The Prodigal Parable

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The Parable traditionally known as The Prodigal Son (Lk. 15: 11–32) is obviously a story of estrangement and reconciliation and forgiveness. So clear is this message, there should be no diluting or compromising it with violence, discord, or unforgiveness. However, the United States, a country filled with active churches, has the highest rate of incarceration in the world by a large margin. On top of that, we are seeing a spirit of vengeance in politics that seems to keep on growing. Does this parable’s meaning just disappear at the church door on the way out to the “real” world? A lawyer, Preston Shipp, author of Confessions of a Former-Prosecutor is an example of this disconnect. While raised in the church, he dreamed of being a prosecuting attorney from a fairly young age to protect society from the bad guys who victimized the good people. For many years, he fulfilled this dream by working at the state attorney’s office in Nashville. All this time, Jesus’ parable was in a totally alien universe, to judge by his own account. So, somehow, the simple and clear message of the parable is extraordinarily difficult to hear and believe in and act out in life. Why is this? Does the Parable itself give us insights into these difficulties? Let us take a look for ourselves with the help of Preston Shipp.

The elder brother’s relationship with his younger brother is not brotherly, although I suppose a cynic might say that’s what brotherhood is. Given the outrageous way the younger brother left home (demanding, not requesting his half of the inheritance) there are understandable reasons for this attitude. In any case, the elder brother’s calling his younger brother “that son of yours” in speaking with his father, suggests a highly depersonalized relationship with his brother. Preston Shipp writes about how he realized that the justice system is designed to prevent a prosecutor from having any personal awareness of the person he was prosecuting, let alone a relationship. This changed when a professor he had in college asked him to teach some law classes for college credit in a woman’s prison. This experience of bonding with incarcerated persons lead him to leave the prosecutor’s office. He now works for the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. Clearly, the way we manage relationships has a lot to do with how forgiving, or not, we might be. The second time Preston taught a course, he was highly impressed by a woman named Cyntoia Brown. She was underage when convicted of murder, but was sentenced as an adult. As he learned of her exposure to sex trafficking from an early age and other factors, he saw a person in a way that a prosecuting attorney is not encouraged to see a defendant. Imagine his shock when he received a copy of a court document he had filed while still working as a prosecutor, showing that he himself had rejected her appeal of a 51-year sentence and had never recollected it after meeting her in class.

Although the elder son is dutiful in the sense of staying home and working on his father’s farm, the way he berates his father for receiving his younger brother suggests he has little love for the work or for his father. Serious dissatisfaction with one’s work and family situation can harden the heart and make one less inclined to forgive. However, when the father tells the elder brother that everything he has, his elder son also has, we gain the suspicion that perhaps the elder brother was surrounded with blessings, like fattened calves, that he did not see or appreciate. Such lack of appreciation also dampens a sense of forgiveness of other people. The elder brother may have stayed with his father geographically, but his mind and heart seem to have been miles away.

The trauma of abuse or violent crime can make it difficult for the victim to forgive. Preston Shipp encountered many such crimes and knows what they cost the victims, although he also realized that the justice system did nothing to assist such victims except to feed any vengeance they might have. There is nothing in the parable to suggest that the elder brother had suffered any such trauma. The father, on the other hand, was surely traumatized by his younger son’s departure, and yet he welcomed him back with open arms. Cyntoia Brown was traumatized when she saw that her appeal had been denied and that Preston Shipp had been the one who reviewed it and rejected it. Preston expected to be skewered by her when he came to the next class, but he found her deeply forgiving, in spite of her hurt. This particular story has a happy ending in that, with the help of some celebrities taking up her cause which brought her into the public eye, Cyntoia was finally released from prison and has become an activist for many social causes, hoping to prevent what happened to her from happening to other people.

Shipp explains in many ways how vengeance is systemic in our judicial system and throughout our country’s cultural system. This system of vengeance is greatly exacerbated by systemic racism that has characterized American culture since colonial times and continues unabated to the present day. Racism, of course, entails much depersonalization of the other. More important, participation in such as system skews our perception of reality where many things taken for granted shouldn’t be. Will we ever bottom out of this collective sin the way the younger brother bottomed out of his sensual sins? On the other hand, this parable depicts a party being celebrated by an entire household, except for the elder brother. We can take this party as an image of a society transformed by forgiveness and reconciliation, an eschatological vision, we might say. Surely this party is an image of God, in Christ, “reconciling the world to himself.” (1 Cor. 19) Does this image attract us in any way, enough for us to desire to enter into it? Or are we more attracted to a society governed by the elder brother as he berates his father for such a celebration?

.When the father says to his elder son that the younger son had been dead and has come to life, (Lk. 15: 32) the story shifts to the Paschal Mystery. Such radical forgiveness makes one vulnerable, as the father was vulnerable. Who would want to be treated as the younger son treated his father? Who would want to be treated the way the older son treated his father? It is sobering to recall that the person who told this beautiful and edifying story was crucified as a criminal. Can we trust that this victim is risen and is still inviting us to the party?

Embracing the Fox

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When Jesus calls Herod “that fox,” (Lk. 13: 32) many associations, especially those from childhood, come to mind. In my case, there are the Uncle Remus stories of Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox and, of course, Aesop’s Fables. The animal stories by Thornton W. Burgess were among the first story books I heard as a small child, and they were the among first books I read for myself. Would Jesus have heard any such stories as a child? In the case of Aesop, it’s possible. It seems that children everywhere grow up with animal stories with foxes often being prominent.

The quality of being a cunning predator, often transformed as a trickster of sorts, is basic to many of the anthropological portrayals of foxes in the legends. In one of Aesop’s Fables, a fox tells a cock how much it wants to hear the bird sing. Indulging in pride over his voice, he is vulnerable to being carried off for the fox’s next meal. The townspeople, however, chase the fox because the cock belongs to them. So the cock suggests that the fox tell the people the cock belongs to it. Of course, when the fox opens its mouth to say that, the cock escapes. So the fox is outfoxed. Br’er Rabbit is always finding ways to outwit Br’er Fox, most famously by getting Br’er Fox to throw him into the brier patch where he can disentangle himself from the tar baby. In the Burgess books, Reddy the Fox goes from one flamboyant trick to the next. When I was an adolescent and Igor Stravinsky became a favorite composer, I listened to the short dramatic work Renard. Renard, another trickster fox, spanned several European traditions including the Russian version Stravinsky used. One of Renard’s tricks is to dress up as a nun and offer to hear the cock’s confession and give absolution. There seems to be some ecclesiastical confusion here, not least the ongoing problem of a predator posing in clerical garb. The cock makes himself vulnerable by being—well, cocky, and the cock needs to be rescued by the Cat and the Goat. It is not simply a case that a fox, like a rooster, has to eat. Reddy the Fox literally bites off more than he can chew by running off with the farmer’s plump hen, not for his supper, but for bragging rights.

Stories of trickster foxes and other animal tricksters are funny, They certainly tickle the funny bone of small children who feel overwhelmed by the power everybody else has over them. Since these stories reflect human behavior, they give us a chance to laugh at ourselves, if we are wise enough to see when the shoe fits. In the case of the Burgess books, just about every animal gets a story for itself, so that sympathy shifts from one character to another. A child might root for Reddy the Fox when he runs off with a plump hen, but roots for Danny Meadow Mouse when he is chased by an owl.

In short, these stories reflect the rivalrous relationships humans carry on with each other in all their comic dimensions. Not surprisingly, vanity is constantly the downfall of one rival or the other. But there is a sobering side to the comedy if we reflect that it is based on rivalry between predator and prey (and some characters are both.) It is no accident that the same dynamics come up time and again. When human relationships become rivalrous, it becomes a perpetual motion machine that keeps on going, just as the stories keep on coming with Renard up to his old tricks and his rivals up to theirs to outwit him in turn. In calling Herod “that fox,” Jesus is indicating that Herod, certainly a predator if not necessarily a trickster, is perpetuating the same old rivalry game as Renard and all other foxes in the fables. When Jesus laments the destruction of Jerusalem, he is showing us that all Jerusalem is caught in the fox’s game.

But instead of acting like a cocky cock or attacking the fox as the Cat and Goat do, Jesus yearns to gather Jerusalem’s children “as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” (Lk. 13: 34) But we are not willing. After all, we would have to give up our predator/prey games that seem to give life so much of its meaning. But Jesus has already thrown a monkey wrench into the fox’s game by his gesture. Jesus pushes the monkey wrench deeper into the heart of the cosmos when he opens wide his arms on the cross, like a hen gathering its young.

When Paul tells the Philippians to imitate him, (Phil. 3: 17) he himself is imitating Jesus as the Mother Hen who renounces the fox’s games and makes himself vulnerable. Another example Paul holds up for imitation is Abraham in his act of faith. (Rom. 4: 3–5) When he has no heir and no hope of an heir, it is hard to be consoled by the countless stars in the sky. When we are overwhelmed by predatory foxes, we yearn for the Lion of Judah, not a Mother Hen with wings extended. But Abraham “believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (Gen 1 5: 6) Can we hold steadfast in such faith? There is much need for the embrace of love in the face of so much widespread predatory trickery today. Can we even go so far as to join Jesus’ embrace of all foxes that they, too, may live in the Kingdom?

See also: The Prophet between the Fox and the Hen

Forgiveness as Gift

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Jesus’ teachings of love for one’s enemies and returning good for evil (Lk. 6: 27–31) are deeply inspiring and edifying as long as one doesn’t live by them. There is a tendency to regard these teachings as one regards a beautiful work of art: wonderful to look at but not something to guide my life. In any case, this teaching suddenly becomes not so beautiful when somebody maliciously wrongs me. All of a sudden, revenge is as compelling as it is sweet. That is to say, forgiveness is very difficult when the wrong is serious, when one has suffered badly on account of what another person has done. People who suffered serious abuse as children struggle with the pain all their lives and understandably have great difficulty forgiving their abusers. Pressuring such a person to do the “Christian” thing tends to amplify the pain of the abuse.

Taken in isolation, the moment Joseph forgives the brothers who had sold him into slavery (Gen 45: 4–9) seems to work smoothly, making forgiveness seem simple. But if one considers the whole story of which this moment is the climax, it is clear that the forgiveness did not come easily. The ordeals that Joseph subjected his brothers to once he recognized them may possibly be a calm and calculated attempt to test their moral fibre, giving them a chance to show improvement, but the ordeals come across to me as vengeful and punishing. Would Joseph have kept Benjamin in Egypt and sent the other brothers away if nobody protested the orchestrated framing of Benjamin? Who knows? It is Judah’s offer to take his brother’s place that breaks down the hostility Joseph had shown up to then. And when their father dies, the brothers still fear that Joseph will take revenge on them and Joseph has to reassure them.

The Anglican theologian Sarah Coakley noted that in the Hebrew Bible, forgiveness is considered to be the prerogative of God alone. The only verb besides the Hebrew verb “to forgive” which was reserved to God alone is bara, “to create.” Creation and forgiveness make a powerful pair of prerogatives. This is why when Jesus pronounced the forgiveness of sins, he was accused of claiming to be God. Perhaps it is as impossible for humans to forgive as it is impossible for humans to create a world out of nothing. But if it is not our place to forgive sins, why does Jesus tell us to forgive even our enemies? If we are not capable of forgiving them, which often seems to be the case, is Jesus asking us to do the impossible?

Paul’s powerful proclamation of the resurrection of the body in 1 Cor. 15 doesn’t seem to be relevant to the question of forgiveness, but maybe we should examine the question in case it is relevant after all. Paul makes it clear that the resurrection body is a gift from God. (1 Cor. 15: 38) We are not capable of giving ourselves a resurrection body and nobody is telling us that we should try. Is forgiveness as impossible as giving ourselves a resurrection body? If the resurrection body is a recreation, then maybe the answer is Yes. Later on, Paul tells us that the physical body is created out of the dust, as was the body of Adam, and we are created in that image. But the heavenly body is created according to the image of “the man from heaven,” which is Christ. Could it be that Jesus, in claiming the divine prerogative of forgiveness, is passing on that prerogative and ability to us as fundamental to the our re-creation in Christ? Joseph forgives his brothers in the context of divine providence. Such discernment makes forgiveness much more possible. For myself, I have experienced forgiveness, not as an accomplishment, but as a gift from God. I did not forgive another person; God forgave that person through me.

Let us return to the notion that Jesus’ teaching on love of enemies is like a beautiful work of art. Are we really unaffected by a work of art that we admire deeply? No. A work of art may not seem to have any practical value, but it has an effect on one who encounters it. Over time, the effect of a work of art can sink down into a person to the extent that it brings about a small transformation. How much more could the beauty of Jesus’ teaching of forgiveness and love of enemies sink more and more deeply into us over time, bringing us closer and closer to what Paul called “the Mind of Christ?”

Freeing the Body

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During the governorship of Nehemiah, when the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt to protect the returning exiles from Babylon, the scribe Ezra read the Law of Moses to the people.(Neh. 8: 1–12) The Law of Moses taught the Jews how they were to live together in community under the God who had first delivered them from Egypt and latterly, from Babylon. The people wept. Was that because they realized how short they fell from what the Law of Moses required of them? Or did they weep for joy because they knew what was asked of them and knew what to do? In any case, Ezra told the people to go and have a great feast to celebrate the reading of the Law. Touchingly, Ezra told them to send portions “to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord.” (Neh. 8: 10) Clearly, such sharing is what the Law of Moses is all about.

In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul teaches the values of Christian community through the analogy between the human body and the Body of Christ. (1 Cor. 12: 12–31) Both are one while composed of many members, each with a distinctive function for the benefit of the whole. Each member has need of all the other members, even, rather especially, the supposedly weaker members of the body. If a member of the body were to be considered foreign and so expelled, the whole body would suffer the loss.

Luke inaugurates Jesus’ ministry with his appearance at the synagogue in Nazareth. While Ezra read the Law of Moses, Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah, after which he said: “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk. 4: 21) This implies that Jesus himself has been anointed by the Spirit and that he is bringing about what Isaiah had prophesied. That is, Jesus is bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freeing the oppressed, and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor. Quite a lot to proclaim in a society where many people were imprisoned in many ways, blind in many ways, and poor in many ways. One could say that Jesus has put the table sharing enjoined by Ezra and the caring of one part of the body by the others enjoined by Paul on steroids. Given this prominent placing in Luke’s Gospel, we should rank this brief teaching alongside the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew as a baseline teaching for a life devoted to Jesus.

The political implications are enormous, both in Jesus’ time and in the present day. However, we should not leave the implementation of this program to the politicians, especially at a time when many politicians are going in the opposite direction. We ourselves should seek out those who are imprisoned in any way, perhaps in hatred or fear, and try to free them. Likewise, we should heal our own blindness so as to heal the blindness of others in whatever way we and others are blind. And so on with the other items in this list. That is to say, we need to accept healing and freedom in order to heal and free others.

When we speak of freeing captives and healing the blind, we tend to think that some people are captured and others are captors. Some people are blind and some are blinded by others. When we think in those terms, our own fear of being blinded or captured tempts us to join the blinders and captors. But that is only an alternate form of imprisonment and blindness. That is, those who capture others, imprison others, blind others, are just as imprisoned and captured and blind as the victims. One could say it is an inverted body where, instead of each part of the body caring for the others, each part tries to capture and imprison the others. What a way to have a complete breakdown in the health of the body!

This inaugural sermon of Jesus is a challenge to begin anew, which is what the year of the Lord’s favor, the Jubilee, is all about. The Jubilee year in the Law of Moses is God’s way of periodically offering all of us a new start by canceling debts and returning land to those from whom it had been alienated. Captives are freed to get a new start. So far, the people who think they are the captors and imprisoners have, at least for the most part, resisted efforts to implement this biblical teaching. Can we ever learn that nobody is free unless everybody is free? Can we learn to desire true freedom for ourselves which entails giving freedom to others? Can we open our eyes so that we can help others open their eyes?

See also How About a Jubilee? for similar reflections

God’s Eternal Choice

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During the Christmas season, we celebrate the Incarnation: the mystery of God becoming a human being. For such a thing to happen, there must be an intersection of time and Eternity. Understanding time is easy, Or is it? I think we can all sympathize with St. Augustine of Hippo when he said he understood time until you asked him to explain it. Maybe we can’t explain time but it has familiarity in that we live in it the way a fish lives in the water. Eternity is something else. We don’t live in it and we really can’t conceive of living in it. We might be tempted to say that Eternity is the opposite of time, but that isn’t right. My theology professor said that Eternity has nothing to do with time. That means Eternity can’t even be the opposite of time as that would be to relate the two and that is what can’t be done. We could say that Eternity is for God and time is for us and leave it at that. But once Jesus was born, time is for God as well as for us. Does this mean that Eternity will be for us some day? But if Eternity should be a future possibility, it would be connected with time after all. Does that mean Eternity won’t be Eternity any more? Maybe we just haven’t begun to grasp what Eternity is all about.

God’s being eternal is one of the reasons that God is usually thought to be unchanging and unchangeable. But to consider the notion of God changing, or not changing, relates God to time yet again. More to the point, there is the Biblical record of God’s interacting with time bound creatures such as we. So whatever it might mean for God to be unchanging, it doesn’t mean that God is some cosmic blob that never does anything. The first chapter of Ephesians offers us a powerful vision of what an unchanging but dynamic God is like. The “God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ” has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 1: 3) Moreover, we have been chosen “before the foundation of the world” and destined for adoption as God’s children “according to the good pleasure of his will.” (Eph. 1: 4-5) A God who blesses and chooses us from the foundation of the world is infinitely active rather than infinitely motionless. But Paul is also telling us that this will of blessing and choosing is constant. It may be active, infinitely active, but it is steady, unchanging.

We have a powerful example of the effect of God’s active, steady blessing and choosing in the 31st chapter of Jeremiah. Israel’s experience in time has been nothing short of catastrophic. Babylon invaded Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and deported the more important people to Babylon, leaving Jerusalem in ruins. Jeremiah himself proclaimed Yahweh’s presence in the midst of this disaster because of the sins and apostasy of the people. But in the 31st chapter, Jeremiah is prophesying the return from the Babylonian exile: “See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here.” (Jer. 31: 8) With God interacting in time, a great new thing is about to happen, but what, in time, is great and new, and unheard of, is a result of a steady act of blessing and choosing on the part of God. This steady and unchanging will shows itself both in bringing Israel to repentance and restoring Israel to its homeland.

On Christmas Day, we celebrated the birth of Jesus. The Logos who was with God in the beginning, became a human baby as vulnerable as any other baby. (Jn. 1: 1) On this second Sunday after Christmas, we see Jesus at the age of twelve, talking with the elders in the temple and asking them questions. That is, we are seeing a child asking questions about life and seeking answers as children are apt to do as soon as they are old enough to think about such things. This brings us into the paradox of an unchanging God developing in time as a human being. That God would do such a thing tells us that for us, living in time as we do, developing over time by asking questions is a good thing to do. We are also alerted to the significance, in the context of Eternity, of every little thing we do now in time. Here, we are at the beginning of Jesus’ life, but over the next few months, we’ll follow him to the end and beyond. Indeed, Paul says that it is through Jesus Christ that we are adopted as God’s children in God’s unwavering will and choice. That is, Paul is presupposing both the Cross and the Resurrection when he proclaims the destiny chosen for us by God. It is good for us that God’s will is not changeable, but what about us who are changeable? Insofar as our will isn’t so good, it is a good thing that it is changeable with a chance of a change for the better. This is what Israel needed when the consequences of their apostasy brought about the Babylonian Exile. Asking questions and listening to the answers as Jesus did can help bring us to abiding in God’s will that will not change in relation to any one of us or in relation with anybody else.

See also As Jesus Grew

Following the Shepherds

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The shepherds adoring the Christ Child are a staple presence at Christmas time, so much so that we perhaps take them for granted. Most manger scenes and the Christmas Gospel make them seem respectable. Well, real shepherds weren’t the sort that respectable people invited to come and ooh and aah over their newborn babies.

Some of the recent writings I read about Christmas toned down the alleged marginality of shepherds. One writer pointed out that a famous Talmudic statement citing the dishonesty of shepherds was made several centuries after Jesus’ life. Even so, I doubt that shepherds had been respectable bourgeois gentlemen who went downhill a few centuries later. More important, though, these writers drew our attention to the symbolism of shepherds and the biblical allusions in Luke’s Gospel, suggesting that marginality wasn’t such an issue.

Most importantly, the shepherds in the field who, prompted by the host of angels, came to visit the Christ Child point to Jesus’ ancestor King David. They were just outside the city of David, after all. The story of David’s anointing as king is particularly interesting in this regard. (1 Sam. 16) Samuel asked Jesse to bring all of his sons before him. When he brought seven sons, one would thing he had brought them all. After all, seven sons is quite a few, and seven is often taken to be a number of completion in a way that six or eight are not. And yet God told Samuel that not one of the seven sons who passed in front of him was the one chosen to be the king in place of Saul. So Samuel asked Jesse if there is yet another son and finally Jesse admitted that there was one more, the youngest, who was with the sheep. When David was fetched, Samuel knew that this was the one.

The point is, the shepherd boy had been marginalized out of existence until God called for him. This is just one of many, and one of the more subtle, examples of God’s trick of bringing something out of nothing. David then did become something and was, figuratively speaking, the shepherd of Israel for many years. To this day, he is the archetypal king, even if he wasn’t always the best of shepherds. Interestingly, the prophet Nathan used the parable of a sheep to speak a condemnatory word to the king when he acted wrongly in regards to Bathsheba. (2 Sam. 12) Later in his Gospel, Luke contrasts this episode with Jesus’ Parable of the Good Shepherd who left the ninety-nine sheep to seek out the one stray. (Lk. 15: 1-7) The Davidic symbolism, then, actually highlights the marginality of the shepherds, of King David, and therefore, of Jesus himself. In fact, in a more literal way, Jesus has come out of nothing, as Luke tells us that Mary, who had not known a man when Jesus’ birth was announced to her, yet gave birth to this child.

After two thousand years plus, the Christmas story is a part of world culture, although its appropriation by some, maybe even all cultural groups, sometimes seems far-fetched from its beginnings. But do we really adore Jesus as our true king? The news feeds on the Internet raise serious doubts about this. Perhaps Jesus is still as marginal as he was when he was placed in a manger because there was no room for him anywhere else. Can we let the marginal shepherds shepherd us to the manger where the even more marginal child lies? Can we keep our ordered and apparently complete lives open for the One conceived by the Holy Spirit to enter? Do we really have room for Jesus today? Given the troubles in the world, can we open our hearts for God to bring something out of the nothing that surrounds us in our time?

The Day of the Lord

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There is indeed much distress among nations and the roaring of seas and waves happening right now. We are all faint with fear and foreboding and we feel that the very heavens are shaken. (Lk. 21: 25–26) In such a state, it’s hard to get our “sea legs” that keep us on our feet in the storms surrounding us.

It is easy to see the current situation as signs of the End Times. That could be, since both the Bible and science tell us that the world will end some time, but there are some unhealthy aspects to preoccupation with the end times. Most unhealthy is the tendency to gloat over the violence and chaos. This approach is conducive to affirming, even actively abetting the violence and chaos. Worse, this attitude tends to slide into the notion that God is violent and that God wants the world to fall apart in violence. Not a flattering portrait of God, and not an accurate one when one compares this portrait with the Jesus of the Gospels who went about healing people and casting out demons so as to bring order into peoples’ lives.

If we take a historical perspective, we can see that wars and rumors of wars are normative, something that happens almost all the time. People are always faint with fear and foreboding and they feel that the heavens are shaking on account of what is happening. For the past two thousand years, many people have thought they were living in the End Times, but the times didn’t end, although some catastrophic events made it feel as if the world had ended. So why should we think that the chaotic and violent events of today are the End Times? I don’t say this to make fun of people who think we are living in the End Times. After all, the Bible has a strong eschatological thrust with promises of a divine fulfillment in the midst of the chaos and anxiety we experience in the present world. It’s just that there is something screwy about trying to force God’s hand by blowing up the world or courting ecological disaster.

Many biblical scholars suggest that passages such as Luke 21 are not about cosmic End Times, but are referring to contemporary events in Jerusalem. That is, Jesus is warning the people of the impending catastrophe to which they are headed if they persist in the unrest and violence that has engulfed their lives. As we know, Jesus’ warning was not sufficiently heeded, and the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70. Does this mean that such eschatological passages are no longer relevant to the present day? By no means. Just as there were wars and rumors of wars in Jesus’ time, there have been wars and rumors of wars in every time since. That means that the warnings of the catastrophic effects of violence are as urgently relevant today as they were when Jesus spoke these words.

Jesus then says that we shall see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” (Lk. 21: 27) Some people seem to be inclined to think Jesus is coming with a sledgehammer like Thor’s to smash the heads of all the bad guys. But Jesus says nothing of the Son of Man doing anything at all except “standing.” The image of Jesus standing is actually a powerful and deep one. It suggests that Jesus is standing with us in deep solidarity in the midst of the violence and chaos, a steady presence that is not shaken, one who doesn’t lose his sea legs. Remember, this standing Jesus was crucified soon after he spoke these words, the ultimate renunciation of violence, and is now risen and ascended, vindicated by His Heavenly Abba in his renunciation of violence to the point of death. If a returning Jesus acts violently, then the crucifixion loses its central focus in Christianity and violence gets the last word.

Jesus then shifts to a radically different image: leaves sprouting on a fig tree. (Lk. 21: 29) This is radically different from wars and rumors of wars and violence and chaos. Here is order emerging out of nature, something benign and constructive. So it is that in the midst of the violence and chaos, there are small, and sometimes not so small, acts of kindness. We can see such sprouting leaves in the healing people give to other people, so as to participate in the healing ministry of Jesus. It is in the midst of such healing gestures, not in the violence, that Jesus is standing with us. Such acts of kindness leave us as vulnerable as Jesus was in this world, but they also share in the hope of sharing in Jesus’ vindication.

Jesus concludes with a warning to avoid dissipation and drunkenness. (Lk. 21: 24) Such vices are common human failings in all circumstances, but the intensification of violence and chaos leads many to cope through sensual pleasures that give poor, or negative returns. If we indulge in such escapism, we will not be alert to the signs of God’s kingdom, the leaves sprouting on the fig tree. What kind of day might we be missing by letting it close in on us like a trap? I suggest that we could be missing the kind of day when we might be able to offer some healing and strengthening to another person and receive the same from others. The Day of the Lord is any day and every day.

On Being the Temple of God

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The brief story of the widow putting two small coins into the temple treasury, the only coins she had to live on, has often been touted as an edifying story about sacrificial generosity. I’ve come to seriously doubt that Jesus intends us to see it that way. Yes, the woman is generous and one can think of her many successors who built St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York with their hard-earned pennies. But just before the woman comes with her two small coins, Jesus has castigated the scribes who “devour widows’ houses.” Moses and the prophets constantly championed the widows and orphans, and yet a person who is supposed to be championed is instead devoured by the system. What Jesus knew and the poor widow didn’t, is that the temple was a lost cause; it was going to be destroyed.

But Jesus also knew that the temple was a holy place. Hence his fury that it had been turned into a den of thieves. When Jesus was a child, he knew that the temple was the place where he should be about his Father’s business. (Lk. 2: 49) Religious anthropologists know very well that there is a human need for sacred space, space that focuses one on God and makes one feel closer to God. Hence the devotion of the poor widow in Jerusalem and the widows and other people with meager resources donating towards the building of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

The destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. was a shock to both the Jewish and Christian communities and both communities had to build their traditions out of the ruins. After all, the first followers of Jesus also worshiped in the temple when it was still extant. The Jews recreated their tradition by embodying the Temple sacrifices through their daily practice developed in the Talmud. As for Christianity, John, in his Gospel, quoted Jesus as saying that if the temple should be destroyed, he could rebuild it in three days, meaning, as John goes on to say, that Jesus was referring to his body as the real Temple. (Jn. 2: 19–21) The author of Hebrews picks up this theme. By being the once-and-for-all offering for sin, Jesus has replaced the temple where sin offerings were made, with his own body. (Heb. 9: 24–28) For Christians, then, the temple has been replaced by Jesus as the focal point, the sacred space. But if Jesus has entered the heavenly sanctuary not made by human hands, as the author of Hebrews says, then where does a Christian find holy space?

Over the centuries, many church buildings have been built to fulfill this need, some of them overwhelming cathedrals, others storefronts. For me, one of the most moving entries into sacred space was a modest building, unadorned except for a cross strategically placed so as to be hard to notice, with a worn linoleum floor inside. But this is where a small group of Christians had worshiped for years in East Germany. These people had spent their whole lives giving up two small coins in their worship of God.

But, as the Risen Jesus revealing himself in the breaking of the bread shows, Jesus, is not only the true Temple of God but he makes all of us into the Temple that is His Body. That is why Paul, in line with John and the author of Hebrews, says that we are made the Temple of God by and in Christ. (1 Cor. 3: 16) Just as Jesus is the Temple by giving his whole life, we are part of the same Temple when we give all of our lives to God and neighbor. That is, the temple of God is everywhere as is the case in the Book of Revelation, where there is no temple because the Lamb has become the Temple. (Rev. 21: 220 At St. Gregory’s, it strengthens our prayerful focus on God to have the abbey church to go to several times a day, just as it helps to have set times for prayer to help us cultivate an attitude of prayer at all times. When we had a couple of weeks when we couldn’t pray in the church because the furnace had broken down, I missed the sense of focus the church gives us. But it is at least as important not to imprison our prayerful focus on God in a church space, but to keep the walls permeable to the rest of the world so that we are always in God’s Temple because we are God’s Temple. As the true Temple, Jesus broke bread at an inn just as we break bread at the Eucharist in the church.

See also: God’s Kingdom in Two Small Coins

Dwelling in the Land of the Suffering Servant

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The passage from Isaiah known as the Song of the Suffering Servant (Is. 53: 4–12) takes us to a foreign country where we have difficulty finding our way and understanding the language. The itinerary is too long and complicated to attempt a thorough tour, but the overall ambience is one of crushing suffering. The Servant is “struck down,” “wounded,” and “afflicted.” But not just struck down and wounded and afflicted as, say, a person dying of cancer might be, but somebody “wounded for our transgressions.” Perhaps one could say that there are a few familiar sights that remind us of normal life. We know that people sometimes suffer for the wrong-doing of others, and perhaps we feel we have ourselves suffered on account of others, but we don’t normally encounter the suffering inflicted on a person in so concentrated a form. But what is particularly foreign and strange is that the afflicted one “did not open his mouth,” but rather was “like a lamb led to the slaughter.” (Is. 53: 7) Some people can be resigned and dignified when suffering, but it is difficult not to protest when one is so seriously wronged. And this isn’t just somebody being blamed for what somebody else did. This is somebody stricken for the transgressions of a whole people. And yet, “he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.” Such willingness to suffer for the wrongs of others without protest is more than most of us can comprehend. The whole notion that such a thing could happen so intensively is as easy to comprehend as a totally unintelligible language. But there is another strangeness as well. The speaker, one we could call our guide, expresses remorse for the suffering of this innocent person. Our guide admits to being guilty of the sort of transgression that resulted in the suffering. Moreover, the guide admits to guilt over allowing the suffering and thinking the suffering was justified, was God’s will. This guide now sees the suffering as “a perversion of justice.” (Is. 53: 8) Sometimes we feel guilt over small matters such as putting ourselves before others and not stepping up in times of need. But such a fundamental move of repentance is rare in so serious a matter. Again, the language is virtually unintelligible.

But just as a foreign land can take on some familiarity for a frequent visitor, so visiting the foreign land of this text can take on the beginnings of familiarity the more we visit it. If we follow the Church calendar, we have at least a yearly visit. And now, outside of the usual time, we have another visit to the text we normally come across on Good Friday. If we gain the beginnings of familiarity, we can begin to ask ourselves if we have, in our own ways, added to the sufferings of this innocent servant, and whether or not we should repent of the burdens we have laid on other people. Perhaps we can begin to learn the language of this land and take the language to heart.

The Epistle to the Hebrews is not the same land as that of the Suffering Servant. It is not as drawn out and intense in the suffering as in Isaiah, but the language is a close variant of that of the Suffering Servant. First, we have a normal high priest who offers sacrifices for sins on behalf of the people. (Heb. 5: 1) It looks like a routine job, though one requiring penance on the part of the priest who sins like all of the other people. (Heb. 5: 2–3) But then suddenly, we have a High Priest who does not make an offering of a lamb led to the slaughter, but makes an offering of himself. This Priest is the lamb led to the slaughter, as was the Suffering Servant. Like the Suffering Servant, this Priest did not protest, but he did make his self-offering with “loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death.” (Heb. 5: 7) Again, we see a radical self-giving that is hard to understand, but the more we visit this land and learn the dialect, the more our hearts move in this direction, leading us to trust the One who heard the cries of the Priest who offered himself.

In Mark’s Gospel, we find ourselves in a much more familiar world where it is much easier to understand the language and customs. Two followers of a charismatic religious leader ask their leader if they can be given the best places at the right and left hands of the leader. (Mk. 10: 35–37) Not surprisingly, the other followers are incensed at this initiative, presumably because these are the places they would rather have for themselves. This kind of jockeying for position is much more like normal life than like visiting a foreign land. The odd thing, though, is that the charismatic leader in question, Jesus, isn’t in their territory at all. Perhaps his body is there with them, but his mind is thoroughly ensconced in the Land of the Suffering Servant, a land where he speaks the language fluently. It is the world of his followers and of ourselves that is unintelligible to him. In fact, when Jesus does speak, he speaks in the language of the Suffering Servant, a foreign tongue to the disciples and to us. Fortunately, Jesus’ teaching is relatively simple, like using a primer for beginners. In this regard, this Gospel fits in well during ordinary time, when we are following Jesus and his disciples and learning for ourselves how to be disciples. Rather than talking about bearing the burdens of other peoples’ transgressions, Jesus simply tells us that the leader must be a servant of all. (Mk. 10: 43) This is the first baby step for learning the language of the Suffering Servant. One can go from there to the more advanced matters of the Suffering Servant’s world, which is Jesus’ world.

We are here presented with two worlds, two universes, even. Perhaps some of us have one foot in both worlds. Since the two worlds don’t mix very well, this would make us be what James, In his epistle, called “double minded.” (James 1: 8) The world of the Suffering Servant, is, however, what Paul called the “mind of Christ.” (1 Cor. 2: 16) The question is whether we will occasionally visit the world of the Suffering Servant as uncomprehending tourists, or make frequent visits and become fluent in the language where the words penetrate the heart. If we become attentive to serving others, there isn’t time to ask for the best places because we are entering the only place that matters.

A Cup of Cold Water

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Jesus’ words about cutting off hands and feet and plucking out eyes in order to avoid unquenchable fire are pretty grim and can leave us feeling traumatized. (Mk. 9: 43–48) It is enough to make a preacher look for ways to make everybody feel better. For starters, I think I can safely say that this business of cutting off hands and feet and plucking out eyes is hyperbole and Jesus doesn’t expect or want us to do any such things. Even so, even if we take these words metaphorically, they are clearly metaphorical about giving up something that feels like a part of us, so we aren’t in for a free ride by any means.

Why the talk about stumbling blocks that lead to sin and the drastic solution of dismemberment? The French thinker René Girard is helpful for understanding what a stumbling-block is all about. The Greek word is skandalon. It refers to offense, scandalizing other people by our conduct or our words. In the preceding verses read as last Sunday’s Gospel, the disciples had argued about who was the greatest. Jesus then put a child among them and told them to become like this little child. (Mk. 9: 33–37) At the beginning of today’s reading, the disciples are complaining about somebody casting out demons in Jesus’ name, another example of arguing about who is the greatest, as they see this exorcist as a competitor while Jesus sees him as somebody else doing what needs to be done. (Mk. 9: 38–40) Girard suggested that when people become rivals, they become stumbling blocks to one another. They become entangled with one another, tripping and falling over each other. Children, such as the child Jesus placed among the contentious disciples, are very vulnerable to such a competitive environment in many ways. If they feel they have to compete to get attention in order to have their needs met, they copy the behavior that is modeled to them. More tragically, children are often “collateral damage” in the conflicts waged by their elders, whether it is in the family or large-scale warfare. A society permeated by people arguing and fighting about who is the greatest is hellish. It is a fire that never goes out. So we don’t have to think in terms of an afterlife, but it is worth mentioning that there can be no such rivalry in heaven so we do have to give it up if we are going to find heaven heavenly. Besides, the word translated as “hell” is Gehenna. Far from referring to the afterlife, Gehenna refers to a valley outside Jerusalem that Jeremiah and other prophets said was used for child sacrifice. (Jer. 19: 2–5) This image is most apt for the vulnerability of the “little ones” or “the least of these.” This term does not necessarily refer to children, although because Jesus had recently placed a child among the disciples, it is easy to think that. There is no question, however, that Jesus is referring to all vulnerable people, which certainly includes children.

These considerations would suggest that we need to cut off our rivalrous desires and throw them away so as to avoid the hell of rivalrous contention. The trouble is, we can’t really cut off our desires and throw them away. We are still human if we have one hand or one foot or one eye, but we aren’t human if we don’t have desires. And it isn’t that we have some bad desires we can throw away and some good desires that are keepers. We have desire. Period. So it isn’t a case of cutting off desire but directing it and, when necessary, redirecting it. Such redirection can feel like an amputation for those of us who are addicted to fighting over whether we are the greatest. We have a simple but powerful example of redirecting desire away from rivalry towards charity in the words sandwiched by the apostles’ complaint about the “unauthorized” exorcist and the exhortations to cut off hands and feet if they cause us to stumble. Here Jesus urges us to give a cup of cold water to anyone who bears the name of Christ. (Mk. 9: 41) Such redirection leaves us vulnerable to those who continue to play the hellish game, but Jesus has told us that the kingdom is about being among the least of all people, the most vulnerable. The more we are in touch with our own vulnerability, the more sympathy we have for the vulnerability of others, including the vulnerability of those who try to hide their vulnerability through rivalry. We need these cups of cold water to put out the fires.