How about a little fun today with collective nouns?
Some collective nouns are just odd: a husk of jackrabbits, a knot of toads. But the best ones combine the idea of plurality with some characteristic of the species: A wake of buzzards, a parliament of owls, or (my favorite) a lounge of lizards.
But why should the animal world have all the fun here? Could we not also think of some collective nouns for people or groups in the Bible? Here are a few starters.
A pride of Pharisees
A sea of Egyptians
A lesion of lepers
A dirge of prophets
A scribbling of scribes
A confusion of concubines
We can do the same thing to today’s religious groups
A chorus of charismatics
A sprinkling of Methodists
A potluck of Presbyterians
A mass of Catholics
A river of Baptists
A porch-full of Mormons
A smashing of Luddites
A bank of tele-evangelists
A list of legalists
A pestilence of prosperity preachers
A mall of mega-churches
Or even groups from our own church
A hush of ushers
A tyranny of toddlers
A tangle of teenagers
A babble of babies
A diarrhea of diapers
A caravan of minivans
Okay, your turn.
Comment your suggestions in one of the three categories above.
Remember, they should combine the notion of plurality with some characteristic of the group.
Bonus points if they begin with the same letter. Major demerits if you get mean-spirited.
It’s all yours, our rumpus of readers, our posse of pundits, our clash of commenters. Have some fun!
I have been hanging around Internet Monk for about thirteen years now, and writing for it for almost as long.
This has been a journey for me, and part of the at journey has been a movement away from Evangelicalism. Like many of our readers, it has been a journey into a “Post-Evangelical Wilderness.”
There is, I realize, a difference between being evangelical (the witness) and being Evangelical (the movement), and it is the latter that I want to discuss.
In a future post I would like to detail how in some senses I am no longer an Evangelical, but in other ways I still am. What I would like to discuss today, is how do we define the term Evangelical? Most of the definitions I have read are wholly unsatisfactory.
What are the traits of an Evangelical? How is it differentiated from the term Christian? If you were drawing a series of Venn diagrams, what intersection would you see? What beliefs would put you outside Evangelicalism but still leave you inside Christianity? Are there certain beliefs that maybe don’t define Evangelical, but if you are outside on enough of them you won’t feel comfortable inside an Evangelical church? Are there practices that most or all Evangelicals have in common?
Give me as much as you can. Think as widely as you can. Challenge or affirm each other’s statements as much as you can. I really want to flesh out the term Evangelical here.
There are some guidelines that I want to put into place.
1. No bashing of Evangelicals or their beliefs or practices. This is to be a learning exercise for me and for anyone else reading this.
2. No snark or sarcasm. If you have a point to make, make it clearly and plainly.
3. Avoid going down political rabbit holes. Again, if you think there is a political connection you can make it, but keep to the topic please.
I will be following up in another post by coalescing your comments and discussing how I fit or no longer fit the mold.
There is an unpremeditated, inherent, intuitive character about faith. Faith is like a spontaneous reflex, which responds in certain ways to certain stimuli. It is the nature of faith to see things from particular perspectives, to act in specific ways. And someone without faith does likewise, responding to life instinctively from that lack of faith.
The sun shines. Apple trees produce apples. Everything in creation acts according to its nature, and there is this same organic, naturally expressive character with faith or lack of faith. Last week we learned the verse, “The only thing that matters is faith working through love,” from Galatians 5:6. Paul is not saying there, OK, you have faith, now you have to add love to it. No, he is saying is if you have faith it will naturally and normally work itself out in acts of genuine love toward others. Faith works through love. That is the very nature of faith. That is what faith is made of. That’s what faith is, that’s what faith does. As Martin Luther put it: Faith “is a living, creative, active and powerful thing. …Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. …it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire!”
ALMIGHTY God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us, and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all, for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we shew forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.
• Book of Common Prayer, 1662
Today, I’m grateful for…
Tuscany Sunset (2019)
The endlessly creative works of our Creator God…
for creating the heavens and earth; all that is,
for making a good world and filling it with goodness,
for skies and seas and land, and the creatures that fill them,
for our own part in creation as creatures made in God’s image, blessed and called to be his representatives,
that all creation testifies to God’s glory, beauty, creativity, and concern for his creatures,
for fresh air and clean water, and the ability of nature to renew itself
for fertile soil and the earth’s abundant yield,
for creatures that delight us, amaze us, and help us in our human lives,
for stars and galaxies, for space that expands our minds and hearts, and lifts our eyes to the heavens,
for complex worlds too small to see or comprehend,
for mountains that send our spirits soaring, and flatlands that stretch our hopes beyond the horizons,
for cycles of seasons that form our expectations and heighten our anticipations,
for those who study the natural world and give us some small sense of its wonders and blessings.
Lord, we echo the psalmist: “How manifold your works!” We could never name them all, much less understand and describe them. And yet we thank you for giving us the curiosity and hunger to grasp the magnificence of your creation and how we may live within it more fully.
•
The Cratchit’s Christmas Dinner. (After a drawing by Edwin Austin Abbey)
For one of God’s best ideas: family…
for our family heritage, and those who passed on not only their genes, but also their stories and wisdom to us,
for our elders who are still present to provide perspective for our lives,
for our parents, out of whose love we gained life,
for our brothers and sisters, with whom we learned to live life,
for our extended family members, some of whom we know well and others who may still be strangers to us — and yet we bear a common name and heritage,
for our children, who bear our image, for whom we dream and long and pray that their lives may be blessed and established in God’s love and truth,
for our grandchildren, the gifts of our older years,
for adopted children, and the families that have welcomed them,
for family members who have had challenging and sometimes sad journeys through life, and the opportunities you have given us to serve them,
for family members who have gone before us into God’s presence, who we miss and continually commit to God’s care,
for the way God has been our Shepherd and our Refuge in every generation and will remain faithful until we all are gathered home at last.
In the midst of our thanks, Lord, we would remember those for whom the word “family” brings pain. We pray for those who dwell in unhappy homes, whose marriages have broken, who have suffered various forms of abuse, for children who have been neglected and unloved, for couples who long for children to nurture and yet cannot conceive, for those who must deal with physical, psychological, or social brokenness every day, for young people who cannot find their way, for adults tempted to go astray and abandon their family duties, for the widows and orphans, for those whose cupboards are bare and prospects dim, for those who homes know little of love, joy, and peace, but only anger and conflict.
We, who are members of your forever family ask that you would show us how to minister to the hurting in these precious households.
Father, from whom every household in heaven and on earth derives its name, we lift our thanks and prayers to you. Amen.
•
Village in Lavaux (2019)
For life itself, in all its mysterious wonder…
Here and now, at the closing of the year, amidst the abundance of harvest, Lord, we give you thanks…
for all we have experienced,
for all we have learned,
for all the times we’ve fallen and gotten back up,
for seasons of health and vitality, and for your presence with us in our sick beds,
for all the people we have met and who have welcomed us into their lives,
for all the music that has evoked deep feelings in our hearts,
for the moments our stomachs hurt from laughing so hard,
for the little epiphanies and surprises that made us smile,
for the memories of those who’ve gone before us and laid the foundations for our lives,
for seasons when we wept and wondered at God’s absence
for creation’s endless capacity for eliciting wonder in our hearts and minds,
for those who spoke honestly to us, even when they had to say hard words of warning or rebuke,
for each breath, each heartbeat, each step,
for strength to serve others and bring some benefit to their lives,
for our families and those dearest to us, in whose bonds we find our identity and place in the world
for seasons of plenty to make us glad, and seasons of want to make us trust,
for the communities and nations of the world in which we live and find order for our lives,
for the happy fellowship of friends and times of solitude,
for the moments of silence and refreshment — for sabbath.
Above all, we thank you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that in you we live and move and have our being.
With deepest gratitude, we thank you for the gift of life, the possibilities of new life, and the sure and certain hope of eternal life in Christ.
We thank you for our baptism and for death to the old life and resurrection into newness of life. We thank you for the Church, the family of God, who despite all her schisms, heresies, and failures, will be our family forever.
We thank you for the Word of God through which you speak Christ to us, and the Table at which you feed us with Christ.
We thank you for the gift of your Spirit who empowers us for new obedience. We thank you for calling us to our various vocations through which we may give your love to our neighbors and to the world.
We thank you for our neighbors, and even for our enemies, because they give us opportunity to extend your grace, hospitality, and love, and they often teach us better than our own religious practices.
We thank you for all the resources you have entrusted to our care, and for providing ways of learning and serving that we may discharge our trust.
This was a favourite of mine from February 2014. All the original comments were lost. So we have a chance to have a brand new disussion.
I have been having a wonderful experience leading a small group through the Sermon on the Mount. We got side tracked a couple of weeks ago when we started talking about how we interpret the Bible, and so we spent one evening going through Michael Patton’s Biblical Interpretation in a Nutshell.
In short, Michael Patton shows how the process of interpreting starts with understanding what the text meant to the ancient audience, extracting the timeless truth being taught, and then applying that truth to our circumstances today.
This process is not without its pitfalls. Many will read the same text and come to different conclusions as to its meaning to the ancient audience. This of course then leads to a different formulation of the timeless truth, which then leads to a different application.
I would like to walk us through one passage which has had many different interpretations, in order to show how difficult this process can be, and to maybe give a slightly different take on the passage.
The passage that I would like to look at is 1 Timothy 3. The list of qualifications for Elders and Deacons:
3 Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full[a] respect. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. 7 He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.
8 In the same way, deacons[b] are to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain. 9 They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.
11 In the same way, the women[c] are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.
What you may not have realized is that I may have already influenced your understanding of this text. How? I called it a list of qualifications. When we read this text in just about any translation we read a comma delimited list: distinct items, separated by commas.
One of our problems in reading Koine Greek is that it has no punctuation. So the translators have to supply it for us. This can result in different understandings of the text. For example, Bruce Metzger points out that in Revelation 5:1 the scroll held in the right hand of God can be understood as either “written on the inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals” or “written on the inside, and sealed on the back with seven seals.”
Why is that important here? What if the text in 1 Timothy 3 is not a list but a primary point with a series of secondary points? What if we understand that the first phrase should not be followed by a comma, but a colon?
We would then read the start of verse two as: “Now the overseer is to be above reproach:…”
Is the primary concern of this passage about being above reproach?
Several things tell me that in fact it is:
The importance of being above reproach or its semantic equivalents is repeated over and over in the passage. Above reproach (vs 2), worthy of full respect (vs 4), a good reputation with outsiders (vs 7), not fall into disgrace (vs 7), worthy of repect (vs 8), nothing against them (vs 10), worthy or respect (vs 11), trustworthy in everything (vs 11).
The concept is the first one introduced in each of the first three sections.
It also serves as a summary statement at the end of the first section. That is, not only must the overseer be above reproach (inside the church) for all of the first set of items. “7 He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace…”
Opening and closing a section with a summary statement or parallel summary statements in stylistically quite common among Hebrew scriptural texts. While Paul was not writing in Hebrew, he was well versed in the language. (For those who have had to write essays for School, we do the same thing in our language.
All of the items listed in this chapter could quite easily fall under the category of being “above reproach.”
The context supports it. Paul begins his instructions on behaviour in the previous chapter. 2:8: “ Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing.” The “therefore” here is very important. As a seminary professor once said to our class, “Whenever you see a therefore, you need to find out what it is ‘there for’. The reason for the therefore can be found in the first four verses of chapter 2. “ I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”
So if I was to summarize all of chapter two and chapter three into one summary timeless truth it would be this: “God wants all people to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth so therefore… you had better act in a way that is above reproach.”
When we do this, not only do the sub points become secondary, they are given clarity.
Let us look at the second item for example. The Greek is literally “of one woman, a man”. Translators have a great difficulty with this one. Consider these:
Faithful to his wife (NIV)
The husband of one wife (KJV) (ESV) (ASV) (NET)
Married only once (NRSV)
Be faithful in marriage (CEV)
Committed to his wife (The Message)
He must have only one wife (The Living Bible)
A one woman kind of guy (Seminary professor translation)
You will note that the translations vary in their emphasis. Some are very male centric, some try to balance the idea of maleness with the idea of faithfulness, and some completely make the text gender neutral. Some focus on the concept of “one” wife, while that emphasis is dropped from other translations.
It is no wonder then that interpretations and application are all over the board. Interpretations range from:
Elders must be men.
Elders must be married (and therefore not single, divorced or widowed.)
Elders must be married to one person (As opposed to multiple people. This issue has come up in African situations that I am aware of.)
Elders cannot be remarried (whether widowed or divorced)
To:
Gender and marital status is not what is being discussed here.
It is about the type of person you are in relationship commitments.
Elder’s must be faithful to their significant other.
What I would argue here is that all these interpretations fail to see the proverbial forest for the trees. The timeless truth that is being communicated has to do with the importance of being above reproach, but more specifically, being above reproach so that it does not become a hindrance to the gospel. (God…wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.) The question we need to ask ourselves then is not so much what it meant to above reproach so not to hinder the gospel in the ancient culture (although that has some bearing), but what it means to above reproach so not to hinder the gospel now.
Let us take the issue of whether or not the intent was to restrict eldership to men. In that culture would women in that leadership position have been a reproachable hindrance to the gospel? Quite possibly.
I have not touched on historical/cultural issues here, but here is a quick quiz for you?
Where was Timothy when 1 Timothy was written?
What do we know from scripture about this location?
What do we know from other sources about this location?
How might that impact our understanding of this passage?
Short Answers:
Ephesus.
Acts 19:21-41. Ephesus housed the Temple of the Goddess Artemis.
The temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and had tremendous influence in the region.
This can impact our understanding of the passage in many ways. One of the best books on the subject is: Paul, Women Teachers and the Mother Goddess at Ephesus: A Study of First Timothy 2: 9-15 in Light of the Religious and Cultural Milieu of the First Century. It is out of print and hard to find, but worth the hunt. (The picture by the way is that of the Goddess Artemis)
If we are to properly apply this passage we must ask a slightly different question: What does being above reproach for the sake of the gospel mean in our society today? How would it apply to our elders? Would restricting eldership to men be above reproach and help to advance the gospel, or would it be reproachable and serve to hinder the gospel? I would argue that the latter is true, and that restricting women from leadership positions is now considered very reproachable, and I have personally seen how it has hindered the gospel. In this case, because of the timeless truth that is being communicated, our application might be very different to the first century application. Not being faithful to your partner, on the other hand could be considered just as reproachable and a hindrance to the gospel today as it was in the time of Paul and Timothy.
There is so much more that I could say on this topic and I have just begun to scratch the surface. I am very interested in how my ideas resonate with you. Let the (cordial) debate begin!
Final note: I do need to give credit to Miguel Ruiz, as the idea for this topic came from a facebook discussion that we had on a facebook post he had made. His perspective may differ.
This article in MSN.com which appeared in the Fall 2020, Mysteries issue of Popular Science, reviews how:
Scientists in the psychiatry department of Johns Hopkins University—are part of the burgeoning field of psychedelic studies. Recently invigorated by a more permissive regulatory environment, the sector investigates if, how, and why reality-bending substances might help human brains. So far, research from all over the world suggests the drugs can break old mental patterns and help fight addiction, alleviate depression, shrink existential fears, and improve relationships.
The article, in part, chronicles the experience of Clark Martin, whom doctors gave a year to live after they found he had stage 4 kidney cancer in 1990. In 2010, after a 20 year battle with the cancer, Martin, a retired clinical psychologist, heard about the John Hopkins study, and wanted to try it. His experience was consistent with research from all over the world that suggests the drugs can break old mental patterns and help fight addiction, alleviate depression, shrink existential fears, and improve relationships. Additionally, the article says:
…investigators have been surprised by another consistent finding: When people have spiritual experiences while tripping, they’re even more likely to kick bad habits and be happier or more satisfied with their lives in the long term. The mysterious encounters take many forms. Sometimes people feel they’re in the presence of God, or of a more nebulous entity like Ultimate Reality—a higher power that reveals the truth of the universe—or they just feel a novel connectedness to everything from now back to the big bang and beyond. Because of the link between the mystical and the medical, scientists like those at Johns Hopkins are probing why people have transcendent tendencies at all, how that might help our brains, and what it means for how we perceive the world.
After some initial trepidation and anxiety during the “trip”, Martin had some mystical experiences, and found that after the session ended, so did his depression. Alan Davis, another John Hopkins researcher, and his colleagues, created an internet-based survey to find out about people’s “God encounter experiences.” The survey asked individuals about their most memorable rendezvous with a supreme figure, either when sober or when they had taken a psychedelic. More than 4,000 responded. They published the results in 2019. The article says the results were:
The sober group was more likely than the other one to label the being God. The psychedelic users instead tended to call it Ultimate Reality. But both sets generally agreed that whatever they’d encountered was “conscious, benevolent, intelligent, sacred, eternal, and all-knowing.” And the majority said the experience left them with more purpose and meaning, greater satisfaction with their lives, and a decreased fear of death.
Perhaps the most striking result, though, involved people from both groups who hadn’t subscribed to the idea of a higher power to start with. After their hangout with an omniscient entity, more than two-thirds became believers. (If you’ve ever tried to change an atheist’s mind, you know how big a feat that is.)
The shift means, essentially, that they thought the experience revealed something true about the world. As the paper put it, “The majority of both groups endorsed that that which was encountered existed, at least in part, in some other reality and that it continued to exist after the encounter.”
Because no one really knows for sure yet why these drugs make people mystical, what that mysticality really means, or exactly why any of it changes people’s personalities for the better, boosts them out of mood disorders, or rids them of addictions. Those questions merit answers. The article goes on to conclude:
Whatever you make of them, psychedelic treatments hold promise that keeps pushing the research forward. Davis thinks often of a young woman in a Johns Hopkins study who had struggled for a decade with severe depression and social anxiety. She thought about suicide often. But after her treatment with psilocybin, things changed. For example, Davis says, “The look in her eye that she had gone a whole week without thinking of ending her life. It doesn’t get better than seeing hope in somebody.”
Davis believes psychedelics do something deeper than traditional pharmaceuticals or therapies. “Whether that’s because of the mystical experiences or the insight, something is happening at a level that is not just about reducing symptoms,” he says.
I have a couple of thoughts, and then I would like to hear yours:
I’m strongly inclined to be skeptical of beneficial use of hallucigens. Some of that skepticism follows from my, and other friends, experience with them back in the 60s and 70s, when I was in high school and college. I don’t remember a lot of good coming from tripping and I certainly remember some friends who abused them and suffered consequently.
Nevertheless, it is hard to discount the clinical evidence the John Hopkins researchers have produced. It would seem trials guided by experienced clinical psychologists are to be preferred over random recreational use by stupid kids.
It raises questions about the “it’s-all-only-in-your-head” critique of people’s mystical experiences, including Christians. If God-experiences can be induced by psychedelic drugs, then are they only a phenomena of the brain, and not real?
On the other hand, is not depression “only-in-your-head”? Does that mean it’s not real? Those suffering from depression would beg to differ.
“Hallowed Be Thy Name”: What Are We Saying? By Randy Thompson
The Lord’s Prayer is not complicated or long. We pray it out of habit, which is good because the Lord taught us to pray this prayer. But, our familiarity with the prayer encourages us to think we understand it better than we do. Our prayerful intentions are genuine, but our minds glide over the surface of the words like a skater on ice when it comes time to pray it, and we too often fail to note its spiritual depth. We think we know what we’re saying, but . . .
. . . Our Father in heaven? Yep. We get it, “Abba, daddy” and all that. “Your Kingdom come”? The end times or the Second Coming, or something like that, right? We’re looking forward to a happy ending. Great! We may not know exactly what we’re asking for here, but we have the general idea and it makes us feel good; that’s good enough.
“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”? That’s clear as a bell (although less clear to us are our reasons for not doing God’s will). “Give us our daily bread”? That’s why we should say grace before meals.
“Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us”? We happily and self-assuredly pray the first part of this because we avoid thinking about the second part.
“Lead us not into temptation” is a bit of a blur. But, since we’re almost done with the prayer, we can figure that out the next time we pray. (Didn’t Pope Francis say something helpful about this recently?)
But, when we get to praying for God’s Name to be “hallowed,” we’re puzzled. “Hallow”? Doesn’t that have something to do with Halloween?
“Hallow” is so odd to our modern ears, a verbal antique we don’t quite know what to do with. Drop the word “hallow” in a casual conversation and see what happens. You’ll get blank, puzzled looks even in a church coffee hour.
For the past months I have become very aware of the oddness of this word, and realized I didn’t know what I was praying for, exactly. Yes, I understood it had something to do with God’s reputation (“Name”) and God being respected. I remembered that I had been taught somewhere by somebody that I, a human being, am not capable of “hallowing” God’s name, as only God can do that, which made sense to me. But, why am I to supposed to pray this?
I realized of course that “hallow” means “holy,” but here “holy” is being used as a verb in the Greek text, which got me wondering how “holy” worked as a verb. Evidently, we’re asking God to act in such a way that His name is holy. I also realized that “holy” has the sense of something or someone being set aside for Divine purposes. “Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy,” we’re told, and so the Jewish Sabbath is different than the other days of the week. Certainly, that’s obviously true of God who is the source of holiness.
These seemed to be the “right” answers to my basic questions, but I was still unsatisfied. Somehow, there had to be more to this hallowing business than what can be learned from a Bible dictionary.
As I prayed and reflected on this, my attention was drawn to the four King James words that follow “Our Father.” Jesus did indeed introduce his Father to us as “Abba” with all the warmth and intimacy the term implies. But, this is a father “which art in heaven.” Yes, God is indeed made known to us as “Abba,” but that same God doesn’t cease being more than and bigger than “daddy.” Intimacy here is in the context of transcendence, not in that of a pre-school.
I realized, when it came to knowing God, that intimacy does not entail chumminess. The “fear of the Lord”—knowing God as radically “other”—and loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength are both given expression in these opening words of the Lord’s Prayer. Our Lord intends them to be held in tension.
But, “which art in heaven” is just the first step. The prayer moves us on to a concern for God’s Name and for that name to be “hallowed,” or “holy,” and here we enter into another facet of the paradox of what it is to know, and pray to, God: God’s holiness. The “fear of the Lord” now comes into the foreground, for holiness inspires reverence, which is “the fear of the Lord.”
An odd way of understanding what it means for God’s Name to be hallowed can be seen when the opposite happens, as Paul describes in Romans 2, quoting Isaiah: “. . . The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2:24, Isaiah 52:5). Here, God’s name is linked to the behavior of His people, whose lives discredit and dishonor the God they claim to worship. If, then, the lives of God’s people can dishonor God’s reputation on earth, then so can the lives of God’s people honor God’s reputation so that people see God in all of his goodness.
Underlying blaspheming or hallowing God’s name is the commandment not to take God’s name in vain (Exodus 20:7). To claim God as “Father” and claim to be his people and to live at odds with God’s holiness is to lie about one’s relationship with God and to take His name in vain. To participate in God’s holiness, to honor and respect God in deed not merely in word, is to hallow God’s Name.
But, as previously noted, we human beings on our own cannot “hallow” or “make holy” God’s Name. How can finite imperfection bestow holiness on One who is infinite and perfect? We may have the desire for God’s Name to be hallowed, but we don’t have the capacity to actually do it. No matter how much we huff and puff and posture and pose, we don’t—can’t—make God look good. Pharisees, ancient and contemporary, illustrate this well, confusing God’s holiness with their own self-righteousness.
So what is it we’re saying when we pray, “Hallowed be your name”? One of Paul’s prayers gives us a clue. He prays for his readers “that our God. . . may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him. . . (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12).” I realized that I don’t fulfill my “resolve for good” or “work of faith” by my own efforts. It is God who gives me the power to do so, and for that matter it is God who gives me the desire to resolve to do what He wants.
God’s name can be hallowed by God alone; we can’t “help” with that. To take God’s holiness seriously and to pray for God’s Name to be holy is to do so with a sense of being undone. Isaiah’s words capture this perfectly: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5).
Yet, it is the loving condescension of God to scare the willies out of us and comfort us at the same time. Isaiah later tells us,
For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite”
(Isaiah 57:15)
The God who dwells in a high and holy place also lives in the heart of the contrite and lowly to revive them. The one to whom God looks is “he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2). This is the God to whom Jesus introduces us, telling us that the poor in Spirit are blessed with the Kingdom of God, that those who mourn over their spiritual inadequacy are comforted, and that those starving for righteousness will be fed to fullness.
To pray “Hallowed be Your Name” with open eyes is to die and be raised from the dead, and to hear Peter’s words resounding in our deepest heart: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time” (1 Peter 5:6). It is a prayer for enough humility and poverty of Spirit so that a hallowing of God’s name actually happens in our life. It is to gain the ears to hear Jesus telling us that “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). Even more, it is to gain the ears to hear Jesus tell us, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” (John 15:9).
Yet, God’s name is not hallowed only because we are poor in Spirit. There’s more to it than that. Through Christ, we enter into the fellowship of the Trinity and participate in the life of God. We are made “partakers of the divine nature,” in the thrilling words of 2 Peter. Infused with the resurrection life of God, we are made “saints,” “holy ones,” through whom God’s Name is revealed to be holy, because his name is love.
And we are not saints alone. We can’t be. In another of our Lord’s prayers, he asks that his followers extend the fellowship of the blessed Trinity to earth in the fellowship of Christ’s Church, in which God’s Name is hallowed in a web of self-giving love:
“I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:21-23, NIV).
The one who taught us to pray and who planted a concern for God’s name in our heart through the prayer he taught is the one who enables this hallowing to take place by making us partakers of the divine nature. In the words of Matthew the Poor,
“It is through obedience and love to Christ that union with God is perfected. It is he who has first completed the union of divinity and humanity in himself to deliver it to us in a mystery of transcendent love.” (Matthew the Poor, “Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way,” 108).
God’s name is hallowed because God saw fit to hallow it in his crucified Son, who invites us to take up our crosses, follow him, and in so doing, hallowing God’s name.
Some time ago I promised Chaplain Mike a post or 2 on the “dichotomy between man and nature”, and the place of the garden in bridging that apparent gap, as well as expose the artificial mental and philosophical barriers we have constructed for ourselves. Then a few weeks ago there was a lively discussion around food and diet here, and it made me want to reach for my keyboard as I am quite passionate about the matter. And then lastly I read a New Yorker article on the artificiality of the “French Woman/girl” trope that has been constructed in the popular imagination.
The culmination of this, in the looming shadows of the end of this blog, has led me to pen this post as a “Goodbye and thanks for all the fish!” narrative.
We humans live in imaginary worlds. Worlds we construct to feel safe in. Worlds that keep the fears at bay. And given the cold cosmos we appear to inhabit, that is quite understandable. But ever so often, our imaginary worlds move inward and crush our souls, slowly rob us of our sanity, and leave us pale shadows of humanity. We see that in the Edenic promises of political mythologies, be they from whichever persuasion. We see that in religion-gone-off-rails, as I recently had to contend with when the spotlight of investigative journalism finally swung towards the cult I was raised in. We see that in multiple mental constructions, whether some wellness-myth or nationalistic narrative, or ethnic epoch.
The result of this is that we disconnect, for instance, from nature, and often go down one of two main alternatives, namely mindless destruction, or mythologizing. We deny the horrible affects of our industrial activity on the world, or we descend into a seemingly benign Tellytubby trance where we don’t grasp how the cosmos, including the biological sphere is interconnected, and how we don’t just depend on it, but we are agents of it as well. Our concept of garden becomes sterile green lawnscapes, or we chain nature off as some sort of holy ground out there, to be revered and not lived in.
We lose connection with ourselves, and desperately turn to the latest sellable thing and its agents masquerading as dietary experts telling us how to be the ultimate us. Eat this not that, this is superfood, that is toxic, all without an iota of proper evidence, nuance or indeed, imagination.
We pursue unreal ideals, whether huckleberry-harvesting simplicity with bows on, “chic” fauxness in designer gear, rugged gun-toting independence that is as hollow as an easter chocolate bunny, devotees of this or that religion that make up rules and bow to the latest “authentic” innovator, or promiser of ancient regurgitations, that are about 5 minutes old. We claim tradition that are as old as McDonalds fries, or absolute truths that are yanked from intellectual and cultural frameworks we have no inkling of.
So, what am I saying?
On the 16th of March 1971 in Kruger’s bar in Dunquin, Kerry, Ireland, the Campaign for Real Ale was founded, in protest to mass-produced beer that dominated the market. We can see the direct and indirect results today, where creativity and individual taste has blossomed. Of course, this can be seen as another construction, in that we claim that there was a “golden age” of ale in the distant past (or some do, I imagine). That is not the point.
I yearn for a metaphoric campaign for Real Humans.
This is not a call for the destruction of our own narrative worlds. It doesn’t call for the abolition of imagination. No. It calls for us to recognise ourselves for what we are, where we are, who we are, in what we are part of. Humanity cannot stand apart from nature – the idea that we can is entirely nonsensical. We are part and parcel of a cosmos that includes woolly lambs, viruses, galaxies far, far away and neutrinos whizzing through us all the time. We are birthed, we function according to the dictates of our DNA, we are influenced by the mental/cultural space we enter, we change it (maybe), we die. Nothing and no one exists in a vacuum, real or metaphorical. Our mental constructions can help us through this life, but we have to test, test, test them against reality. Fuzzy-minded idealism of any shade can turn into destruction at the drop of a hat.
Let us become real again. Not phantasms of our own making. Let us stop running from our interconnectedness to all of reality.
Reconsider Jesus – A fresh look at Jesus from the Gospel of Mark
A devotional commentary by Michael Spencer
Compiled and Edited by: Michael Bell Table of Contents
An update from Mike: This brings us to the end of Mark chapter two. I have a fair bit of work that I need to do on Mark chapter three which I need a free weekend for, so we will be taking a couple of week hiatus from Reconsider Jesus. Dana has a whole pile of edits for me to put back into the original manuscript from what we have covered so far, so I will be busy doing that as well. If you have any publishing contacts, please let me know at the email below, as I am going to be looking for a publisher in the next couple of weeks. In other news, I do have a couple of interesting reviews of recent creations by Internet Monk Commentators coming in the next week or two, so be prepared to add to your Christmas wish lists.
Lord of the Sabbath
23 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
25 He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” – NIV
Mark 2:23-28 – NIV
This section contains a controversial story, a saying of Jesus and an affirmation about Jesus. The general theme that holds these together is the Sabbath, an integral and substantial part of Judaism. Here we see some of the substantial disagreement between Jesus and his critics. This is most certainly a portrait of Jesus challenging the Pharisees at the core of their religious perceptions and not at the fringes. The passage also shows us Christian reasoning about the Sabbath itself and the sort of justification that was put forward by Christians for worshipping on a new day of the week.
It is very uncommon these days to hear a sermon on “Sabbath keeping?” It just isn’t a hot topic in today’s feel good religious environment. At one time “Sabbath keeping” was a major concern of the Christian community, with the Puritans and their heirs placing a strong importance on the idea. We still see the remnant of it within various “Seventh-Day” sects and denominations within Christianity. Still, discussions of the appropriate day of worship or the appropriate behavior on the day of worship are hardly popular today. This is obviously a departure from the Old Testament emphasis on keeping the Sabbath holy and altering behavior in order to show reverence for God on that day. The creation story itself forms the foundation for the Bible’s strong emphasis on a day of worship. It is important that we understand Jesus at this point, as it shows us his own understanding of the Old Testament and his personal attitude toward the day of worship concept.
A quick aside here: The reference to “Abiathar the high priest” seems to be inaccurate when compared with I Samuel 21:2-7 and 22:20. There is no simple way of dealing with this factual difference. This is either an error by Jesus, an error in oral transmission to Mark, or a copyist error. We have evidence for a copying error, but the first and second choices are troubling to those who believe that Jesus made no errors or that the Bible contains no errors. For the record, I have no issue with either option. I believe that the doctrine of incarnation means Jesus was free from sin, not free from human limitation, which included, at times, imperfection in reasoning. Are we to believe Jesus never made an error as a carpenter? That he never missed a name or forgot where he put his shoes? This may seem absurd, but the incarnation is not perfection on this level. The same is true for scripture itself. If inerrancy means there are no statements less than perfectly true, then our doctrine of inspiration becomes a Mormon doctrine of dictation. I would suggest the human element in the scriptures include some inaccuracies in some areas that do not bear on the truthfulness of scripture. This will disturb some I’m sure and I would encourage them to read some of my essays on the topic at my Internet Monk blog, where I discuss with greater detail what this means to me.
According to Deuteronomy 23:25, grain may be plucked from a neighbor’s field. This was part of the provision for the poor in the Old Testament economic system. The Jewish oral law at the time of Jesus restricted thirty nine kinds of labor on the Sabbath and the activity of Jesus and his disciples was a violation of that oral law. As a rabbi and teacher, Jesus was expected to have a high regard for the Sabbath and its place it Jewish life. It separated Israel from other nations and marked Jews with the covenant law of God. Wherever they were, Jews would keep the Sabbath and thus bear witness of their creator and redeemer and lawgiver: Yahweh. In the eyes of the religious leaders, Jesus was despising a sacred trust and leading his followers away from one of the pillars of their faith.
The idea of marking the day of worship by abstinence from labor and conspicuous devotion has become unpopular today. Americans who have lived in “Bible belt” culture where Sunday was honored as a day of rest by the entire community know that such an observance, with all its possibilities for empty use and meaningless abuse, still spoke of a reverence for a “nation under God” that is now largely lacking. Christians who practice abstinence from work on their day of worship are likely to run afoul of their employers, their children’s coaches and members of the family. Even turning off the television on Sunday is considered too much. But is it really? The Pharisees may have been mired in tradition but Jesus was not attacking the keeping of the Sabbath as described in the Old Testament or the premise of a day of worship and rest. All of us who are “people of the book” should spend our day of worship honoring the Lord and abstaining from all but necessary work and ministry. Families would benefit greatly from returning to an honoring of the Lord’s day in the Spirit of true Old Testament Sabbath keeping. Even churches might consider whether they are keeping the day of worship in the spirit of the Bible when they demand hours of activity from leaders and members on the Lord’s day.
Jesus’ point is that gathering food is an act of necessity, even of mercy, to the needs of human beings. To restrict the gathering of food is to go beyond the purpose of sabbath keeping and into legalism. Jesus understood that human beings will take the commandments of God and turn them into a platform for demonstrating human righteousness rather than honor to God. Legalism of this sort becomes a competition to see who can be the most obedient and the most spiritual, when God intended simple and worshipful honoring of His commandment in a spirit of awe and love. Modern Christianity rivals the Pharisees at their worst in this regard. The command to pray becomes who can pray the most. The command to read and obey the word becomes who can own the trendiest Bible. The command to worship and sing becomes a mad competition to see which church can be the most entertaining and unusual. The command to be filled with the Spirit becomes a sad spectacle of demonstrating how spiritual we are with phoney manifestations, a bizarre manner of speaking and ridiculous displays of faked emotion. Be careful before you condemn the Pharisees.
The Sabbath principle was intended to honor God and benefit human beings. It was not an excuse for excessive sabbath-keeping, but joyful worship, quiet reflection, quality interaction with others and personal time with God. We should love the Lord’s day, and look forward to the sweet opportunities it gives us to have deeply satisfying human experiences. In this sense, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath. The law of God follows the creation of man. It is meant to relate man to God and to bless us. Obey and live was the repeated message of Deuteronomy. To the extent that we do not keep God’s law, we are separated from Him and from the blessings of knowing Him. At the heart of all that God asks and commands is His love for us and His desire for the best for us. His laws are not a punishment, a game or an obstacle course. The person whose life is shaped by the law prospers in all he does (Psalm 1).
Critics of Christianity often say we create religion to meet our own needs. Strangely, Jesus seems to be saying that “religion,” at least the external requirements, was created by God to meet our deepest needs. The joyful keeping of the law is a mark of the righteous man because it puts him in covenant with a God of loving kindness and goodness, a God from whom all blessings and mercies flow. Doesn’t this “joyful law keeping” mark the heart of those who know God best?
Christians abandoned the Sabbath not as a way of abandoning the Old Testament, but as a way of moving into the fullness of what the Old Testament taught. Every day is God’s day. Every day is our day of worship. We keep the Lord’s day in the Spirit of the Sabbath, but not in a legalistic manner. On that day we pause to worship, to reflect and to relate because there are our privileges everyday. Sunday worship should be God-centered joy that culminates a week of worship and that anticipates every day in His presence. When we know this God, we know that actions of mercy and works of necessity do not dishonor God on his day, they reflect more aspects of his goodness and compassion. Christians who do not honor the Lord’s Day are not healthy believers. An eager entering into the spirit of Jesus will find us where Jesus was on every day of worship: in the house of the Lord, with His people, proclaiming the goodness of the Lord.
The final statement in this passage is the point Mark most wants to press home: Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. Critics who want to minimize this are simply dedicated to overlooking the obvious. As Jesus breaks the Sabbath laws of the Pharisees he is expressing more than just an opinion- this is the Lord of all things showing us the heart of what it means to know him. This is the God who invites us to know that his yoke is easy and light. Jesus calls disciples who discover the meaning of everything God asks us to do in the relationship with Jesus himself. The creator of the Sabbath knows it. Jesus is a living picture of the law of God. As we confess Him as Lord and live under His Lordship, we are invited to affirm all those things Jesus treasured as God’s gifts to us. The Lord of the Sabbath is not just the master- He is the rest of God himself. He is the great intercessor who invites us to pray. He is the living Word who invites us into the scriptures. He is the High Priest that invites us to worship. There is no place in Christianity that the Lordship of Christ does not meet us, show us our need, our weakness and completely meet the very demand God makes of us, thereby making it possible for us to obey God in a new Spirit of obedience.
This is the one who said “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17) Mark shows us the meaning that Jesus gives to the Sabbath: a freedom from legalism, a sense of the heart of God for human beings and a vision of the Lord Jesus who is and is above the Sabbath. May our lives be full of the reality of Jesus and free from the empty religion that separates human beings from God, others and even our best selves.
—————————————-
Notes from Mike Bell:
1. What questions or thoughts come from your mind from what you have just read? What stood out to you?
2. Would you be interested in a paper or Kindle version of the book when it is available? Please email us at michaelspencersnewbook@gmail.com so that we can let you know when it is ready. This is an email to indicate interest only, I am not selling anything at this point, but I sure do appreciate the encouragement!
I had lunch with my friend Thor this week. On Thursday, appropriately enough. Of course Thor is not his real name, just the nickname I call him; I like it when my phone tells me I have a text from Thor.
Thor relayed an interesting story. His friend had called him recently to say that his nine-year old son was having “an existential crisis”.
The boy had been told by his cousin that he, or anyone, could create an alternate reality simply by choosing to and believing enough. The boy took this to heart, and that night wrote down what he wanted reality to look like. I don’t recall all the details, but being able to fly and to control time where high on the list. He put the list under his pillow, then drifted off to sleep looking forward the the new reality that the morning would bring.
Except, of course, the morning brought nothing but disappointment.
The kid wept bitter tears, and his father did not know how to respond. Thor took the boy for a ride around town, and tried his best to help the boy process his deep feelings. He suggested that perhaps reality was actually changed, but he just was not able to see it.
I doubted this did much to help the kid. But also doubted I could have been able to come up with a better answer on the spot.
I began reflecting on this later on. What would I tell someone who wanted to create an alternative reality, to change reality?
I think I would tell them this: you cannot choose reality. Reality is given to you, not created by you. But you can choose the meaning of the reality given to you. And that is enough.
Now obviously we do have the power to change some parts of reality. We all have the dignity of causation, and likely in deeper ways and broader realms than we imagine.
But we cannot change most of the reality that happens to us, no matter how desperately we want to.
My son Joe died last year, in a terrible way. I would give anything to change that reality.
But I can’t. All I can do is weep like that nine year old boy.
Well, I can do more, actually. I choose how to respond. And the first part of that, the foundational part, is defining the meaning of the reality.
The reality is that Joe is dead. But what is the meaning of that fact?
That I get to choose, at least for me.
I can choose to believe that Joe’s death is evidence of the absence of God, that religion’s cultured despisers are right, that there is no way to reconcile the idea of God with the reality of my pain. That there is no meaning or purpose to this universe or anything within it, for it arose randomly and without plan, and it will end the same. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, for both child and cosmos…and nothing else.
But here is the problem with that for me: it strips Joe’s death of meaning.
Meaning depends on purpose. If the symphony has no sound to aspire to, then it hardly matters what notes the musicians play. If the game has no point, then no play can be called good or bad. We can only describe the action.
I can choose to believe that.
Or I can choose to believe that Joe’s death is full of meaning, even if part of that meaning is tragic for now. That his death is not just a brute fact; that I rightly weep not only over my pain but the utter wrongness of his death. That his death was not just a sad thing but a bad thing; the worst thing I have experienced, by far.
And… I can choose to believe that “the worst thing is not the last thing”. Those were the words Chaplain Mike spoke at Joe’s funeral. About the only words I remember of that day. But they are enough.
“The worst thing is not the last thing.” A sentence that does not minimize the pain or attempt to paper over it. The death of a child is likely the worst thing any of us will ever face. But also a sentence that brings hope.
A hope that the night gives way to morning. That winter is pregnant with spring. That Joe’s life is not a stone crushed into the dirt, but a seed planted in fertile soil.
And I can choose to believe that God weeps as I do. He too longs for the spring.
And this is what I believe.
Can I prove this? No more than someone can prove it wrong. I’ve read the arguments of the new atheists, and remain unimpressed. Proof is hard to come by regarding the big questions. But the heart has its reasons.
The worst thing is not the last thing. Spring, not eternal winter. Seed, not stone. This is what I choose to believe about the reality that has invaded my life.
But I can also choose the meaning of the reality of the less weighty or more pleasant things in my life.
The autumn trees shimmering and shining with color, as if their roots were drinking in rainbows…what does this beauty mean? Does it not mean that “earth’s crammed with heaven and every bush aflame with God”? Does it not mean that even the dying and decaying parts of creation have a beauty that puts Helen of Troy to shame? Does it not mean we can enjoy beauty and pleasure not only as a facts, but as a gifts? Gifts of love?
I choose to believe this interpretation of reality.
The Internet Monk Archives 