Faith & Politics: Seek the Peace of Where You Are

Some of the most familiar verses in the book of Jeremiah are:

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the Lord ... (Jer. 29:11-14a)

You might be surprised to learn the real context of the verses!
 In 597 BC, the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, laid seige to Jerusalem and took King Jehoiachin and the royal court into captivity back to Babylon (2 Kings 24:8-20). In all, 10,000 people were taken, and the Bible says, “Only the poorest in the land were left.” Nebuchadnezzar also looted the temple and the royal palace, taking all of the valuable articles back with him. Although Judah had effectively ceased to be a viable country, Nebuchadnezzar installed Jehoaiachin’s uncle—Zedekiah—as the king. 2 Kings 24 concludes:

It was because of the Lord's anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end he thrust them from his presence. Now Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

We pick up the story in Jeremiah 27. God told Jeremiah to make and wear a yoke as a symbol of Judah’s subjugation to Babylon. Jeremiah was to wear the yolk willingly as a prophetic word to the Zedekiah and the people in Judah:

With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please. Now I will hand all your countries over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him. All nations will serve him and his son and his grandson until the time for his land comes; then many nations and great kings will subjugate him. If, however, any nation or kingdom will not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon or bow its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation with the sword, famine and plague, declares the Lord, until I destroy it by his hand. So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums or your sorcerers who tell you, 'You will not serve the king of Babylon.' They prophesy lies to you that will only serve to remove you far from your lands; I will banish you and you will perish. But if any nation will bow its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will let that nation remain in its own land to till it and to live there, declares the Lord. (Jer. 27:5-11)

However, another prophet, Hananiah, gave other counsel. He told the king that within two years that God would break the yoke of the Babylon—i.e. free Judah from subjugation—and bring back to Jerusalem all of the valuables looted from the palace and the temple, and the 10,000 exiles as well. Then Hananiah took the yoke from Jeremiah’s neck and broke it as a symbol of God breaking the yoke of Babylon. However, then God told Jeremiah:

Go and tell Hananiah, 'This is what the Lord says: You have broken a wooden yoke, but in its place you will get a yoke of iron. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I will put an iron yoke on the necks of all these nations to make them serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they will serve him. I will even give him control over the wild animals. (Jer. 28:13-14)

Despite Jeremiah’s warnings—including Jeremiahs’s prophecy of Hanaiah’s death, which was fulfilled just months later—Zedekiah listened to Hananiah’s counsel. Nebuchadnezzar returned and laid seige to Jerusalem (again!) Zedekiah fled, but was captured by the Babylonian army:

They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon. (2 Kings 25:7)

However, before Zedekiah was deposed, Jeremiah wrote to the first wave of exiles to Babylon:


Jeremiah 29:4-19
 
Commentary
 
This prophecy has three main parts:

v4-9 Even in exile, seek the peace of the place where you live; prosper; do not listen to prophets who tempt you with words that satisfy your longing for something else.

v10-15 At just the right time, God will act. The exiles will be in Babylon until Babylon’s turn for justice comes (Jer. 27:7).

v16-19 Another warning about false prophets! The rest of chapter 29 is a warning for the false prophet Shemaiah, who was living with the exiles and giving the exiles false hopes.
The entire storyline of the Babylonian captivity is a lesson in theodicy, i.e. the justification of God. Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder challenges the idea of asking God to justify himself, asking:

 Where do you get the criteria by which you judge God?

 Why do you think you are qualified to judge God?

 If you think you are qualified, how does the trial proceed?

Religious persons have difficulty dealing with secular society & secular government. However, God makes it clear that he is in control, he is the force at work, and the government—any government—is simply a tool in his hand. God can use these tools to build or to destroy in order to re-build on the ruins of what was.


Points to Ponder

There are several referenda on the ballot in Maine next month— taxes, gay marriage, school consolidation, medical marijuana, etc. Religious voices on both sides are saying, “This is what God wants.” Is it possible ...

... that God will use the election to bring justice? (What needs to be destroyed?)

... that God would first have you seek the peace of the place where you are?

... that we are to remain engaged in the community even when the it is going in a direction we think is wrong?

God of the Gaps: Marathon Running

(Note: This is actually the communion homily from last week. The service ran so long, I didn't get to the sermon, and we just used the communion homily as the message for the week.)

A few weeks ago, I ran in the Maine State Marathon--actually, I ran the half-marathon, which ran simultaneously with the marathon and the marathon relay. We all ran the same course, but at the halfway point, the half-marathoners turned around, while the hard-core types ran another 6+ miles before turning around and running back.

I'm not the fastest guy by far, but in my training for running the half-marathon, I discovered that I'm more of a long-haul trucker than a sports car. My top speed isn't much, but I can run pretty far at that speed. In fact, I found that running for me really wasn't ever very much fun until I had run at least 2 miles. (This perhaps explains why I've made it to 54 without discovering this fact--I mean, who'd ever believe that running a 3rd mile is more fun than running the 1st two?)

I'm the assistant cross-country coach at the local high school, and I convinced some of the XC runners to run the marathon relay--four runners running a combined 26.2 miles. We entered a boys' team and a girls' team, and I skipped church to go with them and run the half-marathon, and then we all went out for a buffet feast.

Running the half-marathon was the most fun I've had in years! It's hard to explain, but after 2-3 miles, the 3,000 runners in the race had sort of spread out, and I found myself running with pretty much the same people for several miles at a stretch. I could chat with runners next to me, cheer for people I knew, and listen in on other conversations. In particular, there was one girl I followed for 3-4 miles who had the phrase "Isaiah 40:3" taped to the back of her shirt. About 5 miles into the race, I was feeling really good, and picked up my pace a little bit as we hit some hills. (Most people slow down a little bit as they go up hills. I pride myself on maintaining my speed--such as it is--all the way up most hills. I train myself to do it as a discpline of perseverance. During races, I pass more people on hills than on any other part of the race.) Halfway up a long hill, I passed Isaiah-girl and said, "Isaiah 40:3--right on!" She looked at me--confused for a minute--and said, "Oh, yeah, thanks!" and then I was off, and I never saw her again.

A voice of one calling:
In the desert prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the wilderness
a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:3)

I thought afterwards, some day I'll run with a T-shirt with the last few verses of Isaiah 40; let someone following me read this for a mile or two:

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:28-31)

Here's an interesting trivia fact: all track and field events have to do with training ancient soldiers for various aspects of warfare. The throwers--javelin, shot put, and discus--are easy; hey, take this spear, throw it and kill somebody. (At the high school, the track team has a T-shirt for the top ten reasons to be a thrower, and one of the reasons is, "Use weapons with school without getting into trouble!") Sprinters and jumpers--the true neurotics of any track team--are the infantry which charges across the field under a lethal rain of arrows; the faster you can cover the ground, the less likely you are to die before killing your opponent. But the really interesting ones are the long distance runners.

In ancient times, you would take your army out of the city and meet your opponent in the field. Specifically, you would try to prevent your opponent from surrounding you while you were in your walled city, laying seige, and starving you out. Women, children, and old men would remain in the city, wearing cackcloth and ashes and praying from your safe return. If you lost, they knew not only would you be killed, but those behind the walls would be taken off as the spoils of war: slaves and concubines. Even if you won, they knew that some would not come home, but at least life would go on, after a fashion. In either event, they would wait behind the walls, praying and waiting for good new from the front. The distance runners were the ones who would bring the good news.

Marathon running dates back from the Battle of Marathon at which Pheidippides ran back to Athens to announce the defeat of the Persian army. The runners would be given a reward for bringing the good news, and runners would vie against each other to be the first back to the city with the good news. These runners were called evangelists.

No joke.

There is a battle going on between good and evil. The battle is still going on, but the victor is clear. Jesus is Lord above all, and through him all can be saved. You no longer need to live in fear of bondage, in fear of what the future holds, in fear of what you have done. Jesus has broken the power of sin and death in your life. It doesn't mean that there won't be troubles and trials along the way, but you are free to live. Now get up and live! We are the heirs of those ancient marathon runners and our charge is to bring that good news.

How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
"Your God reigns!" (Isaiah 52:7)

God of the Gaps: A Brave New World

Consider the following:

A man was looking for a good church to attend and he happened to enter one in which the congregation and the preacher were reading from their prayer book. They were saying, “We have left undone things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.”

The man dropped into a seat and sigh with relief as he said to himself, “Thank goodness, I’ve found my crowd at last.” (The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 234)

What truths are taught in this story?

Luke 12:22-34

Commentary

Jesus’ reasoning has five parts:

v22-23 more than food ... more than clothes. Here “more” is a comparative adjective, which means it defines the nouns--food and body. There is more to life, there is more to us, than the food, clothes, etc. we are looking at.” We have a tendency to define ourselves down, to reduce our lives and our problems to things of relative unimportance.

v24-26 much more valuable than birds! In this section, Jesus addresses worrying about food. Here and in the next section, “more” is an adverb, meaning it modifies the action. That is, God will do a better job feeding us than he does feeding the birds.

v27-28 much more will he clothe you! In this section, Jesus addresses worrying about clothes: “God will do a better job clothing you than he does clothing the lilies.” The implication is that God’s actions on our behalf are more certain, more thorough, and more effective.

v29-31 your Father knows that you need them (v30). In these last two sections, Jesus steps back to look at the big picture. First, there is God the Father—v30 is the first place in this passage where God is mentioned in this personal way. The pagan—the one estranged from God—runs after the petty things in life because he does not know the generosity of the Father. We who know the Father should not be driven by worry and despair!

v32-34 do not be afraid (v32). The big picture expands to not just include the Father, but others inside and outside of the kingdom of God. We worry about petty things due to anxiety—fear of what the future holds. Jesus’ counsel is not just “Don’t worry,” but to live in the kingdom with the expectation of sufficiency. Once our focus expands beyond ourselves, we are free to enter into a brave new world of kingdom living.

What is the context for these verses? v13-21 are the parable of the rich fool, who tore down his barns to build bigger barns only to die that night; v35-40 are a charge to be ready—to be caught doing what is right. v32-34 are not just good advice, but the way we are called to live each day.

Application

What more is there to life than the petty things we worry about? Jesus gives us two answers: God, and neighbor. The petty things we worry about all pertain to our own needs—or at best our immediate family’s needs. We have been designed to live in community—with God, certainly, but with each other as well. Our obsession with our own needs shrinks our world down to a universe of self—a world that can never satisfy, because we were created for a brave new world: a community where we mirror the love of our Father in heaven as we love each other, a community where we return the Father’s generosity by sharing his material gifts with each other.

This brave new world is based on our knowledge of our relationship to our spiritual Father. We are no longer alone. Not only are we not alone, it turns out that the ruler of this brave new world is working for us. Despite today’s troubles, despite our petty concerns about food, clothes, and the like, our Father will make sure we get exactly what we need. As any parent with a young child knows, what the child wants and what the child needs is rarely the same thing. We may not get the food we want, we may not get the clothes we want, we may not get the health, or happiness, or prosperity we want.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ... Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ... For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-32, 35, 38-39)

That love is what we have been missing; that love is what we see when we back up to look at the whole picture.

When we really get that we are loved—that God is for us—we can begin to live with an expectation of sufficiency. [1] That expectation of sufficiency changes us from hoarders (the thieves and moths cannot take what we are using, but rather only what we are hoarding) into givers. Only once we are free to give without reservation are we free to love and care for our neighbor.

The Discipline of Koinonia:
Community through Intimate Participation

Koinonia means a partnership. Partners, in a business, in a marriage, in a club, or a church have a shared common interest. They are bonded together by that interest.

However, koinonia goes further, as partners enter into the life of one another, sharing treasures & trials, pleasures & pains, life & death together.

Koinonia creates an openness where we no longer have to try to be somebody we are not; we no longer have to live solely for ourselves; we no longer have to feel different and alone.

In one of our Wednesday night contemplative services, we learned about the relationship between one of the Hebrew words for “love” and the word for “obligation”. If you truly want to love another person, take on an obligation to care for that person. We have come to view obligations as burdens and hardships, but the Bible teaches that there is no love that does not bring with it an obligation to another. An ancient spiritual truth states: There is no koinonia without kenosis (i.e. there is no community without the emptying out of self). From this change in our orientation comes the humility that nurtures the gratitude that allows the generosity that transforms how we live.

As we fulfill our obligations to another, we discover that the other person is more like ourselves than we thought. Koinonia, in the words of theologian Mary Daly is, “The deepest possible community ... that is discovered rather than ‘formed,’ when we meet others who are on the same voyage.

Points to Ponder

Would you say that you are predisposed to hoarde what you have, or give it away freely?

Food and clothing—the two items Jesus focuses on in this passage—might not be your foibles. What material things do you tend to worry about?

What immaterial things do you tend to worry about?

Where have you not trusted God your Father to give you what you need? Would you like to trust in him today?

End Notes
1 - Not an expectation of prosperity—I think that sets us up to believe in a false gospel where we begin to pray for all sorts of ridiculous worldly things!

God of the Gaps: Praying for the S.O.B.

In his book Is Human Forgiveness Possible? John Patton examines the familiar story:

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matthew 18:21-22)

Patton says:

Peter’s question seems to say, “Please give me a rule so I don’t have to keep dealing with this. How can I know when enough is enough? I want to know what to do instead of having to come to terms with the whole history of our relationship.” Jesus’ response to the question says in effect, “I am unwilling to give you a way out of a continuing relationship to your brother.” (Is Human Forgiveness Possible?)

Jesus is unwilling to give us an out; refusing to forgive is not an option. Yet many of us as Christians struggle to forgive: the offense is grievous; the offender is unrepentant; the offense is repeated; we cannot simply “forgive and forget.” How then are we to live?

Colossians 3:12-14

Commentary

The context for these verses is Colossians 3:1-17, which in the NIV has the heading “Rules for Holy Living.” In v1-4, Paul reminds us that God raises us up to a new way of life. We die—cut ourselves off—from our old way of life and wait for the new God-powered way of life to take over. In v5-11, Paul exhorts us to dispense with the trappings of our old way of living—taking it off as we would take of filthy work clothes—and adopt a new way of living. (Compare this with Romans 6:5-14 & Ephesians 4:22-23.)

v12-14 lists some of the individual traits of this new way of life, while v15-17 gives a hint of what this new way of living might look like as a unified community.

Application

A Sufi proverb says, “If a man removes his bitterness, he becomes human; otherwise he becomes an animal.” The barrier to forgiveness is resentment. Resentment means, literally, “feeling again.” When we harbor grudges (big or small) in our resentment we are nursing the pain and giving it new life. Where we struggle with our faith, where we do not see (or feel!) the kind of spiritual growth that we so very much crave, perhaps we have not learned the best way to forgive. Perhaps we have tried to forgive, but are still holding on to resentment. Resentment has the power to cancel our feeble attempts at forgiveness.

For many of us, forgiveness is still a forced act. When we were children (and later when we are parents!) we played out the following script:

“Now tell your brother that you’re sorry for hitting him. Say it!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Now, tell your sister that you forgive her. Say it!”

“That’s OK.”

“OK, now go and play nicely.”

Did genuine forgiveness take place? Of course not! Inside each of those children—inside of us when we were children—there was a voice saying, “I will say the words, but I will not submit!”

We can argue about what is needed for real forgiveness—remorse, repentance, penitence, restitution, punishment, etc.—however, many of us do not forgive any more effectively than we used to as children following that script. For many of us as Christians, we know that God would have us forgive; we still hear that script, “Tell your sister that you forgive her.” We will say the words, but our hearts have trouble submitting! Is there any wonder why we feel like failures when our hearts do not back up our words?

Perhaps there is a different path to forgiveness. Perhaps we have been following the wrong script.

Preliminary research findings echo ancient understandings of forgiveness and shed intriguing light on the ongoing story of a spirituality of imperfection. Forgiveness, the investigators rediscovered, does not come easily, but it does, apparently, come suddenly. “Serene” persons—those who had suffered victimization but who now harbored no resentments—described not a specific act of forgiving, but rather a discovery of themselves as having forgiven. These individuals reported the failure of their direct efforts to forgive—they couldn’t force the experience. “The harder I tried to forgive, the more I seemed to resent,” was a frequent description. Realizing this, they stopped “trying to forgive” and instead “just sort of let go”; and then, after varying intervals of time, came the astonishing discovery that the resentment had disappeared, that they somehow already had forgiven.

... [Forgiveness] is one of those realities that cannot be “willed,” that becomes more impossible the harder one tries to will it. Forgiveness, in fact, becomes possible only when will is replaced by willingness; it results less from effort than from openness. (The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 216)

Forgiveness is a reality that cannot be willed, and we have been beating ourselves up by trying to will it and then punishing ourselves for not being able to will it.

Paul gave us the metaphor of taking off our old practices, our old self (v9), and putting on new practices, a new self (v12), and thereby becoming a new creation. Our old script for forgiveness, which allowed resentment to fester, was like putting new clothes on without taking the old, filthy clothes off first. Is it any wonder that we were not happy with the result? We stank!
In order to rid ourselves of resentment, we must first let go of our vision of ourselves as the victim. Playing the victim is an abdication of responsibility, it is remaining the child and mouthing the words dictated to us by one in authority. As long as we are victims, we will never feel free.

To move beyond victimhood, we must take responsibility for our selves and take a measure of responsibility for our future relationship with the one who offended us. (Remember, Jesus has refused to give us an automatic out!)

One option is to consider ourselves dead to revenge or justice. Simply assume that justice is something that we will never see (at least not on our time frame). Grieve the loss of justice and move on.

The other option is: Pray for the S.O.B.! (The prayer tends to work as long as one does not presume to tell God what the S.O.B. deserves.)

In either case, we take several positive steps: we refuse to be the victim; we take responsibility for our feelings; we take off our old way of living; and we allow God to act, either by bringing justice or by changing us as we pray for the S.O.B. Perhaps the S.O.B. that is changed is us!

The Discipline of Forgiveness:
Taking Responsibility for the Relationship

Forgiveness has a several nuanced meanings. The offended party should take
an active role in determining what steps towards forgiveness the offender is
ready to pursue:

1 – Admission of responsibility. If there are extenuating circumstances, then the offender may wish exoneration. Otherwise, if the offender is open to taking responsibility, then future reconciliation is possible. If the offender refuses to take responsibility, then at some point the offended party must take responsibility for forging what the ongoing relationship, if any, will look like.

2 – Freedom from punishment. It may be that the offender simply wants remission of punishment; this does not mean that the offended party should “forgive & forget.” If the offender is ready to stand in condemnation of what happened, then a return to the community in some form may be feasible.

3 – Return. It may be that the relationship is irreparable, but a place for the offender in a moral community is possible (e.g. a divorced couple remaining on speaking terms). It may be that the relationship is reparable, but then the ultimate question is what will the form of that relationship be.

4 – Restore or re-create? If a relationship can be repaired, one option is to attempt to “go back to the way it used to be.” Personally, I think this is generally foolhardy, and one is better off using the knowledge of what happened to forge a new, stronger, more resilient relationship.

(Steps adapted from Helping People Forgive, by David Augsburger)

The offended party has the power to make these determinations even if the offender is incapable. In almost all case, all parties are best served by not forgetting the past. As Arthur Schopenhauer said, “To forgive and forget means to throw away dearly bought experience.”

Points to Ponder

Where are you living with resentment? Can you grieve the loss or justice? Can you pray for the S.O.B.?

What if you resent what God has done? Can you still pray?