Seeking New Heights

Readings: Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Psalm 119:137-144; Isaiah 1:10-18; Psalm 32:1-7;  2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12;  Luke 19:1-10

Living in faith sometimes means confronting grey areas. It is not always so obvious what we should do as Christians; the connections between believing and acting are not always easy to discern. Our readings this week frequently encourage a useful technique for coming closer to determining the “right,” or godly, things to do: start by modifying your perspective.


Being a person who believes in God is a journey with an imperfect guidebook. Throughout scripture, we learn that adhering to the recommendations we find on the page alone is an erroneous move. There’s comfort to believing responses to all situations are pre-defined, but acting without thinking is never sufficient. This is why we find, in books like Isaiah, condemnations of mere “legalism.”

In this book, the prophet confronts the people of Israel, all of whom face tremendous political strains, and encourages them away from acting emptily and hoping for a gracious divine response. There is some suggestion that many of them have been compelled to act frenetically in accordance with what they think God demands, but have forgotten to infuse their actions with true faith. They offer sacrifices by the many; they rigorously observe festival dates; they bombard God with proper “action,” but forget that all of these dictates were given as an expression of love. The prophet channels God, who scoffs: “what care I for the number of your sacrifices?...new moon and Sabbath, calling of assemblies, octaves of wickedness, these I cannot bear…they weigh me down, I tire of the load” (Isaiah 1:14, 13).

The lesson, simply, is that the people cannot perform “acts” of faith in any perfunctory way. If they’ve been living out the laws which undergird the covenants, but without feeling or internalizing them, all they’ve done is ultimately empty. God’s love and allegiance isn’t warranted by automatons; the law must be lived, its precepts met with joy. For what God commands, from Sabbaths, to festivals, to the treatment of one’s neighbors, is all centered in his love for humanity. None of it can be done without a willing spirit; a Sabbath observed without graciousness is not observed at all, even if “rules” are perfectly followed.

And so we read, again at again, that God’s love is available; that it cannot be earned, but must be humbly accepted. And how is this done? Isaiah suggests that simply the admission of sin leads to its receipt: “though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow,” if only one learns “to do good, make[s] justice [their] aim: redress[ing] the wronged, hear[ing] the orphan’s plea, defend[ing] the widow” (Isaiah 1:18, 17). The 613 laws of the Hebrew Bible were designed to so orient people: if they’re internalized, and lived out with love, such behavior will become intuitive. This goes far beyond the trade model—“my dutiful behavior for your glorious reward”—that Isaiah suggests people were actually living out. The model which, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’re frequently tempted to adopt today.

We must not “forget God’s precepts,” the psalmist says, for the true servant knows that all edicts of God are “promises” proven “by fire,” promises which are “forever just” in basis, and lead to living fully (Psalm 119:141, 140, 144). Ignoring the spirit of God’s commands, and attempting to adopt them hollowly without troubling their meaning, is akin to singing them silently—the worshipful praise they should represent goes unvoiced. “Responding” to them like that leads to an atrophying of spirit: “as long as I kept silent, my bones wasted away; I groaned all the day…my strength withered in the dry summer heat” (Psalm 32:3-4).

Each reading proposes such a simple solution: shift your perspective. If you’re living dutifully but seeing no results, rethink what duty means. Our duties to the scriptures are NOT simple. Articulating “love thy neighbor” in appropriate situations is not sufficient; we have to articulate it in our deeds, to live it out, to do the actual work of engaging intimately our fellow humans. Saying that justice should be done is not enough; we have to work on justice’s behalf. Decrying situations which leave some in poverty, or sick, or at the margins is not sufficient; we must literally bring the afflicted in, and love them back to health. The scriptures assure us, after all, that it’s not just their health at stake: as long as one person is forgotten or rejected, the community is not whole.

In the gospel reading, this perspective shift is a literal one. Zacchaeus, a “chief tax collector and also a wealthy man,” is in town one day as Jesus is passing through (Luke 19:2). He’s deeply curious to find out who Jesus is, but is humble in stature, and can’t glimpse him above the crowd. And so he has the brilliant inspiration to climb a tree and get a better view—he’s determined to discover Jesus for himself, despite the din, despite all of the swarms of people who are, unlike him, so certain they can already answer the question of who Jesus is.

Jesus sees, and rewards, this act of faithful curiosity. Zacchaeus is called down from the tree and Jesus comes to stay with him for the night. This man—this sinner, this tax collector, this rich gentlemen among so many poor—is so inspired by what he learns of Jesus that he “sa[ys] to the Lord, ‘behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over’” (Luke 19:8). His whole life, his whole internal perspective, changes, and all as a result of the one moment of inspiration that led him to seek Jesus above the crowd, to see him clearly and for himself.

This week’s readings encourage us to consider how we are like Zacchaeus, or like those who burdened God with empty burnt offerings, perfunctory petitions without heart behind them. Do we know what is necessary for our own salvation? Are we absolutely sure? Or might we dare to climb to some vantage point beyond the crowd, with all of its various recommendations, and see if we can’t determine that for ourselves?

It’s possible that, even after gazing from a different viewpoint, we’ll discover that what we always thought we knew of Jesus is true. In such a case, no risk is involved, and we even may find our relationship with God, and our confidence in that relationship, deepening. But it’s also possible that our relationships to God and his word could always benefit from considering new perspectives. If we take time to think about how much is said of Jesus these days, and how much is built upon those assumptions, it’s only healthy to question how much of it strikes us as true, or is relevant to our own lives in faith.

Maybe, for a day or two, we can dare to forget the crowds. Maybe we can push aside the innumerable declarations of others concerning what Jesus would do in this situation, or that. Maybe we can approach such questions independently, and with the humility the scriptures encourage. We’re justified by faith, but we remain sinners; we love who God is, but we can always stand to learn more about Him. And we do that, first, by admitting our shortcomings, as did David in the Psalms: “I declared my sin to you; my guilt I did not hide. I said, “I confess my faults to the Lord,’ and you took away the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32:5). We do that by admitting that our ability to see is necessarily limited if we’re standing amidst crowds of people who are all certain they can see perfectly. We do that by asking God, and God alone, to fill in the blanks, the spaces in our hearts and minds where questions still exist, where the formulas in place don’t seem to go far enough. We can seek our own sycamore trees; we can climb to the tops of them, and we can wait in happy expectation, knowing that “the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint” (Habakkuk 2:3).

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Raindrops Keep Falling...

Readings: Joel 2:23-32; Psalm 65; Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22; Sirach 35:12-17; Psalm 84:1-7;  2Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18;  Luke 18:9-14

A mere week ago, the city was awash. Rain fell in torrents, ceaselessly, for days, coupled with a merciless wind which wreaked havoc on umbrellas, so that not even that flimsy respite could be offered. Among the people I know, most of us confronted this seasonal tempermentality grimly, determined only to endure it. We were tolerant at best, and at our worst moments, were reduced by it to bundles of nerves. I would venture to guess that had anyone proposed we respond to this weather with gratitude, most of us would have responded with incredulity. Gratitude? For what? Isn’t a rainy day pure misery?


Yet this week’s texts remind us that there are immemorial qualities about our world which, though we’re inclined to either take them for granted or resent them, were once held as proof positive not only that God existed, but that he loved us dearly. Rain is one of these. In the context of arid Israel, bounded by deserts and at the mercy of the skies for the cultivation of the land, rain was a blessing.

God’s love is repeatedly explained in terms of the gift of water: in Psalms, believers find refuge in God, and this manifests itself in “springs of water to drink,” as “from pools the Lord provides water for those who lose their way” (Psalm 84:6, 7). The imagery here suggests a separation between spiritual yearning, which is akin to wandering, and divine shelter, which is as an oasis among the chaos and inconsistencies of the broader world: the faithful can retreat, draw deeply from God’s spiritual wells, and so sustain themselves. In the Ancient Near East, this must have served as a very powerful metaphor.

But it is rain image is the most persistent throughout these passages—the sudden gift from the heavens of water upon the people. Rain is how God nurtures the land, and thus the people of Israel: “with showers [God] keep[s] the ground soft, blessing its young sprouts,” until God’s paths “drip with fruitful rain” and “the untilled meadows also drip; the hills are robed with joy” (Psalm 65: 11, 12, 13). Psalms suggests that this living, fluid, abundant joy is responded to be people everywhere as a marvel, and as an indication of great blessing.

Joel, too, rejoices over the gift of rain: “rejoice in the LORD, your God!...he has made the rain come down before you, the early and the late rain as before” (Joel 3:23). This foreshadows abundance in the land; moreover, it’s a wonder which asserts God’s presence in the land, and the depth of his special concern for it.

And when Jeremiah fears that the Lord has rejected Israel, it’s the lack of rain which stands as evidence: “Judah mourns, her gates are lifeless; her people sink down in mourning [and] cry in anguish…they find no water…there is no rain in the land….[and the people] cover their heads” (Jeremiah 14:2, 4). In Joel, God’s presence was attested by the presence of water; in Jeremiah, when there is drought, the LORD is missed in the land, and seems a stranger to it.

The people of Israel, it seems, are a thirsty people; but the desire they feel is not merely for the material sustenance which water provides. Indeed, they are a people who thirst for God’s presence; their own bodily well being, and the physical well being of the land, becomes tantamount to an expression of the covenant’s well-being, so that spiritual health is tied up in the health of the earth. Literally, they are a people whose eyes are ever turned skyward, waiting; but this directionality evokes the Temple, and the literal presence of God, on high as much as it anticipates the actual gifts from the sky. They thirst for God’s love, and rejoice in any manifestation of it, and water becomes a significant trope. Quench our desire, they beg; as much as the cultivation of the fields and of their beasts, what God offers to quench that thirst will lead to a deepening, and a continuation, of the relationship of God to the people.

Perhaps these readings are a reminder, to us, to look skyward, or, more specifically, to look to God to fill us where we remain in want. We’re lucky in that our blessings abound; what was scarce to the Israelites is not to us. But this is also a potential trap, because when such necessities are readily available to us, we forget to receive them as gifts. Rain becomes a nuisance, and not a promise that we’ll eat well in coming months; and why seek a distant oasis when we can flick a wrist and turn on a faucet? But if we wish to cultivate the same kind of intimate relationship with God which he shared with the people of Israel, we cannot receive things so easily. What the earth gives us remains a gift; we should try to remember, at least in scattered moments, to shelve our grumblings and turn our faces to the rain, and offer the same kind of thanks, with the same sort of joy, which we see in Joel and the Psalms.

The temptations are great to continue to take things for granted; after all, it’s so easy to do. But it’s dangerous to stock, and zealously count, our blessings as though we always warrant them. God’s generosity deserves gracious receipt.

Our chapter in Luke this week reminds us that gratitude is, in fact, necessary. We can brush aside blessings impatiently, or refuse to acknowledge them as such; we can sap up greedily that which is scarce for our neighbors, and never think twice about it. But then we defy Jesus’s parable, and become like the errant Pharisee, the fool whose prayer to God runs “’O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous’” (Luke 18:11). This preening ‘prayer’ has no value in God’s Temple, for it is built on the absurd premise that any of us can claim separation from, or innate superiority to, the rest. Jesus warns that all who so “exalt themselves will be humbled” (Luke 18: 14).

Yet a hopeful alternative exists, here in the figure of the tax collector. He won’t “even raise his eyes to heaven,” won’t even look for the blessings which God bestows, but instead humbles himself and prays, “’O God, be merciful to me, a sinner’” (Luke 18:13). The gospel tells us that it is he who will be exalted. He confronts a human condition: that he is somewhat “unworthy” of God, as a sinner, as we all are. But because he expects no reward for this, he’s better positioned to receive any gift God sends earthward. By being humble, by not expecting, we prepare ourselves internally for joy.

I suspect that, unlike the tax collector, we do need to presume to raise our eyes a bit, if only because we’ve gotten used to ignoring the source of our blessings. He knew what we forget: that what happens here proceeds from Heaven, and that thanks for the gifts which we sometimes thoughtlessly store needs to be directed there. We have to engage in actively remembering that gifts are gifts, even before we begin the work of receiving them humbly. It’s a great task in our busy lives, but undoubtedly, a valuable one. If we now and again dare to cast aside our umbrellas, and all other tools which enable us to avoid feeling God’s gifts, and thinking about his graciousness, perhaps we can move toward living in the continual joy exemplified in these chapters of Scripture.


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Wrestling Doubt

Readings: Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119:97-104; Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8

The two most prominent characters in this week’s readings are Jacob and the persistent widow. Both face unsettling situations and yet respond to them, with some variations in style, with faith.


This particular chapter of Jacob’s story is one of the most puzzled over passages in Genesis, if not the Hebrew Bible. Jacob, journeying home to rejoin the brother he betrayed, encamps overnight with his family. Seemingly out of the blue, he gets up in the night and begins wrestling with either an angel, or a ‘man of God’. The figure is mysterious; some have suggested that this enigmatic holy man may have been God personified. Jacob is injured, but persists, and at the end of the encounter is renamed “Israel,” for he’s “contended with divine and human beings and has prevailed.” (Genesis 33:29)

This story almost requires individual interpretation. Is the wrestling a metaphor, or is Jacob supposed to have actually physically wrestled with some divine being? If the wrestling is literal, with whom, and why does it begin? If metaphorical: is the struggle internal, and what is Jacob, all wrapped up in human impulse and flaw, wrestling against which is more ‘divine’?

In conjunction with the other readings for the week, and keeping in mind that it’s so difficult to know which interpretation is “better,” it may be interesting to consider the struggle as a metaphor. In the chapters which precede this week’s Genesis reading, Jacob had been engaged in a bit of brotherly competition with Esau. Perhaps this is to put it lightly: Jacob, from a young age, continually defied and tricked his twin, cheating him out of his land, swindling him out of his birthright, until, eventually, the tension became so great that he had to flee. Jacob is now returning to his home, at tremendous risk of being welcomed not quite warmly. Esau has sent word that he’ll ride out to meet Jacob and his party with four hundred men; were Jacob to receive his “just deserts,” this could, in fact, be the end.

Jacob comforts himself with reminders of God’s promises: “’You told me, oh LORD, ‘go back to the land of your birth, and I will be good to you.’’” (Genesis 32:10) Jacob recognizes that he hasn’t always warranted such generous treatment—he says, in fact, in prayer: “I am unworthy of all of the acts of kindness that you have loyally performed for me.” (Genesis 32:11) And yet he anticipates one more act of kindness: that God will help him to cross back into the land promised as his, safely and with all of his new family.

It’s in the night following these prayers that Jacob struggles with the angel. He’s to meet his brother, and all of his brother’s assembled men, in the morning; he’s hoping that the meeting will go well, for his own sake, and for his family’s. Odds are against him. There’s no reason to believe that it will go well for him, especially if all details are left up to only Esau’s sense of justice. In the quiet of the night, he waits. And somehow meets, and struggles with, either an angel or God.

The result of Jacob’s struggle is that he prevails, and is renamed. His renaming essentially reinforces God’s promises to him, ensures that he and his family will be able to enter the land safely and live there until they are “as numerous as the stars.” It reinforces God’s covenant, or reaffirms it. But if the struggle is metaphorical, perhaps the real affirmation is that, despite Jacob’s flaws and lack of obvious worth, the covenant had always been available, and God was always true to it. Jacob had to struggle toward that realization. He had to prevail against all of his self-doubts and ready himself to receive that grace. He had to, in short, trust enough in God to persist, despite odds.

The parable of the persistent widow is similar, although she’s able to “prevail” in her struggle with less self-doubt: the judgment she anticipates is a just one (Luke 18:5). She lives in a town which is presided over by a judge who “neither fear[s] God nor respect[s] any other human being,” and as such, would be the perfect person to test the strength of any sort of covenantal promises passed between God and man. God promises justice, but how does justice work if the system which is supposed to exact it is presided over by those who neither respects heavenly precepts, nor care much for the well-being of individuals? There is reason for the widow to despair. This judge could be the exception to the absolute rule of God’s fairness; he could defy it by refusing to be moved by the persuasiveness of good.

In the end, in fact, he is ‘immovable’, at least in such terms. It’s not fear for his own integrity that sways him; it’s not insecurity before God, and the realities of eternity. In fact, he only bends and renders a just verdict because, inexplicably, he fears the persistent widow—he worries that she “will finally come and strike” him (Luke 18:6).

But Jesus tells us that there’s more to this fear than meets the eye. It’s not that the widow is a particularly fearsome figure. Likely, this wronged woman obsessed with justice is more of a curiosity in such a town than a threat. I imagine a woman of unimposing stature, an earnest and vulnerable person who it would be, very realistically, easy for a heartless, powerful man to dismiss. And yet he cannot. She haunts him, in faith, follows him about seeking the justice that her trust in God tells her must come (Luke 18:7).

Jesus hints to us that it’s not the widow herself who eventually moves the judge to render justice. Rather, it’s God backing her. It’s God who answers her prayers and compels her to persist, filling her with the confidence to continue. It’s God’s work on her behalf that “secure[s] the rights of [those] who call out to him day and night”, God who sees “to it that justice is done” (Luke 18:7, 8). It does not matter that the cruel judge thinks he does not believe in God; this does not negate God’s power over him. It does not matter that the widow is not obviously intimidating; that she represents justice, and that she’s backed by a just God, is what makes her imposing.

In these chapters, God promises that those who have faith will be blessed. Sometimes it’s not obvious why such people are blessed, as with Jacob; sometimes it’s quite clear that they “warrant” it. But the real message of the week’s readings is that we never really warrant God’s love, which is so great that it’s beyond human pursuit. It’s a powerful and moving force that works almost against logic. God gives his love freely and always; not because human beings ever particularly deserve it, but because he’s promised to do so, and is true to his promises.

Our readings teach us that the answers to all misgivings and tribulations lie in the promises God has already made. Even when we think that there’s no reason that it should, help comes from God, “the maker of heaven and earth,” who won’t allow for things to become truly impossible, or impassable (Psalm 121:2-3). God does not sleep; he always guards his beloved creations, affecting and protecting them silently, sometimes so silently that they miss evidence of it (as with the unjust judge).

These are not injunctions against any pain: it is certain that neither the widow, nor Jacob, lived the rest of their lives completely pain or hardship free. It’s only a promise that God is there, if we seek him. And if God is there, we’re somewhat impervious to permanent damage, or persisting injustice. Relief will come, even when situations seem hopeless: “by day the sun cannot harm you, nor the moon by night. The LORD will guard you from all evil, will always guard your life” (Psalm 121:7-8).

These passages are difficult to internalize. Any one of us can offer stories about times in our lives, or in the lives of loved ones, which seem proof that justice does not always prevail. We can read stories which seem to assert such “realities” in the paper, or see them broadcast in any newsreel. But our readings attempt to assure us of a broader justice, a covenant that remains strong despite daily arguments against it. They encourage us to keep faith, and trust that there will be relief. And of the tendency to believe that, because there is pain, there must not be a loving God, they say only that such inclinations are “myths” which divert our attention from “the truth” (2 Timothy 4:4).

Sometimes faith is not convenient; sometimes it would be easier, even look more sensible, to abandon it. Our readings prompt us to resist those desires as facile, and empty. “Be self-possessed,” they enjoin us; eventually, the reward will be in our own “renaming,” in our own assumption into a new and eternal realm of God’s love. If we wait, and believe, and persist: justice will come, and our lives lived in faith will have been, properly, evangelization.

The Imperative to Love

Readings: 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15; Luke 17:11-19; Psalm 66:1-12; Jeremiah 29:1-7.

I once knew a pastor who was ruined by his accent.


Actually, that’s scapegoating: it was not the accent that destroyed him, but his congregation’s reaction to it. As national debates heated up surrounding issues of citizenship versus illegal residency, his congregation began to complain, with increasing fervor, about his Columbian accent. They couldn’t understand him, they claimed, and so he couldn’t possibly really understand them. The communication gap, they believed, was too great.

Oddly enough, these complaints hadn’t really existed in years previous, and so it came to seem that their problem with him was not really that they couldn’t understand what he was saying; it was more that they didn’t want to. He came to represent the Other, the foreigner, the person against whom they must rally. They forgot he’d been their trusted spiritual leader. And, sadly, the overarching leadership caved, and the pastor in question was relocated to an area more likely to react favorably to the fact that he was Hispanic.

I’ve been very angry at his congregation over this for awhile now. It seemed self-evident, to me, that a Christian community should not react this way to someone, particularly a spiritual leader, based on negligible, even imagined, differences. They let themselves get too caught up in the ideas of proper “citizenship” and nationality, and in the process lost a really good pastor, one who had cared for them and done his utmost to exemplify Christian ideals. His “other”ness was not the problem; theirs was. By rejecting him based on his origins, they made themselves “other” to the Scriptures.

Our readings this week are full of aliens, sojourners, foreigners. They are not what we’ve come to expect from people shouldered with such terms. Indeed, the common rhetoric here, in our time, is that he who is the Other must be villianized and kept at a distance. “Other” is considered dangerous. But in biblical contexts, “others” are those who often surprise established nations or groups by being more faithful, more committed to God’s message, than those charged directly to live it out.

In 2 Kings, Naaman, a chieftain of another nation, is encouraged by an Israelite to go to the king in Jerusalem and petition the king’s prophet to have his leprosy cured. Doing so means deviating from all which he’s always known to be true. Yet he listens to the Israelite child and goes before the Israelite king. He is told to perform a simple act of faith—“wash seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will heal, and you will be clean”--in order to become well (2 Kings 5:10).

Naaman wrestles with himself internally, but eventually decides to show this faith, and is rewarded by becoming healed. And, the text tells us, “he returned with his whole retinue to the man of God. On his arrival he stood before him and said, ‘Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel’” (2 Kings 5:15). A hefty concession for any Israelite whose faith was daily tried; a grand one for a foreigner, of whom belief was not required.

In Luke 17, we read again of an afflicted foreigner, this time a Samaritan. He goes before Jesus as part of an ailing group. They beg to be healed. Jesus, never one to put too much stock in silly boundaries, of course heals them—as an act of love, as any creator would do for his created. And the Samaritan who is cured, one of many cured, the only foreigner among the cured, is the only to offer thanks: “realizing he had been healed, [he] returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him” (Luke 17:15-16). Jesus comments on this, affecting perhaps not entirely genuine surprise that this devotion comes from one not bound, by covenant, to Israel’s God: “Ten were cleansed, where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” (Luke 17:17-18)

The message that can be derived from these readings is not that sometimes, some foreigners surprise us by being better than we’d expect; rather, it’s that the notion of “foreigner” is entirely absurd in the context of faith.

Anyone can live out Christian principles. As such, we are required to love all people as our neighbors, not just those who “officially” belong to our communities. The communities mean nothing unless they’re built on values of inclusion.

We cannot rest in notions that, because we have been privileged, because we live in times and locations which are very blessed, we are ourselves blessed over and against other peoples. God loves all; he hears all petitions. And if we fail to welcome into our communities the “foreigners,” those who outwardly seem to be “Other”, we fail to do the work of being like Christ.

Before God, we are all slightly “other.” It is not until we begin the work of faith, of living out Judeo-Christian principles, that we become more of what God envisioned and designed us to be. By appropriating faith into all aspects of our lives, we begin the cautious approach towards accepting God’s grace. It waits us always, regardless of our locations—as the 66th Psalm tells us, shouting “joyfully” to God is a task enjoined of “all…on earth”, who “fall in worship before” God, singing and worshipping. The events in the land are evidence of this love; the mercy and favor they represent is available to all, in all lands.

We are charged, as were the Israelite exiles, with the responsibility of living amongst our neighbors with love. Even if they seem different from us. Even if their “ways” aren’t always easy for us to understand. They, too, are God’s—this is what binds them to us, what makes loving them an imperative. We are to “build houses to dwell in; plant gardens, and eat [shared] fruits,” and the welfare of the ground which we share is essential—our own rests upon it (Jeremiah 29:4, 7). We’re promised joy if we do this—not the joy of living without tumult, in a state of sustained tolerance, but the joy of living truly well, in the borderless community envisioned in scripture.

I worry for us, travelling along these paths we’ve designed. Our communities become less and less hospitable to those who we deem unlike us. This has not become a place where it is easy to be the “Other”. If we’re truly invested in the notion that we’re a nation built upon Judeo-Christian principles, continuing to alienate “aliens” does our foundations an inconceivable injustice. It becomes, in fact, absurd.

We cannot refuse to engage in spiritual communion with people who have different accents, or are differently acculturated; we cannot reject human beings without having even tried to understand them. A Christian community which is only open to some is, it would seem, closed off to Christ. We must counter such trends by doing work which is Jesus-like, which starts at the most basic levels of human communication. We must seek to engage one another, on ground which we find is shared despite our resistance, from a position of faith. All are beloved by God; living in his image, so must we love all.

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Faith Unbroken

Lectionary Readings: Lamentations 1:1-6, 3:19-26; Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10

[Photograph: prayers in the Western Wall]

This week’s readings are populated by believers who have experienced or witnessed deep, unexpected agony—agonies ranging from loss to the threat of faithlessness, from exile to persecution. What is significant throughout them is that, despite afflictions, our believers remain believers, despite conditions which most of us cannot realistically imagine. The question that emerges as we move through the readings is colored, perhaps, by incredulity: how do they manage this? How, even, can they be expected to?


Our Hebrew Bible readings present us with prophets who are trying to grapple with Jerusalem’s destruction at the hands of the Babylonians, a considerable blow to any faithful Judean convinced that the city, and temple, of God could never fall. What are they to do, feel and believe when calamities can befall even the place which houses the presence of YHWH? And our New Testament figures, though dealing with more personal upheavals, must confront the same kinds questions: faced with doubts, what assurances can they draw either from the present Jesus (in the case of the apostles) or the memory of Him (in the case of Paul) to ever “increase their faith” (Luke 17:1)? Even with God before us, it seems, faith is not always easy to come by. And yet in each of these passages, we find that faith is worth maintaining. It is something to work toward ever diligently, never seeking the rewards of utter and total assurance—it is a relationship between God and His people.

Lamentations is the clearest expression of grief in this week’s readings. Composed sometime after the fall of Jerusalem, it is presumably the account of a witness to Judah’s destruction, one who mourns, with the rest of the nation, for the lost holy city: “Bitterly [Jerusalem] weeps at night, tears upon her cheeks, with no one to console her,” (Lamentations 1:2), for Jerusalem’s people have been driven into exile. The despair the witness feels is almost palpable, as he takes careful account of treasures lost: Judean religion cannot be practiced in Judah, enemies to it rest easily within the city, and exiled Judeans find no peace (Lamentations 1:3-5).

As is typical of exile era wisdom literature, the witness assumes the brunt of the guilt for the unimaginable loss of the city: “the LORD has punished her for her many sins,” he suggests. And yet with all of this considered—the grief of the loss, and the tremendous contrition for it—the lamenter makes an interesting move: rather than abandoning faith in the relationship between God and His people, he recalls that, at its healthiest, that relationship meant that God would always redeem, and he takes heart.

Though being forced to remember Jerusalem in exile is “wormwood and gall,” the lamenter finds reason to hope: “the favors of the LORD are not exhausted, his mercies are not spent” (Lamentations 3:21-22). In fact, he calls these coming mercies acts of faithfulness on God’s part, perhaps faith that the Judeans can remain true to the covenant and seek return; in any case, it is clear that, despite great hardships, confidence in the relationship remains. And for what reason? What causes this witness to hope? Little more than the memory of the city of its best, highly traveled by pilgrims and awash in God’s love; the mere recollection of that is enough to make him “put his mouth to the dust,” as a kiss, for despite ashes, despite all destruction, “there may yet be hope” (Lamentations 3:29).

We find this hope solidified by the time of Habakkuk, a prophet very likely able to remember the destruction himself, who had been living in an extended state of misery with the exiled Judeans, who heard them cry out to the Lord with no seeming response—the wicked seemed to grow wickeder, and injustice seemed to multiply, despite the faith of the people (Habakkuk 1:2-3). The oracle he delivers, the only cause for hope, is that God does hear, and enjoins them to wait, and believe: “the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late” (Habakkuk 2:3). If one refrain, one heart of a philosophy, can be drawn out of these works, penned during periods of tremendous hardship for God’s people, it seems to be: wait. God doesn’t afflict us with more than we’re equipped to handle. Relief comes. Wait.

If these exiled prophets and believers can do it, so should the apostles be able to, particularly considering that they’re direct witnesses to God embodied—he stands before them, incarnate, and still they implore Him for reasons to believe.

Imagine the frustration of Jesus, petitioned for more and yet more by his followers, always demanding clearer sight; it seems to us, the removed readers and recipients of these gospels, that they have greater cause than any to take heart and be steadfast. Yet they insist of Jesus, “Increase our faith” (Luke 17:5). We’ve already heard, in our readings, of followers of the Lord who, their worlds collapsed around them, no end to persecution and exile in sight, manage to maintain, and even increase, their own faith; what are we to do with these complacent disciples who seem to bumble, incomprehensibly, before the Lord?

It is perhaps not wise to be too hard on them; throughout the gospels, the disciples frequently misunderstand Jesus, but they are the ones who carry His message forth after His death, and who are left to grapple with the tremendous implications of the incarnation and crucifixion. They do their best, and the metaphor of the mustard seed may not imply, after all, that they didn’t have enough faith; maybe it signifies that they didn’t have enough confidence in the power of that faith. Certainly, they aptly move “mountains”, both theological and political, in the years following Jesus’s crucifixion, and we must therefore assume that the worries which they present to Jesus in Luke are somewhat unfounded.

They’ve been witness to the life of God, embodied, and yet have no confidence that they’ll be able to properly remember what they’ve seen, or felt, or known in His presence. Similar to worries in budding relationships when two people are faced with sudden extended periods apart: perhaps they fear they won’t be strong enough to remain true to Christ and His mission—will what seems so real to them now seem as real, and as true, when Christ isn’t there to reassure them? Are they in danger of faltering, and returning to their pre-Christian existences? Can’t Jesus do something to ensure, or to reassure them, that no such departures could occur? But Jesus promises them no relief; He will not tell them that they already believe "enough".

The parable Jesus delivers seems to suggest that the work of a believer is never done, regardless of how spiritually substantial and ultimately meaningful one day, or another, in the life of a Christian seems to be. The relationship between a believer and God is an intimate one, and therefore no one can ever rest easily in it, or take undue respite from the work of it; it must be cultivated, fed both by gratitude for, and confidence in, the gift of God’s love, and by a constant awareness of what life would be like if the relationship broke down.

God commands a steadfast heart; the disciples, though they’re sure they’ve given this, cannot expect for the relationship to become suddenly easy, for is a master “grateful to [a] servant because he did what was commanded?” (Luke 17:9) No; rather, work for the servant is as faith for the Christian follower: absolutely imperative and never promised as easy.

It is a form of love that cannot be rested in or taken for granted, and once given, must be re-given, just as God constantly regenerates love for His people: both God and disciple say, at the end of the day, “we have done what we are obliged to do.”

And, lest this be thought a rather demanding imperative for a loving God to make, we learn in Timothy that, just as God never afflicts us with more than we are equipped to bear, God never makes demands of us which we are not uniquely suited to fulfill. For “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control,” which makes even seemingly minute helpings of pure faith sufficient, so that we need never ask for “more”—a seed of faith will sustain, despite odds which seem too incredible. Indeed, Paul assures us, the perfect grace which God displays in making us precisely so that we can always persist in faith is implicit in creation: “He saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began” (2 Timothy 1:9).

And so we are reminded this week that in our darkest moments, we can rely on faith, even if the burdens pressing down on us seem too unimaginable to bear. We are meted out just enough faith to endure any strain. And when times are less tempestuous, and faith seems too accessible to be substantial, we must work in the knowledge that it has already sustained us, and must “exercise” faith to keep it strong. The reward of such devotional work is not the return of God’s love, which is always assured, but the awareness of it: a love that demands, and sustains; that persists, and towards which we must persist. That love is the temple that will never fall, even if the earthly image of it must, at times, undergo some reconstruction.

April 25 -- Life's Volcanoes

This week's lectionary texts: Acts 9:36-43, Psalm 23, Revelation 7:9-17, and John 10:22-30.


At the time of this writing, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland is continuing to wreck havoc on airline travel to and from a number of European nations. Sending ash several miles into the sky, the volcanic eruption has forced the cancellation of tens of thousands of flights, and stranded hundreds of thousands of people. Everyone hopes that the volcano will soon calm down enough to allow for normal air travel to resume, but experts simply don’t know when the intriguingly named Efjafjallajokull will stop erupting (indeed, in 1821, the volcano began erupting for nearly two years!).

Events like the eruption of this volcano in Iceland remind us that our globalized world has become deeply interconnected – we have become incredibly reliant on easy and swift travel, and the loss of the convenience to which we are accustomed has thrown the whole world for a loop.

Furthermore, we are forced to realize that, at the end of the day, we are not in control. We can plan and plan all we want – and, to be sure, there is nothing wrong with making plans to try to achieve our hopes and dreams. But there will be inevitably be unexpected hiccups, fortuitous coincidences, terrible tragedies, beautiful surprises. We can’t make the volcano in Iceland stop erupting any more than we can ensure that our lives will go exactly according to plan – things just don’t work that way.

But even when we grant that life is unpredictable – in ways both bad and good – we can be confident in the continuity and steadfastness of one thing: God’s deep and abiding love for every one of us. This week’s lectionary texts explain that in the midst of uncertainty, we can rely on God to be our shepherd, to bring us through life’s unexpected joys and pains, and to even bring life out of death.

Psalm 23 is almost certainly the most famous of the 150 psalms. In beautiful, poetic language, the psalmist reflects upon the loving care that God had given him. As he writes,

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

he leads me beside still waters;

he restores my soul.

He leads me in right paths

for his name’s sake.” (Psalm 23:1-3)

The psalmist trusts God – trusts that God will lead him to safety. He furthers, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). The psalmist has known pain and trod dangerous paths – but he recognizes that God only wants the best for him. He closes with a powerful reflection on God’s provision: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long” (Psalm 23:6)

Meanwhile, in Revelation, we read of an eschatological vision in which God has utterly delivered God’s people “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9). Angels and elders and strange creatures: all are worshiping and blessing God. John then writes about what he is told regarding God’s people in this new eschatological reality:

“They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;

the sun will not strike them,

nor any scorching heat;

for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:16-17)

God is revealed once again to be a God of delightful contradiction and paradox, for Jesus, the Lamb of God, has become the shepherd, just as he embodies divinity and humanity, leadership and servanthood, power and humility.

In the gospel of John, we read this week that Jesus took seriously his role as shepherd of his people. Accosted by those who wanted to know definitively whether or not he was the Messiah, Jesus explained that he had told them – they simply did not believe. As he went on, he added, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28).

We are promised, indeed, that God has great plans for us through Christ. We are not assured that our lives will be easy – after all, Revelation states the God will “wipe away every tear from [our] eyes,” implying that none of us will make it through this messy and beautiful life without enduring struggles and pains. But Christ has promised to take care of us – he will never let go of us. Understanding that we are known intimately and loved dearly by Christ can help carry us through the unexpected moments in our lives, even when we can’t imagine what is coming next.

In Acts, we read about a woman called Tabitha, a disciple of Christ “devoted to good works and acts of charity” (Acts 9:36). Tabitha grows ill and dies, and soon after, Peter is called to come to her home. After meeting with her grieving friends, Peter sends them out of the room, turns to Tabitha, and commands, “Tabitha, get up” (Acts 9:40). Incredibly, she does – she has been restored to life through God’s power.

We may pray for miracles like the one of the resurrection of Tabitha in our own lives – for a friend or family member to beat their illness, for our finances to be fixed, for a volcano to suddenly stop erupting. Sometimes, these prayers are answered in the way that we hope for – but sometimes they are not. And it can be difficult to understand why things happen the way they do, whether for better or for worse. Scripture can prove unsatisfying when we are in the midst of challenges we never expected and aren’t sure how to face.

But in our lives – so challenging, so full of beauty and uncertainty – let us remember this Easter season that our God is one who has promised to always care for us, to love us with a love that we cannot even imagine. Goodness and mercy are ours, says the psalmist, no matter the difficult or unknown roads we must travel. In this sometimes confusing, sometimes breathtaking universe, let us look to God as our rock, our strength, our shepherd, and our constant.

Photo credit here.

April 18 -- Blind But Now I See

This week's lectionary texts: Acts 9:1-20, Psalm 30, Revelation 5:11-14, and John 21:1-19.



Most people who have ever been prescribed corrective lenses can remember the day that they learned the way they had always seen the world was not quite the whole story. They were seeing shapes and colors, perhaps, or the blurry edges of objects and the fuzzy words on signs or in books. But they weren’t perceiving the world in all its richness – weren’t seeing the fullness of creation.

And then when they first put on glasses or put in contact lenses – what a transformation! Life leaps into focus. Trees have leaves, the blackboard is actually legible. The world has not changed, really, but the person’s perception of it has. They begin to see their surroundings in a whole new way.

This week’s lectionary texts tell stories of people seeing and not seeing, being blinded and having their eyes opened, coming to new understandings of the world and the role they are to play in it. The authors of these texts understand that God is constantly helping us to see things in new ways – constantly pushing and challenging us to seek new perspectives and stretch ourselves.

In Acts, we read the powerful story of the conversion of Saul. Saul was a notorious persecutor of the early Christians, a man who hated those who followed Christ and what they stood for – indeed, we read, he “breath[ed] threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). But one day, traveling along the road to Damascus to find new victims, he was blinded by a heavenly light that was accompanied by a voice asking, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? […] I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:4-5).

Saul was utterly helpless – ultimately forced to depend upon a Christian disciple, Ananias, in order to regain his sight. Ananias worried that assisting Saul would mean the guarantee of increased persecution of the young Christian community. But God tells him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel” (Acts 9:15). So Ananias lays his hands upon Saul and heals him: “something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored” (Acts 9:18). Just days after setting out with the intention of destroying the followers of Christ, Saul (who will become known as Paul) begins “to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue, saying, ‘He is the Son of God’” (Acts 9:20).

Even before Saul was temporarily blinded by God, the author of Acts seems to be implying, he was already blind: blind to the pain he was causing, blind to God’s truth. It took the imposition of blindness and the helplessness that entailed to force Saul to reconsider the ways in which he was living, and to realize that the way he had been seeing the world was not the way God wanted him to interpret it.

The psalmist, for his part, also recalls a time when he could not see. There was a time, he explains, when God seemed to have withdrawn from him, and he could no longer see God: “By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed” (Psalm 30:7). And indeed, the psalmist never explains when (or if) he is able to see God’s face again. The psalm leaves us with questions about what it might mean to feel that God's face is hidden from us -- why and how does such a thing happen?

But the psalmist also explains that God has “turned [his] mourning into dancing; [God] has taken off [his] sackcloth and clothed [him] with joy” (Psalm 30:11). As he exclaims, “O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit” (Psalm 30:2-3). Even during those times in his life when he could not sense God’s presence, the psalmist could recall the times in the past when God had intervened on his behalf. He was able to draw on those memories to help move through the dark times in his life, trusting that he would be able to see what lay ahead by the light of God’s past help.

In the reading from John’s gospel, we hear the striking story of Jesus’ appearance to seven of the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. Peter and several of the other disciples had decided to go fishing, when suddenly they saw Jesus standing back on the beach – but “the disciples did not know that it was Jesus” (John 21:4). It was only after Jesus told the men, who had thus far failed to catch any fish, to cast their nets to the other side of the boat, that they began to catch more fish than they knew what to do with – and realized that the man on the shore was their friend Jesus. Their eyes, blinded to the real identity of Jesus, were opened.

After the disciples returned and cooked breakfast with Jesus, John tells us that Jesus asks Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” to which Peter replies, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you” (John 21:15). And Jesus tells Peter, “Feed my lambs” (John 21:15). A similar exchange happens two more times, with Jesus adding, “Tend my sheep” (John 21:16).

Peter does not seem to initially realize why Jesus continues to ask him the same question over and over; he feels “hurt because [Jesus] said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’” (John 21:17). But Jesus seems to only want to make sure that Peter understands just how seriously Jesus is taking the role Peter will play in the early Christian community. He wants Peter to know that loving him – loving Jesus – really means loving everyone. Peter and the disciples are to live out their love for Christ by loving and serving everyone they encounter. In this way, Jesus is giving them a new way of seeing: that is, seeing every woman, man, and child as a representation of Christ, and a person worthy of love and care.

Notice that the readings for this week do not always show a neat progression from blindness to sight. Sometimes, as in the case of Saul, people are blinded before they can learn how to see in a new way. Sometimes, as in the case of Peter, painful misunderstandings can result from God's efforts to help us to see things in new ways. And sometimes, like the psalmist, there may be times when we feel that we cannot see God at all. This Easter season, let us wrestle with these questions of blindness and sight, trying daily to see our lives, family, friends, and faith in a new light, looking for ways that we have been blind to the needs of our neighbors, and envisioning better possibilities for our world. And let us remember that all around us are people who view the world in a completely different way, a way we could never have imagined ourselves -- why not take a chance and try on their glasses for a while?

Photo credit here.