The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: November 14, 2020 — Grace Edition

November in Brown County, 2018

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: November 14, 2020
Grace Edition

It’s Thanksgiving season, and this week we emphasize grace, while next week we will emphasize gratitude. So pull a chair up to the banquet table and let’s talk about God’s amazing, surprising, prodigal grace as we feast at the end of another week.

Note: I know, obviously, that there has been a lot of news this week. However, I prefer, today and next week, to use Saturdays for seasonal posts to help us express thanksgiving and recognize the grace of God in our lives. Sorry if that bursts some of your “dying to express myself about the election, etc.” bubbles. I’m sure there will be other opportunities for that.

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Quote of the week…

The history of salvation is slapstick all the way, right up to and including the end. It’s the Three Stooges working only for laughs. God isn’t trying to hurt anyone; he’s not even mad at anyone. There are no lengths to which he won’t go to prove there are no restrictions on the joy he wants to share with us. If you were never afraid of Curly, Larry, and Moe, you don’t need to be afraid of the Trinity either.

• Robert Farrar Capon. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus

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Grace on the golf course…

Jon Rahm had this serendipitous moment of grace and mercy on Tuesday at Augusta National preparing for the Masters.

 

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The “Hug Room”…

A resident of the Domenico Sartor nursing home in Castelfranco Veneto, near Venice, hugs her visiting daughter, right, through a plastic screen in a so-called “Hug Room” on Nov. 11. The room allows guests and their families to embrace, while remaining separate and protected from the spread of coronavirus. (Piero Cruciatti/AFP – Getty Images)

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6 Lessons Learned from the Pandemic (Thus far, Sort of)…

By David Zahl at Mockingbird

Vehicles line up at a drive-thru Covid-19 testing site in the parking lot of Miller Park in Milwaukee on Nov. 5, 2020. (Bing Guan/Reuters)
  1. COVID, like the law, always accuses.
  2. There is much that still binds the human race together, most of all our fear of death.
  3. The Internet is no replacement for flesh and blood.
  4. For the most part, the pandemic has amplified things that were already happening rather than created new problems.
  5. The conformity-rebellion axis exists outside of ideology.
  6. No one can predict anything. And that’s good news.

“A miracle is the universe letting you know it can still surprise you” is how comedian Kyle Kinane puts it, and I agree. As this thing stretches on and the Groundhog Day effect manifests as a shared low-grade depression, I consider this a source of tremendous hope. Because despair is the feeling that nothing can ever change, that our lives won’t get better, etc. Yet our current circumstances contradict that feeling (and it’s always a feeling) almost 100%. We are in control of so little. Anything could happen at any time.

The only thing that remains reliably knowable is what God has made so, namely, what he has revealed in his son, AKA the least predictable revelation of divinity possible: the baby in the manger, the man on the cross, shedding real flesh and blood to deliver self-righteous rule-followers and self-seeking rule-breakers from sin, death, and disease.

Didn’t see that coming — but it came anyway. Thank God not all surprises are bad.

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“Saved by the whale’s tail”…

From NPR:

PPhoto by ROBIN UTRECHT/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

A Dutch train burst past the end of its elevated tracks Monday in the Netherlands.

But instead of crashing to the ground 30 feet below, the metro train was caught — held aloft by an artist’s massive sculpture of a whale’s tail. Despite some damage, no injuries or deaths were reported.

The sculpture at the end of the tracks was given a prescient name: “Saved by the Whale’s Tail,” according to France 24. It was built in 2002, installed at the De Akkers station in Spijkenisse, a city just outside Rotterdam.

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In every moment when I am winning, Jesus is with me. And in every moment when I am losing, Jesus is with me. At any moment when I am confused, wounded, and despairing, Jesus is with me. I never, ever, lose the brokenness. I fight and sometimes I prevail, but I can’t prevent more of my screwed-up, messed-up life from erupting. Because I belong to One whose resurrection guarantees that I will arrive safely home in a new body and be part of a new creation, I miraculously, amazingly, find myself continuing to believe, continuing to move forward, until Jesus picks me up and takes me home.

• Michael Spencer. Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality

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The amazing swan rescue…

From the New York Times:

“Well, I’m carrying a swan,” Ms. Cordova-Rojas recalls thinking. “I have no idea what to do. I guess I’m just going to walk.” (Credit…Josh Spector)

Ariel Cordova-Rojas had planned to spend last Thursday afternoon immersed in nature. It was the day before her 30th birthday, and her intention was to ride her bike to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens, watch birds fly overhead and hike amid the vibrant fall foliage.

Instead, she spent a good chunk of the day in a frantic race to rescue a sickly swan, rushing by foot and then subway from Queens to Brooklyn before ultimately arriving at an animal rehabilitation center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

…Ms. Cordova-Rojas had been trained to spot a bird in distress. She spent five years as an animal care manager at the Wild Bird Fund rehabilitation center in Manhattan, rescuing geese in Central Park, red-tailed hawks in Brooklyn and other species elsewhere in the city.

So when the swan did not move or make a sound when she approached, she knew something was not right….

…She decided to approach the swan slowly, take off her jacket and place it over the bird. The swan tried to move its wings and it made faint sounds, but Ms. Cordova-Rojas said she was able to wrap the coat around the animal quickly and pick it up.

…The one-mile hike back to where she had left her bike “was a bit of a struggle,” she said, especially carrying an animal that later weighed in at around 17 pounds.

…[She was able to get a ride] to the Howard Beach subway station, where the husband, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority employee, helped Ms. Cordova-Rojas lug her bike and the swan to the platform and then onto the A train.

Ms. Cordova-Rojas placed the swan, still wrapped in the coat, at the end of a long seat. She called friends and former colleagues at the Wild Bird Fund and asked that they meet her.

…Two car rides later, the swan, and Ms. Cordova-Rojas, reached the Wild Bird Fund.

…On Tuesday, the bird was undergoing treatment and would be reassessed in a few weeks.

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The grace of my childhood…

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From Sunrise, by Mary Oliver

Lake Michigan Sunrise (2012)

You can
die for it —
an idea,
or the world. People

have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound

to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But

this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought

of China,
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun

blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises

• Dream Work (pp. 59-60)

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The grace and humor of John Prine

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Buechner on grace…

A crazy, holy grace I have called it. Crazy because whoever could have predicted it? Who can ever foresee the crazy how and when and where of a grace that wells up out of the lostness and pain of the world and of our own inner worlds? And holy because these moments of grace come ultimately from farther away than Oz and deeper down than doom, holy because they heal and hallow. “For all thy blessings, known and unknown, remembered and forgotten, we give thee thanks,” runs an old prayer, and it is for all the unknown ones and the more than half-forgotten ones that we do well to look back over the journeys of our lives because it is their presence that makes the life of each of us a sacred journey. We have a hard time seeing such blessed and blessing moments as the gifts I choose to believe they are and a harder time still reaching out toward the hope of a giving hand, but part of the gift is to be able, at least from time to time, to be assured and convinced without seeing, as Hebrews says, because that is of the very style and substance of faith as well as what drives it always to seek a farther and a deeper seeing still.

Covid-19 Myths: What about Sweden? (Part 1)


Today I want to start looking at a few Covid-19 myths that have been endlessly repeated about Sweden. They go something like this:

1. Sweden did just fine when they decided to keep things open.
2. Sweden was able to save their economy.
3. We can be like Sweden, protect the vulnerable, and let the younger people go about their daily lives.
4. The lives saved by shutting things down will be more than offset by suicides and deaths caused by delayed hospital procedures.
5. Sweden has achieved herd immunity and their deaths are not going up.
6. Most of the deaths were caused by co-morbidities.

Today we will cover that first statement.

The graph above shows the seven day average of daily deaths from Covid-19 per 100,000 population for Sweden and its two neighbors, Finland and Norway. I used deaths per 100,000 because deaths is a much more verifiable number than cases, and per 100,000 adjusts for the population differences to give a more accurate comparison.

How big was the difference? Well, the area under each line represents the number of people (per 100,000) who have died from Covid-19. The graph for Sweden peaked at .98 deaths per 100,000 on April 17th of this year. A little bit of high-school math, and we can do a back of the napkin calculation of how many lives that represents in total per 100,000 people.

I have added two triangles to the graph. The first represents the proportion of Swedish deaths. The second is an average of Finland and Norway’s death.

Flash back to high-school geometry – and I apologize if that is a painful memory for some – the area of a triangle = Base / 2 * perpendicular height.

For Sweden then, A = 124 / 2 * 1 = 62.
For Norway and Finland (average) A = 65 / 2 * .15 = 4.8

Of course having done that rough calculation I realize that the graph I was using also would display totals per 100K, and that while the above was an interesting exercise in geometry, the actual numbers at day 150 were:

Sweden: 57
Finland: 6
Norway: 4.7

(Rounded to nearest 1 decimal).

So Sweden per 100,000 population had 9.5 times the number of deaths that Finland had and 12.1 times the number of deaths as Norway. In terms of what I will call excess deaths, Sweden had 51 more deaths per 100,000 people than Finland. At a population of 10.23 million people, it means that Sweden’s excess deaths were 10,230,000 / 100,000 * 51 = 5,217 people. That means that roughly 5,217 more people died in Sweden than would have had they adopted the tighter restrictions of their neighbors.

I have run out of time for today, but will be expanding on this quite a bit over the next few weeks.

As usual your thoughts and comments are welcome. I will address some of your comments and questions in future posts on the topic.

Say Goodbye to the Alpha Male

Say Goodbye to the Alpha Male

The whole concept of “Alpha Male” originated in studies of wolves and the theory that an “Alpha” wolf leads a pack, and that the “Beta” males and females defer to his dominance.  The theory was based on the work of L. David Mech (pronounced Meech) in the early 1960s and popularized in the 1970s.  Mech is a senior research scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota. He has researched wolves since 1958 in locations including northern Minnesota, Isle Royale, Alaska, Yellowstone National Park, Ellesmere Island, and Italy.

However, Mech himself has debunked the Alpha Male theory.  In his publication, Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor, in Wolf Packs, [Mech, L. David. 1999. Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs. Canadian Journal of Zoology 77:1196-1203. Jamestown, ND: Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center Home Page. http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/2000/alstat/alstat.htm, (Version 16MAY2000).] Mech says:

The prevailing view of a wolf (Canis lupus) pack is that of a group of individuals ever vying for dominance but held in check by the “alpha” pair, the alpha male and the alpha female. Most research on the social dynamics of wolf packs, however, has been conducted on non-natural assortments of captive wolves. Here I describe the wolf-pack social order as it occurs in nature, discuss the alpha concept and social dominance and submission, and present data on the precise relationships among members in free-living packs based on a literature review and 13 summers of observations of wolves on Ellesmere Island, Northwest Territories, Canada. I conclude that the typical wolf pack is a family, with the adult parents guiding the activities of the group in a division-of-labor system in which the female predominates primarily in such activities as pup care and defense and the male primarily during foraging and food-provisioning and the travels associated with them. (You can view a pdf of the publication at http://www.wolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/267alphastatus_english.pdf)

In other words, the whole “Alpha Male” thing was a result of forced captivity.  The natural division of labor system was based on a family.  The deference shown was the natural deference of child to parent.  In humans, these two research articles, one from Berkeley  and one in Psychology Today show the whole situation to be much more complex than some simple popular concept.  The author of the Berkeley article says:

Thus, I think a much more effective and healthier route for men having difficulty attracting women is not to attempt to cultivate the traits of the stereotypical, dominant “alpha,” but to cultivate the traits of the prestigious man. This means developing a skill that brings value to society, and cultivating a stable sense of identity. Such a route will not only make you more attractive to women, but will also create the most satisfying life for yourself in general. In my view, attempting to don the persona of the “alpha” is analogous to building a house of cards. There’s no stable foundation supporting your worth.

It’s time we shed these black and white categories, and embrace a much more multidimensional concept of masculinity. The most attractive male is really a blend of characteristics, including assertiveness, kindness, cultivated skills, and a genuine sense of value in this world. The true alpha is fuller, deeper, and richer.

This article in the Huffington Post says:

As we examine the seemingly never-ending wave of sexual assault allegations that are knocking handfuls of powerful men off their perches each day, as we read about the numerous hazing-related deaths at fraternities, as we come to accept the fact that our country elected a man who bragged about grabbing women by the genitals without consent, we have to acknowledge that toxic masculinity is a systemic problem…

We need to destroy the idea of the alpha male and all it’s associated labels, and replace it with something far simpler and broader.  There’s really no reason to involve gender at all: be a good person.  The qualities associated with gender are almost entirely a social construction; there’s no reason for them to exist.  We can be reductive here: be responsible, be gracious, be generous, be compassionate, be empathetic, be caring, be kind.

I totally agree with these articles.  It was an artificial concept to begin with, it never existed in nature.  It was a result of wolves being held in captivity.  Christians especially should shun the concept.  It is completely contrary to the way Jesus acted.  Time to retire the “Alpha Male”.

apocalypse now?

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apocalypse now?

we live these days
with swabs up our noses
masks covering our faces
alcohol dripping from hands
that hesitate to shake other hands
we measure our distancing
we balk at embracing
we’re worried about breathing
for god’s sake

and everyone’s an expert
but nobody knows
what the hell is happening
or why or when
whatever we think “normal” is
will someday reappear
all i can say is that
every morning i go outside
and it smells a little bit
like napalm

Are We in the Last Days?

Question: Are we in the last days?

You may have noticed, as I have, an uptick of interest in the subject of the last days recently, especially with the uncertainty of the pandemic and the election. These seem like strange days indeed.  

So what I would like to do is explore this question in three parts: when do the last days begin, what, based on this, is the meaning of the last days, and, lastly, how we are to live in the last days. 

When do the last days begin? 

Now if you study the New Testament a clear answer emerges, although it is one we may not expect. 

The first mention of the phrase, the last days, is in Acts 2, the day of Pentecost, 50 days after the crucifixion.  

 14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 

17 “‘In the last days, God says, 
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people. 
Your sons and daughters will prophesy, 
    your young men will see visions, 
    your old men will dream dreams. 

This is interesting. Peter takes the prophecy about the last days in the Old Testament book of Joel and says it is being fulfilled right now, at Pentecost. He is rather clearly stating that the last days have already begun. 

When we come to the letters Peter wrote, about 60-64 A.D., we read 

1 Peter 1:20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.  

So again, the emphasis is on the fact that the present readers of his letter, in 65 A.D. were already in the last days. 

One more verse from the pen of Peter about this comes in his second epistle: 

2 Peter 3: 

Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking…. 

3 Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” 

Now, does he mean that the scoffers will come at some time 2000 or 3000 years after his readers receive this? Or does he mean that one of the marks of the last age is false teaching and scoffing, which is already among you?  

Well, the latter. First, because he has already stated both at Pentecost and his first letter that the last days are already here. Second, he wants his readers in the first century to use these things to help their own “wholesome thinking”. And third, because the book of James and Jude, which carry many of the same themes as Peter’s letters, are quite definitive: the last days are already here in the first century.

Jude 1 

17 But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. 18 They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” 19 These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. 

So Jude, writing to people just a few years later than Peter, perhaps 75 AD, echoes the same theme about scoffers and says these ARE the people who divide you. 

What does James say about the last days? Well, in chapter 5 he warns the rich people who have piled up wealth: 

Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 

So, Acts and the letters of Peter, James and Jude all agree the last days have already begun in the first century. 

Let’s see what the book of Hebrews has to say. There are two verses which, while not using the exact same terminology, talk about the same idea: 

Hebrews 1 

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.  

Hebrews 9 

Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 

So the author of Hebrews also viewed the last days as having started with the first coming of Christ, and, in particular, the cross of Christ. 

What about the apostle John?

1 John 2:18  

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 

Again, different terminology, but same idea: we are already, in the first century, in the last hour. 

Okay, one more NT writer: Paul. 

1 Timothy  

4 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. 

6 If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed.  

Okay, does he mean that at some future time thousands of years in the future these teachers will teach these things? Or in his present, in the first century? Well, he wants Timothy to teach his congregation to be wary of these teachers, so it seems like Paul is on the same page as the other NT writers. But if there were any doubt, his words in 2 Timothy remove it. 

2 Timothy 3  

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. 

That last command is, of course, written originally to Christians in the first century.

One more passage from Paul: 

“Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” (1 Cor. 10:11) 

This is every occurrence in the New Testament of the phrase, the last days, the last hours, the culmination of the ages. They make clear to us that the last days do not begin at some point in our future, but in our past. 

So, we are living in the last days. And have been for almost 2,000 years now. 

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That brings us to the second question: What does the phrase, “the last days” actually mean? Because we have seen it may mean something different that we have understood before. 

Well, remember that God does not operate or define things by a human calendar. We are told that “a day with the Lord is like a thousand years to us” and this means at least that we cannot interpret the ideas of “days” “years” or “times” in simply calendar terms. 

Here is the key idea: God’s calendar is about the meaning of events, not the measurement of time between events. 

So what is the meaning of “the last days”? 

First, it is the in-between time. In between what? In between the first and second coming of Jesus our Lord. He did not reveal this (except in hints) to the saints of the Old Testament, but the coming of the Messiah would come in two parts, or two stages. First, God Himself would take on human flesh, become the God-man, and, in that role, serve as the bridge, the mediator between God and man, not only by uniting God and man in Himself, but also in that role giving of himself to death for our sins. This allows us to come near to God, to become this new humanity that will rule with him over a redeemed and perfected earth.  

But the number of that new humanity is not full; Peter reminds us not to get impatient waiting for the second coming, because delay means more people are brought into the family of God, this new humanity.  

But there will be a day when Christ returns, not only bringing salvation, but also judgment, purification and the renewal of all things.  

The last days are the years (and only God knows how many) between the cross and the crown, between the first and second comings. 

Second, this is the overlap time, the time when the kingdom of Heaven has begun, but lives in tandem and tension with the kingdom of this world, which the new testament says is also the kingdom of Satan (Luke 4:5-6, Matt. 12:25-2, John12:31,  2 Cor.4:4, Eph.2:2)

Therefore, it is a time where our loyalty is continually tested: are we going to live in line with the values and ways of the coming kingdom…or the passing one? Each possibility is open to us.

Last, the last days are also the now-and-not yet time. Jesus has come. But not fully in His power. We are saved. But not yet changed. Creation itself has received the seed of the redemption and perfection to come. But not yet the harvest. 

This is why the primary picture or metaphor that the New Testament uses to describe the state of the last days is of a pregnant woman. Both Jesus and Paul use this metaphor of pregnancy, labor and birth.  

Why? Because while a woman is pregnant she is living in the in-between, the now and not yet. She is NOT like she was a year earlier; she feels the new life grow and move within her. But she is not yet living as a mother (holding and nurturing and seeing her child).  

Say she comes to church on mother’s day at the mid-point of her pregnancy and the pastor asks all the mothers to stand up. She may be the only woman in the church that does not know whether to stand or sit. Is she a mother? Yes and no. She must live with that tension. 

More, she must live with that expectation. In biblical usage, she lives with the hope. Hope in the bible is not a wish that may or may not come true; It is something that will happen, but we do not experience it yet. We long for it and live in light of it. This is why the second coming is called, “the blessed hope”. 

So the last days are when we still live in the Old Kingdom, but in hope of the new Kingdom of God, that is both here and not here, as a pregnant woman is both a mother and not yet a mother.  

Finally, how are we to live in the last days? We live between the cross and the crown, we live in the now and not yet, in the overlap of the old kingdom that is passing away and the new kingdom that is eternal but not fully here yet. 

How do the NT writers who talk about the last days advise us to LIVE in these last days? 

In one sentence, it would be this: Let the coming reality, not the passing reality, determine our treasure, our choices, our influences, and our fears. Or more simply: we are to live as sojourners.

 A sojourner is someone who lives in a land that is not their true home, and in which they do not have citizenship. Hebrews 11 develops this theme, but 1 Peter does also.

1 Peter 1

13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” 

17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 

Be holy, because He is Holy. Holiness is not conformity to a set of rules or religious rituals. It is becoming like a person. A person whom we will someday meet, and whose Kingdom we will, by grace, share.

A person who has given everything to make that happen.

So, yes, we are living in the last days. But our call is not to figure out chronology of the last days. Our call is to embrace the tension of living in the last days, letting our future hope change our present thoughts, words and ways.

Reconsider Jesus – The Bridegroom and the New Wine (Mark 2:18-22)


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

The Bridegroom and the New Wine

18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”

19 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.

21 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”

Mark 2:18-22 – NIV

This selection of scripture actually combines two items that are usually dealt with separately. However, it seems to me that Mark is placing these together thematically and linking both to the previous (and following) sections. The theme is the profound break that Jesus’ Kingdom message makes with the religious status quo, particularly with that of the Pharisees and their strong orientation towards tradition. This theme is first sounded in the banquet party Jesus enjoys with Matthew and other non-religious persons; an obvious joyous celebration of a new appreciation of what God is doing in His Kingdom. And, of course, the sick person who was healed experiences both joy and newness.

Fasting is an aspect of many religions. Judaism required only one day of fasting, the day of Atonement.21 Fasts were sometimes called for by leaders and prophets in response to particular events, such as times of national danger, repentance or humility.22 Fasts also were observed privately for various reasons.23 Jesus never repudiated fasting, and fasted during his time of testing in the wilderness,24 but we do not find any extensive advice for his disciples to regularly fast though apparently the early Jewish Christians did continue to fast on some occasions.

During the time of Jesus, stricter Jews “fasted” two days per week from sunup to sundown. Some of their practices in fasting prompted Jesus’ strong words in Matthew 6: 16-18: “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (NIV)

Clearly, some of the Pharisees were guilty of fasting practices that were a public performance. Barclay suggests they may have whitened their faces to appear pallid.25 Jesus’ attitude towards public religion was quite severe. He frequently warned against the hypocritical tendencies that accompany public fasting, prayer, giving and worship. (What would he say about today’s contemporary Christian music scene?) Like the prophets before him, he discerned that human beings are easily motivated to believe that impressing the audience is impressing God. Jesus bluntly says that “they have their reward.”

One period for which fasting was forbidden was during a wedding celebration. For as long as two weeks the bride and bridegroom were surrounded by feasting and friends, known as the “children” of the bridegroom. For many people, this wedding celebration was the biggest party of their life and was an occasion of joy by the entire community. Sorrow was banished and fasting would have been ridiculous and insulting. Jesus’ first century audience would have laughed at such an idea. Jesus is comparing himself to the bridegroom. The bride may have waited for years for his arrival to bring her into his family, just as the Jewish people had waited for the promised one. This time when Jesus is present and bringing the joy and freshness of the Kingdom is no time to fast, but a time to soak in the joy and gladness of such an event.

The illustrations of the patched garment and the “new wine/old wineskins” contrast the old and the new. Jesus is not breaking with Judaism, but with the “old” orientation of the strict religionists who teach the keeping of tradition over the mercy of God. The Pharisee’s gripe with Jesus and his disciples is plainer in other passages, but we can already see that those who sneered at Jesus’ fellowship with tax collectors and sinners were threatened by a “new” teaching that presented a God who is not confined behind traditions, but reaches out to include sinners in surprising ways. It was not the laws of Judaism or the God of Judaism or the heart of the serious Jew that Jesus spoke about; it was the loyalty to a kind of religion that did not move with God into the future and hope, but moved backward into tradition and, as a result, bound people to their old sins.

Jesus did not come to patch up such a system. He did not come to pour the new wine into the old wineskins. Traditional religion will always tear away under the dynamic pressure of the Holy Spirit at work in the Kingdom. God is active in His Kingdom, breaking down walls, setting people free, healing the hurting and including the outcast. This can’t be fit into a system that says God is a cosmic bookkeeper, counting our acts of loyalty to tradition. Some have felt these sayings reflect the early Christian movement justifying a break with Judaism and the creation of a new religion. More likely is that, from the outset, Jesus was confronting all who knew him with fundamental choices as to what relationship with God was all about and what God himself was like.

With Jesus comes joy and celebration. The time is foreshadowed when the bridegroom will be taken, but that is not the time Jesus is speaking. And it is not our time, when the resurrected Christ is alive in His people through the Holy Spirit in a way even the disciples during Jesus’ ministry could not appreciate. With Jesus comes a new dynamic. Not new, in the sense that Jesus proclaims and embodies the same God who delivered slaves from Egypt by His mighty hand, but new in contrast to all those human systems of religion that are predictable, stale and moribund.

So how then do I see fasting today? The new approach to fasting would be to treat it like an endorsed, useful, but neutral practice. No one is better before God for fasting or not fasting. One’s prayer might more focused and less distracted because of fasting, but it is not more effective than the prayer of of a young child, or a Christian who does not fast. There is a fine line that needs to be trod here. Christianity needs traditions that can give meaning and can shape spirituality, but at the same time needs to be careful to avoid any form of legalism, asceticism, or new versions of old rituals. Whether we are talking about fasting, tithing, or other meaningful spiritual practices we must remember that it is only through the person and work of Jesus that we have standing before God. The Holy Spirit is received through faith, not efforts or rituals.

So how do we hold these things in balance? There are two fundamental characteristics of true Biblical religion: Fear of God and Joy in God. These are not strictly “Old Testament/New Testament” opposites, but their general character is strongly affirmed in each testament. Without the fear of the Lord, i.e. the genuine appreciation of the character and reality of God revealed in scripture, our faith becomes shallow, trivial, filled with vanity and entertainment, man-centered and trendy. These are the curses of modern Christianity, so full of a diet of candy-flavored preaching and entertainment-oriented worship that the fear of the Lord is not even desired, but considered bizarre. In this kind of environment grows a church with no appreciation for moral standards, no reverence in worship, cheap grace and a low view of scripture. However, without Joy in God, other symptoms develop. We look to material pleasures and human relationships for our deepest satisfactions. We place God “up there” and do not desire his manifest presence. We un-empower the Gospel and are afraid to pray for the miraculous or the supernatural. We become legalists and moralists, suspicious of those who are intimate with God. Both these emphasis are needed in healthy religion.

In addition we need to be wary as outward actions hold a dangerous potential of seducing our pride. No matter what it is we do, if it becomes a performance evaluated on what people thought rather than an offering given to the Lord, we are hypocritical. At this point, human pride is its most seductive and dangerous. How easy to pray for human ears, to view our giving as our support of the church, to preach for applause, to sing for fame and to witness for the adulation of others. Beware when everyone speaks well of you.

However, God is moving forward into hope and true faith pursues His heart. The sound of Christianity that should be heard in the world is Joy. Christian people should be holy and happy. Worship ought to lift us up to God. There are a hundred ways to apply this truth, and many more ways to miss it. This is not a suggestion that church should be entertainment. Far from it. But it is saying that if, after all our insistence that we are worshiping and experiencing and proclaiming Jesus, we are dusty and dead, something is wrong. Christian Joy is not the manipulation of emotion, but the response of the whole person- spirit, mind, will, body and emotions- to the presence and the truth of God.

I am no great fan of the phenomenon of holy laughter or the entire current fascination with bizarre manifestations.26 I am highly skeptical of much of it. But, those of us who have worshiped for years in joyless, dry, boring, sleepy, unmoved lethargy have no place to criticize those who occasionally seem to affirm the observation that Christians have been into the new wine. May God visit us and bring the joy of the bridegroom! May we desire all of God and may we be thirsty for more and more of His presence and power in our experience, as well as in our doctrine.

Finally, we should realize that the “bursting, ripping” power of the Gospel is a continual application. Anywhere that the old, i.e. the human and fallen, dominates, the Gospel brings dynamic life and new life. This is part of our commission to go into the world as leaven, as a new colony, as pilgrims and aliens, as lights in the darkness. And once in the world,, we represent not the old, but the new, Christ and His Kingdom. This being true, why are Christians so often sided with and loyal to the old? Why do we so often fight that which brings liberation, freedom, life and joy to the world? Why have Christians been found among racists, among communists, among those who bomb clinics and among those who oppress women? The new is one new race in Christ. The new is God’s Kingdom over human utopias. The new is radical love not violence. The new is an identity in Christ that affirms gender and transforms relationships. I do not want to be judged as a “progressive”, but I do want to be found doing exactly what Jesus would do if he were here.

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Footnotes:

[21] Lev. 16:31-34

[22] 2 Chron 20:3; Ezra 8:21-23; Neh 1:4-11; Jer 36:9; Joel 1:8-2:17

[23] 2 Sam 12:15-23; I Kings 21:27; Psalms 69:1-15, 35:13-14, 109:4-21

[24] Matthew 4:2

[25] William Barclay’s Daily Study Bible, Matthew 6:16:18

[26] When Michael Spencer originally wrote this in the mid 1990s, there was a phenomena experienced in several churches, originating in Toronto, Ontario, which was characterized by “outbreaks of laughter, weeping, groaning, shaking, falling, ‘drunkenness,’ and even behaviours that have been described as a ‘cross between a jungle and a farmyard.’” Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship Website. “Revival: History” – Retrieved 2009-08-28

 

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!

As usual, your thoughts and comments are welcome.

How I Correctly Predicted the Election Outcome

It has been an interesting couple of days, hasn’t it! My youngest daughter Kaitlyn and I have exchanged more texts in these last two days than we have in the rest of our lives combined! Like me, she is a political junkie, except maybe more so. Both of us are also into data… and there has been a lot of data flying about the last three days.

I make my living as a data analyst. When I am tuned into a topic I can make some very good predictions. I had some pretty strong thoughts about where the American Election might be headed, so I thought it would be interesting to put my thoughts in public before the polls closed.

Here is the tool that I used for the technical part of my determinations. The author is Éric Grenier, and I have been a fan of his for many years.

The tool has a cool feature in that you can use a slider to see the effect of a deviation from the latest polling numbers. The data has been updated ever so slightly from when I used it but what you see now is pretty close to what I used.

Here was my thinking. Donald Trump exceeded his polling numbers by 2.2% in 2016. The reasons the pollsters gave was that it was because they didn’t properly apportion a poll share to white uneducated males. They told us they had it fixed for 2020. The reason I am hearing this time round is the “secret Trump supporter”.

I thought it was simpler than either of those excuses that had been given pre and post the election.

1. Conservative voters always exclude their poll numbers. This is largely because older voters, who tend more conservative, have a better turnout on election night than younger voters.

2. Like 2016, Democrats did not have a candidate that they were enthused about.

My thinking went: If Trump could beat his polling by 2.2% in 2016, then he could likely beat it by 2.0 this year, and I adjusted the slider accordingly.

The state that really stood out as the swing state was Pennsylvania. At a 2.5 percent change in the slider, Trump would pick up Nevada, but still lose the election. At 3.0% was were Pennsylvania flipped into the Trump camp.

In my mind then Pennsylvania was key to winning the election this year, and so I made my first prediction:

1. Whoever wins Pennsylvania will win the election.

Note: as I write this, Pennsylvania is still in the Trump camp, but is trending strongly towards Biden. By sometime this morning it will be in the Biden camp, and he will win in by about 120,000 votes.

I didn’t think Trump would beat his polls by 3% and so I made my second prediction.

2. Biden will win Pennsylvania

At the time of writing this post, Biden was behind by 18,000 votes with 275,000 to count. He was winning 80% of the mail in ballots.

Based on my above analysis, I thought the election would be close, a lot of states would be close, and there would be recounts and lawsuits flying! So I felt pretty safe in making my third prediction:

3. The ultimate winner will not be decided for over a week.

I also knew that the mail in ballots would be a huge factor in this election, especially in how they were being counted after the fact in several key states. This would have the effect of Trump initially leading, and then losing ground as the mail in ballots were counted. And so I made my fourth prediction:

4. Trump will be ahead as of 11:00 p.m. (E.S.T.)

In fact he was! At 11:00 p.m. he was elected or leading in 278 electoral college ballots. By the time I went to bed that night Trump was elected or leading in 296! I must say I was tempted to second guess myself.

But I still thought that my original analysis was correct. And that was that if Trump couldn’t take Pennsylvania, some other states might be a toss up, but he would be maxing out at about 259 electoral college votes. That is why I had made my original fifth prediction:

5. Trump maxes out at 259 (or less) out of 270 electoral college votes.

So that is how I made my predictions.

What kind of outcome were you expecting? Have you been on a roller coaster of emotions over the last three days?

As usual your thoughts and comments are welcome. My Facebook friends managed to keep things civil despite their varied backgrounds. I hope we can do the same.