By Jove

Acts 14:1-18

When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!" Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates; he and the crowds wanted to offer sacrifice.

Paul and Barnabas roll into a town in Asia Minor, perform a miracle and the locals figure they must be gods, and in that precinct it means the Greek gods. They try to explain, but the folks there still want to make sacrifices to them.

I don’t think there are a lot of other references to the Greek or Roman gods in the Bible, and this is kind of surprising. The Old Testament is filled with references to other people’s gods, generally in the context of a story that showed the superiority or reality of the Hebrew God (I’ve posted earlier on the oddness of passages that seem to acknowledge the reality, but weakness, of other gods). The New Testament takes no time to debunk the Roman and Greek gods. It’s focused on the drama internal to Judaism, showing that Jesus is the Messiah and that He represents the new way forward for the old religion. The apostles never have a divine power bake-off with the Romans and Greeks. It’s as if those gods are below contempt. Not worthy of the slightest consideration.

Roman religion put up very little resistance to the new religion. In less than 300 years the emperor converted, and by 380 Christianity was in as the state religion. Sometimes it surprises me that there is so little interest in reviving the Greek or Roman religion today, unlike the old religions of Northern Europe. A quick search of Wikipedia uncovered references to movements to revive the Greek pantheon, but you just don’t hear that much about it. Unlike Wicca, which is a very big presence in my circles. It’s strange, because unlike Wicca, Roman and Greek religion and religious practices are pretty well documented in contemporary sources. Of course that may be a disadvantage.

Part of it may be that these religions were state religions, especially in Rome. And as such, maybe they lost their deep roots in the lives of average people and local communities. The Northern religions were integral to small, rural communities, and survived in some form there. It gives them a continuing resonance. Unlike a religion that got attached to big temples, armies of priests, and civic festivals.

Which could be a cautionary tale, at least for a certain way of doing Christianity and doing church.

Funeral time

Psalm 51

As I said last time, I have been at a family funeral. One of my aunts died suddenly. Our family pretty well spread all over the country, so this has been a de facto family reunion as well as a time for remembrance.

The Bible is such that there’s something you can relate almost no matter where you open it up. On Friday, flying to the funeral I read the morning Psalm and thought about what my family is going through.

Psalm 51 starts by piling up pleas for mercy, cleansing, and wisdom: “Have mercy on me…Blot out my transgressions…Purge me with hyssop.”

Here’s how it gets at wisdom in verse 6: “You desire truth in my inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.” There are several interesting things about this. First, it is God who wants us to achieve wisdom. Maybe we want wisdom, maybe not. But we know God wants us to develop into our full potential as humans. And as vessels for God, to carry forward God’s wisdom.

The last words are the most curious. “My secret heart.” What is the secret heart? There is some potential for these to encourage people to think in terms of some sort of esoteric knowledge. The secret heart, some mysterious zone of the personality or experience that can be accessed if you have the key. Go all Da Vinci Code with it. I’m confident that’s not the intention of the passage, but I think it is worth keeping in mind the potential the Bible’s words have to contain gateways to new levels of experience and consciousness. Protestants are so literal.

My main thought about the secret heart is that it describes the irreducible singularity of human consciousness, that try as we might our spirit resides inside ourselves not entirely accessible to other people, and not even entirely accessible to ourselves. One purpose of therapy is to understand the contents and character of that secret zone. But if we believe in God, we know God is in there with us, and doing certain kinds of work right there at the foundation of our spirit, personality, consciousness, and self.

What should we do in exchange for God’s cleansing and wisdom? “I will teach transgressors your ways.” People are the vehicle through which God chooses to spread wisdom. I’m reading a book by Miroslav Volf called Free of Charge. He is discussing the nature of giving, that gifts from God flow through us, that He chooses us as the vehicle. One of the reasons God chooses to act through us rather than directly is that in serving as the conduit, we are changed for the good. Something rubs off on us in the process. We benefit from what wisdom God can give, and we grow further in passing on what we have learned, as well as we understand it and can communicate it.

The Psalmist goes on to say God takes no delight in traditional sacrifices. What delights Him follows from the recognitions we are required to reach if we are going to ask forgiveness. When you know your transgressions, and your sin is ever before you, you reach a sort of Dark Night of the Soul described in verse 17:

“The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Of course in context this is all about the struggle with one’s inner demons. But I couldn’t help look at my uncle and cousins, who have lost wife, mother, grandmother, and not be aware of their acute loss. I am very saddened and will miss my aunt, but the loss will be so much more all-encompassing for them. My aunt and uncle have been married for 56 years. How could that not break the heart and spirit?

I’m making a leap to apply this line to my family. But I think the pain all of us, and especially my uncle and cousins, feel is a sacrifice in the eyes of the Lord. But of what sort? There is the sacrifice of letting go of her, where you have no choice but to trust in God and in God’s promises. In bereavement, we may be at our most open to God’s mercy and comfort. God just wants us to come ready to admit what he can do, what we can’t do.

I’m not saying a death in the family is a blessing, or something to look forward to. But it is something that will happen. That much we know. It will happen. In God’s time. I don’t think God wants people to give themselves a broken and contrite heart, some sort of self-flagellation. The things in life that bring us down come regularly enough. This passage is about how to recognize that these times fit into our relationship with God. They feel like important events, when they happen, in every way. They are.

The real David

1 Samuel 16-20

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I thought I’d do something quick. I’m on the way to a funeral, and that will probably show up here.

The last few days we’ve been working through the beginnings of story of David, his anointment by Samuel, that whole business with Goliath, falling into and out of favor with Saul. I’ve always identified with David by accident of having the same first name. I think we feel a connection to anyone who shares our name, but it is an arbitrary association, like the association in poetry of words that sound alike. “Cat” and “caught” do not have any particular semantic connections, but if you put those two words in proximity to each other in a line of verse the mind links them together.

Biblical names are quite common, and certainly in olden days you assume the Biblical source for the name was a primary consideration. In the case of my name, my mother has said she liked the name and liked the people she knew with the name. But just because a child is given that name doesn’t mean the child will have any more similarities to the original than anyone else. But maybe we see those characteristics more readily, sort of like reading the personalities associated with Zodiac signs. And once the association is made, maybe naming becomes destiny and we gravitate to qualities associated with the name. When painter Charles Wilson Peale names his kids after famous painters (Rembrandt, Raphaelle, Rubens, Titian), what choice did they have but to follow in Dad’s footsteps.

I always think of the Biblical David as a youthful figure, even thought there are stories from his whole life. The defining story for David is his improbable youthful victory over Goliath. And somehow I’ve always had trouble picturing myself as an adult, even though now that I have sailed into my late 40s, I don’t think anyone else has trouble seeing me as an adult. I think I associate the name with a kid. On the other hand, I associate the name Abraham with old age, because the defining stories of Abraham are the improbable gift of a child late in life, and terrible request that he sacrifice that child. I have some friends who named their boy Abraham, and I think it will take him a good 50 years to grow into the name. But the name also makes me feel connected to him, because it was my grandfather’s middle name. The mind always grasps for those connections.

Just some random thoughts now on David’s story.

I think one of my favorite lines is what he says to the Israelite army, fleeing from Goliath: “For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” There is no word from God, just a simple faith that if God is powerful, why would a believer back away from a challenge. I don’t think that God brings us victories in the literal and military sense of David’s story, and I know that our story do not have as neat a dramatic arc. I am certain that the most worrisome giants we face are inside ourselves. That’s where the action is for us simple mortals.

As Saul proceeds in his increasingly ambivalent relationship to David, he offers his daughter Michal in marriage but tests David. So he sends David out to kill him some more Philistines. And to prove he had met the test (sort of like the credit card ad on TV where the king reneges on the prize for slaying the dragon with lots of technicalities), he asks this: “The kind desires no marriage present except a hundred foreskins of the Philistines.” Wow. This could be out of Gilgamesh or something.

I should probably dedicate a separate entry to Saul. A fascinating character who descends into madness through these pages. He is constantly throwing his spear at David and his son Jonathan, and sits holding while David plays music. You can see him glowering and growling.

Time bending

Acts 8:26-40

Like the first martyr Stephen, Philip was one of the seven deacons selected by the nascent church to tend to the needs of the people. It gives me a little chill to think about how as a lay leader you are connected to a lineage that goes all the way back to the beginnings of Christianity.

The Ethiopian eunuch whom Philip converts in this story has an oddly modern personality. When Philip comes up, the eunuch is sitting in his chariot reading. This sounds so modern—like he’s killing time waiting for something or someone. I picture him reading a book, but books in a modern form didn't exist. So he was reading scrolls? Maybe.

Philip comes up and asks what he’s reading. It’s Isaiah. Philip asks “Do you understand what you are reading?” It’s a direct question, almost like a modern ice breaker. The eunuch’s answer strikes me as having an equally modern tone: “how can I, unless someone guides me?” Philip proceeds to explain how the line about a “lamb silent before its shearer” is a reference to Jesus submitting himself to be sacrificed.

Then they head off, driving down the road in the chariot, the eunuch sees some water and gets a spur of the moment idea to be baptized then and there. It’s got the basic outlines of some sort of road movie. But with…teleportation. Philip baptizes the eunuch, the Holy Spirit shows up, and then snatches Philip away. Philip wakes up in Azotus.

When you let this passage settle in, time starts to play tricks on you. You become aware of how much happened in such a compressed time, so long ago—Christ is crucified and then disciples multiply quickly. The institution of the diaconate gets started, and the first convert is made among the Ethiopians. Some of what I think of as exotic Christian communities, like the Ethiopian Church or the Thomasite Christians in India, have such ancient roots. How far the Church spread so quickly is amazing. I was reading Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez today, and he talks of Irish monks traveling in northern waters around 530. It’s amazing to realize the Church had spread to Ireland by then, let along that Irish monks were getting in a boat and sailing off to Iceland. Those times, the first months and first centuries of the church, is so long ago, so dimly recorded, so hard to imagine. The temporal distance seems vast. But then you see yourself connected across all those years to those people, by virtue of church office, or through glimpses of the people in those stories behaving like people you could know. What was so far away in one second seems close. Time compresses and expands in quick quick alteration.

Persecution complex

Acts 7:44-8:1a
Luke 22:52-62

Today’s lectionary reading from Acts finishes up the martyrdom of St. Stephen, referenced in the previous post. It gives me an opportunity to go back to a point that didn’t exactly fit into that post.

As everyone learned in Sunday School, St. Stephen was the first Christian martyr, one of a long line of martyrs that provided plenty of material for paintings when one painted such things. Martyrdom introduces great drama into Christian history, but it’s not clear how well served we are by the narrative construct of martyrdom. Martyrdom also plays a big role in Islam, and I think most people would agree that the survival of the Islamic martyrdom idea or ideal into contemporary life bedevils us. I think the idea of martyrdom produces pathologies in Christianity as well, maybe in a subtler way. It takes the form of a persecution complex. There are constant complaints from some sectors of the Christian community in the U.S. that Christians suffer discrimination. This is patently absurd in a country so predominantly Christian as the United States—it’s always been the case, and only gotten more ridiculous as some Christians have decided to wed their religion to the political party in power. Not only are they not subject to discrimination, they actually hold state power. But that doesn’t stop a degree of whininess from Christians, which seems to come out whenever there is the slightest dissent or resistance to the religion’s predominance.

Of course, you can see why the idea of persecution is so attractive. Stephen’s story is paired with Luke’s account of Christ’s betrayal and arrest. Christ establishes a pattern for suffering at the hands of society. Isn’t martyrdom and suffering for the faith part of imitating Christ? Only in an unimaginative, literal-minded way. Fabricating persecution is so far from what Christ suffered. Christ’s role was singularly appointed, and his death achieved a specific purpose for humanity. No subsequent human death bears our sins away in that way. As the church becomes pervasive, Christian sacrifice takes on new forms. Like everything in the Bible, everyday applications require extrapolation from the stories to essential qualities of existence and experience.

Cow or Calf

Acts 7:1-8:1a

The Bible isn’t always a treasure house of great rhetoric. Sure, there’s the Beatitudes, but there’s also a bunch of speeches that the Bible just insists had a tremendous impact on the listeners, but they don’t read like much of anything in English translation.

The story of St. Stephen and his martyrdom revolves around a long speech he gives to the high priest who confronts him with accusations of blasphemy. What follows is a run-on thumbnail retelling of nearly the whole Old Testament, sort of like 10-minute Shakespeare, leading up to some key points where the people show themselves to be “a stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears…forever opposing the Holy Spirit.” The result of Stephen’s oratorical efforts? The crowd stones him. Generally considered a bad outcome from an attempt at persuasion. But I guess Socrates had the same problem.

A lot of Stephen’s speech recounts the history of the Jews: Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses bringing them out of Israel. All of this leads to exhibit A in the charge of stiff-neckedness, that whole golden calf thing.

Well, I’ve been thinking of the Golden Calf ever since my world was enriched recently by something I learned about in Iowa: The Butter Cow. Dear readers, I probably have no need to explain the Butter Cow to you, but in case there are some of you who suffer from the same level of ignorance in which I wallow, the Butter Cow is a feature of the Iowa State Fair. Since 1911, a sculptor has created a life-sized dairy cow out of layers of butter applied to wood, metal, and mesh frame. Carving the cow is the responsibility of a single artist who performs this feat each year until the time to retire and hand over the reins. This artist also carves another figure or maybe more—Elvis one year, Tiger Woods, the Last Supper, Brandon Routh as Superman (the actor is from Iowa). The State Fair is on only its 4^th butter sculptor.

The Butter Cow strikes me as one of those things everyone would have heard of, and my ignorance of it makes me question what cave I’ve been living in (I’ve been watching Letters from Iwo Jima on DVD this evening, so I’ve also got caves on the mind).

But here’s the question:

Charming Midwestern tradition?

Or rejection of the covenant with God?

Judas

Luke 21:37-22:13

“Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve; he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him to them. They were greatly pleased and agreed to give him money. So he consented and began to look for an opportunity to betray him to them when no crowd was present.”

Recently the National Geographjc Society released the Gospel of Judas, and Elaine Pagels and Karen King have published a book on it. The upshot is to reposition Judas as a figure who collaborated with Jesus to realize the prophecies. Jesus asked Judas to play his role leading to the Passion, and Judas did nothing but obey.

I find the interest in rehabilitating Judas quite strange. The Bible doesn’t need anything added to it, not the Gospel of Judas, not the Book of Mormon. It is what it is, and its rich content needs to be addressed. Once upon a time the content of the Bible was up for grabs, but that was a long time ago, and now part of being Christian is having this well-defined set of stories and poetry to work with as a holy text. The text is complicated and multifarious enough, it needs nothing else to give us plenty to do.

The Gospel of Judas offers an alternative way to understand Judas, and of course some people would say it says something about who he really was. I think we need to understand Judas within the narrative form that we encounter him. It’s like adding a sequel to Moby Dick for new insights on Ahab. You can do that, but then you’re dealing with a completely different book and narrative.

The point that Judas was necessary to realizing Jesus’ appointed role in the creation is plainly there in the Gospels. No need to add texts. The story of Judas brings us back to the question of the relationship of an all-powerful God to both evil and good. God needs Judas to betray to Jesus, and in fact appoints him to do this. Does this make Judas a good and faithful servant? What is evil, really? It is clearly something we encounter and experience as humans, but it’s not as clear what it looks like to a merciful God. And what is goodness? Again, it is something we experience when we receive a kindness or witness an act of grace. But in our prayers we acknowledge that it is only by the God’s grace that our good acts are in fact good in ultimate terms.