and is well worth repeated viewings. It is beautifully shot in the English countryside, and all the major actors are superb including Kira Knightley who plays Lizzy Bennet, and Donald Sutherland who plays her father in a truly fetching way. Judy Dentsch is also her usual formidable self, playing a part very akin to the approach she took to playing the Queen in one of her last period pieces-- that is, as "la femme tres formidable."

The movie is just over two hours in length and gives the viewer plenty of time to evaluate what it must have been like to be a woman without money in a highly patriarchal and class conscious society. Barring some miracle it meant being a woman "without prospects". Though Austen was no feminist in the modern sense, she does an excellent job of portraying the plight of women caught in such a world, and bargained for between the suitor and the father of the family. Fortunately for Lizzy, she had a kind and goodly father who wanted the best for his five girls.

It is easy to become beguiled by the lavish and beautiful settings, manor houses, countryside, gorgeous apparel and the like, not to mention the beautiful way this movie is filmed. It should surely win an award for cinematography especially for the ball room dancing scenes. But this is a story with substance, not just style, and one must not get too distracted by the beauty of the package. This is a story about how love overcomes pride and prejudices, and even mistaken or false first impressions. Indeed, it is a story about how love conquers all.

There is as a well a Christian message hidden in this story, besides the obvious message about the transformative power of love, because there is a Reverend Collins in this movie, who while not an upper class twit, is nonetheless a twit totally in the thrall of his patroness who has granted him his "living" a nice parsonage and a lovely parish church. He is indeed a kept man, and it reminds us of how Christian ministers can become captives to the social systems of their day, and find themselves running to the beck and call of the wealthy persons who make their "living" possible. It is not a flattery image that emerges of clergy completely co-opted by the larger social culture, but then this was not just a vice of 18th and 19th century clergy--- we see it a plenty today, especially in the larger and mega-churches in North America. When sermons are seen as a means to ethically civilize and pacify the clientele so that society may remain as inequitable as it always was, then we see the extent to which the Gospel can become captive to the larger agendas of the culture, indeed can become the chief purveyors of those often anti-Christian values. As Pogo once said "I have seen the enemy, and he is us."

But lest I get too carried away with moralizing about bad and unethical homiletical moralizing, I must say that this is a movie all Christians can and should see to understand better the power of love, and also the way the Gospel can be neutralized in "such a civilized manner". It is appropriate for all audiences of any age as it completely eschews any violence, bad language, or gratuitous sex. In fact the climax of the movie is a simple and beautiful kiss, which reminds us that less is often so much more in a well-told tale. These sorts of movies are rare these days, and deserve to be supported. We may hope that Hollywood will have the "sense and sensibility" to film another of Austen's classics soon.

Walking a Fine Line

In what could be called the Caucasian equivalent of the movie "Ray" we now have the bi-op of the recently deceased Johnny Cash on film. The star role is played effectively and accurately by Joaquin Phoenix, and equally effectively co-stars Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash. The movie runs over two hours, allowing the story to percolate along at its own pace, and like the movie "Ray" we leave the central figure at or near the apex of his career, in this case at the juncture where June finally relents and agrees to marry Johnny after being propositioned on stage in 1968. The landmark "Live at Folson Prison" album was already a major hit, and by this time Cash, with the help of Carter had licked his addiction to prescription drugs. The similarities to the story of Ray Charles are striking, and remarkable.

The movie begins much like "Ray" did with a brief recounting of Cash's upbringing in Dyess Arkansas, part of a sharecropping family with a stern father and a devout hymn-singing mother. It becomes clear early on in the movie how much damage parental favoritism can do to a child, for the father has no tolerance for his younger son's love for music, and clearly favors the more practical older brother Jack, as the star of the family. When there is a horrible accident at the sawmill in which the older son is killed, the father at least partially blames Johnny for being off fishing rather than being present with his brother at that tragic moment. It was a childhood episode that was to haunt Cash throughout his life.

One of the fasacinating aspects of this movie is the faithful recreation of the early days in Memphis at Sun Records in the mid and later 50s when Elvis, and Jerry Lee Lewis, and Roy Orbison, and Carl Perkins, and June Carter, and the youngest of them all Johnny Cash were all making hit recording and touring together on the Sun Records tours. It reminds us that long before there was Beatle mania there was already rock-a billy mania focused on various of these rising American stars. Both Phoenix and Witherspoon do a fine job of actually singing in this movie and not merely lip-syncing and this makes the movie all the more believable and compelling.

One of the aspects of the story which unfortunately does not get enough play is the Christian faith of both Johnny Cash and June Carter throughout the various vicissitudes of their lives. This is unfortunate as it was one of the main things that sustained them through many hard times. But of course since the story stops in 1968, we miss most of the real Christian period of Cash's and Carter's lives. The movie tries to walk a fine line between not hiding the Christian factor and not overplaying it either.

There can be little doubt, that in a year when excellent dramas are thin on the ground that this movie is bound to get some Oscar nods. It shows in great and painful detail how hard it is to live life on the road and be true to one's Christian commitments. And this is a lesson worth remembering whether one is a traveling business person, a musician, or a politician.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Money

Now that we are well and truly into the Harry Potter saga (and to judge from the sales for this one over its first week, lots more people are paying money in order to pay attention), it will be well if we take stock of the story and its relative merits. But in order to do so, I must set up a dual frame of reference.

I was riding through Philadelphia this past week and noticed two things-- a house in which Edgar Allan Poe once lived in, with a giant statue of a raven just outside of it, and the ubiquitous billboards advertising the coming Narnia movie. Both of these things are of relevance in analyzing Harry Potter. Having read Poe's stories when I was much younger, I must say that the Harry Potter stories are mostly tame by comparison when it comes to darkness and the dance macabre. When you compare the two bodies of work you wonder why there was so much angst in the Christian community when the Harry Potter novels first came out, and then the movies began to appear. We have been reading dark stories for a long time indeed, even dark children's stories, and there are some merits to doing so--- namely it helps us recognize evil when we see it. In neither the Harry Potter stories nor in Poe's stories (even in the "Pit and the Pendulum") is evil ever portrayed as good, or as finally triumphing over the good.

But as for the comparison with "the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" of course we must reserve judgment until it comes out, but one can say for sure that it will take some doing for it to top this episode in the Harry Potter saga. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has all the elements of a classic story. It has darkness and light, it has humor and suspense, the story is allowed to develop at its own pace, and the characters are stretched by various events to be their best selves. It has a wonderful supporting cast, surprising turns of events, especially at the end, and in the midst of all this we see the three central characters beginning to come of age and grow up. Yet the shortcomings of even Harry Potter are occasionally in evidence as well (he almost fails to rescue a fellow competitor from Hogwart's who is a good lad). It is not a fairy story, it is a mystery.

This particular story is more about plot development than about potion development, and the focus is not really on school life at Hogwarts. Rather the focus is on a three school competition to demonstrate who is the greatest wizard of all. But it is the dark forces lurking around the edges of the competition that provide the compelling subplot and bring Harry face to face with evil incarnate. There is however comic relief in the person of Rita Skeeter, the gossip columnist for the Daily Prophet who's interviews with Harry and others are nothing short of hilarious.

The visuals for this movie are consistently darker than the previous episodes, but with good reason, and there is a nice meshing of CG effects with live action of the cast. One never feels that one is slipping back and forth between a real drama and a cartoon, which is always the danger if the CG is over done or poorly done. Best of all, this movies leaves you wanting to see more and looking forward to the next episode. It does not seek to tie up all the loose ends, yet there is a strong sense of resolution of the plot as the movie winds down to its last few scenes.

At well over two hours this is the longest of the Potter movies, but none of this movie could be called filler or superfluous. It is no small task to do cinematic justice to an interesting and challenging novel that is full of magic and mystery, but this effort of director Newell can be said to have succeeded admirably. Indeed, this movie will bear repeated viewings with profit, but it is a much more adult tale than the previous episodes and a few scenes may be a bit too intense for smaller children. On the whole this is a movie that helps us see the line between good and evil rather clearly, and helps us make the right sort of choices along the way.

Anne Rice's Christ the Lord

Christ the Lord--- Out of Egypt, Anne Rice (N.Y.: Knopf, 2005)

Anne Rice has, by now become something of a household name through the enormous sales of her novels since her first one appeared in 1974, and so it comes as no surprise that this year saw another Anne Rice novel appear on the market. What is a surprise, bordering on shock, considering that Rice has been the Queen of Vampire novels, is that this novel is and loving and reverent story about Jesus as a child. More specifically it is largely the tale of one year of Jesus’ life, from the ages of 7-8, a period not covered by any of the canonical Gospels. Where then does she get her material? A small amount of the novel is based on some later apocryphal stories from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and certain assumptions (about Mary and Joseph) derived from the Proto-Evangelium of James, but most of the tale derives from Rice’ own fertile imagination as applied to the copious amount of reading she has done about the history and social circumstances and Jewish religious life of the period.
The novel is a tale of average length (301 pages), to which is appended an author’s note in which Rice gets to critique liberal Jesus scholars, amongst others. Rice also tells us the story of her conversion and return to Roman Catholicism, which also entailed a return to investigate questions which had haunted her all her life—how did Christianity actually come about and why did the Roman Empire fall? In 2002, we are told, she says “I put aside everything else and decided to focus entirely on answering the questions that had dogged me all my life. The decision came in July of that year. I had been reading the Bible constantly…and decided that I would give myself utterly to the task of trying to understand Jesus himself and how Christianity emerged. I wanted to write the life of Jesus Christ. I had known that years ago. But now I was ready. Ready to do violence to my career. I wanted to write the book in the first person. Nothing else mattered. I consecrated the book to Christ. I consecrated myself and my work to Christ.” ( p. 309).
Rice informs us that her inspiration came in part from reading Paula Fredricksen’s much praised Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews and she resolved that she wanted to present the real Jewish Jesus, the Jesus enmeshed in the life of pious early Jews who debated things like ritual purity issues, and whose life cycle moved between family and providing for family and pilgrimages up to Jerusalem to strengthen their faith. Yet in some respects Rice’s Jesus is one that Fredricksen would not recognize, as Rice is perfectly clear in her portrayal of Jesus as both divine and human, and most definitely as the only begotten Son of God born of the virgin Mary. Jesus is a very unique and peculiar sort of early Jew as it turns out. The problem is-- as a child he doesn’t really much know it, or understand it. The novel is in essence about the mental journey Jesus makes over the course of a traumatic year which also involved much actual traveling (leaving Egypt, coming to Nazareth, visiting Jerusalem both before and after arriving in Nazareth) as he comes to realize who he is as he pieces together that the “Christmas story” is in fact all about him! One of the key texts, interestingly enough, which helped determine for Anne Rice how she would depict Jesus was the famous ‘kenosis’ text in Phil. 2.5-11—the text about the pre-existent one who stripped or emptied himself of his divine pre-rogatives in order to live fully as a human being. To Rice this in turn meant that Jesus as a child did not naturally think of himself as divine, though he learned early on that he had some specially powers of healing or harming. Jesus throughout this novel must learn his true identity from consulting his family, including his ‘brother’ James, and even an ancient rabbi in the Temple in Jerusalem, in order to piece together the story. Only once he has gotten most of the story in mind does his mother finally sit him down and help him fill in the gaps. Until then Mary and Joseph had told him not to think about or discuss such things. To my surprise, this sort of presentation of the divine incognito in so far as it affected Jesus’ own self-consciousness, turns out to be quite effective. Jesus is presented as precocious of course, and a deeply spiritual and emotional child as well. But Rice deliberately underplays the supernatural element in her attempt to show how the child Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature, and favor with God and humankind” as Luke put’s it in Lk. 2.52.
There are some historical curiosities to Rice’s presentation even though it is clear that she has read a lot of scholarly work in preparation for writing this novel, and equally clear that she relied in equal parts on conservative Catholic and Protestant scholars. The detailed reading she has done has not however altered her own Catholic belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary and this belief strongly colors her presentation of Mary throughout. To her credit however, Mary does not take center stage in this novel, in fact, she gets a bit less space than Joseph. It is a portrayal that most Protestants could embrace for the most part. The historical curiosities include the starting assumptions. The novel begins with Jesus still, at age seven, living in Alexandria with his parents, and once Herod dies they resolve to return at once to the Holy Land, going to Nazareth by way of Jerusalem. There are several problems here. Firstly, Herod died only a couple of years after Jesus’ birth, not seven years. Both Jesus’ birth, and Herod’s demise transpired before the turn of the common era. Secondly, the revolt described as part of what the Holy family experienced when they arrived in the Holy Land, was a revolt led by Judas the Galilean and others that actually transpired near the end of Herod Archelaeus’ reign in A.D. 6, not at the turn of the era when the Holy family would have come home. For example the sacking of Sepphoris surely took place well after the time the Holy family went to Nazareth. Mt. 2.21-23 is quite emphatic that they returned during the reign of Archaelaeus were afraid to go to Judea, and so instead went to Galilee. The text as it stands suggests that the Holy family never went to Judea during the reign of Archelaeus, but rather studiously avoided it. This being the case, neither the social tension and revolutionary potential in the novel nor the several trips up to Judea while Herod’s son reigns matches up with the Matthean account and the probable historical chronology of things. It is however interesting to see her portrayal of Jews living under occupation. At one juncture Joseph is speaking with his brother as they are living in Nazareth and says “In this house we are in the land of Israel” and after everyone laughed his brother says “Yes… and outside the door, it’s the Empire.” (p. 233). It is an effective way of revealing how Jews must have felt about the ambivalent situation .
Another of the historical curiosities is the attention Rice gives to the mixed-language milieu theory. In her view the Holy family spoke Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, Greek especially because of their extended stay in Egypt. But alas, nothing in the historical record suggests they did have such an extended stay in Egypt--- probably no more than a couple of years at the most. I do not doubt that Jesus and his family knew some Greek, they would have had to know some to do business in or near Sepphoris for work purposes. But it is doubtful that Jesus of Joseph studied TANAK in Greek, and of course the notion of Jesus studying with Philo in Alexandria as a 6-7 year old boy is a pleasant, but improbable conceit. We do not even know for sure if Alexandria is the specific locale that the Holy family stayed in while there, though it is quite possible.
Of course Protestants will find very odd the huge extended family image Rice conjures up in order to account for all the children under Mary and Joseph’s roof. James, on the one hand is said to be the son of Joseph by prior marriage (ala the Proto-Evangelium of James) and so Jesus older ‘brother’. But this of course means he has no blood-kinship with Jesus at all, which makes it especially odd that he should be called Jesus’ brother not only in this novel, but in the NT. The other children are said to be cousins, and Joseph’s family is depicted as involving Joseph’s and Mary’s brothers and their families, all living under one roof in Nazareth—something no text of the NT even remotely suggests. Rice decides to develop the “Joseph” motif as a way of explaining the dynamic between James and Jesus. By this I mean James is depicted as envious of Jesus and his messianic status, and knowing more about it than Jesus until the end of the story. He is also depicted as repenting and offering sacrifice for this sin of envy at the end of the story. How we get from this depiction to Jn. 7.4-5 is hard to imagine. Also interesting is the depiction of little Salome, Jesus’ favorite younger cousin with whom he resonants throughout the novel in a chaste and spiritual way. One thing is for sure--- modern day Gnostics will not be pleased with the earthiness, Jewishness, and ritual focus of this Jesus and this Holy family any more than ancient Gnostics were. Jesus is depicted as quite specifically the Jewish messiah, the fulfiller of the prophecies, not the dispenser of esoteric knowledge to the elite and elect everywhere.
There are many things to commend about this novel. It is not an easy thing to write from a child’s point of view, and on a lesser scale reading this is rather like reading Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury . Secondly, from that worldview, Jesus turns out to be a rather fearful and very emotional child—loving, but also needing love and support as children do. One wonders if the ‘fear factor’ is overplayed a bit, or perhaps that too is part of the divine incognito. Jesus in any case is clearly not all that comfortable with his divine powers, and it wears him out when he uses them. Jesus is also depicted as a visionary, who even encounters the Devil in his dreams, though this is not a major theme, and interestingly it is not mainly how Jesus comes to find out who he is.

We may be thankful that Rice does not depict the early life of Jesus as a bucolic and untroubled revery. And like any good writer, she leaves many questions unanswered making this an enjoyable odyssey of the mind of child Jesus, though provocative at points. Perhaps we may expect and look forward to further novels on this subject. If so, there is even less historical fodder for the period of Jesus’ life between the time he was 12 and in the temple and the time he was 30 and began his ministry. But considering the fact there is really nothing written about Jesus as seven prior to this novel, I doubt the paucity of historical data will slow Rice down, so fertile is her imagination.

Making Child's Play of the Movies

Two recent films which either involve or directly target children have been much ballyhooed, but in the case of one of them, Chicken Little, it is hard to see why. Chicken Little is yet another animated version of a classic story, only this time, for good measure the story of Chicken Little has been taken a further step--- by combining it with a plot line from ET, War of the Worlds, and even an old Star Trek episode ( "The Trouble with Tribbles"). There are the usual elements in this movie: 1) our hero is small, and not taken seriously after his "sky is falling" gaff. Even his father seems ashamed of him; 2) when the plot lacks punch bring in old rock and roll songs and pump up the volume; 3) let the underdog (and under-achieving) hero finally win something, and then 4) he is emboldened to save the world in the process. Oh yes, did I mention a budding romance between the ugly duckling and Chicken Little? Now this film, at least in its initial p.r. was advertized as classic Disney, and very funny. But in fact it lacks the sort of humour of films like Alladin and The Emperor's New Groove, not least because it lacks Robin Williams. This is hardly a new classic, and in fact the War of the World's scenes are probably too intense for small children. Disney has done much better than this in the past. There is finally, also some odd inconsistency to the appearance of the movie. Whereas as the main characters and much of the look seems three -D, parts of the background scenes however appear to be quite flat and non-descript. It is unfortunate.

Of a whole different order is "The Dreamer" a story set here in Lexington and Versailles Kentucky, and based to some degree on a true story, of a horse who broke and leg, and yet healed and came back to win a major race. Lest we write this sort of rags to riches script off as trite or too familiar (a female version of Seabiscuit?), this movie is carried by some very strong performances by Dakota Fanning (of 'Because of Winn Dixie' fame), Kurt Russell as her Dad the horse trainer, Kris Kristofferson as Kurt's father, and there are also nice lesser parts played by Elizabeth Shue and David Morse. This movie has the real pathos of a family struggling to survive financially and yet wanting to nurture their only child's dreams. It is beautifully filmed , and is certainly a movie any and all families should take their children to see. The inter-personal dynamics in the family seem real and are well developed, and the story line, while rather predictable is in the feel good category. There may not be a better film out there for families in the last several months of this year--- unless it is "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe".

Etan's Story

He met me there at the airport holding his yellow CBS bag. His English was faltering, and my modern Israeli Hebrew even less good, yet we immediately we made human contact. There was something poignant about him. He was young, almost a baby face, and yet there was a hardness to him despite his sweet smile. Though he enjoyed flirting with the CBS correspondent who was doing our interviews for the Christmas show, this seemed like bravado covering what was brooding beneath the surface. But what could it be? For a week Etan drove us around Israel, and we had fun together--- ate together, laughed together, worked hard together. And we enjoyed watching his vociferous arguments with his fellow Israeli Zohar, which were often much ado about nothing-- just for the heck of it.

But as the week wore on and we got to know Etan a bit a little bit of what was beneath the surface bubbled to the top. I should have recognized the signs before. Etan had pointed out where the tank museum was on the way into Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, but only later I figured out after getting beyond the jet lag that Etan had already served considerable time in the Israeli army--- and it had left a big mark, indeed I would say a scar on this young man. He was not bitter, but there was a sadness about him, and he had had to grow up much too fast.

You see Etan had seen the worst of the worst at Jenin. If you do not know your modern history of Israel you should look up the story of what happened there. Etan had fought at Jenin. Quietly, and with no vainglory at all, he told of the day that he was attacking a particular Palestinian house thought to harbor Hamas radicals. He had pulled out a grenade, and had pulled the pin almost entirely out when he remembered he had a duty to yell that there was an incoming explosive, in case there were innocents within who deserved a chance to get out of the way. He told me "but we had been fighting hard, and yet something made me put that pin back in the grenade and look inside the house first." Inside the house he found nothing but women and children who had been locked into the house by their own people so that they could claim the Israeli's had commited a horrible atrocity at Jenin. It made him physically sick, and yet he was so thankful that something had stopped him from throwing that grenade. I had no doubt that "something" was God. Then he asked--- what kind of people would do this to their own families in order to shame us before the world? It was a very good question and shows that the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been complex with evil and good on both sides.

Later when Etan had gathered himself, he said to me-- "I love my country and this is why I fight, but honestly, if someone would tell me there was a place for us Jews in the middle of a desert where everyone would leave us alone and no one else would claim the territory and we wouldn't have to hurt anyone by mistake, I would move there today. It is not about living on this piece of dirt for me. It is about shalom."

I was deeply moved by his testimony. He had grown up fast and hard as a teen in the Israeli army, and he had seen the worst that humanity can do, and yet there was still a little hopefulness left in him. The human spirit, created in God's image is resilient, and I am thankful that Etan listened to that still small voice on that crucial day in Jenin. He said "If I had not stopped and looked on that day, I would never have slept again." It's a hard thing to be a soldier with an actual conscience because all war is hell, and yet this story shows what a difference it can make in a case by case basis.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and pray for my new friend Etan.

Firefly/Serenity

Once in a while there is actually a TV series that is worth watching every episode of, and indeed watching them repeatedly. And wouldn't you know it, the network that aired it (FOX) canceled the show before it had even been on the air eight weeks. "Firefly" is a remarkably fun space western (the premise being that space is the final frontier, and it runs like life out on the old frontier) that is now available on DVD at a reasonable price, and due to the cult following of the show, it even managed to be made into a movie this fall, named after the spaceship itself--- Serenity.

Josh Whedon is the creator of this innovative drama and it is crammed full of interesting characters (a teen age psychic named River whose brain has been altered, or a macho gunman named Jayne!), and also interesting plot twists. One of the most interesting features of the series is that the crew of this ship includes a chaplain-- called Shepherd. He brings Bible ideas into the story, a storyline which already includes both pathos and humour as well as enough action to make it dramatic. One of the themes explored with some consistency is--- if the government of the universe is a renegade Alliance, then are fugitives and smugglers the real good guys here? The answer is in fact yes. Another theme explored is the role of women, particularly prostitutes in a frontier society. The soundtrack takes us back to the old west, but the old west was never as wild or wildly interesting as this show. Perhaps someday networks will recognize quality when they see it, and bother to put their p.r. behind quality programming. In the meantime we may be thankful that this show is available on DVD.

Journal from Jerusalem

For just over a week now I have been in Israel and Jordan, and am about to head to Egypt. Like various of my previous trips there have been the usual hassles and pleasant surprises. This trip has been different from my usual tours in that I a filming a Christmas special, The Mystery of Christmas for CBS, which involves filming in Jerusalem, Bethelehem, Capernaum, Nazareth, Petra and Egypt. We are dealing with both the Lukan and Matthean birth narratives, various scholarly views represented. The crew I am working with consists of Jews, Moslems and Christians and the team camraderie has been excellent.

It has been sad once again to hear about the plight of Palestinian Christians caught in the big squeeze between Jews and Moslems trying to marginalize them. Especially painful has been seeing the new huge concrete barriers around Bethlelem and elsewhere boxing in the Palestinians. As Robert Frost says--- something there is that doesn't love a wall. There have been some small rounds of terrorism by both Jews and Moslems while I have been here. It is a sad state of affairs, though all in all we are better off than in the days of Arafat and Netanyahu.

One of the things that most surprises and depresses me is the distorted way the news is reported in the U.S. Palestinian Christians and their plight are hardly ever mentioned. There is plenty enough blame to go around but today when I went to the St. George Cathedral in Jerusalem there was much prayer and attempt to heal the wounds. One person I especially enjoyed working with was Issa, a Palestinian Christian born in Bethlehem, who still lives under an old Jordanian passport (remembering that everything east of Jerusalem was Jordan until 1967). He was born in Bethlehem and has lived here all his life. Yet he is treated as if he were a foreigner or resident alien in his own home land. It is of course wrong, especially since this has been his family's home for many generations. But equally wrong is the terrorism sponsored by Hamas or Al Quaeda. As a Christian I can condone neither kind of ostracizing or violence.

I would urge you all to read more widely about the situation in Israel, and not take American news channels at their word. There is much propaganda and nonsense. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for some day we will all be accountable for what we did or failed to do when it comes to our fellow Christians in this land. They are for sure--- 'the least of these my brethren' when it comes to the worldwide Christian community.

FROM 'THE LEGEND' TO 'THE GOSPEL'

We are drawing near to the beginning of the American holiday season which seems to extend backwards into fall ever further as each year passes. The end result of this is that we begin to get the holiday season movies even at the end of October, all in the spirit of "only X more shopping days until Christmas". Two of the recently released movies "The Legend of Zorro" and "The Gospel" range from fluff to the right stuff, though both are interesting for different reasons.

"The Legend of Zorro" finds Antonio Banderas and Katherine Zeta-Jones reprising their roles as the dueling De la Vegas hiding the secret that Don Alejandro has all along been Zorro who is the vox populi not to mention the people's champ. The pleasant fiction this time around is that California is about to become a State (around 1851) but there are those who in fact don't want this to happen, indeed they don't want America to be United. Who are 'they'? I'm glad you asked, "they" are the Knights of Arragon (not to be confused with the Knights of Columbus), a secret society that have as their motto "Orbis Unum"--- one world (domination) as opposed to E Pluribus Unum.

Of course credulity is stretched to the breaking point when we finds this secret society from Europe safely enscounced California in its goldrush hey day, but then also we are led to believe that already in 1850 or so General Beauregard later of Confederate Army fame was already cutting deals with this gnarly secret society to buy the ultimate weapon (nitro-gylcerine made out of--- wait for it, melted down bars of glycerine soap!!!). If that were not enough the Spaniard cum Mexican Zorro becomes the rescuer of freedom, democracy and the U.S. union! What would Catherine of Arragon say!

Never mind that Catherine, we have another one to deal with, namely Zeta-Jones and she, like this movie in general is visually quite appealing. Unfortunately her attempt at an Hispanic accent leaves much to be desired, and she is seldom given lines that she can make much of--only occasionally the verbal sparring with Zorro becomes engaging. In fact it is the Padre who has the only good line of the movie when he confides to Banderas that he indulges in wine as his only vice so he can relate better with his parishoners---- yikes!!! "Forgive me Father for you are drunk."

But this is hardly all. We have the horse of Zorro smoking and drinking, the son of Zorro playing a part straight out of the Bad News Bears, and of course when the plot gets ever so thin we rev up the chase scene or the fighting to new decibel levels. It is amazing how many death blows both the good and bad guys can take before they breath their last. Never mind, Zorro has his one last day in the sun, is reconciled and remarried to his wife, and the world is safe for American democracy. Did I mention that the worst bad guy is a fundamentalist who thinks he is God's angel of death? On the stretching credulity meter this one stretches from here to eternity. It is hardly the stuff of legends.

Very different, though not Oscar caliber material either is 'The Gospel" the story of the prodigal son of an African American minister from Atlanta. It does not rely on action or on star power, but rather on story, and is all the better for it. Bishop Taylor is dying, and his son, the R+B star David Taylor is just about to become the new breakthrough star on the sleaze and tease R+B scene when he comes home to be reconciled with his father before he passes. The real star of this movie is the Gospel praise songs, sung with exuberance by a choir which apparently Kirk Franklin got together. What is interesting is that there is as much action in this movie as in the Zorro movie, only its people praising and dancing before the Lord in church that is electric, whereas Zorro ranges from predictable violence to equally predicable chase scenes. Two very different forms of action--- and the less harmful kind is actually far more engaging and moving, sometimes even reaching for real pathos when you listen to the words of "He is God" or "Our God is an Awesome God" sung by a juiced up choir. The preaching, alas, never reaches such heights. What is interesting about this movie is that it does not pander, and its final altar call scene is just fine.

These two movies present us with clergy of very different sorts. The padre who is the people's and Zorro's friend, but also a lush, and the bishop who neglects his son, while serving his flock, but is reconciled with the son in the end. These are flawed ministers, but only the ones in the second movie seem real. Kudos to Hollywood for being willing to tackle a movie about the African American Protestant church, and its having to compete with modern secular music ranging from jazz to hip hop to rap to R+B. It is a timely theme. Unfortunately Americans are more likely to go see the eye-candy movie, rather than the soul stirring one. What does that tell us about our culture?

Agrapha--- by Maria Mayo Robbins

I am very pleased to offer you a poem written by a doctoral student at Vanderbilt Divinity School whom I have had the pleasure of getting to know while teaching there from time to time.
-------------

Agrapha


I.

Peel back the layers of me,
I am stratified.
I am Mark, I am Special M, Special L.
I am Q.
I am red and black beads,
I am hazy grey and pink.
Touch me, I am words on a page.
I am redactions. I am parts.
I am the idea of a man.

I am waiting for the end of the world.
I am creating a new social order.
I am marginalized. I am privileged.
I am radical egalitarianism.
I am patriarchy.
I am academic words and original-language texts,
Aramaicisms and multiple attestations.
Why is the truth of me so heavy?
I am a tortured body, naked, hanging there.
What is heavy is my staggered breath,
the weight of my own body suffocating me,
the stares of those who watch me suffer and die.
I am the reports of the eyes that see me.
I breathe one last breath and then
I become a story.
I am dead already, but you ravage me.
Your scholarly sentences pierce my skin,
a grammar of spears.
My god, my god.

Peel back the layers of me, I am a fruit
you will never core.
I am scrolls, codices, best-sellers.
I am your prophet and your seer.
I am your profit and your livelihood.
I give your life meaning, yes, even you.
Artists cover my waist with
your strips of imagined cloth,
but you strip me,
reconstruct me,
excavate me.
I am two-thousand years exhumed,
and when will you let me decompose?
My god, my god.

Peel back the layers of me, I am gospel, story, narrative.
I am criteria of authenticity. I am social context.
I am the mysterious agendas of implied authors,
the attentive ears of implied audiences.
I am oral tradition.
Listen.
I hang lifeless on a cross.
You pierce me, and black beads spill out.
With my last breath, I become nothing but
black beads, black beads.
My god, my god.

I am your tower of Babel, the confusion
of your paragraphs and theses and tomes.
I tear up your academic temple,
overthrow your tables.
I am logos and logia.
I am the word become flesh, and the work
of your hands turns me back into words.
The church releases me like a dove,
and I soar. You catch me with strings of phrases,
and I drift slowly down, a spirit body, ethereal.
I am a wisp of smoke in your windless sky.
I am nothing but ideas and air.
You breathe me in, and somehow I sustain you.
My god, my god.


II.

But look, I am you, and I am unashamed.
I walked, I walked, and everywhere I went,
I tried to peel back layers.
I died, and I became the story of God.
Now you are the stewards of my details,
preservers of my name.
Peel back the layers of me, tell me who I am,
because I never knew.
I listen, I watch.
Into your hands, I commend my story.
I hope you unravel me, because my life
and my death are tangled and gnarled.
If I could, I too would peel back layers,
cut my own skin like a fisherman, and out would spill
the special letters of the alphabet that spell me
and spell you still.

Translate me out of this language I don’t
understand, tell me about my native tongue.
Could I read and write?
Tell me who they say I am.
Reveal me, scholars, teachers –
you shower me with divinity
with every book you bind.

Peel back the layers of me, I am waiting.
The parousia happens daily.
I come and come again with every class
you teach, every argument you construct,
every phrase you coin. You keep me alive.
The resurrection is the Jesus Seminar,
the unintentional cathedral and its
circle of high priests,
controversies and decisions and
the constant invocation of my name.
If I didn’t mean something then,
I know I mean something now.
You, in your academic temples,
cut carefully with your pens,
your dexterous fingers peel gingerly back
the thin thin layers
and there will always be more layers.
Show me how alive I am.
Stratify me.
Reconstruct me.
I am yours.




Maria Mayo Robbins
December 11, 2002

Chrysostom, Mother Teresa, and George Herbert on Prayer

Certainly for me, one of the most enriching things I have done in recent years is read large quantities of the greatest of the exegetes among the Greek Fathers---- John Chrysostom. I awoke this morning to this reading, which I thought was certainly worth sharing.

"For the psalmist says,'When I remembered you upon my bed, I thought upon you in the morning dawn.' We ought then to have God always in remembrance but then especially when thought is undisturbed and when by means of that remembrance one is able to concern himself, when one can retain things in memory. For in the daytime, indeed if we do remember, other cares and troubles, entering in, drive the thought out again; but in the night it is possible to remember continually, when the soul is calm and at rest; when it is in the harbor and under a serene sky. ...For it were indeed right to retain this remembrance through the day also. But inasmuch as you are always full of cares and distracted amidst the things of this life, at least then remember God on your bed. At the morning dawn mediatate on God. If at the morning dawn we meditate on these things, we will go forth to our business with much security. If we have first made God propitious by prayer and supplication, going forth in this fashion we shall have no enemy. Or if you should, you will laugh him to scorn, having God propitious. There is war in the marketplace; the affairs of every day are a fight, they are a tempest and a storm. We therefore need arms, and prayer is a great weapon. We need favorable winds; we need to learn everything, so as to go through the length of the day without shipwrecks and without wounds. For every single day the rocks are many, and oftentimes the boat strikes rock and is sunk. Therefore, we have especial need of prayer early and by night." (Homily on Hebrews 14.9).


Mother Theresa in crossing the border into Israel on one occasion was stopped by the guards and asked "Have you any weapons?" The question seemed superfluous and even ridiculous when one looked at this diminutive nun in her habit. She replied defiantly looing the guard right in the eye: "Yes," she said, "I have my prayer books."

PRAYER (I)

Prayer the Church's banquet, angel's age,
God's breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, the heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth;
Engine against the Almighty, sinner's tower,
Reversed thunder, Christ's side-piercing spear,
The six-days' world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness and peace, and joy and love, and bliss,
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well dressed,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood
The land of spices; something understood."

George Herbert

Thought for the Day--- A SAINT AIN'T

One theologian has wryly defined a saint as a religious figure from hoary antiquity whose life has been insufficiently researched! In short, a saint ain't.

"For we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God....."

Food for Thought

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely
100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same,
it would look something like the following:

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6
would be from the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing

50 would suffer from malnutrition

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are
more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness
of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation,
you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof
overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 70% of this
world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a
dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF 'ROBOTS','BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE','OLIVER TWIST', AND THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED'

Finding good and wholesome family entertainment in this day and age is like searching for the holy grail sometimes. We keep hoping it is out there somewhere, but it is ever so hard to find. Two exceptions to this rule can be found in two movies recently released on DVD--- 'Because of Winn Dixie' and 'Robots', the former a child and her dog movie the latter an animated feature which derives its zing from the ultimate zing master---- Robin Williams. Rather than reviewing and ruining the plot for those who have not seen them, it will be best if I just talk about the elements that make these stories work. Suffice it to say that these movies are user friendly for Christians.

In the case of 'Because of Winn Dixie' the cute factor is prominent--- both the little girl and her dog are hard not to love. But the story actually has some poignancy because, amazingly enough, we have a positive portrayal of a minister struggling to be a good single parent, effectly portrayed by Jeff Daniels. It is a relief not to see a Protestant minister caricatured by Hollywood, and it is equally helpful that we see that this minister has weaknesses, that are not moral in nature (contrast 'the Apostle'). This movie not only shows the challenges of being a single parent, but also the particular challenges this presents for someone trying to start a fledgling church in a small community. Yet it is clear that the daughter is trying hard to win her father's affection, and her father needs to do a better job of paying attention. Especially poignant is the attempt to explain to the daughter why 'Mom' left them, and the minister's struggle with guilt, feeling responsible for this tragedy. It is a typical blue color tale of true grit against considerable odds and it raises the question---- could our church embrace and support a minister like this?

'Robots', is a different sort of family tale, and here as well the family is a blue color one. Here we have two parents, and the father is a dishwasher--- I mean this literally (dishes wash inside the father!). The son in the family is a dreamer or inventor (kind of like his dad), supported with a lot of love and encouragement by his parents, as he sets out to make his way in the world. There is an antithesis to this family in the family of 'Rachet'who though he has highjacked a major corporation and is running it, is dominated by an enormously overbearing mother (who has quite literally strung up her husband from the rafters). The good son is contrasted with the bad son, and the normal family is both exalted and presented in a positive light. All of this may be missed since of course this movie has the ultimate scene stealer in it--- a robot with the voice of Robin Williams, who is hysterical as usual.

If we ask what these movies may be teaching our children, and the parents who view these movies with them, it is that family is a good thing, that hard work is a good thing, and that good can indeed triumph over obstacles, perhaps even over evil. But there is another theme in 'Robots' worth pondering--- a sentimental one, namely that the new and improved may not be the true and worth having. 'Upgrades' are the wave of the future, replacing ordinary parts in this movie. But the hero with his ingenuity finds a way to make old parts continue to work. This is only appropriate since this movie, like 'Because of Winn Dixie' finds a way to make old family values work as well--- and for this ordinary Christian viewers can only say--- 'Thank goodness, what a refreshing change of pace'.

By far the best of the recent 'family' movies is Roman Polanski's production of Charles Dicken's 'Oliver Twist'. Christian viewers will know the work of Dickens perhaps through his Christmas story, with such memorable characters as Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim, or perhaps through his own Victorian retelling of the life of Christ, but the Dicken's works which made the most impact in their own day were his novels, and one of the best of these is Oliver Twist. Like Rembrandt, Dickens loves to sharply contrast darkness and light, and this romantic tale is no different, where we have an orphan who escapes from a child's labor mill and walks to London to make a new life where, like the man in the Good Samaritan, "he falls among thieves", and is taught the trade of artful 'dodging' not to mention thievery. The movie does an excellent job of painting the grim side of lower class life in Victorian England, and the stark contrast between the rich and the poor. It also does an excellent job of skewering hypocritical so-calld Christians who sell children down the river to the labor mills.

There are Oscar worthy performances in this movie by both Ben Kingsley (amazing and unrecognizable as Fagin) and Edward Hardwicke (Watson in Sherlocke Holmes) as the gentleman who comes to Oliver Twist's rescue. But the central character is of course Oliver Twist himself, played by an unknown who is nothing short of briliant. Dickens, true to the romanticism of his day, paints children as basically innocent, but subject to influence, whether bad or good, and in fact there are some profound and deeply redeeming features in Oliver Twist as the scene of forgiveness at the end of the movie makes so very clear.

This is an excellent movie to view with school age children if you want to have conversations with them about wealth and poverty and the Christian responsibility towards those less fortunate. It also shows so very clearly the fallenness of humankind, and man's inhumanity to his or her fellow human beings.

But even at the heart of darkness there are moments of grace and persons of goodwill, and this movie portrays these facts admirably. In my book this may be the movie of the year it is so compellingly filmed and acted, though unfortunately one has a Dickens of a time finding it, since it is in limited release. This is a movie worth seeing and savoring, and buying and watching again and again, not because it makes you feel good, but because it makes you wrestle with the call of Jesus when he said "imasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me...." The gist of the tale is the Twist in the tale, and he bears close watching indeed.

I was in the theater and the kids were everywhere. It is an unusual day when parents take their small children to see a movie about golf, but such is the case with the much praised "The Greatest Game Ever Played". The story is the improbable one of a very young American amateur Francis Ouimet who just happens to caddy on the course in Massachusetts where the 1913 U.S. Open is held. Even more improbably, he is asked by the club to play in the Open (that's why they call it an open, even amateurs, even rank amateurs can play--- as long as their play isn't rank). Still more improbably he finds himself in a fight to the finish to win the open against the greatest golfer of the age Harry Vardon. But however improbable this story may sound to you, and whatever your suspicions about Walt Disney, this actually is a true and amazing story, and it is well told and beautifully filmed.

The actors, though largely unknown, do a splendid job, the recreation of the period is excellent, right down to the whole British and American upper class prejudice issue, and there is plenty of comic relief from Eddie the diminutive caddy of Francis Ouimet. The story raises some interesting issues about the keeping of promises to one's parents (Ouimet played in the tourney though he had earlier promised his father to give up golf and get a real job that paid), and it also plows the well worn furrow of the parent child relationship and whether parents should always support their children's dreams, however unrealistic or apparently unrealizable. The message seems to be--- "don't let the world or your parents force you to give up your dreams". There is some poignancy in the story telling in regard to this theme. In a sense this movie raises the same kind of questions about dreams that the famous play by L. Hansberry "A Raisin in the Sun" raised. Is it really true that growing up or becoming mature= giving up one's childhood dreams? Is it true all of the time, or only some of time? This movie is so very different from those about driven parents who try to reach their own goals in life by pushing their children in various directions. Here Francis is the one with the passion for the game, and his father seems all too ready to dash his dreams and hopes, having himself been forced into the world's mold. As Christian persons and parents perhaps it will be well to remember the Biblical stories about dreamers who made good--- ranging from a Joseph to a Daniel to a Peter or a Paul. Perhaps dreams are the stuff of which real meaningful life can be made and molded, for as Acts 2 says the age of Pentecost is the age when young and old will dream dreams, inspired by God.

Opus Magnum

Weary, worn, welts on hand
Work has whittled down the man
To the bare necessities
Of what he is, and what he’ll be
Was this then his destiny?

Defined, refined by what we do,
The toilsome tasks are never through
Thorn and thistle, dirt and dust
Sweeping clean, removing rust
All to earn his upper crust?

Sweat of brow, and carried weight
Rose too early, slept too late
Slaving, striving dawn to dusk
Til the shell is barely husk
Staunch the stench with smell of musk?

But work is not the curse or cure
By which we’re healed, or will endure
It will not save us in the end,
It is no foe, but rather friend
But while it molds us will we mend?

Task Master making all things new
Who makes the most of what we do,
Let our work an offering be
A timely gift from those set free
From earning our eternity.

When work is mission on the move
By those whose efforts serve to prove
That nothing’s wasted in God’s hands
When we respond to his commands
Then we shall hear him say “well done”
To those who worked under the Son.

Oct. 4, 2005

BW3

Tis a Gift to be Simple-- the story of Kevin

A friend of 30 plus years sent this to me. I thought you would want to see it. It raises the question--- what is normal in God's eyes, and what is a handicap in God's eyes?


GOD LIVES UNDER THE BED

Don't start reading this one until you've got more than 3 or
4 minutes to just "scan" over it. It deserves some time for
reflection.

I envy Kevin. My brother Kevin thinks God lives under his
bed. At least that's what I heard him say one night.

He was praying out loud in his dark bedroom, and I stopped
to listen,


"Are you there, God?" he said. "Where are you? Oh, I see.
Under the bed..."


I giggled softly and tiptoed off to my own room. Kevin's
unique perspectives are often a source of amusement. But
that night something else lingered long after the humor. I
realized for the first time the very different world Kevin
lives in.

He was born 30 years ago, mentally disabled as a result of
difficulties during labor. Apart from his size (he's
6-foot-2), there are few ways in which he is an adult.

He reasons and communicates with the capabilities of a
7-year-old, and he always will.
He will probably always believe that God lives under his bed,
that Santa Claus is the one who fills the space under our
tree every Christmas and that airplanes stay up in the sky
because angels carry them.

I remember wondering if Kevin realizes he is different.

Is he ever dissatisfied with his monotonous life?

Up before dawn each day, off to work at a workshop for the
disabled, home to walk our cocker spaniel, return to eat his
favorite macaroni-and-cheese for dinner, and later to bed.

The only variation in the entire scheme is laundry, when he
hovers excitedly over the washing machine like a mother with
her newborn child.

He does not seem dissatisfied.

He lopes out to the bus every morning at 7:05, eager for a
day of simple work.

He wrings his hands excitedly while the water boils on the
stove before dinner, and he stays up late twice a week to
gather our dirty laundry for his next day's laundry chores.

And Saturdays-oh, the bliss of Saturdays!
That's the day my Dad takes Kevin to the airport to have a
soft drink, watch the planes land, and speculate loudly on
the destination of each passenger inside.

"That one's goin' to Chi-car-go!" Kevin shouts as he claps
his hands.

His anticipation is so great he can hardly sleep on Friday
nights.

And so goes his world of daily rituals and weekend field
trips.

He doesn't know what it means to be discontent.

His life is simple.


He will never know the entanglements of wealth of power, and
he does not care what brand of clothing he wears or what kind of food he eats.
His needs have always been met, and he never worries that
one day they may not be.

His hands are diligent. Kevin is never so happy as when he
is working. When he unloads the dishwasher or vacuums the
carpet, his heart is completely in it.

He does not shrink from a job when it is begun, and he does
not leave a job until it is finished.
But when his tasks are done, Kevin knows how to relax.

He is not obsessed with his work or the work of others. His
heart is pure.

He still believes everyone tells the truth, promises must be
kept, and when you are wrong, you apologize instead of
argue.

Free from pride and unconcerned with appearances, Kevin is
not afraid to cry when he is hurt, angry or sorry.
He is always transparent, always sincere. And he trusts
God.

Not confined by intellectual reasoning, when he comes to
Christ, he comes as a child. Kevin seems to know God - to
really be friends with Him in a way that is difficult for an
"educated" person to grasp. God seems like his closest
companion.


In my moments of doubt and frustrations with my Christianity
I envy the security Kevin has in his simple faith.

It is then that I am most willing to admit that he has some
divine knowledge that rises above my mortal questions.

It is then I realize that perhaps he is not the one with the
handicap . . I am.
My obligations, my fear, my pride, my circumstances - they
all become disabilities when I do not trust them to God's
care.

Who knows if Kevin comprehends things I can never learn?
After all, he has spent his whole life in that kind of
innocence, praying after dark and soaking up the goodness
and love of God.
And one day, when the mysteries of heaven are opened, and we
are all amazed at how close God really is to our hearts,
I'll realize that God heard the simple prayers of a boy who
believed that God lived under his bed.

Kevin won't be surprised at all!
When you receive this, say a prayer. That's all you have to
do. There is nothing attached. This is powerful.



FRIENDS ARE ANGELS WHO LIFT US TO OUR FEET WHEN OUR WINGS
HAVE TROUBLE REMEMBERING HOW TO FLY

Jesus and Paul on Singleness,Marriage, and Divorce

Without question, of all the lectures I give, the one the prompts the most questions, sometimes even an avalanche of questions is my lecture on what Jesus and Paul actually say about singleness, marriage, and divorce. Obviously this is a sensitive subject since the church in our age, like the world,is experiencing so much brokenness, and pastors are desperately seeking guidance, handholds, wisdom to help them deal with the daily traumas of their flocks. Precisely because of this, I have been increasingly disturbed by what passes for exegesis of the key NT texts, even by those who profess to have a high view of Scripture and its relevance on these dicey subjects. Accordingly, I have decided to summarize a few of the insights that are already in print in my Women in the Ministry of Jesus, and Women in the Earliest Churches monographs I did lo these many years ago for Cambridge U. Press. The following is only some highlights.

The first point to make is that there is a rather broad range of agreement between what Jesus and Paul both say on these inter-related subjects. The essence of their views are as follows: 1) the eschatological age is now breaking into human history and with it God's final divine saving activity in and through Jesus; 2) this being the case what had been said before on the matters of marriage, divorce, and singleness is no longer adequate, since it was not addressed to the current salvation historical frame of reference. In short, new occasions teach new duties, and to those to whom more is given (by way of grace and divine help) more is required. In essence, both Jesus and Paul up the ante on fidelity and restrictions compared to what is mentioned in the OT about marriage and divorce. In fact Jesus even says that Moses made those rules due to the hardness of the human heart, but that that factor will no longer be taken into consideration now that the Kingdom is coming.

2) Jesus, followed by Paul, are perfectly clear that in light of the eschatological situation, it is no longer required, even of Jews, that they marry. The creation order mandate--- "be fruitful and multiple" (and the obligation to marry that goes with it) must now be seen as a blessed option, not an obligation for all of God's people. Now instead, as Paul puts it both getting married or remaining single need to be seen as a calling from God. One has to have the 'charisma' the grace gift, to properly undertake either state of being (see 1 Cor. 7), and there is a certain advantage to remaining single for the sake of the Kingdom, namely one has less earthly worries and anxieties about spouses, children, supporting them, and the like. The goodness of being single is emphasized, and Jesus' teaching about being a 'eunuch' for the sake of the Kingdom' becomes paradigmatic for many, as well as a justification for why he remained single (no, there was no Mrs. Jesus-- see my Gospel Code book).

This is a key point for the church today. Until we recover the proper teaching about singleness, and its goodness in Christ, and stop pressuring anyone and everyone in the church to get married, we have no business pontificating about marriage and its blessings. Too often, single persons in the church are simply viewed as 'candidates for dating and marriage' (never mind that the Bible says nothing at all about dating, or late Western notions about romance and courting). This is a trainwreck waiting to happen, and the result is many persons are pressured into marriage who are neither ready, nor have the grace gift to be in a marriage relationship. This in turn leads to numerous divorces-- and the endless cycle of matrimony, acrimony, and alimony receives another push.

I would especially remind one and all that we live in the most litigous age and litigous society on earth, and when you add to this the strong sense of self-justification and entitlement attitudes our narcissistic culture encourages, it is a recipe for endless strife and trouble to carelessly get married without the proper spiritual maturity and commitment on the part of both parties. The church does not exist for the sake of creating nuclear families. The primary family is the family of faith according to Jesus, and the nuclear family is to fit its agendas into those of the family of faith, not the other way around. A family church should be one that is a family to all who are present, single or married, not one that is merely an incubator for nuclear families.

3) Not all persons who get married in the church building have been "joined together by God". Think about it. In the first century A.D. when Jesus and Paul were speaking there were no church buildings, there were no certificates of marriage that were just like modern ones, and weddings, at least in early Judaism, did not require ordained rabbis to solemnize them. What then made a marriage a Biblical marriage if it wasn't the officiants, the piece of paper, or the locale where it transpired? The answer is that God led two people to be together, they made vows and promises in the presence of God and human witnesses and they agreed to 'plight their troth' to one another. That's it.

In fact, I would stress that a lot of Christian persons have raced into marriage ceremonies without really seeking out the spiritual basis for what they are doing, without really asking, Is God leading us together? Even Christians are capable of coupling themselves together, just as non-Christians do, without the permission, guidance, or blessing of God. If God has not joined them together, or if they are not prepared to submit their relationship to God after the fact and beseech God so he will indeed join and bless their togetherness, then they do not meet either the pre-requisites for what Jesus and Paul say about marriage, or the pre-requisites for what they say about divorce.

Christian marriage is a high and holy state. It is also a temporal relationship that does not continue into eternity but was given as an earthly blessing (see e.g. Rom. 7.1-4). We need to rethink just what counts as a Christian marriage, and what the criteria are for evaluating whether God has joined two persons together or not. Does the relationship manifest the fruit of the Spirit, for example, both before and after the marriage ceremony, or is it the hormones on overdrive that are dictating the dance? These questions need to be asked, and the answers may become uncomfortable. This is why no Christian marriage ceremonies should be performed without considerable pre-marital counseling first. The church ought not to be a broker for hatching, matching, and dispatching (baptisms, marriages, and funerals).

4) The essential position of both Jesus and Paul can be summarized as "celibacy in singleness and fidelity in marriage". Jesus talks about being a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom (Mt. 19. 10-12) and Paul urges his audience to remain as he is--- single (1 Cor. 7), because they believe that by the grace of God it is possible to live in such a chaste condition, and be pleasing to God. In their view, no single person, of whatever sexual orientation should be engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage, which in the Bible is always defined as heterosexual monogamy. Of course Jesus is perfectly aware of the infidelities of the human heart, but he also believes that "greater is he who is in the believer than any of those forces in the world".

5) As 1 Cor. 7 makes evident, religiously mixed marriages in which only one partner is a Christian, are not viewed in the same way as Christian marriages. In regard to the mixed marriage Paul's wisdom is that if the unbeliever desires to depart, the believer is not 'bound' to maintain the relationship, though they may do so. The word for 'bound' here is the same word used for the marital bond. Apparently, Paul does not think non-Christian marriages come with a necessary 'until death do us part' clause. He says nothing about remarriage of divorced persons, but he does say that widows may remarry "only in the Lord".

6) the famous exception clauses in Mt. 5.32 and Mt. 19.9 do not refer to adultery, or as we euphemistically call it 'marital infidelity' The word 'porneia' there from which we get the term pornography, refers to either: 1) prostitution; 2) incest, or if it is used more generally 3) all sorts of sexual abberations including beastiality, incest, prostitution, pedophilia, and adultery. My point is this. The word for adultery is 'moixeia' and it is found already in the same context in Mt. 5.27. 'Porneia' is a different word with a different range of meaning, and it is never used to mean adultery quite specifically.

It is indeed possible that in Mt. 19 Jesus is commenting on the incestuous relationships like that of Herod Antipas and Herodias, which his cousin John 'lost his head' over for criticizing. In other words, the exception clause in its original context may mean "except on grounds of a marriage that wasn't a real marriage to begin with-- an incestuous one."

As should be clear from both Mk. 10 and 1 Cor. 7.10-11, Jesus' essential view is no divorce for those joined together by God. Of course Jesus also knows that divorces happen, which is why he warns "let no third party put asunder what God has joined together". The advice of both Jesus and Paul is that remarriage of a person whom God has joined to another can even be called commiting adultery against that first partner. It is not advised, except perhaps in the case of religously mixed marriages or those cases where both partners had been pagans or non-Christians to begin with. Neither Jesus nor Paul have anything to say about marriage completely outside the covenant community of believers.

This is more than enough to absorb from one blog, but I want to stress that these are inter-related matters-- one's views of human sexuality and what God intended for that, one's view of marriage, ones view of singleness, one's view of divorce.

As a footnote I would add that the usually passages trotted out from the Pastoral Epistles about being "the husband of one wife" (or as the Greek puts it "being a one woman man") do not refer either to a requirement for an elder or deacon to be married, nor do they refer to a requirment that they only have been married once, nor to a polemic against polygamy. This pithy phrases refers simply to the elder or deacon (who are assumed to be married already, but not required to be so) being faithful to their one and only spouse.

Tour Time-- The Trip of a Lifetime, June 2006

Just a brief announcement to let you know that once again I will be leading a tour to two of the Lands of the Bible on behalf of Asbury Seminary. We will be spending a week in Israel and a week in Turkey between June 19th-July 3rd 2006. Inasmuch as we will have only limited seating (we will all be together in one large bus) we have only 50 spots for this tour. This will not be a cosmetic 'shopping' tour, though of course there will be time to get some souvenirs and Christmas presents. We will be visiting various of the major Christian and archaeological sites and I will be lecturing on the sites-- this includes Jerusalem, Bethelem, Nazareth, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Qumran, Masada, Ephesus, Pergamon, Sardis, Laodicea, Colossae, Istanbul and many other sites. Furthermore we will be on pilgrimage, as this is intended to be a spiritually formative journey. If any of you out there in the blogosphere are interesting in going, my advice would be to sign up now by contacting Ms. Tammy Cessna at the seminary at Tammy_Cessna@asburyseminary.edu.

A good and blessed time will be had by all.

The Christian's Duty to the Poor

What follows here is a quotation of a part of a sermon that John Chrysostom, perhaps the greatest preacher of the early church gave on a portion of Hebrews and Mt. 5.2.

"'Give to him who begs from you and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.' Stretch out your hand; let it not be closed up. We have not been constituted examiners into others' lives, for then we should have compassion on no one. When you call upon Gold, why do you say, 'Remember not my sins?' So, even if that person is a great sinner, make this allowance in his case also, and do not remember his sins. It is a season of kindness, not of strict enquiry; of mercy, not of account" Err on the side of compassion, not caution.

"The frost is hard, and the poor man is cast out in rags, well-nigh dead, with his teeth chattering. Both by his looks and his air you should be moved. And yet, you pass by, warm and full of drink. How do you expect that God should deliver you when in misfortune? And often you will say to yourself, 'If I had found one that had done many wrong things, I would have forgiven him, so won't God forgive me?' Do not say this. You neglect the one who has done you no wrong, yet you would be able to help. How will he forgive you when you are sinning against him?"

"And it does not even stop here. Immediately accusations are brought against the suppliant. For why does he not work, you say? And why is he to be maintained in idleness? But, tell me, is it by working that you have what you have? Did you not receive it as an inheritance from your fathers? And even if you work, is this a reason why you should reproach another? Do you not hear what Paul says? For after saying 'If anyone will not work, let him not eat,' he says 'Do not be weary in well doing.' But what do they say? He is an impostor. What do you say, o man? Do you call him an impostor for the sake of a single loaf of bread or a garment? But you say, 'He will sell it immediately.' And do you manage all your affairs well? But what? Are all poor through idleness? Is no one so from calamity or shipwreck? None from lawsuits? None from being robbed? None from dangers? None from illness? None from other difficulties? If however we hear anyone bewailing such evils and crying out loud and looking up naked toward heaven, with long hair and clad in rags, at once we call him 'The impostor! That deceiver! The swindler!' Are you not ashamed? Whom do you call impostor? Do you accuse the man or give him a hard time? But you say 'he has means and pretends'. This is a charge against yourself, not against him. He knows he has to deal with the cruel, with wild beasts rather than rational persons. He knows that even if he tells his pitable story, no one pays any attention. And on this account he is forced to assume an even more miserable guise, that he may melt your heart. If we see a person coming to beg in a respectable dress, 'This is an impostor' you say, 'and he comes in this way that he may be supposed to be of good birth.' If we see one in the contrary apparel, we reproach him too. What then are they to do. Oh the cruelty, oh the inhumanity! And why, you say, 'do they expose their maimed limbs?' Do you not see it is because of you? If we were truly compassionate, they would have no need of these artifices. If they persuaded us at the first appeal, they would not have contrived thesed devices. Who is there so wretched as to be willing to behave in an unseemly way, as to be willing to make public lamentations, with his wife destitute of clothing, with his children, to sprinkle ashes on himself? How much worse than poverty are these things?" Surely the lose of all personal dignity is more humilitating than poverty.

John Chrysostom-- Homily on Hebrews 11.7-9.