A few years ago I was speaking with a colleague in ministry about how the church responds to trans people. I tried to suggest that, strictly speaking, as a question of chapter-and-verse citation, the Bible does not say anything about the morality of gender transitioning, and, therefore, it is probably best for the church not to frame it as a moral issue.
My friend cocked an eyebrow. “Really?” he said. “You don’t think the Bible addresses this?” And then he cited Deuteronomy 22:5—“A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this”—and he rested his case.
At the time, I hadn’t spent a great deal of time digging into Deuteronomy 22:5, so I didn’t argue the point. I was pretty sure, however, that a single verse in Torah hardly made an airtight argument. I felt this especially because Christians believe as a foundation of their faith that the Lord Jesus has fulfilled all of Torah in his death and resurrection, and the single command to love our neighbours faithfully in Jesus Christ fulfills the entirety of Torah (Galatians 5:14).
A while later, though, I had occasion to look more closely at the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 22:5, and I noticed something I had never considered before.
You see: the most common word for “clothing” in the Hebrew Bible is beged. It comes from the Hebrew root word bâgad, “to cover,” and occurs 217 times in the Hebrew Bible. Other common words for clothing include lebûsh (32 occurrences), malbûsh (8 occurrences), śimlâh (29 occurrences) and mekasseh (4 occurrences).
In contrast to this, the word “kelı̂y” (319 occurrences) is a somewhat flexible word, which generally means something like “equipment” or “furnishings.” It can refer to a vessel or sack that contains something, to jewelry, to a tool or weapon, to gear that someone might wear for a specific purpose, or to a soldier’s armour. The meaning of kelı̂y is very much dependent on the context in which it is being used.
The most common word for “a man,” in Hebrew is the noun 'ı̂ysh. It occurs 2163 times and means “a man” in the most general sense. The second most common word for “a man,” is the word 'âdâm, with 541 occurrences. This is the word that the name “Adam” comes from and can mean a “man” specifically, or a human being more generally (regardless of gender, as in “God created 'man' in his image”). The Hebrew word for “male,” with special reference to the sexed-body, is zâkâr (with 82 occurrences).
In contrast to these various terms for a “man,” the word geber literally means something like “valiant man,” or, more loosely, a “warrior.” It occurs 65 times in the Hebrew Bible.
With that rough and ready Hebrew glossary in mind, let me return to Deuteronomy 22:5, and its prohibition, seemingly, against men and women wearing each other’s clothing. Because the word it uses for “man” is not 'ı̂ysh, or 'âdâm, or zâkâr. And neither is the word for the man’s clothing beged, lebûsh, or śimlâh. The word the NIV translates as “man” is geber, “a mighty man,” and the word the NIV translates as “clothing” is kelı̂y, “gear/equipment.” Admittedly, the word geber can be used in the Hebrew Bible to describe a man generally, in a way similar to how the word 'ı̂ysh is used, but in this context, paired with the word kelı̂y like this, it seems obvious to me that simple, generic “cross dressing” is not what the verse has in mind.
Literally, we might render it like this: “There shall not be ‘the gear’ of a ‘valiant man’ upon a woman, and a ‘valiant man’ shall not put on the mantle (simlat) of a woman.”
A rough and ready gloss of the verse might run like this: “A woman shall not put on the equipment of a warrior, and a warrior shall not put on a woman’s dress.”
It would take more unpacking than I have space for in a simple blog post like this to determine how accurate this gloss is to the original intent. It’s notable to me, however, that the prohibition against a woman “wearing a warrior’s arms” appears in Chapter 22, shortly after a lengthy list of laws pertaining to how the Israelites are to wage war (or not to wage war, as the case may be) with the nations they will encounter in the Promised Land. Verses 21:10-14, for instance, give careful guidelines for how the Israelites are to treat a woman taken captive in war.
With this context in mind, I can’t help but wonder if Deuteronomy 22:5 actually has nothing to do with the act of cross-dressing, but instead is prohibiting the people of Israel from using their women as soldiers in battle, or allowing their male soldiers to shirk their “manly” duty to fight on behalf of their people (both of which, in an Ancient Near Eastern context, would be an affront to the nation's honor (see, for instance, Judges 4:9)).
Even if these arguments aren’t conclusive, they strongly suggest that we cannot read Deuteronomy 22:5 as some sort of a definitive word on the modern day phenomenon of gender dysphoria, or use it as a some kind of directive on how we ought to respond to trans people. If we do, we'll be doing a kind of violence to the text (to say nothing of what it does to trans people themselves), wrenching the verse from its context and making it say something it’s not meaning to say.
A Fresh Look at Cross-Dressing in Deuteronomy
Back to the Beginning with God: An Exegetical Analysis of 1 Kings 19:9-18
The well-known story of Elijah’s encounter with God on the slopes of Mount Horeb, with its intense theophanic imagery and its enigmatic description of the “small still voice of God,” has always been an eminently preachable text, lending itself well to powerful pulpit orations and Sunday School flannel graphs alike. Most expositions of this passage tend to focus on the presence of God in the small still voice of verse 12, drawing from this mysterious phraase either moralistic lessons about the importance of silence in the spiritual life or theological lessons about God’s unexpected presence in the stillness (so Rob Bell’s 2005 Nooma video, “Noise”). A close reading of this passage in context, however, suggests there is something more going on than simply a commendation to spiritual silence. Given its place in the Book of King’s account of the on-going struggle between Yahwehism and Baalism for the hearts Israel, given its ambivalent portrayal of Elijah as an embattled champion of Yahweh, and given especially its intertextual connections with the book of Exodus, 1 Kings 19:9-21 seems to be asking profound questions about the role of the covenant in the religious life of ancient Israel, more than it is speculating generally about whether God speaks with a booming voice or a gentle whisper. Careful analysis suggests that the point of this passage is that God’s covenant with Israel rests on YHWH’s faithfulness, not on the people’s, and that, so long as it stands on this foundation, God himself will see it fulfilled, however faithless Israel herself may become.
Historical Context
To understand the point this story is making about the covenant, it is helpful to bear in mind its historical provenience. Elijah’s flight to Horeb occurs during the reign of Ahab, the 8th king of Israel. He likely came to the throne some time around 874 BCE, the son of the previous king Omri (1 Kings 16:29). It is notable that Ahab’s reign represents the first dynastic succession in Israel after a series of political and military coups; that is to say, Ahab is the first king of Israel to reign in the place of his father since Elah, some four kings and ten years previous. This is significant in that it sets the question of the legitimacy of Ahab’s reign clearly in the backdrop of the Elijah narrative.
At the same time, it is equally notable that Elijah is the first major prophet to emerge in the post-Davidic era. Previous prophets (like Nathan in 2 Samuel 12) tended to be court prophets serving more as “seers” for the king, than as independent prophetic voices. There are certainly independent prophets mentioned in 1 Kings prior to Elijah, of course (the “Man of God” in 1 Kings 13, or Ahijah in 1 Kings 14), but these tend to be the secondary characters in a narrative focusing especially on the activity of the reigning king. The story of Elijah is the first time a prophet takes centre stage in a narrative focused specifically on him. This is significant in that it suggests a growing tension between the royal administration and the prophetic community in Israel, as the monarchy moves further and further away from the Davidic ideal.
Finally we note the role of Jezebel, Ahab’s Phoenician wife, who has introduced the worship of the Phoenician god Baal into Israel’s religious life. Philip Satterthwaite suggests that Ahab’s promotion of Baal worship as a “state religion” presents us with a picture of “oppression and state-sponsored apostasy” which marks a significant development in Israel’s history. This historical backdrop puts the questions that 1 Kings 19 is asking about the covenant into sharp relief: when a king of questionable legitimacy sits on the throne, while his foreign wife establishes Baalism as the state religion, and the hostilities between the monarchy and YHWH’s prophets reach a fever pitch, what will become of YHWH’s covenant with Israel, then?
Literary Context
The placement of this episode within the larger literary framework of 1 Kings is also significant. Elijah’s flight to Horeb occurs immediately after the so-called “contest” between Baal and Yahweh on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:20-46), which itself forms the climax of a series of episodes starting in Chapter 17, all of which are clearly intended to pit YHWH against Baal, presenting him as the one who truly possesses those powers that the Baal myths falsely attribute to Baal. The sequence begins with Elijah’s pronouncement of a drought in 1 Kings 17:1. Baal was primarily a fertility deity, the “god of the storm” who was mythologically responsible for sending the life-giving rain, thus when drought occurred, Baal was, in essence, dead. By announcing a drought, then, Elijah is attacking Baalism at its “theological centre,” signaling that it is YHWH and emphatically not Baal who determines when rain falls. The stories that follow underscore this anti-Baal polemic: by feeding Elijah during the drought (1 Kings 17:4-7) YHWH reveals that, unlike Baal, he is clearly not dead during times of drought ; by sending Elijah to perform a miracle for a Sidonian widow in Zarephath (17:8-16), the heart of Phoenician Baalism, YHWH reveals the “impotence of Baal in his own homeland” ; and by bringing the widow’s son back from the dead, YHWH reveals that he, and not Baal, holds the power over life and death.
The contest with Baal that pervades the entire Elijah narrative comes to a climax in chapter 18, where Elijah gathers the people of Israel together and challenges them to chose between Baal and YHWH: “If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). A number of details here are relevant to our exegesis of 19:9-21. First, we note that, in a way consistent with the anti-Baal polemic of Elijah’s entire ministry, it is YHWH and not Baal who appears in lighting (fire from heaven, 19:38) and storm (19:45). Second, we note that, contrary to Elijah’s complaint in 19:10, the people do repent and confess the lordship of YHWH when YHWH reveals himself as sovereign and victorious over Baal in this way, crying out that “The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God!” Third, we note that, at Elijah’s directive, the people slay the prophets of Baal (18:40). Finally, and most importantly, we note that the contest on Mount Carmel ends with Ahab “going up to eat and drink,” while Elijah crouches on the top of Mount Carmel to watch for the coming storm (18:41-42). Kathryhn Roberts suggests that the image of Ahab feasting in God’s presence after YHWH’s decisive victory over Baal would have signalled a kind of covenant renewal between God and his people. In her words: “It is the king who initiates and presides over covenant making and covenant renewal. Elijah recognizes this and sends Ahab back up the mountain to eat and drink and to validate the covenant that has been renewed between Yahweh and the people.” If Elijah does mean Ahab’s feast on Mount Carmel to signify the renewal of the covenant between Israel and YHWH, it is, in his mind, a failed attempt. Immediately after this scene, Ahab returns to Jezebeel, she issues a death threat on Elijah’s life, and Elijah himself flees to Horeb (19:1-8). What the closing scene of 1 Kings 19 does reveal, however, is that for Elijah, the viability of the covenant itself rests on the outcome of this contest between YHWH and Baal. If the people abandon YHWH the covenant will fail; if and when they return the covenant must also be renewed.
Form, Structure, Movement
This brings us at last to the passage itself. In 10 short verses, 1 Kings 19:9-18 paints a powerful picture of God’s harried and despondent prophet confronting God with the apostasy of his people and the apparent failure of the covenant, and discovering that the covenant rests, in fact, not on the faithfulness of the people, but on God’s own faithfulness. The scene unfolds in two parallel halves. It begins with Elijah finding a cave on Mount Horeb and encountering the word of the Lord, who asks him, “What are you doing here?” Elijah replies with his complaint: that though he himself has been “zealous” (qânâ’) for YHWH, Israel has “forsaken [the] covenant,” and he is the only one left in Israel who is faithful to God (19:10). YHWH directs Elijah to “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord” (19:11), though before he leaves the cave, the Lord passes by with a series of supernatural phenomena—wind, earthquake, and fire—traditionally associated with a divine theophany. It is only when Elijah hears the “sound of a gentle whisper” (qôl demâmâh daq) that he “wraps his face in his mantle” and comes out.
From this point the second half of the narrative parallels the first half closely, in a way that draws attention to two interlocking points: the reason Elijah has come to Horeb, on the one hand, and the content of Elijah’s complaint, on the other. “What are you doing here, Elijah?” the Lord asks the prophet a second time, and the wording in verse 13 parallels the question in verse 9 identically. Elijah repeats his complaint in verse 14, and again the language follows the previous verse verbatim. Finally YHWH gives a second directive, to parallel his command in verse 11 for Elijah to “go (yâts‘) and stand on the mountain”; this time he tells Elijah to “go (hâlak)” to Damascus and anoint Hazael as king over Aram, Jehu as King over Israel, and Elisha as prophet in his place (19:15). The parallelism in this story puts verse 12 and the “sound of a gentle whisper” at the very centre of the narrative, the crux on which both parallel halves of the passage turn.
Detailed Analysis
To flesh out the point that this mysterious passage is making about YHWH’s faithfulness to his covenant, we begin by noting that Mount Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai, the mountain of the Lord in Exodus, where YWHW first met with his people after bringing them out of Egypt, and where he first cut the covenant with them, under Moses (Exodus 19:18ff.). In terms of the covenant history of Israel, Elijah could not have chosen a more symbolically poignant place to have fled to, complaining that Israel had “forsaken the covenant.” As a kind of prophetic object lesson, Elijah’s journey to Mount Sinai, the place where the covenant began, is essentially saying that the covenant has failed and that YHWH needs to start over. Many commentaries note that 1 Kings presents Elijah as a kind of “second Moses” but if he is so there is a profound difference between the two. In Exodus, when the people abandon God to worship the golden calf, and YHWH threatens to “start over” with Moses himself (Exod. 33:1-3), Moses intercedes on behalf of the people (Exod. 33:12-13), and appeals to the fact that they are God’s own covenant people (Exod. 33:13). This contrasts sharply with Elijah, who similarly encounters the people’s faithlessness, but instead of interceding for them he returns to Horeb complaining that the covenant has failed and implying that God must now start over again. This explains the question that, though God asks it twice, Elijah never directly answers. What is Elijah doing at Horeb? He is there because he believes that YHWH must not only restore the covenant, but start anew, and thus he has returned to the site where YHWH first cut his covenant with the people.
Reading the story in this way helps us to appreciate all that follows. YHWH directs Elijah to stand on the side of the mountain in his presence, and we are told that the Lord was “passing by” (‘âbar). This scene, of course, evokes the famous scene in Exodus 33, where Moses—in response to the people’s apostasy—asks to see the glory of YHWH, prompting the Lord to cause “all of [his] goodness to pass (‘âbar) in front of [him]” (33:19). Here Moses experiences a theophany of YHWH that reveals the true character of God to him (his “name,” 34:5): that he abounds in covenant love and faithfulness (34:6) and maintains his love to “thousands of generations” (34:7). The lesson of Moses’ Sianitic theophany, in other words, is that God is determined, in the end, to remain true to his covenant. With this in mind, we discover some exegetically telling points of contrast with Elijah. Like Moses, Elijah is hidden in a cleft of the rock (the cave of 19:9) while God’s glory again passes by, but unlike Moses, Elijah fails to recognize the fundamental divine character thereby revealed. His complaint about the failure of the covenant after this theophany is identical his complaint before. Unlike Moses, who identifies himself with the sins of his people (Exod. 34:8, “forgive our wickedness and our sin”), Elijah continues to distance himself from the people, describing their apostasy in stark contrast to his self-professed faithfulness (1 Kings 19:14, “I have been very zealous . . . they have forsaken your covenant”). Unlike the Moses story, where God reveals his commitment to Israel in response to Moses intercession, YHWH reveals to Elijah that he still has 7,000 in Israel who remain true to him, despite Elijah’s lack of intercession.
This brings us to the central imagery of the story, the mysterious theophany of 19:11-12, which culminates in the enigmatic “voice of a gentle whisper.” Much scholarly ink has been spilled over how best to translate the phrase qôl demâmâh daq (literally: “the voice of silence crushed”), a phrase that only appears here in the Old Testament. Most translations render it with some expression that means, essentially, “silence” (NASB: “a sound of gentle blowing;” NIV: “a gentle whisper”; KJV: “a small still voice”). Many scholars, however, suggest that something like “a roaring thunderous voice” is a better translation. Without exploring all the linguistic evidence, I believe the question is better settled on exegetical grounds. If we accept that Elijah really is at Sinai because he believes the covenant has failed and must somehow “start over,” what stands out suddenly is how the events in 1 Kings 19:11-12 both compare and contrast to the events at Sinai back in Exodus 19, when YHWH first cut his covenant with the people. In Exodus 19:18, we read that when YWHW first descended on Sinai, there was “thunder and lightning” (Exod. 19:16), the mountain burned with “smoke and fire” (Exod. 19:18), and the whole mountain “quaked violently” (Exod. 19:18). This culminates with the mysterious sound of a shofar, an apparently supernatural trumpet blast that grows louder and louder until Moses finally speaks and God answers him (Exod. 19:19). Comparing this scene to Elijah’s experience on Mount Horeb (Sinai), we note that the same storm, fire, and earthquake are present, except that three times we are specifically assured that “the Lord was not in [it].” By emphasizing that YHWH is not in the thunder, earthquake and fire, the text implies that YHWH is explicitly and deliberately not repeating the Exodus 19 theophany. YHWH need not descend on the mountain in fire and earthquake this time, like he did when he first cut his covenant with his people, because the covenant emphatically has not failed. There is no need to start over.
On this reading the “voice of crushed silence” in 1 Kings 19:12 directly contrasts the deafening “voice of the trumpet” (qôl shôphâr) that the people heard in Exodus 19:19. Inasmuch as YHWH was not in the fire, wind, nor earthquake, neither does he come with Exodus 19’s thundering trumpet blast; the covenant still stands, and so instead of the trumpet that heralded the start of the covenant under Moses, Elijah hears the sound of utter silence. This is a silence that speaks volumes, of course, insisting without a word that Elijah is wrong. The covenant has not failed; nor does it need to start over. However bleak things look, YHWH will always maintain a remnant in Israel faithful to him, because the covenant, in the end, does not depend on the people’s faithfulness, but his. He will go on to say as much in verse 18, with the reference to the seven thousand whose knees have not bowed to Baal, that YHWH himself “reserves” (shâ’ar) for himself in Israel, but this is just underlining the point that the entire episode has already subtly, and symbolically made.
Reflection and Application
Turning from this exegetical analysis to reflect on ways in which this text applies to our own understanding of our vocations as Chrisitans—the ways in which it renews, challenges, and affirms our calling in the Lord—a number of theologically encouraging and spiritually challenging points stand out to starkly.
On the one hand, it is deeply encouraging to realize that YHWH’s covenant relationship with his people rests on his own faithfulness and not ours. This theme, of course, can be extrapolated forward from the Elijah story until it reaches its ultimate expression in the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is the faithfulness of Jesus that saves, and it is the faithfulness of God in raising him from the dead that finally fulfills and renews the covenant, writing the truths of the covenant on the tablets of our hearts through his risen life (Heb 10:16). There is great freedom to minister well and with joy from this place, recognizing that neither my worst failures as a pastor, nor my greatest successes can derail what God has done, and will do, to call a Gospel People his own through the work and person of Jesus Christ. There are times when we might be tempted to despair about the future of the church, our own particular churches, the church in Canada more generally, the plight of the persecuted around the world. These are the moments we most need to hear the lesson of the “sound of crushed silence” on the slopes of Mount Horeb, that despite appearances, God’s covenant with his people has not, and will not fail.
On the other hand, there is a profound challenge implicit in the story of Elijah. Because he has the privilege of standing with Moses in the presence of the Lord Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, we tend to read Elijah as the justified hero of this story. But taken strictly at face value, it is not so clear that the text intends us to read Elijah in this way. As I have argued above, he has made a fundamental miscalculation of God’s fundamental character; he has misunderstood the nature of God’s covenant, and most dramatically, he has condemned his people instead of interceding for them on the basis of God’s revealed faithfulness. It is telling, and perhaps understanding, that after Elijah repeats his complaint to YHWH in verse 14, having missed entirely the point of the theophany of verses 11-12, YHWH essentially decommissions him as a prophet, directing him to anoint Elisha to serve in his place (1 Kings 19:16).
A Journey Through the Book of Job (Part 1)
A few weeks ago I started a new preaching series at our church called "Why Me, Lord? A Journey through the Book of Job." We're only 3 sermons in, and already I'm finding it one of the most challenging, and most edifying series I've done in a long time. In hopes it will challenge and/or edify others, I thought I'd post the messages here on my blog as we go. Here's sermon number one: "Not for Nothing..."
Taking Sides, a devotional thought
The other night I was reading in the Book of Joshua,, where the angel of the Lord meets Joshua just before he goes into battle against Jericho. It's such an interesting exchange. Joshua sees "a man standing before him with a drawn sword," and he asks this Heavenly Warrior, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"
There's a good sermon or two waiting to be preached in the angel's reply. "Neither," he says, "But as the commander of the Lord's army, I have now come."
That simple "Neither" is sobering, humbling and inspiring all at once. It's so easy to assume, especially when you're sure (as Joshua must have been) that you're doing God's work, that he's unequivocally "on your side," endorsing your cause, under-writing your agenda and what have you. Yet here's Joshua about to engage the hosts of Jericho and right before he takes the field God tells him, essentially, "Don't assume that I'm on your side in this fight, as though I were some tribal god you can keep in your back pocket, to guarantee you achieve your goals" (That's the sobering part); and by implication, he tells him, "The question's not 'is God on my side in this conflict?' but: 'am I on God's side, ready and willing to conduct myself at his direction for his purposes alone?'" (that's the humbling part); and by further implication: "Listen, God's will is going to be accomplished, and to be standing with him when it is, that alone is the greatest victory and highest success of all" (that's the inspiring part).
To be clear: when I read the battle narratives in Joshua, I tend to follow the Apostle Paul's lead, who wrote that for Christians, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual powers in the heavenly realms. That is to say: I understand the battles in Joshua as paradigmatic for the spiritual struggles we face, and the spiritual "battles" we fight in the spiritual life. And when I take that approach with Joshua 5:13-15, this is what it says to me: Look: God's on God's side; the ultimate question is, are you there, with him?
Taking the Scenic Route with God, a devotional thought
I was reading in Exodus for my devotions the other day and something in 13:17-18 had me thinking. It's just after the people have left Egypt and they're on their way to the promised land, but instead of taking them the most direct route (through the Philistine country), God leads them on a very circuitous route, through the desert toward the Red Sea. God's reasoning for leading his people on the long way around: "If they face war (in the Philistine territory) they might change their minds and go back to Egypt."
Now: you have to be careful, I realize, not to over-spiritualize the Old Testament stories, and not to hyper-individualize them, either, so I won't push this too far, but the obvious question arose for me when I read that: could it be that sometimes God does this with us, too? Maybe Exodus 3:17-18 speaks to those times in our lives when it feels like nothing's happening, spiritually speaking, that we're going around in circles, or at least taking the long way to get to where God wants us.
Could it be, when God's taking us on the long way around, that maybe it's because he knows something we don't know, and if he were to take the most direct route (in our ministries, let's say, or our discipleship, maybe, or what have you), if he were to take us there immediately the difficulties we'd encounter would be so great that we'd be tempted to give up altogether?
Be patient, and keep walking, even if the path you're on with him today is not "the shortest distance from point A to point B." God sees our whole journey at once, not just this particular leg, and who knows but that this rabbit trail, or this pit stop, such as it is, is also part of his beautiful, perfect wisdom.
The Thursday Review: A Priestly Inheritance, A City of Refuge
first posted August 23, 2011
I've been thinking a lot these days about the levitcal cities of refuge described at the end of the Book of Numbers (chpt 35).
In case it's been a while since you waded through the Book of Numbers, let me refresh your memory. It's right at the end of the desert wanderings, and the new generation of Israel is about to enter the Promised Land, Israel's ancient inheritance. So the Lord gives Moses instructions about the boundaries of Canaan, and some general directives on divvying up the land to the 12 tribes. Namely: they are to assign the land by lot to the nine and a half tribes of Israel entering Canaan (keeping in mind that two and a half tribes have already received their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan).
But then Numbers 35 reminds us that the tribe of Levi isn't going to be getting an allotment in Canaan because, as 18:20 has already indicated, Aaron (and by extension, the whole tribe of Levi with him) will have no inheritance in the land. Instead, the Lord himself is going to be the priestly tribe's inheritance among the Israelites. Rather than receiving a portion of the land, Levi is to receive simply "towns to live in from the inheritance of the [other] Israelites." These towns are scattered evenly throughout the Promised Land, seeding (in effect) a priestly presence in-and-among the whole people of God.
You can read in Joshua 20:1-9 how this command is carried out, but what strikes me here is that the Lord specifically identifies six of the Levitical towns as "cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone may flee." The idea is quite simple: in the case of murder, tribal codes of the sort especially prevalent among a nomadic society like Moses' Israel would require a blood relative to maintain tribal honour by avenging a murdered family member (see Genesis 34 for dark evidence that such codes were well known among nomadic Israelite society).
But such tribal customs and the violent blood feuds they inevitably perpetuate are deeply at odds with a civil society like the one Israel will become, as she stands at the threshold of the Promised Land and looks ahead to her future. In civil society, justice must be carried out by an impartial assembly according to a standard code of law; retaliation and vigilantianism has no place in a society governed by God's Shalom.
So God sets aside six of the Levitical towns as cities of refuge-- cities of asylum to which an accused killer can flee until he has stood trial and his case has been heard; and cities of shalom, where the innocent can escape the tribal custom of honour killings.
Now, I don't want to read too much into this, but here's what I can't get off my mind today: the priestly tribe had no inheritance in the land other than a special place in the Lord's plan to mediate his Shalom to the people. And with this inheritance came the cities of refuge; and with them came a calling to be a people among whom the accused found shelter, where the guilty found asylum and the harried found refuge until God's Shalom had obtained in their lives (in this case in the form of a fair and imparital trial).
And you can't reflect on all this very long before you remember that 1 Peter 2:5-9 specifically identifies followers of Jesus Christ as the priesthood of believers that the tribe of Levi prefigured and foreshadowed in the Old Testament. And if it's true, what Peter says about Christians there, and it's true what Numbers says about the inheritance of the priestly tribe here, then it would mean that in Christ we have inherited a calling to be "cities of refuge." Our communities are to be places where the accused, the guilty and the harried can find shelter so that the Shalom of God can obtain in their lives (in this case in the form of the unmerited, all-gracious justification of God through faith in Christ); what's more, this calling specifically and directly precludes any material inheritance "in the land" (i.e. the comfort, wealth, privilege and security that such an inheritance would have meant for an ancient Israelite).
And the obvious questions are staring me in the face: am I part of a community of faith that has traded in the wealth and security of its "inheritance in the land" for the privilege of being a "city of refuge" like this? And harder still: Am I willing to belong to such a community of faith? And hardest of all: what's my role in helping my church be the city of refuge that God in Numbers 35 is calling it to be?
The Girl Queen, the Captive Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Esther (6:11-14)
Esther 6:13 doesn't stand out as especially significant to modern readers like us, but it is, I think, or would have been, one of the key verses to the whole entire story, if you were one of the Jews in exile that this book was originally written for. Like a snowball at the top of a snow-laden peak, Haman has started to tumble, and his wisest friends tell him: “If this Mordecai before whom your downfall has started, is of Jewish descent (literally, of the “seed of the Jews”), you will not be able to stand against him—you will surely come to ruin.”
I call this the key to the whole entire book, because this reference to the “seed of the Jews” ties Esther’s story right back to the story of Abraham, and the founding promise that God made to his people back in Genesis. In Genesis 12, God tells Abraham, the Father of the Jewish people, “I will make you into a great nation ... you will be a blessing ... and I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you ... and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” This is the Magna Carta, in a sense, for the people of God, and a bit later (Genesis 15:5, 17:7), God expands the promise to include the language of “Abraham’s seed” (i.e. his descendants) specifically. Haman’s friends are speaking truer than they know: if Mordecai is in fact of Abraham’s “seed,” he stands under God’s sure promise: “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” The whole ironic drama of the Book of Esther, in fact--all the unexpected coincidences and miraculous near-misses that, looking back on it we can call almost comical--is actually just the logic of this ancient promise playing out. Inasmuch as Haman has “cursed” Abraham’s seed (see above on his genocidal plot), he stands self-condemned, and his destruction is sure and inescapable (and all without Mordecai even lifting a finger). For an ancient Jew in exile, torn from his homeland and surrounded by those who would gladly curse him, this assurance of God’s faithfulness would be a bright beacon of hope in an otherwise dark night.
We’re not ancient Jews in exile, of course, but through Christ, who is the true “Seed of Abraham,” we are included in the Abrahamic covenant, so let me suggest a way to take this all to heart, today, some 2500 years later. Because the promise was actually twofold—God will defend the cause of his people, on the one hand, and he will make his people a blessing to the nations, on the other. And as Christians, we are scattered among the nations in a way not entirely unlike the exiled Jews in Esther’s day. Like them, can we find solace and challenge in God’s promise to Abraham? Solace, to know that he will take up our cause against all the Hamanesque Powers ranged against us, but challenge, too, to know that God has scattered us among the nations for the express purpose of blessing all the peoples of earth through “Abraham’s Seed.” Can we let him take up our cause against Haman, even as we take up the cause of being a blessing to the nations?
The Girl Queen, the Captive Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Esther (6:1-10)
Esther 6:1 lies right at the literary centre of this story, and the narrative unfolds on either side of this verse in a chiasmic structure. Chiasm (meaning ‘X’ in Greek) was a very common story-telling device in Hebrew literature, where the story follows an A-B-C-D-C-B-A kind of pattern (or an ‘X’ shape, if you can visualize it). Let me illustrate:
A1. The King’s great Feast (1:1-12)
..B1. Esther made Queen, with feasting (2:1-17)
....C1. The King’s decree to destroy the Jews (3:1-15)
......D1. The King offers Esther up to half his kingdom (5:3)
........E1. Esther’s 1st banquet (5:5-8)
..........F1. Haman plots to murder Mordecai (5:9-14)
............G. The King can’t sleep (6:12)
..........F2. Haman forced to honor Mordecai (6:4-14)
........E2. Esther’s 2nd banquet (7:1-2)
......D2. The King offers Esther up to half his kingdom (7:3)
....C2. The King’s decree to save the Jews (8:1-14)
..B2. Mordecai royally honored, with feasting (9:15-17)
A2. The Feast of Purim (9:18-32)
So that’s pretty tidy, but there’s more going on here, I think, than just fitting the story into a nice neat pattern. Usually in a Hebrew Chiasm, the key idea of the story is found at the centre of the chiasm, in this case at point “G”: the King can't sleep. This is the turning point for Esther and her people. Chapter 5 ended with the ominous sounds of Haman building his gallows; Chapter 6 opens with this insomniac king. A chance sleepless night, but it leads to him asking for the records to be read (a little bedtime reading, I guess) and, coincidentally, he comes across the record of Mordecai’s hitherto unrewarded good deed, back in chapter 2. Haman (again coincidentally) enters at just that moment and, thinking the King’s talking about himself, tells him to lavish riches and royalty on the “man the King delights to honor.” Little does he know the King was talking about Mordecai. So begins the slow, somewhat comic, totally unexpected ascent out of the utter despair of 5:14. And the story, as I’ve said, will reverse the fortunes of God’s people, step for step all the way back up.
And here’s where I’m going with all this: it seemed like a random sleepless night for King Ahasuerus, and yet, when you step back, and see how his insomnia fits in to this bigger, orderly scheme, you realize that it was no coincidence at all; nor was Haman’s random entrance at the moment the record books were being read; nor was Mordecai’s “chance” uncovering of a plot to kill Ahasuerus back in chapter 2. All these events, it turns out, happened “for such a time as this” (4:14). There is an order to God’s activity in this story that is invisible until you step back to see it all laid out, but when you do it’s beautiful and compelling, even at times comical.
It leaves me wondering about the 1001 apparently random coincidences that happen to me day in and day out, and how seldom, really, I notice God’s overarching “chiasm” to the events—that is to say, I seldom stop to wonder if this chance occurrence isn’t God doing or saying something really important right now. I usually just slog on, going about my business unawares. I posted earlier about how careful we need to be not to name God before he’s ready to reveal himself. I think the author of Esther would also say, “Yeah, but when he does reveal himself, you’ll see: there are no accidents with God.
The Thursday Review: Praying through the Prayerbook of Christ
first posted February 24, 2010
I've been spending a lot of time in the Psalms these days. I'm preaching through some of them as part of the Lent season at the FreeWay, and I'm discovering both how beautiful they are, and how easily mis-read. This is partly because of our ego-centric tendency to ignore that small Hebrew word that starts almost every Psalm, and jump almost immediately to make these prayers, praises, petitions and pleas our own. Of course, this "works" when the prayer is "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." But it's a little awkward when the plea is "strike my enemies on the jaw, break the teeth of the wicked." And it is downright risky when the petition is, "examine my heart and my mind ... for I continually walk in your truth."
To be honest, I could never pray that last one and be honest. And were I to try-- to ask God to examine my heart because I've continually walked in his truth-- He would only see the depths of my self-deception there.
And that's why that one little word makes all the difference. The word is "of David." In Hebrew it's just four letters. But they're the four letters that transform this Psalm, because they remind us that these prayers, praises, petitions and pleas, they're not ours. They're David's. The Anointed's. The Christ's.
And of, course, not even David could pray them perfectly, but the Shining Christ of whom he was but the Shadow, the perfect Christ who alone walked continually in Yaweh's truth, he could. These prayers for vindication, petitions for deliverance from death, appeals to complete innocence, they belong to Jesus, who alone can pray them perfectly and purely. Only in Jesus can these prayers become ours, as the petitions of God's people (and still they're not mine before they are ours).
Bonhoeffer helped me get this. He insists that we must read the Psalms first and foremost as the “Prayerbook of Christ.” He says: “The same words that David spoke ... the future Messiah spoke. … It is none other than Christ who prayed them in Christ’s own forerunner, David.” And of course, this is how the New Testament writers read the Psalms. They continually and consistently put David’s songs of praise in Jesus’ mouth. For instance, in Romans 15:8-9, Paul applies Psalm 117:1 directly to Jesus: “I will praise you [God] among the Gentiles; / I will sing hymns to your [God’s] name.” Specifically here Christ’s “hymn of praise” is “sung” to the tune of his servant-hood among the Jews, whereby the Gentiles “glorify God for his mercy” (15:9b). In a similar way, the author of Hebrews puts a psalm of praise on Christ’s lips: “I will declare your name to my brothers / in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises” (Psa 22:22). Here Christ’s “praise” takes the form of his willingness to identify as “brother” with those whom God has brought to glory through his own suffering, those who could never merit glory on their own.
This goes beyond merely reading individual psalms as messianic prophecy. The Book of Psalms as a whole gathers together in itself all the lamentations and celebrations and heart-cries, “every need, every joy, every thanksgiving, and every hope” (as Bonhoeffer would say) of God’s people; and Jesus, the Messianic “Son of David,” gathers them together in himself and offers them in his own perfect self-offering on the cross, on behalf of his brothers and sisters. This is why Hebrews 13:15 insists that our “sacrifice of praise” can only be offered “through him,” and must always be an acknowledgement of his name, for as with all our responses to God, our praise must participate in the perfect praise of Christ, our mediator.
Okay. Maybe that's all just so much Ivory Tower Theology.
But watch what happens when we read the Psalms as the prayer book of Christ. Psalm One insists that the way of the wicked perishes and the way of the righteous prospers. And if I read this as my own personal prayer, then I wonder: my "way" has been prospering of late, does that "prove" my "righteousness"? Or maybe: my way has not been prospering of late, does that "prove" my "wickedness?" And suddenly I'm spiraling in this snare of works-righteous, health-and-wealth theology that's so disconnected from the gospel of Jesus it would be laughable if it weren't so tragic and so real for so many people.
But if I read Psalm One as Christ's own prayer, then I discover the beauty of its promise: the "way" of the righteous Christ will prosper; he will become a tree planted by water, bearing beautiful, life-giving fruit in season. And Christ's way is to take broken, weak, guilty sinners like me an make them forgiven, heart-strong and whole in him. And as Psalm one assures me: he will prosper in this way. Because he alone has not walked, stood or sat in the Way of sinners, He can't fail in this.
I'm not the righteous Tree. I'm just the fruit of Its righteousness.
And that's really good news.
The Girl-Queen, the Captive Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Esther (5:1-8)
The picture of Esther in 5:1, dressing herself in her royal robes and stepping terrified into the presence of the Persian Emperor is profoundly striking when you let it sink in. From 4:11 we know that she’s standing there under the threat of death. Add to this the fact that she belongs to a condemned people. Add to this what happened to Vashti when she displeased the King, and the tension here should be palpable. The next verse will break the spell, of course: Ahasuerus extends the royal sceptre to Esther, sparing her life and letting us exhale, but hopefully not before we’ve felt it, how awful a thing it would have been to stand there, a humble Jewish girl confronting the Powers and Principalities of this world with nothing but her beauty and a royal robe to defend her.
It gets me thinking about how God’s saving plan works through our smallness, not our power. He toppled Goliath with a sling-stone flung by the youngest son; he will topple Haman through the courage of a faithful Jewish maid. And of course, if Esther is a type of the Messiah, then we have to note it down, that in the Cross of Christ, God saves the world through the suffering smallness of his Son.
There is something very compelling for us as God’s people, in this picture of an unlikely Jewish Queen, trembling in her royal robes and stepping into the Emperor’s presence. You and I are not big enough, really, to confront the evil of this age, either, anymore than Esther was big enough to confront Ahasuerus. In the presence of the worst corruptions of this age, we’re about as powerful as a scared, displaced Jewish girl swept up in events way beyond her control and hiding her heart in some royal robes not her own. But the message of Esther is this: that which we can do, we must do, as small as it might be. We face opportunities all the time to put on our royal robes (so to speak) and step into the King’s presence—small opportunities to be faithful in the face (or the wake) of profound despair.
Ours is not to dethrone Ahasuerus; the heart of the King is in the Lord’s hand. Ours is simply and courageously to be true to Him in the midst of our smallness. May God give us the grace to be so.
The Girl-Queen, the Captive Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Esther (4:11-17)
Most interpreters read Esther 4:13-14 as the key to the whole entire book. In trying to convince her to act to save her people in the face of great personal risk, Mordecai makes two interlocking points: 1) that if Esther doesn't act, salvation will rise up from another place; and 2) it may be (who knows) but that Esther became Queen "for such a time as this." Although the Book of Esther seems to go out of its way to avoid mentioning God directly, Mordecai’s conviction here that there is an unseen hand moving events towards an unavoidable purpose, is about as close as it comes. There is great solace here, I think, in knowing that when God is most hidden in our lives—as hidden, even, as he is in the Book of Esther—that’s when he’s most active; and who knows but perhaps all of “those” events in my story happened “for such a time as this.”
There is, of course, a harder, darker layer to this that isn’t always recognized, but must be, if we really want to get to the pastoral heart of this compelling book. Because for Esther to have become Queen “for such a time as this,” it meant the heartbreak of exile, the terror of abduction, the trauma of sexual assault, and now the risk of execution. Perhaps it’s little wonder that God’s so hidden in this book. Jesus from the cross asked why God had forsaken him; Esther, it seems, can’t even bring itself to breathe the name.
Mordecai’s word to Esther is true--just as it is true to any who have asked, “Where is God in all this?”--that God is able to bring a beautiful, saving purpose out all the heartache and pain, and that there will come a time when we’ll look back on it all and say, “all that happened for such a time as this.” But the challenge of the Book of Esther is to believe this without turning it into a pat answer, or using it to dismiss, minimize or trivialize the pain itself. This is a real risk, I think, and I’ve seen Christians do it in the past, using “God works all thing together for the good...” as a sort of trivial panacea, rather than the heart-cry of hope it was meant to be. God will work all Esther’s trauma and suffering together in his saving plan; but still, the trauma itself—the abuse and violence and exploitation she endured—was not his heart for her.
May God give us the grace of Mordecai, whenever we encounter the pain of Esther, to resist the urge of jumping to name him before he’s ready to reveal himself.
Three Minute Theology 3.6: Start to Finish
Russian Composer Dimitri Shostakovich wrote his seventh Symphony in 1941, as an act of defiance during the Nazi invasion of Russia. On December 27, 1941, he formally dedicated it to the city of Leningrad, which was then under siege by the Germans.
The Leningrad Radio Orchestra performed the piece for the first time on August 9th, 1942, at the height of the siege. For 334 days, the city had refused to surrender, enduring fire-bombings, starvation and death.
So, when the Leningrad orchestra began rehearsing, they could barely find enough musicians left alive to fill the score. Their first rehearsal only lasted 15 minutes, because everyone was too exhausted from starvation to play longer.
But here’s how one historian describes the night of the concert: “When the last chord trailed off there was a momentary silence. Then the whole place exploded with thunderous applause. People went to their feet, tears rolling down their faces. The musicians were hugging each other like soldiers after a battle.”
In some mysterious way, this unlikely performance had a saving effect on the city.
At least, Germany never captured Leningrad. One German soldier, who picked up the broadcast of the concert that night, wrote this: “When I heard Shostakovich’s Seventh being broadcast from the famine-stricken city, I realized that we would never take it.”
To the extent that you might think about this defiant performance as the “fulfillment” of Shastakovich’s Symphony—and to the extent that this “fulfillment” was, in fact a “saving event” for the city—it provides us a helpful image for an important aspect of the Atonement that is sometimes overlooked: the way Jesus’ death on the cross saves us by fulfilling for us the Old Testament story of Israel.
To get this, we need first to consider the history of ancient Israel as an over-arcing narrative.
God promises Abraham that he will make his descendants into a great nation, and that through them, he’ll bless the whole Earth. But Israel falls into slavery in Egypt. Through Moses, God delivers them from Egypt, establishing them as his chosen people, and giving them the Law—an elaborate system of sacrificial worship that’s will mediate their life with him.
The people wander the desert 40 years before God finally brings them to the Promised Land.
But through the generations, the people continually fall into idol worship and immorality, only to be called back to God by his prophets. Eventually their sin reaches its lowest point, and the people go into exile. The Babylonian Empire invades the nation, razes their capital, and hauls them off into captivity.
The prophets at the time interpret this exile as an expression of God’s “wrath”—his righteous judgement, that is, on their idolatry and immorality. But they also promise that God will fulfill his promise to Abraham, bringing them home from exile, and back into relationship with himself.
This is a pretty condensed summary of the Old Testament, but when it’s laid out like that, we see how Jesus “fulfills” this story in his own story.
As an infant, he flees to Egypt, later he is tested for 40 days in the desert. He calls the people into right relationship with God, and when his message ruffles too many of the wrong feathers—at the lowest point of human history—we crucify him.
And here’s where the story of God’s dealings with his people come to its fulfillment: because if Jesus represents Israel, the cross is the ultimate exile, as he cut off and condemned for the sins of the people. Through the Cross, he brings all the failure and judgment of the “exile” to an end, by becoming the perfect lamb of God who fulfills all the sacrificial requirements of the Old Testament Law that Israel failed to keep.
Like a beleaguered orchestra, you might say, saving a war-torn city by fulfilling a beautiful Symphony, Christ’s death on the cross saves us, by fulfilling the story of exile and redemption that is our collective history, and leading us into a “return from exile” with the Resurrection on the other side.
Jesus himself put it more even more simply, when he cried out from the cross with his final breath, “it is finished!”
The Girl-Queen, the Captive Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Esther (4:1-10)
Esther is notorious for being the only book in the Bible (or one of only two books, depending on how you translate Song of Solomon 8:6) that doesn't ever explicitly mention God. Anywhere. Like Godot in Samuel Beckett's play, God is a hidden character in this drama (although, unlike Godot, there is no hint of absurdity in his hiddenness).
Which is why Esther 4:3 really strikes me.
When the Jewish people hear about King Ahasuerus' decree, it says, "there was great mourning among them, with fasting, and weeping and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes." What's notably absent in this long list is any explicit reference to prayer. I used to see this critically, and moralistically, a sort of indictment against the people: when things were at their worst, they forgot to pray.
I suggested that reading to a friend a while back, and he said: "Well, what's fasting except praying with our whole body?" And that sort of re-framed things for me (Thanks, Oliver). True: nowhere in Esther does it ever say that the people knelt at their bedside and said some perfunctory "Now I lay me down to sleep." Rather, they threw themselves on God so completely, mind and body, heart and soul, flesh and blood, that the mere word "prayer" wasn't worthy of the heart-wrenching communion they were having with their Maker.
Could it be that there is a kind of prayer that "out-prays" prayer (so to speak)? That some encounters with God can be so raw, so naked, so visceral, even, that you'd hardly even think to call it "prayer"? Not because you're not praying, but because prayer (in the now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep sense) isn't necessary and couldn't express what's going on in you if it were.
I think so.
But I also think that North American Christians are barely Padawan Learners when it comes to this kind of sitting in God's presence: prayer that involves our whole being so completely that you wouldn't even think to call it prayer.
What if we took a cue from Esther's people, and exchanged a literal meal for the feast of spending an hour in God's presence, once in a while; or actually wore our prayers outwardly in the clothing we choose (or didn't choose), or simply poured out wordlessly to God the most tremulous things going on in our hearts?
We wouldn't be praying, then; because we wouldn’t need to.
The Girl-Queen, the Captive Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Esther (3:11-15)
From what I understand, in the Jewish tradition whenever the Book of Esther is read (once a year at the Feast of Purim), it's customary to boo, hiss and/or heckle whenever Haman's name get's mentioned. There's something very visceral in this that seems appropriate. The genocidal plan, as it’s described in verses 3:14-15, is about as absolute as it can get: an order sent to “every province in every language of every people-group” to “destroy, kill and annihilate them all, young and old, women and children, in a single day” (did we miss anything, Haman?) And then in verse 15, just to send a cold chill down the spine, like a chaser of whiskey after a long, deep swig of utter doom, it says that after the couriers left, “The King and Haman sat down to drink.” Having sealed the fate of God’s People, they sit down to clink their glasses together over some fine Merlot.
Reading in slow bites like this keeps you from jumping to the end of the story too soon. I want to say something about how the point of Esther is that even when things seem their darkest for God’s people, He hasn’t abandoned them. He’ll see them through when it seems most hopeless.
But Esther isn’t making that point yet.
Right now, I think, it’s making this other point: don’t forget the plight of God’s people as they face the Haman’s of this world. Because the truth is, Haman is not just some vaudeville villain from the vague and distant past. Haman-esque atrocities are real; history is bloated with them. I was going to say something about the “spirit of Haman” that swept the world during World War II, but I don’t, actually, have to go back that far for examples. A while ago, a friend of mine who was doing missions work in Niger, sent an update about the Haman-esque stuff that was going on in that part of the world right now: churches burned, Christian homes looted, believers displaced. A friend of mine recently returned from a visit to Zanzibar, with reports of churches bombed and Christians persecuted. I support the work of Gospel for Asia, and often get news updates about the violence against Christians in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India. I realize there are many layers to each of these stories, but as I reflect on Esther 3:11-20, it feels like God's saying to me: Dale, if your heart doesn’t break for them, and your knees don’t wear out praying for them, then the picture of Haman and Ahasuerus, drinking a toast to the end of the People of God hasn’t sufficiently chilled your spine yet.
Of course, the challenge for Christians, here, is to feel these things without demonizing the Hamans themselves; Christ would have us pray, not hiss, every time we hear Haman’s name read in Esther: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” is how he said it. May God give us deep compassion and great courage whenever we encounter the Spirit of Haman, however it manifests itself in this world.
The Thursday Review: Learning Wisdom in the Writing
First Posted May 12, 2009
When I was learning to play guitar, my teacher gave me this advice: as soon as you have three chords under your belt, start writing songs. One of the best ways to grow as a guitarist, he said, is just start writing. Experiment with what works. Discover what doesn't. Get comfortable making mistakes, and fudging it, and making music something creative.
It was really wise advice.
And I'm thinking about it these days because I've been thinking a lot about proverbs (the book and the genre).
I don't think modern western Christians really know what to do with Proverbs (the book), because proverbs (as a general genre) don't live in our culture the way they might have at one time. In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman describes an oral culture from Western Africa where the adjudication of civil disputes was a matter of finding in the common stock of oral wisdom the proverb that best applied to the particular case. Imagine going to court because your business partner had cheated you out of $150,000, and the judge passes sentence by referring you to the saying: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Now imagine all the parties involved (including you) left the courtroom sincerely believing that justice had been served.
Proverbs are not just catchy sayings to decorate our fridge magnets. They are ambiguous vessels of wisdom that somehow gather together and distill insightful observations about the world as it should be-- that somehow, in their utterance, actually invoke that world-- and that somehow give context and meaning for the otherwise confusing events of living. The wise application of the right proverb at the right time is a profound creative act that somehow participates in God's shalom.
And it's hard for linear, rationalistic thinking to make that kind of sense out of a proverb.
But I remember my OT prof saying once that he'd tried his hand at writing some proverbs, and I'm thinking about my guitar teacher's advice, and it occurrs to me that maybe one of the best ways to learn about proverbs is by trying to write some of my own. So over the last few days I've been trying my hand at gathering together and distilling some insightful observations about the world as it should be. And let me tell you: it's really hard. A proverb needs to ring true without cliche, needs to be pithy without being flippant, needs to be precise enough to enlighten but ambiguous enough to apply in any number of situations.
It has to sound like something you've known all along, but only just heard yesterday.
For what it's worth (and I don't think that's much) here's my list after a week or so of work. (The ones marked with a + are sayings that I've used often as a classroom teacher; the ones marked with a * are based on ideas from other sources.)
Happy is he whose heart is too big to fit on his sleeve.
He who seeks to dance alone can only dance to silence.
It is only the starving man who talks incessantly of food.+
"All I have is three chords and the truth"-- this is the fool's boast and the wise man's apology.
There is no provenience for the archaeology of the self.
The truth is in the telling when the teller is in the truth.
Wisdom crosses the desert with a stone beneath her tongue, slaking her thirst with her own saliva.*
To listen well is to find the child mature at last and the old man young again.
A good thing need not always be a pleasant thing.+
Only a hack cannot celebrate the masterpiece of another.*
When to end-- this is the second lesson of wisdom.
The true maestro is he who knows when not to play.
The question of modern art is not whether or not you could have painted it, but whether or not you did.
Only he who can manage his own website can choose to be a Luddite.
A mask may be inevitable, but not which one you'll wear.
Food for the mind and books for the body, as exercise is for the soul.
There are only four feelings-- mad, sad, glad and scared-- but O in what infinite combinations they come.
Narcissus and the writer: both alike stare into inky pools, searching for an echo of their experience.
Loving is knowing and knowing is leaving and leaving is coming back again.
The equality of unequals is inequality.+*
The only stupid question is the question left unasked.+
Sarcasm is the protest of the weak.+
Beware of both the connoisseur and the spendthrift in the marketplace of ideas. The former will buy only his brand, the later will buy anything.
Love and fear alike are a bird in a fist: to hold it hides it; to look must let it go.*
The secret to never having to stand in line is in only wanting things when no one else does.
He who fishes for truth alone will surely come home skunked.
It is impossible to say in a single picture that a picture is worth a thousand words.
Hope is a knife-edge sharpened by despair.*
Every statistic is but a mathematically narrated myth.
Only great folly shouts for silence.
Sanctimony is often the child of guilt.
The Girl Queen, the Captive Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Esther (3:1-10)
The plot is beginning to thicken for Esther and her kin, as Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman in the gate, and Haman, in turn, hatches a genocidal plot to destroy the Jewish people. On the one hand, this sounds a whole lot like Daniel, another book dealing with the challenges of being faithful to God in the midst of exile (remember Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, thrown into the furnace because they wouldn't bow to the king's image?). On the other hand, it's really telling, the justification Haman gives King Ahasuerus for destroying them: their customs and way of life are different from all the other people (3:8).
This, ultimately, is the challenge for God's people: to remain "different" from the way the World does business, in the face of immense pressure to conform. They asked Mordecai why he wouldn't just bow to Haman and be done with it (3:3), and no answer is given; but I think 3:8 is the answer: he's determined to stay true to the Jewish way of life, come what may. It gets me thinking about ways that I might be "bowing to Haman"-- that is, giving in to the cultural pressures to conform to the "world's way of doing things," and so compromising my distinct identity as a follower of Jesus. Would the Hamans of this age be able to say to the Ahasueruses of this age, that my way of life is distinct from all the other peoples?
This is not easy: bowing to Haman would have seemed like such a small thing, and the reprisal it met with was huge (really Haman? Total genocide?). But part of the message of Esther, I think, is that God will be faithful in the big things, if we will be faithful in the small. May God bring us up off our knees and stand us on our feet, today, if it should just so happen that we’ve been bowing to Haman lately.
The Thursday Review: Hospitality, the Future and the God of Abraham
First posted March 16, 2009A number of years back I encouraged one of my students to read Homer's Odyssey for fun. Part way through I asked how she was enjoying it. "It's great" she said, "But why is it every time Odysseus comes to a new country they give him gifts?" I tried to explain what I understood about the code of hospitality in the ancient world: how generous hospitality was a reflection of the host's wealth and dignity in a shame/honour culture-- how inhospitality was not just bad manners, it was moral failure-- how hospitality has lost its place in the ethical code of modern western culture.
I recalled this little "teachable-moment" a few weeks ago as I was reading Hans Boersma's Violence, Hospitality and the Cross. Boersma uses the ancient concept of hospitality as an interpretive lens for understanding the meaning of election, the cross, the church and the Second Coming. Election is God's act of preferential hospitality for the poor, the alien and the outcast; the cross is God's act of hospitality toward estranged humanity; the church is God's chosen "community of hospitality" in the world; the Second Coming is God's promised future of "absolute (unconditional) hospitality." And so on.
Boersma is right that the Bible uses the very rich concept of "hospitality" to describe God's gracious dealings with humanity; but what's interesting is how it uses the same concept to describe humanity's right response to God. The writer to the Hebrews exhorts the church to be hospitable, because "some have entertained angels unawares"; in Revelation, Jesus stands at the door and knocks, urging the Laodicean church to open that he might come in and eat with them; in Luke Jesus criticizes the Pharisee for his stingy hospitality towards him; and in Matthew he promises to commend the righteous sheep on the last day, because they welcomed him when he was a stranger.
We are called to receive the hospitable God of the universe with unconditional hospitality.
Probably the most compelling example of this is Genesis 18: Abraham, sitting at the door of his tent, looks up into the glare and heat of the day to see three mysterious strangers standing before him. The Lord, the text insists with no further explanation, had appeared to him.
Abraham receives this divine visitation with gregarious, and, by the standards of the the ancient world, impeccable hospitality. "My Lords, do not pass by. ... Let a little water be brought and wash your feet. ... Rest here in the shade." He rushes to Sarah: "Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it. Make cakes." He runs to the herd, prepares a tender calf. They eat.
But what strikes me here is that by welcoming this "stranger-God" with gracious hospitality, Abraham is actually welcoming his own future in God. Because after these three strangers have refreshed themselves in Abraham's shade and eaten at Abraham's humble table, the Lord says: "I will return.. your wife Sarah will have a son." Abraham embraces the stranger with impeccable hospitality, only to discover in his arms no stranger, but a laughing baby boy whose future seed will bless all the nations of the earth.
As I struggle these days with my own questions about the future, I take challenge and comfort from Abraham's hospitality that hot day by the oaks of Mamre. God still comes to us, a stranger, mysterious, and bearing a strange but laughing future. And we don't need to "get it", or to "make it happen", or even necessarily to recognize it.
We need only to embrace it with impeccable hospitality.
The Girl-Queen, the Captive-Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Esther (2:1-10)
You don't have to read between the lines too much to get what's really going on here, and it ain't no fairy tale.
For just a second, I tried to imagine some ruthless government "commissioner" coming to my door, and hauling off a daughter of mine like so much property, to see if she might 'please' the king. It was too disturbing an image to handle for more than just a second, especially because, when you do dwell on it for just that second, you realize that there are places in the world-- in our own neighbourhoods, even-- where this kind of sexual exploitation is not just a vague story from the distant past, but an all-too-present reality.
This doesn't make for a nice, neat Sunday School flannel graph, of course, but that, I think, is part of the problem. There's a tendency in Christian circles to treat the whole issue of sexual exploitation the same way we tend to treat the sexual exploitation going on in the story of Esther: to sanitize it, or moralize about it, or just pretend it isn't there. In a previous post, I suggested that Esther is a type of the Messiah, a fore-shadow of the coming Christ; today God was saying to me: "If that's true, then in Christ, I stand with the sexually exploited, the powerless, and the abused. I take the plight of all the Esthers of this world very seriously, and in Christ I call my people to do the same.”
The Girl Queen, the Captive Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on Esther (1:11-20)
And this is the point where the text grabbed me, because in the Hebrew it says, "give her 'rule' to a 'neighbour' better than her"; and the wording here is almost exactly the same as what Samuel said to Saul in 1 Samuel 15:28, when the Lord took the kingdom from Saul and gave it to David: "YHWH has taken the kingdom from you and given it to a neighbour who is better than you." Considering that Saul lost the kingdom because he didn't follow through on YHWH's directive to destroy King Agag of the Amalekites, and Haman, the villain of Esther is a descendant of King Agag (see 3:1), this parallel can't be coincidence. Just like Saul lost his royal place and it went to his neighbour, King David, Vashti lost her royal place and it went to her neighbour, Queen Esther. And just like David is a saviour of God's People who foreshadows God's true Messiah, Jesus Christ, so, too, is Esther.
Once all those wires connect, a light bulb goes off and scintillating light starts to shine on something important going on in the Esther story. The reason Ahasuerus gives Vashti's Queenship to Esther is because he wants to underscore the status quo, reinforcing everything his culture says about power, and wealth, and gender relations (after all, what will the other women do or say if Vashti gets away with this?); and the irony here is that this is exactly what Esther doesn't do.
By the end of the story, roles will be reversed, powers will be upheaved and the status quo will be hanging from the 75-foot gallows it built for the necks of the vulnerable. And if Esther is a pattern for the coming Christ, then some difficult but important conclusions seem unavoidable here: just like Esther didn't underwrite the cultural staus quo, Christ didn't, and won't.
Well, that's a pretty round-about way to say just this: I've been thinking a fair bit this morning about how I might be sitting a bit too comfortably with the cultural status quo when it comes to things like wealth and power and gender relations, and worse, if maybe deep down I'm hoping the Messiah will simply underwrite it for me-- the status quo--instead of doing what he does do, and turn it on its head.
Wind in the Belly, a devotional thought
One of the things that makes Hosea stand out among the prophets is the poignancy and vividness of his imagery. Take, for instance this strange but poignant image from Hosea 12: "Ephraim feeds on the wind; he pursues the east wind all day and multiplies lies and violence" (12:1).
In the context here, "feeding on the wind" is Hosea's way of describing Israel's secular and ultimately futile foreign policy. They've cut a treaty with the ruthless Empire of Assyria (12:1b) and they've brokered trade deals with Egypt (12:1c). These efforts to establish peace and security for themselves are empty at best and idolatrous at worst (Egypt, after all, is the tyrannous nation God delivered them out of; and the Emperor of Assyria is a despotic megalomaniac, strutting around like he's the Lord of Heaven and Earth); trusting in deals with the likes of these guys to prosper and protect them really is like chowing down on a plate of "wind" and expecting that to fill you.
But it's more than great poetry (though it is that), it's also rich food for thought: in what ways I might be "feasting on the wind" in my life? I mean, sure, I haven't made any treaties with any ruthless, idolatrous super powers to protect and prosper me, lately, but at the same time, when you think about "the powers" in the Ephesians 6:12 sense of the term-- that is, describing the spiritual dynamic that's sort of always present in every and any aspect of human society and culture-- technology, political structures, media, economics, entertainment, the world-wide-web-- when you think about "the powers" from that angle, well, let's just say there's a lot of "wind" on the menu in the restaurant that is modern North American Society.
May God would give his people a craving for the good, solid, wholesome food that is life with him, and keep us from consuming all those empty calories.