Catching Fog

John the Baptist beheaded. Sometimes the good news will never come. John the Baptist was a faithful prophet of God. His life had been a hard one, born to an old man and old woman, who, according to tradition died when he was still quite young, he had spent most of his life living in the desert, subsisting on whatever food he could find there, usually bugs and sometimes a bit of wild honey. After announcing that his cousin, Jesus, was the Messiah, he saw his followers drift away after the new man; although he understood it had to be that way, he was still human.

Then, after criticizing the king and his wife, he found himself arrested and kept in a prison; at last, to satisfy the vengeance of the king’s wife, the king—on account of a drunken promise to a dancing strumpet, his wife’s daughter—has him beheaded. So John died, alone and on a whim.

There was no last minute rescue; there was no happy ending.

Yet.

The words of the author of Hebrews are important to consider when life turns out this badly:

There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

(Hebrews 11:35-40)

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According to the third and fourth chapters of Exodus, Moses was a very reluctant hero. The impetuous man who wanted justice for the Israelites, who was quick to murder an oppressor, no longer existed forty years later when God appeared in a burning bush out in the Midian wilderness. Moses was not interested in rescuing slaves and no longer bothered himself with justice for God’s people. He was beyond old, he was tired, and he had a good life right where he was, and it was too late for him.

But the man who doesn’t want to do the job is often the best one for it, especially if the job is high profile and powerful. There is a difference between those who have greatness thrust upon them, versus those who seek it out–or worse, simply inherit it.

One day Moses was out taking care of sheep, the same as what he’d done most days for the last forty years. But then he noticed something out of the ordinary: a bush in flames. As he watched it burning, he eventually realized that although there was fire, the bush seemed not to be getting consumed by the flame. Puzzled, he finally decided to walk over and check it out.

He was startled when a voice came from the bush, first calling to him by name, and then demanding that he come no closer and that he should take his shoes off. Shortly after that, the voice then identified itself as belonging to God: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:7-10)

Moses responded by asking, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharoah and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

God reassured him that he would go with him.

Moses asked for God’s name. God gave him one.

Moses asked, “what if they don’t believe me?” God gave him some miracles to perform: turning his staff into a snake, turning his hand leprous and not, and turning water into blood.

Moses then told God that he was a lousy public speaker. God reassured him that, given that he had made Moses’ mouth, he really had nothing to worry about: God would give him the words he needed to say.

Finally, out of excuses, Moses simply told God, “Please send someone else to do it.” (Exodus 3:13)

Exasperated, God told him that Aaron, his brother, could act as his spokesperson: but in any case, Moses would have to go and do the job. Reluctantly, seeing no way out, Moses obeyed at last and went to prepare for the journey back to Egypt.

Accomplishing mighty things for God has little to do with our own desires or effort (see the story of Jonah for another reluctant hero). Instead, it all has to do with God’s choice:

It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. (Romans 9:16)

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Jesus once told a story about a rich man and a man named Lazarus. It was in the context of his confrontation with the religious leaders of his day. Jesus explained that no one can serve two masters–meaning that one cannot serve both money and God. Then he told them that divorcing their wives to marry another was still adultery since they were divorcing one woman just so they could sleep with another–and simply preserving the legal niceties didn’t change what was in their heart. Finally, he told the story about a beggar named Lazarus who contented himself with eating what fell from a rich man’s table. But when the rich man and the beggar Lazarus died, Lazarus wound up with Abraham in paradise, while the rich man was tormented in flames. First, the rich man begged that Lazarus be permitted to put a drop of water on his tongue. Abraham denied the request, pointing out that the rich man had lived well on earth while Lazarus suffered and so now that situation was reversed. Besides, it wasn’t possible: there was a gulf between them that no one could pass, even had Lazarus wanted to ease the rich man’s torment. When the rich man understood that his request was impossible, he begged that Abraham would send Lazarus back to warn his brothers so that they would not wind up tormented as he.

Abraham denied that request as well, pointing out that if his brothers couldn’t be bothered to listen to what the Bible said, then they were not going to be convinced by the words of a man who came back from the dead.

Some people believe that if we found evidence of some past miracle of God, such as the Ark, then everyone would have to believe in God. Others think that a modern miracle would do it. Others claim that if God were to talk to them, or answer their questions, or perform some stupendous trick, then they’d believe. All of that is utter bilge. In the time of Jesus, the religious leadership knew that Jesus was performing miracles. It did not convince them to accept Jesus as the Messiah.

There is no way to make someone believe if they choose not to. Consider how hard it is to get someone to change their mind over much less significant things.

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A man’s own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the LORD. (Proverbs 19:3)

Sometimes, we do exactly what God wants and things still go badly—as Moses discovered in Exodus 5 when his first attempts to rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt—making use of the two signs God had given him—resulted in the Israelites having to work harder than ever. Paul had a hard life, facing shipwreck, snake bites, floggings and ultimately execution even though he was doing precisely what God wanted him to do.

But a lot of times, people make bad choices and then are quick to try to lay blame elsewhere, refusing to face up to their own folly. An example of this from the Bible would be the story of Esau in Genesis 25 and 27. Esau had sold his birthright to his brother simply because he came home hungry one day and wanted some of the stew that his brother was making. Unconcerned about the value of what he was giving up, all he saw was the immediate satisfaction of having a nice bowl of stew.

Later, his brother by stealth stole the blessing of the firstborn by impersonating Esau. When Esau discovered how he’d been ripped off, he complained bitterly about what Jacob has taken from him: his birthright and his blessing. But for all his complaining, for all his regrets, his choices in his life had their consequences that he had no choice but to endure. It’s not God’s fault if you suffer for your own mistakes. And we all make mistakes; lots of them. Every day. Don’t blame God for it; just own up to it and ask God for help in correcting it.

Frankly, in the United States, most of the suffering that people do for their faith is not because of their relationship with Jesus, but because of how they handle their relationship with the people around them. They’re not suffering for righteousness’ sake, but simply because they’re insufferable, arrogant, Pharisaical, or stupid.

For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? (1 Peter 2:19-20)

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Back in the 1950s there was a television show called “Father Knows Best.” The father in the television show was not perfect, but while human father’s don’t always know best, our heavenly Father does. Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 12:6-10 that God responded to one of Paul’s prayers–which he repeated three times–with a firm “no.” Paul had a problem that he wanted fixed, but God refused.

Most likely Paul had some sort of illness. He describes it as a “thorn in the flesh.” Given his practice of sometimes referring to human sinfulness as “the flesh,” a few have speculated that perhaps he faced a serious temptation that he wanted to be freed from. God’s response to him was that “my grace is sufficient for you.” The answer Paul had wanted was relief from his illness. What he got instead was God affirming that, “I’ll stand with you while you endure it.” If it was a problem with a sin, God’s reassurance was that it was covered by God’s sacrifice on the cross; likewise, a physical illness was covered by that too.

Perhaps the ambiguity of Paul’s problem is purposeful: whether our illness is spiritual or physical, we have the confidence that God will be with us and help us to endure it.

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Wisdom counts on the power of love.

One day two prostitutes appeared in Solomon’s court, together with a single baby. Each woman claimed to be the baby’s mother, spinning a sad story that they had both given birth to a baby, but that one night, one of the babies had died. The woman whose infant had died (apparently of SIDS—this is one of the earliest examples in literature of the still mysterious illness) had taken the dead baby and switched it with the one still living. The next morning, the woman whose infant had been switched, was at first beside herself with grief, but then realized, upon examination, that it wasn’t even her baby. Now she demanded Solomon do something, but of course the other woman told the opposite tale. Solomon listened to them argue back and forth, and then came to a decision: “get me a sword and I’ll split the child; each woman can have half.”
One of the two women broke down in tears and begged Solomon to go ahead and give the baby to the other woman. In contrast, the other woman expressed agreement with Solomon’s suggestion.
Solomon immediately issued his ruling: “The weeping woman is the infant’s mother. Give the baby to her.”

Only a fool underestimates the power of love. In the Song of Songs, the author writes that:

Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned. (Song of Songs 8:7)

If a madman put a gun to your head and told you to stop loving your daughter or he’d pull the trigger, would you be able to comply? Would you do it for a million dollars? Love cannot be turned off like water from a spigot. There is no way of undoing the gift of one’s heart to another.

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In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaimed that people should not worry about such things as food or clothes. He pointed out that birds neither plant crops nor harvest them, yet God provides them with food. God makes flowers beautiful, yet they don’t have to work for it.

Human beings are far more valuable than birds and flowers. So why should people ever worry about the mundane things of life? Jesus insists that God knows what people need and he will take care of them. Therefore, people should simply focus their energy on doing God’s will. They should not spend the energy they need now on what hasn’t yet happened. Jesus told the audience, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)

Martin Luther, the Reformer of the 16th century, was busy hoeing weeds in his garden. One of the men from his congregation came up to him and asked, “What would you do if you knew Jesus was going to come back tomorrow?” Without looking up from his gardening, Luther responded, “Well, first I’d finish getting rid of these weeds.”

Seeking God’s kingdom is not only preaching or being a missionary in a distant land. Seeking God’s kingdom is not being religious. Seeking God’s kingdom is something you do as you perform your necessary tasks every day. Seeking God’s kingdom is hoeing your garden, repairing your car, doing your homework, cleaning the bathroom, playing with your children, or going to work. Seeking God’s kingdom is not forgetting who you are in Christ. Seeking God’s kingdom is your life. Seeking God’s kingdom is to always do the will of God, in everything you do.

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17)

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Elisha left everything just to become a servant. Following his victory over the prophets of Baal in the god contest—and after his subsequent meltdown—Elijah got God’s approval for retirement, though he first had to find and train his replacement. His replacement was named Elisha. Elisha was part of a team plowing a field with twelve yoke of oxen the day Elijah found him. Elijah approached him and tossed his cloak over him, thereby informing him that he had been chosen to become the next prophet of Yahweh. Elijah began walking away, but Elisha followed him and said, “Let me kiss my father and mother good-by,” he said, “and then I will come with you.” Elijah’s response was, in essence, “whatever.” Elisha then quickly gave his goodbyes, took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them, then he took his plowing equipment and burned it, using the fire to cook the meat of the slaughtered oxen, which he distributed to the people around him. Then he followed Elijah and became his servant. (1 Kings 19:16-21)

Elisha, thus, gave up his livelihood, left his family, and took a low position with a poor man who was a prophet of Yahweh. He left one life for a new one.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:25-34)

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Thanks to St. Augustine and then the later Puritans and many modern incarnations of the same attitude, many Christians get the impression that there is something inherently wrong with sex. Sermons are preached that “it’s not the pear in the tree that was the problem, but the pair under it.” Though a nice play on words, if you happen to approve of bad puns, it is abominable theology. In Genesis, God’s first command to Adam and Eve were to reproduce: that is, to go have sex. It should come as no surprise then, given how much we enjoy God’s first commandment, that there should be a part of the Bible devoted to the subject (it should also serve as a reminder that the laws of God are not there to keep you from having fun; quite the opposite).

Although some theologians, especially in the Middle Ages, attempted to explain that the Song of Songs was an allegory about Christ’s love for his church, anyone who reads the poem would find that hard to believe. It is, quite simply, an erotic love poem that celebrates the joys of physical intimacy.

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