The Feast of Purim and the Redemption of Saul

A few months ago I posted these thoughts on King Saul's infamous battle against the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15.  I argued then that, in seizing on the prophetic word and capitalizing on the Amalekite plunder, Saul shows us the ignoble failure of all our efforts at self-Messiahship; but also that YHWH's rejection of Saul (and us in Saul) as Messiah is really a redemptive act, inasmuch as it paves the way for the true Messiah--our reyah--to take up the mantle on our behalf. 

In light of these thoughts (and also of these much earlier thoughts on the tragic end of Saul's dynasty) I thought I might share these insights into Saul's story I recently got from the Book of Esther.

Yes, Esther.  The connection between these two stories are not immediately obvious, but profoundly significant.

Five times the Book of Esther points out that Haman is an Agagite (3:1, 3:10, 8:3: 8:10, 9:24), that is, a descendant of King Agag,the very Amalekite whose house Saul failed to destroy as per his prophetic mission back in 1 Samuel 15.  His failure to destroy Agag's line was why YHWH rejected Saul in the first place, and now we see the ominous result of his disobedience:  centuries after Saul, the People of God face utter annihilation at the hands of Agag's descendant. 

This might seem like a minor detail, that the "enemy of the Jews" in Esther is a descendant of Agag the Amalakite.  But then in Esther 2:5, we discover that Mordecai (Haman's arch nemesis) is a Benjaminite from the line of Kish. 

Anyone remember whose son King Saul was?

Kish, the Benjamite. It turns out that an ancestor of  Saul, the failed Messiah, has risen up to oppose the ancestor of Agag, the source of Saul's failure.

With this in mind, I doubt it's a coincidence that, even though King Xerxes clearly gave the Jews permission to pounce on the plunder of their enemies (8:11), the story stresses three times that under Mordecai's leadership they did not (9:10, 9:15, 9:16).  Mordecai and Esther have succeeded where Saul failed, and what we're witnessing in their success is actually the redemption of Saul's story through their faithfulness. 

This is more than an interesting intertextual connection, it is a profound word of hope to any whose story--in ministry or life or Christian discipleship--has brought them seemingly to the point Saul's story was at in 2 Samuel 21:1-14, with lament echoing in the air and carrion birds picking at the remains. 

There is no failure so final that God cannot redeem.

Jesus said that we'd discover eternal life in the Scriptures if and when we look for him there, so as the Jews of Susa celebrate the Feast of Purim at the end of the Book of Esther, I've got my eyes peeled.  And I can't help but notice that when God finally does redeem our failed efforts at self-Messiahship, this is what it looks like:  a faithful community of God's people, delivered from death and celebrating life together around a sacred meal.

Salvation belongs to our God.

A Pastor's Soundtrack

My friend Jon Coutts and I studied at Briercrest Seminary together. He graduated a year before me, and before he left to pursue God’s next thing in his life, he gave me a special Mix-CD that he called “The Seminary Soundtrack.” It was a collection of songs that had been meaningful to him during his time at school. Many of them were songs we had enjoyed together in some way or another; a number were written by friends of friends; and even a few of our own compositions made the cut. I found it in my CD compartment in the car the other day and gave it a fresh listen: what is it about music that unlocks the floodgates of memory the way it does?

Mix-CDs are a dying art, I think. Time was the care and patience that went into making a Mix-Tape (only later a Mix-CD) made it necessarily a labor of love. Achieving the right progression from hard-to-soft or vice versa, the perfect blend of eclecticism in genres, a tasteful degree of self-expression in the song list, what Davis from Corner Gas calls “the aural journey of the Mix CD”—it doesn’t happen just for wanting it.

I’ve been thinking about this all today because this August marked the start as my fourth official year as pastor of the FreeWay. If we had space enough and time, I might hash out the many lessons and diverse challenges these last three years have given me; but in lieu of a more detailed memoir, I was thinking about what the “Mix CD” of my first three years might look like. These are the songs that got me through: some coming like god-sends at just the right moment of spiritual exasperation; others drowning out the chaos in my head when the inner-talk got too frenetic; others still articulating the ache in my gut for hope when words alone couldn’t do it.

If I were to make a soundtrack of my first three years pastoring, these are the songs that would make the list. It says more, perhaps, than a detailed memoir ever could.

1. “Chicago,” Sufjan Stevens
I made a lot of mistakes in my life

2. “I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight ,” U2
It’s not a hill, it’s a mountain when you start out the climb

3. “Let Down,” Radiohead
One day I am going to grow wings / A chemical reaction/
Hysterical and useless / Hysterical and let down

4. “Bigot Sunrise,” Tonic
I’m not alone, but I’m far from home

5. “The Medicine,” John Mark McMillan
... with a hole inside your chest the size of a city block...

6. “Exit,” Radiohead
Breathe, keep breathing, don’t lose your nerve

7. “Nadir” (Me)
When you reach the nadir of the heart I’ll be there

8. “Between the Cracks,” John Mark McMillan
He’s raising the dead in the graveyard, we’re we’ve laid down our dreams and his name is hope

9. “Welcome,” Hey! Rosetta
Sorry, this is it: it’s cold and hard and badly lit

10. “Winter Winds,” Mumford & Sons
And my head told my heart let love grow, but my heart told my head, this time no

11. “Breathe,” U2
Every day I die again and again and reborn /
every day I need to find the courage to walk out into the streets

12. “Chester Munday,” Brock Tyler
Just like Chester Munday I’m a prairie boy forever

Teachers who touched my life: a list

Today was the first day of school.  I am now officially the father of a son in high school--and a Grade 7er and a Grade 4er.  There was some sleeplessness last night and a fair bit of pacing this morning, but everyone got to the bus on time, with freshly-packed backpacks and renewed excitement.

After the dust settled this morning I got to thinking about my own school experience over the years (both as a student and a teacher), and it struck me how spiritually-formative the impact of a good teacher can be.  From this point of reflection it was only a hop skip and a jump to remembering some of the teachers who have left a spiritually profound mark on my life.  They are listed below, in no particular order. 

How about you?  Who are some of the teachers who touched your life over the years?

Here's my list:

1.  Ms. Peretti  (Grade 6)  Part way through my Grade 6 year our beloved homeroom teacher took a mat-leave and Ms. Peretti replaced her.  I had no idea, the day she introduced herself to the class and explained that we would be doing a lot of writing with her, that this would be the start of a life-long passion for writing.  Thank you Ms. Peretti for teaching me to care deeply about the written word.

2.  Ms. Olson  (Grade 5)  Grade 5 was sort of a turning point for me in my scholastic career, where I finally felt like I fit; and this is thanks in no small part to Ms. Olson.  We were her first ever class, and she was enthusiastic and perceptive as a new teacher.  I don't suppose my opinion of a teacher had ever been higher: I thought the world of her.  Thank you Ms. Olson for teaching me to love scholasticism before I even knew what the word met.

3.  Ms. Babik (High School English)  Ms. Babik's class was the place (on the very first day of High School) where I met the girl who would become my wife.  But that's not the only reason I remember her class so fondly.  She was the archetypal English teacher: wise, insightful, creative and quirky.  The lessons she gave us (formally and informally) in interpretation, literary analysis and clear communication still come into play for me every week when I sit down with a biblical text on Monday and tell others what I found there on Sunday.  Thank you Ms. Babik for being so inspiring and illuminating.

4.  Grandpa Lloyd (Bible)  Grandpa Lloyd loved the Bible and couldn't help but talk about it.  I have vivid memories of sitting on his knee and hearing him reflect, expound, narrate and explain the truths of the Word with a conviction and passion that was, even at six or seven, spiritually contagious.  Thank you Grandpa Lloyd for pushing a boy who was probably too young for it to think deeper about God.

5.  Prof. David Miall (Engl 351-- Romantic Poetry and Prose)  David Miall taught Romantic Poetry and Prose at the University of Alberta, and it's unlikely that he remembers me, but his course, and the creative approach he came at it with, left an indelible mark on my mind and heart.  Thank you David Miall for bringing the works of so many dead poets to life for me.

6.  John Robinson (High School English)  When I took my first teaching appointment at St. Paul Regional High, Mr. Robinson was a close colleague and collaborator.  As a mentor to a new teacher he was generous and encouraging, and watching him interact with his students taught me things no teacher college could have.  The many conversations we shared about life, literature and philosophy after classes still ring in my head once in a while.  Thank you John for your mentorship and humour.

7.  David Guretzky (Theology)  David Guretzky's challenge to think theologically, and his care and wisdom in teaching me what exactly that meant, hit me out of the blue in Seminary.  The process of deconstruction was at times painful, but the rebuilding was profoundly formative.  Thank you David for showing me I wasn't nearly as Christocentric as I thought, and then showing me how to be more so.

8.  Dad (life)  Everything I know about tools I learned from my Dad (and for the record, this isn't much, and far less than he knows).  He taught me more than this, of course: how to respect women and how to listen to music and how to read for life and how to fish and canoe and start a campfire.  Thanks Dad for helping a young impressionable boy become a man.

9.  Dale Dirksen (Worship Ministry)  Dale Dirksen was a really important mentor during my time at Briercrest.  He taught me to define worship and to process difficult ministry questions and to fit things like art and symbol and sacred act into my work as a pastor.  Thank you Dale for your commitment to helping a guy who liked to sing and play guitar become a worship leader.

10.  Mr. Theisen (High School Physics/Science)  Mr. Theisen's left-brain clarity and systematic approach to teaching science made his classes like a long, slow drink of water: not especially zesty, but profoundly refreshing for all that.  He was a study in the art of being unperturbable and his careful method for solving equations still comes in handy. Thanks Mr. Theisen for your care and precision as a science teacher.

11.  David Miller (Biblical Greek).  David taught me to read the Bible in Greek.  I don't just mean to use exegetical techniques, but to approach the Greek New Testament as a living book written in a living language.  At the end of our Greek Exegesis I course, he closed the class with a little parable that seared itself into my imagination and inspired me to develop a habit of reading the Greek New Testament.  "Imagine a fish," he said, "Swimming up stream for months.  It finally gets to the top of the stream, figures, 'Finally I can rest!' so it flops out of the water onto the bank, and promptly dies.  This (he explained) is what it'll be like for you if you don't find some way to keep up with your reading." 

Musical Monday (I)

A song I wrote a while ago as a musical reflection along the same lines of this post.





Dirty Jordan

Dirty Jordan, lying in the sun
with her grave shroud on
Crooked curves on broken banks,
what have we done?

Can you wash clean this dirty water
Can you drench down these thirsty lands
Can you wade through this holy river
Till you heal the hands of dirty Jordan?

Old man river crawling through the land
with his soul sucked dry
It's a long way home through stone and sand,
can you afford to cry?

Can you wash clean this dirty water
Can you drench down these thirsty lands
Can you wade through this holy river
Till you heal the hands of dirty Jordan?

Dirty Jordan, waiting for the Son
who wqas baptized by you
A drop of blood from his flowing veins
And he will baptize you

Can you wash clean this dirty water
Can you drench down these thirsty lands
Can you wade through this holy river
Till you heal the hands of dirty Jordan?

Saturday Morning Sermons (I)

Through the summer our church worked its way through some of the missionary stories in the Book of Acts.  I've been finding this book more and more compelling every time I come to it, and truth be told, it's taken me into some real terra incognita in my own preaching ministry this summer. 

Recordings of all our sermons are posted on our website, so rather than simply reduplicating the effort, I thought I'd post some short excerpts from individual sermons over the next few Saturdays-- a little spiritual food for thought to start your weekend off (and if it's only whetted your appetite, a link to the entire sermon is included below).

For starters, here's a snippet from a sermon on Acts 7:54-8:3, the Martyrdom of Stephen (July 29, 2012):

When you read closely, you’ll notice that the author has recorded Stephen's story very carefully, to show that his life is following the pattern of Christ’s life—I mean: Stephen’s story is shaped to look like Jesus’s story; and almost every detail here has been carefully worded so that it sounds hauntingly like the life and death of Jesus.

Let me explain.

I already pointed out how verse 55 says that Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit and saw heaven standing open, right? Well: over in Luke 3:21-22, it says that when Jesus was baptized at the start of his ministry, as he was coming up out of the water he saw heaven standing open and the Spirit of God coming down on him in the form of a dove.

Coincidence? Maybe, but then, in verse 58, it says that they dragged Stephen out of the city to kill him. So: in Luke 4, after Jesus’ first ever sermon, it says that the people were so furious that the dragged him out of the city to kill him (they didn’t kill him that day, of course, but both Acts 7:58 and Luke 4 use the exact same phrase to describe the scene).

And that, too, might be a coincidence, but then in verse 59, just before he dies, Stephen looks into heaven and says, “Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit.” Anyone remember what Jesus’ final word from the cross was? Wasn’t it: “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.” (?)

And if you’re still not convinced, look at Stephen’s last words in verse 60. “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

Sound familiar? I think it’s supposed to. In Luke 23:34, while they’re nailing Jesus to the cross, he prays this prayer: “Forgive them Father, for they do not know what they are doing.”

So: can you add one and one together with me: Jesus was the Father’s Spirit-filled servant who committed his life, body and soul to God, and prayed for the forgiveness of his murderers right to the cross... and Stephen, his faithful martyr, has followed that pattern to the letter.

The fancy-schmancy word for this is cruciform—which just means living a life that’s conformed to the pattern of the cross. And if Stephen’s story has anything to say about being a Christian martyr, it’s that Christ’s witnesses must live lives that look like his: they must be Spirit-filled servants who trust themselves body and soul to the will of God, and commit themselves, life and death, to the ministry of reconciliation. Like Jesus.

That’s the kind of life this story is calling us to pursue—a life conformed to the pattern of the cross— the cruciform life—a martyr’s life.

You can hear the whole sermon here:  Acts 7:54-8:3  "Witness:  Exhibit A"

Home Again, Home Again, Saturday Morn

a poem

From rambling spaces and
widening roads
with nothing
to do
but
think,
I’m back.

From retreat and the past and a
Sabbath the colour deep blue skies
I’m home;
and it’s Sunday morning again,
rushing in upon me reckless
with the urgent clatter of now.

Back in the Blogging Saddle

This summer I took a semi-intentional break from blogging.  This was partly just a dry-spell in post ideas that turned into an extended hiatus, but it was also time for a gut-check for me.  When I started blogging back in '09, I didn't really have a long term plan for the blog, and I was starting to wonder in '012 if I'd said all there was to say about God, life, faith, love, words and spirituality. 

Enough people mention terra incognita to me off and on that I know there's somebody out there reading this.  But I reached a point this June where the only thing I could think of when I sat down at the dashboard was: why bother?  And so I didn't for a while.

Google tells me there's a name for this malaise.  At least, enough hits turn up when I type "blogging fatigue" into the search engine that I know I'm not alone.  So I decided to take a breather.  If you love something, they say, let it go.  If it comes back to you it was meant to be.

It did come back to me.  Sometime around the end of July, I started to find renewed inspiration and purpose for this site.  However, rather than jumping right back in with the usual promises to do better - writing cheques I couldn't cash and all - I thought I'd just start writing without the pressure of posting for a while and see where that got me.  A month or so later I've got enough posts on deck that I feel confident to announce the "relaunch" of terra incognita with a guarantee of regular posting through to January. (Given the price of this blog, I'm even prepared to make that a money-back guarantee.)

For those who have been with me on this journey since the out-set, let me thank you here for your patience as we grow to serve you better.

For those of you who are visiting for the first time, a word about this blog.  terra incognita is Latin for "unknown country." It's a reference to the way Jesus leads us into unknown territory (literally or spiritually speaking) whenever we follow him in faith.  You can think of this blog as a giant spiritual connect the dot, where we try to draw lines between 1) stuff I see going on in the Bible,  2) stuff I see going on in the world, 3) stuff I'm reading about, and 4) stuff I love about art, culture, media and literature. 

I hope you'll pick up a crayon and join me.

Some more sermons on 1 John

So much to blog, so little time.  We're right in the middle of a verse-by-verser through the Epistle of 1 John, and until the clouds of busy-ness part and some rays of spare time shine through, an update on some of the past few sermons at the FreeWay will have to stand in for more substantial blogging.  Enjoy.

1 John 4:1-6  "Spirituality 101"


1 John 3:18-24 "All's fair in love and peace"

1 John (II)

Here's our third sermon in our series on 1 John.

1 John 2:12-17 "War of the Worlds"

The Convert or the Outsider, an Inter-faith Dialogue

I probably would have let it go, but I was reading Miroslav Volf's Exclusion and Embrace at the time, a book that bills itself as a "Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation," so my sonar was perhaps more finely-tuned than usual to such "theological pings."

And what a poignant "ping" it was.  Here's the back story:  a few weeks earlier I happened to make a friend of a friend who happened to be a practicing Orthodox Jew.  We had a very rich and illuminating conversation about the parallels and differences between my work as a Christian pastor and his work in the local synagogue.  It was, I think, an example of inter-faith dialogue in the best sense of the term, and as I was leaving he said, "If you ever want to get the Jewish perspective on something, feel free to give me a call."

Flash forward a few weeks later and I'm working away on this sermon on Deuteronomy 24:17-22, which is all about our mandate as the people of God to "leave something" for the voiceless and the vulnerable. In a particular, Deuteronomy 24:17 says: "Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge" (NIV) or " You shall not pervert the justice due an alien or an orphan, nor take a widow’s garment in pledge" (NASB) or "Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow's raiment to pledge" (good ol' KJV).

My Jewish friend's invitation was still ringing a bit in my ear, and, curious about his take on the passage in question, I sent him an email to take him up on his offer.  He replied very kindly with a number of interpretations from the Talmud sharing various Rabbinical reflections and applications of the text, illuminating the passage in ways I'd not yet considered.

But all the typical Christian translations of this passage use some word or other that means "the outsider" (alien, foreigner, stranger, etc.) to describe that first of the three groups of vulnerable people that deserve special consideration (so the NIV: the foreigner, the fatherless, the widow; or NASB: the alien, the widow, the orphan).  The specific Hebrew word is ger.  It's connected to a verb that means something like "to sojourn." It's used, for instance, to describe Abram when he was a sojourner (a foreigner, a "resident alien") in the land God told him to journey to, and it's used to describe Israel when they were captives in Egypt.  Hence Christians translate it as foreigner, alien, or stranger in Deuteronomy 24:17.

And here's the ping. In his response to my email, my Jewish friend included the standard Jewish translation of the verse.  In his translation, ger is translated, not as "the alien" generally but as "the convert" specifically (i.e. the non-Jew who has converted to Yahwehism).

We exchanged a few more emails about why this might be different, and he suggested that if an "outsider" was meant specifically, the term goy would have been used; and out of curiosity, I looked up the ancient Greek translation of the same verse, and they used a word that means "convert" as well; and, to be sure, the only biblical example we have of this passage being put into practice is the Book of Ruth, and there, Ruth the Moabitess is very clearly a convert to Yahwehism, besides being simply a foreigner.  So I'm not saying "convert" is necessarily a mis-translation of ger.

But the reason I'm still reflecting on this months later is because it seems to me there are profound ethical and theological implications for what we do with the ger in Deuteronomy 24. The question, as I see it, boils down to this: does God call us to take care of "the other" because they are "other" and regardless of whether or not they have made a profession of commitment to our community of Faith, or is conversion a necessary requisite for inclusion (and the hospitable helping that inclusion entails)?

Without the elaborate exposition that a careful handling of all these issues would require, let me at least suggest here that a radical inclusion-- one that translates ger as generously as possible-- is one of the themes of Jesus' preaching, who taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, and to discover our sonship in the kingdom by living out its radical peace-making mission in tangible and concrete ways.  In this regard, radical inclusion of the other is one of the harmony notes to the melody of the Gospel.