Over a year ago I started blogging as Project1189.org which was a WordPress.org site, hosted on our server...and after five months it vanished. So, being a bit skittish about WordPress, I started this blog on Blogspot in June...now the wheel has turned and in connection with my work at the church, I've just set up three WordPress.com blogs (we're trying to do a major update of the church website). So this week I set up another Wordhavering blog using WordPress.com (might as well have them all together). I will be figuring out how to transfer this blog over there (eventually), but in the meantime, if you still have the stomach for it, you can follow my "intently haphazard" musings and haverings at wordhavering.wordpress.com. You'll find at least one new post waiting for you ("horny religion" - how can you not read that post!)
True gluttons for punishment you can find other more work-related posts from me on these three blogs:
vineyardboisebookcellar.wordpress.com
vineyardboisegroups.wordpress.com
vineyardboiseadulted.wordpress.com
Bless you all...
See you in the funny papers! :)
Friday, March 11, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
a tale of two rich men
So I'm reading Luke 16 yesterday.
Familiar turf.
Two parables I've generally read on their own merits, as isolated units - and that I've also tended to see through the same glasses. Funny how that happens with so much in life.
But yesterday they stood out together. Two tales of two rich men in Luke 16. Perhaps the insight would have been there through my reading the chapter in English, but it was in Greek yesterday, and the identical words in the Greek text at the opening of each parable stood out quite glaringly. "There was a certain rich man..." And then to see the two stories punctuated with the notice that the religious elite sneered at Jesus because they were lovers of money ("Pharisaioi philargurioi" a delightful, rhythmic pairing of words: "Pharisee silver-lovers"). Jesus tells them they only value what is esteemed on a human level and that God takes an entirely different view of things. A good point to remember as we are subtly and often not so subtly pulled into the latest human fashions culturally, morally, religiously, theologically...
But back to the point. Yesterday I saw these stories yoked together and from that yoking saw them reflecting the one upon the other and back again. I was struck that we call the first story "The Dishonest Steward" (at least that's the marginal heading in my Greek Bible) when Jesus doesn't even use the word "dishonest" to describe him. I think our assumption is that this steward was guilty of graft but got caught and so faced termination. What in fact Jesus says as he begins the tale is that a certain rich man had a steward (financial manager) who was accused of wasting his goods. Accused. It's the verb form of "devil" (verb diaballo "to slander;"noun diabolos "accuser, devil") and means to "traduce, calumniate, slander, defame." The verb is used only here in the entire New Testament. When used outside of the New Testament, it is on occasion used of someone passing on a charge based on truth but even then it was with slimy, hostile intent. Yes, this steward is slimed. And the certain rich man doesn't investigate the charges; there is no hearing. The man is given two week's notice. He is to clear out his desk and leave a final report of his doings when he leaves. If there is injustice in the story it's the treatment the steward just received at the hands of his employer. Now he goes about showing great generosity to his employer's accounts by significantly downsizing their past due amounts. And everyone loves him - and his employer is impressed. Savvy generosity. Reminds me of the ending of Fun With Dick and Jane.
Then there's the second story. The certain rich man who "fared sumptuously every day" while the poor (ptochos is the Greek word here for poor - one completely destitute of work or resource or help or pity; the "p" in ptochos is not silent, you literally have to spit the word out) man Lazarus (meaning, appropriately, "God help him") sits daily at his gate. And gets nothing from him. Only the dogs notice him and pay him any mind. And you know the story. Both die. Role reversal afterlife. Rich man in torment looking for a little comfort but finding none - and even his notion of having Lazarus come back from the dead and warn his five brothers of his fate is rebuffed. If they're not listening now, resurrection won't do anything to improve their hearing.
Seeing both of these rich man tales juxtaposed, mirroring each other, with the Pharisees sneering in the middle as they lapped up the lifestyle of the rich and famous, I suddenly saw both in a new light. Both stories serve, among other things, as a picture of what was unfolding in Jesus' ministry. The Pharisees finding themselves in the uncomfortable shoes of two rich men they so admired and wished to emulate. For the first unjustly dismisses his manager as he panders to slanderous charges, revealing himself as not only out of touch, but lacking in character and heart, ungenerous in his assumptions and judgment. The second rich man fares no better; the flawed, ungenerous heart is amplified in his callous dismissal of the poor man sitting right in front of his face, day after day.
And there's Jesus - on the one hand a falsely accused "steward" of the house who is summarily dismissed by the silver-loving Pharisees as they not only listen to devilish charges against him, but who actually help contrive them. But Jesus outdoes them with his own savvy generosity as he freely dispenses scandalous grace, downsizing the debts of losers who would most surely been left "on the hook" by religious book keepers. And then there he is, the poor beggar outside the wealthy man's gate, the man not giving him the proverbial time of day. He was only judged worthy by the dogs - the despised nobodies who gathered around him and "licked his sores." And then Jesus, of course, ends the story by using the Pharisees' cherished eschatological picture of heaven and hell, unbearable pain and unbelievable joy but giving it the exquisite twist of the great reversal as their hero is in torment and what they consider human waste (God help him) is in paradise.
Okay, I've never seen this in any commentaries on Luke or heard a scholar write it up in a thesis - and so I wouldn't offer it up as a definitive commentary. But it will do as havering, as musing. And just to see some new hues in familiar settings was a treat for the day.
Just how many layers unexplored, how many facets unseen are there in this thing we call the Word...
Familiar turf.
Two parables I've generally read on their own merits, as isolated units - and that I've also tended to see through the same glasses. Funny how that happens with so much in life.
But yesterday they stood out together. Two tales of two rich men in Luke 16. Perhaps the insight would have been there through my reading the chapter in English, but it was in Greek yesterday, and the identical words in the Greek text at the opening of each parable stood out quite glaringly. "There was a certain rich man..." And then to see the two stories punctuated with the notice that the religious elite sneered at Jesus because they were lovers of money ("Pharisaioi philargurioi" a delightful, rhythmic pairing of words: "Pharisee silver-lovers"). Jesus tells them they only value what is esteemed on a human level and that God takes an entirely different view of things. A good point to remember as we are subtly and often not so subtly pulled into the latest human fashions culturally, morally, religiously, theologically...
But back to the point. Yesterday I saw these stories yoked together and from that yoking saw them reflecting the one upon the other and back again. I was struck that we call the first story "The Dishonest Steward" (at least that's the marginal heading in my Greek Bible) when Jesus doesn't even use the word "dishonest" to describe him. I think our assumption is that this steward was guilty of graft but got caught and so faced termination. What in fact Jesus says as he begins the tale is that a certain rich man had a steward (financial manager) who was accused of wasting his goods. Accused. It's the verb form of "devil" (verb diaballo "to slander;"noun diabolos "accuser, devil") and means to "traduce, calumniate, slander, defame." The verb is used only here in the entire New Testament. When used outside of the New Testament, it is on occasion used of someone passing on a charge based on truth but even then it was with slimy, hostile intent. Yes, this steward is slimed. And the certain rich man doesn't investigate the charges; there is no hearing. The man is given two week's notice. He is to clear out his desk and leave a final report of his doings when he leaves. If there is injustice in the story it's the treatment the steward just received at the hands of his employer. Now he goes about showing great generosity to his employer's accounts by significantly downsizing their past due amounts. And everyone loves him - and his employer is impressed. Savvy generosity. Reminds me of the ending of Fun With Dick and Jane.
Then there's the second story. The certain rich man who "fared sumptuously every day" while the poor (ptochos is the Greek word here for poor - one completely destitute of work or resource or help or pity; the "p" in ptochos is not silent, you literally have to spit the word out) man Lazarus (meaning, appropriately, "God help him") sits daily at his gate. And gets nothing from him. Only the dogs notice him and pay him any mind. And you know the story. Both die. Role reversal afterlife. Rich man in torment looking for a little comfort but finding none - and even his notion of having Lazarus come back from the dead and warn his five brothers of his fate is rebuffed. If they're not listening now, resurrection won't do anything to improve their hearing.
Seeing both of these rich man tales juxtaposed, mirroring each other, with the Pharisees sneering in the middle as they lapped up the lifestyle of the rich and famous, I suddenly saw both in a new light. Both stories serve, among other things, as a picture of what was unfolding in Jesus' ministry. The Pharisees finding themselves in the uncomfortable shoes of two rich men they so admired and wished to emulate. For the first unjustly dismisses his manager as he panders to slanderous charges, revealing himself as not only out of touch, but lacking in character and heart, ungenerous in his assumptions and judgment. The second rich man fares no better; the flawed, ungenerous heart is amplified in his callous dismissal of the poor man sitting right in front of his face, day after day.
And there's Jesus - on the one hand a falsely accused "steward" of the house who is summarily dismissed by the silver-loving Pharisees as they not only listen to devilish charges against him, but who actually help contrive them. But Jesus outdoes them with his own savvy generosity as he freely dispenses scandalous grace, downsizing the debts of losers who would most surely been left "on the hook" by religious book keepers. And then there he is, the poor beggar outside the wealthy man's gate, the man not giving him the proverbial time of day. He was only judged worthy by the dogs - the despised nobodies who gathered around him and "licked his sores." And then Jesus, of course, ends the story by using the Pharisees' cherished eschatological picture of heaven and hell, unbearable pain and unbelievable joy but giving it the exquisite twist of the great reversal as their hero is in torment and what they consider human waste (God help him) is in paradise.
Okay, I've never seen this in any commentaries on Luke or heard a scholar write it up in a thesis - and so I wouldn't offer it up as a definitive commentary. But it will do as havering, as musing. And just to see some new hues in familiar settings was a treat for the day.
Just how many layers unexplored, how many facets unseen are there in this thing we call the Word...
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
snapshots from the hard road
In the first half of the gospel, many people come to Jesus with what appears comparatively easy faith. They touch him and are healed; it seems as simple as that. But for this man, in this situation, faith is hard. Not for nothing are his words regularly quoted as an ideal prayer for someone caught in the middle between faith and doubt, living in the shadowy world of half-belief where one is never sure whether one can see properly or not…(N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone)His voice trembled on the phone, filled with anguish, flushed with angst. This was no newbie, but an seasoned believer suddenly facing a sheer wall as the path curved precariously, unexpectedly. The ultrasound showed potential deformities in his unborn grandchild leaving foreboding options in every direction. So unfair. So hard. Why this...why now…
Another man sits on his couch. Diagnosis. Colon cancer. Major surgery scheduled the next day — but even with the surgery he’s given only a 30% chance of surviving — but no more than three years. And those are the good odds. He is not new to life or to faith; he has been around and seen much. He comments that a good friend of his died just last year after a hard battle with pancreatic cancer. He has visited this place with others, but now it’s different, it’s intensely personal. “This life is such a hard place...such an incredibly hard place,” he says as we bow together.
Another man, another mature believer, sits on a bench as if waiting for a bus to take him away from the “funk” he feels he’s in. A year and a half and more of seemingly endless medical procedures have drained the life out of him. He knows God is sovereign, he believes in and has seen God’s healing hand. But here he sits. Every day that passes only moves him closer to the next examination, the next procedure. “It’s such a long, hard road...I just get weary with walking it.”
And these are three interactions just from this past week — all sharing that common thread that Wright comments upon so aptly. This isn’t a summer holiday we’re in; and this sure isn’t a pleasure cruise, as John Eldredge observes in Waking the Dead. It’s more like a landing craft headed towards a hostile beach.
Why do we think differently? Are we still affected by the lingering aftertaste of a gospel that promises easier, richer, healthier times? Has it always been this hard, it’s just that now that our senses are more engaged as believers we feel it more? Or does the road really get harder, steeper, more lonely as we move along?
Perhaps it’s all of the above. But as Jesus stood in that valley with his own cross vividly before him, he seems struck by the hardness of the ground, angered by how difficult faith seems to be rising even among his own, sensing how short his time to be present to instill it. The demon-possessed boy presents a seemingly hopeless case — a looming shadow of a darker day near on the horizon that would confront them all with the hard places of Gethsemane and Gabbatha and Golgotha.
But prayer does prevail. Faith wins.
...In the story overall, Mark has told us that things are now going to be much harder, but that Jesus, and with him God’s whole saving project, is going to get there in the end. It will take all his resources of spiritual and physical endurance, but he will indeed climb the rock and complete the walk, right to the summit. He will take up his own cross, be faithful to the end, and bring in the kingdom. The question, though, for us must be: are we going with him? Are we left muddled, unable to do even what we used to be able to? (N.T. Wright, ibid.)
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