Career Women of the Bible: Apostle to the Apostles

Luke 8:1-3 says, “Soon afterwards [Jesus] went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.” Mark 14:41 also says that the women at the cross were among those who followed Jesus and provided for him. Mary Magdalene is one of those women. Mark and the other Gospel writers use “follow” over 75 times to show that following Jesus means being a disciple of Christ. The twelve weren’t the only disciples who followed Jesus as he traveled through Galilee and Judah teaching, healing, and proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God. There were also a group of women who followed and witnessed Christ’s miracles and preaching throughout the region.

These women also “provided for them out of their resources.” “Provided” or diakoneo means “to serve, wait on, minister to as deacon,” and it was used in the early Christian community to describe “eucharistic table service and proclamation of the word” (Jane Schaberg, Women’s Bible Commentary, 376). These women supported and served Christ throughout his earthly ministry. They too were in service to the kingdom along with Jesus and the twelve.

Mary Magdalene “was a prominent disciple of Jesus who followed him in Galilee and to Jerusalem. She is always listed first in groups of named female disciples” (The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 884). Mary was one of the women Luke named in chapter 8 as, not only following Jesus, but serving him from her own means. She stood at the cross with the other woman and saw where Jesus was buried. She was the first to see the Risen Christ. She became known as the apostle of the apostles.

In all the Gospel accounts women are the first to the tomb Sunday morning, and they are the first to see the risen Christ and commanded to carry the good news to the disciples. In all four accounts different women are named, but one name is constant in all four gospels: Mary Magdalene. In John 20 she is the first to the tomb on Sunday morning, and the first person Christ reveals himself to. After Mary discovers the empty tomb she runs to where the disciples are staying and reports that someone has removed Jesus from the tomb, and she does not know where they have put him. Peter and the beloved disciple then run to the tomb where the beloved disciple stoops down and looks in, and Peter enters the tomb. Peter sees the linen wrappings and the head cloth then the other disciple enters and sees the same thing. After seeing the linen and cloth the beloved disciple believes but does not understand because he does not realize the reality of the resurrection. Peter and the beloved disciple then leave.

Mary remains at the tomb weeping. She leans down and looks in to see two angels who ask her why she is crying. She answers, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:13). She then turns and sees Jesus but does not recognize him. Jesus asks her, “Whom are you looking for?” (v. 15). The first words Jesus said at the beginning of John were to the disciples of John: “What are looking for?” (John 1:38). Looking for Jesus is “one of the marks of discipleship in John.” The repetition of the question in this chapter “establishes continuity between Mary and the first disciples of Jesus” (Gail R. O’Day, Women’s Bible Commentary, 389). Mary still does not recognize Jesus, and does not, until he says her name. In something as simple and intimate as saying her name “the reality of the resurrection is revealed,” (O’Day, 390) and Mary becomes the first person to see the risen Christ.

Apparently she tried to hug him, but Jesus tells her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father” (v. 17). It is not as harsh as it sounds. The relationship between Jesus and his disciples cannot remain as it was. Jesus cannot be held on earth–he must ascend to God, so that the God’s plan to build his kingdom through the church can begin. Only when Jesus ascended to God would the Holy Spirit come and give his followers the fullness of life that Jesus had promised them. They could not hold him down with any preconceived notions or ideas–he was raised from the dead, and the possibilities of what he could accomplish through his believers were infinite.

Jesus then commissions Mary to proclaim his resurrection: “Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God'” (v. 17). Mary obeyed. She returned to Jerusalem to proclaim: “‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her” (v. 18). She was the first preacher of the good news of the resurrection to the same men who had just been at the tomb before Jesus appeared to Mary. In fact in all four gospel accounts Jesus appeared to women and commissioned them to go proclaim his resurrection to his male disciples. The tradition that Christ appeared first to women was well established by the end of the second century when Celsus, a pagan critic, discounted the gospel and resurrection by saying that an account given by a hysterical woman could not be trusted. Origen, an Early Church Father (he translated the Bible into Latin), responded by saying that there was more than one woman who witnessed the risen Christ, and that none of them were hysterical in the Gospels.

It is ironic with the low status of women in that day that Jesus chose to appear to Mary and the other women, and that “the first Christian preachers of the Resurrection were not men, but women!” (The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 883). Jesus did not first appear to the “vicar” of the church–Peter, or even to the beloved disciple: he appeared to Mary and the women who followed him and served him. Mary saw him first, and she received the central tenet of the Christian faith: “He is risen!” She was the first to proclaim the good news, or gospel, of the resurrection. Since Jesus could have just as easily appeared to Peter and the beloved disciple, or to the disciples cowered behind locked doors, that he did appear to Mary first can only mean that this was by divine appointment and was a deliberate act on his part. Women as well as men were credible witnesses to the gospel and were commissioned to preach it to all they came into contact with. . .which is what they did.

Sources:

Shawna Renee Bound, Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: A Biblical Theology of Single Women in Ministry, unpublished thesis, (© by Shawna Renee Bound 2002), “Women in the Gospels.”

C. S. Cowles, A Woman’s Place? Leadership in the Church (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1993).

Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992).

Gail R. O’Day, “John” in the Women’s Bible Commentary, exp. ed., eds. Carol A. Newsome and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).

Virginia Stem Owens, Daughters of Eve: Women of the Bible Speak to Women of Today (Colorado Springs: NavPress Publishing Co., 1995).

Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Nancy A. Hardesty, All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today, 3rd rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992).

Jane Schaberg, “Luke” in the Women’s Bible Commentary, exp. ed., eds. Carol A. Newsome and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).

Gerard Sloyan, John (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988).

Aida Besancon Spencer, Beyond the Curse: Women Called to Ministry (Peabody, MA: Hendricksen Publishers, 1985).

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Standing Between Life and Death, Part 2

In Standing Between Life and Death we looked at Miriam’s ministry as prophet, worship leader, and forgiven usurper. But Miriam was not the only strong woman whom God called to stand between life and death in the life of Moses. Zipporah, the daughter of a priest, also acts in a cultic role. Like, Miriam she also looks over Moses and saves the lives of her family.

“On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the LORD met him and tried to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it, and said, ‘Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ So he let him alone. It was then she said, ‘A bridegroom of blood by circumcision'” (Exodus 4:24-26). These are three of the most mythic and problematic verses in the Bible. Commentators have spilled gallons of ink in describing how these verses should be read and interpreted.

Zipporah was the wife of Moses. She, Moses, and their sons have just left Midian and are on their way to Egypt in obedience to what God had told Moses to do. Then Yahweh comes against either Moses or one of their sons to try to kill him. Quick thinking and quick acting Zipporah circumcises either her husband or her son, applies the bloody foreskin to one of their feet or genitals (feet are an euphemism for genitals in the Hebrew Scriptures), and the wrath of Yahweh is averted. Zipporah is the only human named, and the only human to act in this account.

In the verses right before this incident, Yahweh tells Moses what he is to say to Pharaoh: he is to let Yahweh’s people go, and if he does not let Yahweh’s firstborn son go then Pharaoh’s son shall die. In light of the context, these verses foreshadow the Passover.

But why should Yahweh come against Moses or one of his sons to try to kill him? Bernard Robinson thinks the reason is Moses’ reluctance earlier in chapter 4 to obey God’s calling to go and demand Pharaoh to release his people. He seems to think that either Moses or his son not being circumcised would not warrant this action on Yahweh’s part. Terrence Fretheim thinks it is a combination of both: “Moses’ continued resistance to the divine call, occasioning God’s wrath (Exodus 4:14), and his failure concerning circumcision are signs that do not bode well for the future” (p. 81). Is Moses still having reprehensions? Is Yahweh growing tired of his excuses? We will never know.

What we do know is how Yahweh’s wrath was adverted, and Moses (or his son) was spared. Zipporah quickly circumcises either Moses or her son and touches the bloody foreskin to the feet or genitals of one of them. She acts as a mediator between Yahweh and her family. She also acts as a priest. In a salvific moment that will foreshadow the Passover, she circumcises one of the men in her life and applies the blood to save one or both. This is the only written record we have of a woman performing an act of blood sacrifice in the Bible or in Near Eastern religion.

Ironically the priesthood that would later go on to minimalize Miriam’s role in the wilderness traditions as a cultic leader begins with a woman, and not even an Israelite woman. A foreign woman is the first person in Exodus to offer a blood sacrifice that averts the wrath of God and once again saves Moses.

The first female prophet named in the Hebrew Scriptures is Miriam, and the last female prophet is Huldah. Huldah was a prophet in Jerusalem during the reign of Josiah, and her story is found in 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34. Although there are noteworthy male prophets in Jerusalem at the time (Jeremiah, Zephaniah, and Nahum), Josiah sends the high priest to inquire of Huldah after a scroll is found in the temple. Huldah verifies that the scroll is the word of God, and that it’s words would come to pass, but Josiah would be spared since his heart was grieved over the sin of his people (Huldah’s prophecy would happen within 35 years). After he hears her words, Josiah steps up his reforms and leads the people in celebrating the first Passover that included all of the people since before the time of the judges (2 Kings 23:22).

Huldah was the first prophet to declare written words to be the word of God–Scripture. She is the first whose “words of judgment are centered on a written document as no others have been before her.” She is the first to authenticate Scripture. Manuscripts had been accumulating for years, if not centuries, but for the first time a prophet proclaims the writing to be God’s word, and this prophet is a woman–the last female prophet before Judah falls to the Babylonians. She started the process that would eventually give us canonized Scripture.

Huldah was married to Shallum who was the “keeper of the wardrobe” (2 Kings 22:14). But when Hilkiah, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah come to her home, they do not ask for her husband, and there is no embarrassment over inquiring God’s will of a woman. The high priest does not have an issue with a woman prophet. In fact, her gender is irrelevant in the text as is her marital status.

As Miriam frames the Exodus narrative so Deborah and Huldah frame Deuteronomistic history. Deborah appears at the beginning in Judges and Huldah at the end in Kings. Both women declare God’s word to leaders who respond. Unfortunately by Huldah’s time the nation had gone so far into idolatry that exile was inevitable, so there would be no songs of victory as in the days of Deborah. Although her words did compel the king to continue in his reforms and may be held the tide for a few more years.

Two women with ties to the cult; one as a priest and the other as a prophet. They are both married, but it is Zipporah who saves her husband and family as priest. King Josiah immediately inquired of Huldah on finding the scroll in the Temple. Both women knew what God wanted them to do and did it. As Miriam, Zipporah and Huldah are mediators and intercessors standing between life and death. Zipporah is successful, but Huldah must face the reality that her people have sinned too much for too long and confirm that God would send his people into exile.

Once again the traditions of Zipporah and Huldah remind us that as women we stand between life and death for our families, our communities, and even those who consider us to be outsiders. They were called, not because of who their husbands were or what their husbands did, but because they were available and open to God’s calling in their life.

Sources:

Shawna Renee Bound, Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: A Biblical Theology of Single Women in Ministry, unpublished thesis, (© by Shawna Renee Bound 2002).

Athalya Brenner and Fokkelien Van Dihk-Hemmes, On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible (New York: E.J. Brill, 1993).

Claudia V. Camp, “1 and 2 Kings” in Women’s Bible Commentary, expanded ed., eds. Carol A. Newsome and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).

Claudia V. Camp, Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Bible (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000).

Terrence E. Fretheim, Exodus (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1991).

William E. Phipps, “A Woman Was the First to Declare Scripture Holy,” Bible Review (vol. 6, no. 2, April 1990), p. 14.

Bernard P. Robinson, “Zipporah to the Rescue: A Contextual Study of Exodus 4:24-6,” Vetus Testamentum 36 (October 1986): 452-3.

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Updated: Standing Between Life and Death

Sing to the Yahweh, for he has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

The voices rose above the winds and the waves as tambourines kept the beat, skirts swirled, and hair blew in the breeze. “Come!” a voice rings out above the singing, “Come sing and dance to Yahweh! Sing praises to the God was has freed us!” Miriam leads the song and the dance, and she leads the Israelites is their first worship service as free people.

Deborah was not the first to sing a song of victory to Yahweh. Miriam began the tradition after the crossing of the Reed Sea. Miriam was also a prophet, worship leader, and a co-leader with Moses and Aaron (Micah 6:4). Tradition says she is the unnamed sister who kept watch over Moses and arranged for their mother to nurse the child for Pharaoh’s daughter. Jewish tradition also reports that it was Miriam’s well which provided the Israelites with water during the wilderness wanderings. She is the first woman named as a prophet and every verse, which describes women going out to sing and dance victory reflects back to her.

Exodus 15:19 is the first place Miriam is named. She is called a prophet and the sister of Aaron but not Moses. At first reading it appears that she leads only the women in a fragment of the song which Moses led the people in worship in 15:1-18. But a closer look at the whole literary structure of the passage offers a different interpretation. Exodus 15:21 ends the first major unit of the book. It began with women in chapter one, midwives who, instead of obeying Pharaoh, feared God. The narrative continued with the mother, sister, and daughter who saved Moses. The unit now ends with the sister and daughters worshiping the God who had just delivered them from the hand of Pharaoh; if Miriam is the unnamed sister of chapter 1 she frames the Exodus narrative.

Although Miriam is named a prophet, no where in Scripture does she function in the traditional prophetic role of speaking forth the word of God. She does start a liturgical tradition. It is agreed that Exodus 15:21 is one of the oldest texts in the Old Testament; it is also believed that the original “Song of the Sea” is Miriam’s. Verse 19 recounts Yahweh’s deliverance of the Israelite people and the destruction of Pharaoh’s troops at the Reed Sea. In the next verse Miriam apparently leads the women in dancing and celebrating Yahweh’s victory, but shir, “sing” has a masculine plural direct object (not feminine), which implies that she lead all the people in celebrating their victory and worship Yahweh.

In Has the Lord Indeed Spoken Only Through Moses? Rita J. Burns shows that not only was dancing part of celebrating victories in Israel’s life, it was also part of it’s liturgical life. The thing that distinguishes Miriam’s dance and song from those of Deborah, Jephthah’s daughter, and the women in 1 Samuel 18:6 is that there is no human component in this fight and victory. Yahweh alone acted on Israel’s behalf–none of the Israelites fought against the Egyptians; they stood and watched Yahweh defeat their enemy.

Another way dance was used within the life of Israel and surrounding nations was re-presenting past victories. The battle was re-enacted through dance to celebrate the victory. There is no doubt for Israel that the Exodus is the foundation of their faith confession. The Exodus would be the definitive act of God among them for the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures, and would be the foundation for their belief that Yahweh would act on their behalf. This victory would become the paradigm for Israel’s worship.

In her analysis Burns uses the Exodus 32 story of the golden calves and the celebration happening around them to show that victory celebrations re-enacted the battle itself. In verse 17 Joshua hears the people’s revelry and thinks that there is a war going on in the camp. The people’s celebrations, which included dancing, sounded like a battle. The reason for the dancing and celebration in Exodus 32 is the same as in Exodus 15–Aaron told the people that the calves were the gods that had brought them out of Egypt, and the people were worshiping them and celebrating the victory at the Reed Sea. In fact throughout the Hebrew Scriptures dance is a “recurring feature in celebrations of victory” (Burns, 29).

In Israelite worship dance was used as a way of re-enacting the battle Yahweh had fought for them, so they could remember his deliverance and salvation and pass that faith on to the next generation. There are no instances of war dances in the Hebrew Scriptures where the celebration happened before the battle to insure victory. These dances always happened after Yahweh had acted, after he had saved the people and delivered them from their enemies.

This is the context of Miriam’s dance–she began the Israelite tradition of celebrating God’s victories through dance. It is very likely that this dance was enacted later, and used in shrine worship during the wilderness wanderings. Miriam began a liturgical tradition that would remind the people what God had done for them, and introduce future generations to the power and strength of the Warrior God who would come and fight for them.

Scripture never tells us if Miriam was married. The only men she is connected with are her brothers, Moses and Aaron. Since these verses are from the earliest known traditions, it is clear that Miriam did play a big role in Israelite belief and life before the entrance into Canaan. Scripture shows her as a leader among the people, and leading them in their first cultic celebration of God’s deliverance from the Egyptians. The prophetic tradition remembered that she was a co-leader with Moses and Aaron during this time: “For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam” (Micah 6:4). As part of the triumvirate that God used to deliver his people, Miriam played an integral role from watching over her brother on the Nile, to leading the people in celebration of what God had done for them, to establishing a liturgical tradition, so that the people would remember the power and strength of their God.

Miriam does not fare as well later in the Torah. The book of Numbers categorically eliminates all other contenders to the priesthood, so that Aaron and his sons will be the rightful priests of the Israelite nation. Korah and his followers, although from the line of Levi, are denied the priesthood or any leadership role in Israel. They and their families die for their insubordination to Moses and Aaron (Numbers 16). The line is further narrowed to Phineas, son of Aaron, after his two older brothers, Nadab and Abihu offer “illicit fire” before Yahweh (Numbers 3:4). Nestled between these two accounts is another elimination: Miriam.

The account in Numbers 12 is after the anointing of the seventy elders to help Moses govern the people (along with Moses’ wish that more were called to be prophets). It is before the twelve spies are sent to spy the land in chapter 13, and the people’s subsequent rebellion in chapter 14. The people refuse to go up and take the land that God has promised them, condemning themselves to wander another 40 years in the wilderness.

Numbers 12 is one of those passages that is hard to understand exactly what is going on. In verse 1 it appears that Miriam and Aaron have a complaint against Moses’ Cushite wife, but then in verse 2 they say, “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” It is this complaint that Yahweh answers. Although there has been much speculation about the first complaint regarding Moses’ Cushite wife, I will focus on the second complaint and its consequences.

As soon as the words in verse 2 are out of Miriam and Aaron’s mouths, Yahweh hears and appears. He calls the three siblings to the tent of meeting and rebukes Miriam and Aaron for their audacity to claim equal leadership with Moses. Yes, Yahweh has spoken through prophets and priests like Miriam and Aaron through visions and dreams, but his relationship with Moses is unique: “With him I speak face to face–clearly, not in riddles; and he beholds the form of the LORD” (verse eight). Moses’ special place within the Israelite cult is affirmed–he is not just a prophet: he is the prophet of Yahweh. Yahweh speaks to no one else as he does to Moses.

After the cloud leaves the tent of meeting, Miriam is found to have leprosy. She is the only one punished, and her co-instigator, not only gets away without punishment, Aaron is the one who intercedes on her behalf to Moses. As in the sin of making the golden calf and leading the people to worship it, once again the high priest Aaron is not punished or even rebuked for his sin. The Aaronic priesthood insures that its forefather maintains his purity to perform his duties as high priest. Once again another contender for leading cultic ritual is eliminated; this time it is the sister of the high priest, Miriam.

It is possible that these verses are a polemical against the worship of female deities. Within the prophetic tradition the worship of the goddesses Astarte, Tammuz, and the Queen of Heaven were denounced as idolatry, and the people were called to repent of worshiping deities other than Yahweh. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel called women who worshiped these deities to repent of their idolatry (Jeremiah 7:17-18 and Ezekiel 8:14), and both of them blamed the exile on idolatry and the forsaking of Yahweh for other gods. In the postexilic redaction of Numbers any female leader, especially one with cult associations and the sister to the greatest prophet and the first high priest in Israel, would be open to the diminishment of her leadership role. As noted above the prophetic tradition also remembers her being an equal with Moses and Aaron in leadership (Micah 6:4).

The fact that the people did not move on until Miriam could come back into the camp signifies her importance within the community. It is also significant that this passage comes right before the people’s rebellion that will lead them back into the wilderness for another 40 years. Miriam could symbolize Israel in these verses. Israel sinned against God and its leaders, and the adults would pay for it by dying in the wilderness and not entering the land. But they were forgiven, as was Miriam.

Miriam’s flesh being half-consumed is also a picture of one hanging between life and death. As Moses would stand in intercession between life and death many times for the people, and as Aaron would run between life and death with a censer of incense to stop a plague (Numbers 16:41-50), so Miriam would stand between life and death foreshadowing the grave sin the people would make in chapter 14. Although punished for rising up against her brother and put out of the camp, she symbolizes the people who would rebel against God and yet live. As one who has lived between life and death, she also stands as an intercessor for them, mediating the grace and forgiveness that she received from God.

As Phyllis Trible has noted, although later redactors would reduce Miriam’s role and push her to the margins, they could not diminish her role absolutely. She would remain the first woman to be named prophet, and her liturgical tradition of dancing and singing Israel’s victories would continue for generations to come. The liturgical tradition she started in her celebration of Yahweh’s victory at the Reed Sea would continue through the ages re-telling the story of Yahweh’s deliverance to each new generation.

Numbers 20:1 records Miriam’s obituary: she died and is buried at Kadesh–a city that will later become one of the cities of refuge, a symbol of the cult and signify holy ground.

As we saw with Deborah and Jael, Miriam, too, heard God’s voice, saw his actions, responded, and she saved the lives of others. Miriam is a mediator and an intercessor standing between life and death. She is also an usurper who reminds us that when we do overstep our bounds, there will be consequences, but also forgiveness.

The tradition of Miriam reminds us that as women, we, too, are called to stand between life and death in the world we live–for our families, and our communities. Miriam was not called because of her husband (if she had one), but because she was available and open to God’s calling in her life. She heard his voice and followed.


Sources:

Shawna Renee Bound, Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: A Biblical Theology of Single Women in Ministry, unpublished thesis, (© by Shawna Renee Bound 2002).

Athalya Brenner and Fokkelien Van Dihk-Hemmes, On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible (New York: E.J. Brill, 1993).

Rita J. Burns, Has the Lord Indeed Spoken Only Through Moses? A Study of the Biblical Portrait of Miriam, SBL Dissertation Series 84 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987).

Mary Douglas, In the Wilderness: The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1993).

Ellen Frankel, The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publisher, 1996).

Terrence E. Fretheim, Exodus (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1991).

Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Numbers: Journeying with God (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995).

Phyllis Trible, “Bringing Miriam Out of the Shadows,” Bible Review 5 (February 1989), 23-4.

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A Timely Quote

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision. * We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. * No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. * This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities. * We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, and opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest. * We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. * Amen *

Oscar Romero wrote this. If you don’t know who Bishop Romero was, then go here: Oscar Romero: Bishop of the Poor.

I think this is the biggest area American Christians fail in: it’s not about us. It’s about God–always has been, always will be. We are only one of part of his Kingdom–not the be all, end all. He is in control; this is his reign; and our responsibility is to obey him and do what we can where we are. God will use our little bit of yeast and continue to build his reign.

Sovereign God, Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

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The Matriarchs of Israel

Bible study was excellent last night. All those years in religion classes and seminary, and the matriarchs were passed over. Never focused on–never part of the promise. But Disciple brings the matriarchs front and center: Sarah and Rebekah. God partners with them to realize his covenant promise. In God’s eyes they are not expendable as they are in the eyes of men–including their husbands. Abraham was not enough to begin the covenant people: Sarah was needed too. The son of promise had to come from both Abraham and Sarah. Abraham might think of Sarah as disposable (by giving her to two different kings), and Sarah might think she was expendable (by giving Hagar to Abraham), but God knew Sarah was vital for his plan of redemption.

Rebekah’s steps of faith and trust in God reflects Abraham’s faith and trust. She too leaves her country and goes to a land she does not know. Unlike Abraham, she leaves her family behind (whereas Abraham brings his), and makes the long journey to Canaan to be Isaac’s wife. When her hard and difficult pregnancy makes her wish she were dead, she goes to God directly to find out what is going on. What is happening to her? What does this mean? God answers her, and tells her she is bearing twins, two nations divided, and that the older brother would serve the younger. When the time came for Isaac to give his blessing, Rebekah was reading to make sure God’s will was done. For the first time I heard that what Rebekah did was right. She knew of God’s oracle–she knew that Jacob should receive the blessing. She partnered with God to make sure what he planned would happen, and she furthered the covenant promises. In doing so she became the mother Israel. No sin–only tenacious obedience to what she knew to be the will of God. I also want to look at Rachel and Leah differently too. They are matriarchs as well. Hopefully I will have much more to say about Sarah and Rebekah and about Rachel and Leah as well. I would also like to look at Hagar as a matriarch in her own right. She too had a son of promise, and God honored his covenant and commitment to her, even if Abraham and Sarah didn’t. I have just started reading about them and seeing them with new eyes. I am hoping for new revelations and new insights in the coming days.

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Jesus Camp?

Jesus Camp, a documentary film by directors Heidi Ewing and Rachael Grady opened nationwide on September 22. The film follows children through Becky Fisher’s “Kids on Fire Summer Camp” in North Dakota. According to the trailer, the camp is designed to make the children into an army of God in order to take back America for God. Included in this training the kids are taught: “There are two kinds of people in this world: people who love Jesus and people who don’t.” They are told, “This means war! This means war! Are you a part of it or not?” They pray for President Bush by laying hands on a life-size cardboard figure of him. A young boy affirms, “We are being trained to be God’s army.” Holy war dominates the theology of this camp. One of the most disturbing things Becky Fisher says in the trailer is this:

Where should we be putting in our efforts? Where should we be putting our focus? I’ll tell you where our enemies are putting it, they’re putting it on the kids. They’re going into the schools. You go into Palestine, and I can take you to some websites that will absolutely shake you to your foundations and show you photographs of where they’re taking their kids to camps like we take our kids to Bible camps, and they’re putting hand grenades in their hands, they’re teaching them how to put on bomb belts, they’re teaching them how to use rifles, they’re teaching how to use machine guns; it’s no wonder, with that kind of intense training that [garbled], that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam.

I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as, as they are, uh, over in, in Pakistan, in, in Israel, and, and Palestine, and all those different places. You know, because we have… excuse me, but we have the truth!

I’ve recently finished reading Brian McLaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus. In chapter four he writes:

Jesus says again and again, this kingdom advances with neither violence nor bloodshed, with neither hatred nor revenge. It is not just another one of the kingdoms of this world. No, this kingdom advances slowly, quietly, under the surface–like yeast in dough, like seed in soil. It advances with faith: when people believe it is true, it becomes true. And it advances with reconciling, forgiving love: when people love strangers and enemies, the kingdom gains ground (p. 32).

Jesus also said that he came to gather sheep from many flocks (John 10:16). Unlike the Jews of his time, Jesus did not see those who belonged to Yahweh and those who did not. He believed God’s grace and love was for everyone: the poor, prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans, and Gentiles. He also commanded his followers to love their enemies, pray for them, and to turn the other cheek. In the face of violence he commanded us to love and to show our enemies a different way to live. Paul also counseled the Roman believers to not return evil for evil and to live in peace.

As we have seen since September 11, 2001, violence is not the answer. Violence only begets more violence and hatred. Jesus commands his followers to respond by submitting to the violence and loving in the midst of it. We are a part of the kingdom of God, which means we are called to act and live differently than the kingdoms of this world. Instead of training our children to be soldiers, we should be training them to be peacemakers. We should be telling them that Jesus loves everyone–not just those who love him back, and that Jesus wants us to show love and forgiveness, and be reconciled to our enemies–not fight with them and constantly be at war (even spiritual war) with them. Jesus did not treat outsiders or his enemies this way, and neither should we.

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Starting Over?

I heard something lately that I have never thought of before. If you’re in church long enough, you inevitably hear someone say, “Why doesn’t God start over?” He did, and it didn’t work.

God started over with Noah. After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and they were cast out of the garden of Eden, things went downhill from there. Cain killed Abel, Lamech killed men for hurting him. Humanity quickly spiraled out of control in disobedience, arrogance, and wickedness. Humanity’s drive to be like God had driven it to so much sinful disobedience that God was disappointed that he even created humankind. But Noah was blameless and righteous. He was in a right relationship with God. He obeyed and was humble. Noah was the new Adam. God started over with the flood. He saved Noah and his family and wiped out the rest of humanity. Creation was indespensable because of our sin. God started over with a fresh slate, with a blameless and righteous man.

Then Noah planted a vineyard and made wine. Then he became the first person to get drunk. Canaan saw him passed out naked and did nothing. Shem and Jephteth covered him. Noah cursed Canaan. Then Babel. The descendents of Noah want to make a name for themselves. The arrogance was back. Once again humanity was determined to be like God. God gave them different languages. Starting over did not work.

Babel shows that starting over is not enough. The problem was deeper than that. Something more drastic needed to be done. Sin had become too persistent and insidious—it had to be dealt with another way. At the end of Genesis 11 God is not satisfied with the redemption of humanity. He is once again disappointed. God’s answer will be to call Abraham and his descendents Israel, and through them, he will reverse the curse of Genesis 3—11. When that didn’t work, God would take the most drastic action available: he would become one of us. In the death and resurrection of Christ, the curse of Genesis is finally reversed.

There are mantras that echo through the church: “Why doesn’t God start over?” “Why can’t he just take us to heaven and get it done and over with?” Because God has never given up on us. He has started over, and it didn’t work. Throughout the sin, arrogance, and disobedience, God comes to us again and again. He came to Adam and Eve. Cain. The people at Babel. He has always worked to reverse the curse that humanity brought on itself.

So what does that say about the church? What should we be doing? We definitely should drop the mantras that are so ungodlike. May be it’s time for us to act like God instead of wanting to be God.

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Sermon: God Uses Harem Girls

“Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this” (Esther 4:14). These classic words are from the book of Esther, and they come in the middle of a book of coincidences. Esther has always presented the problem that God is never mentioned; in fact, for that reason, Martin Luther did not want it included in the canon of Scripture. This is what Luther had to say about Esther: “I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all, for they have too many heathen unnaturalities.” The whole book could be taken as nothing more than chance and luck. A literary tale of how a young Jewish orphan just happen to become queen and be in the right place at the right time to save her people. Or is there more to it than that?

The book begins on a whim of a king. King Ahasuerus had given a great banquet for all the leading officials and dignitaries of his kingdom. After much revelry, the king ordered for his queen, Vashti, to be brought before everyone, so he could show her off. Vashti refused. In a fit of drunken rage, Ahasuerus, for all intents and purposes divorced her to set an example that wives are to obey their husbands. After he sobered up and cooled down, he realized that he had no queen. The decree could not be changed so the search began for a new queen. All the beautiful young virgins in the provinces were brought into the harem, so that the next queen could be found. One of the virgins was Esther, a Jewish orphan who was being raised by her cousin Mordecai.

Esther was probably a teenager, no older than 16. She might have already been betrothed to a friend of the family. Ripped out of the only life she knew by the whim of an impulsive king, Esther began the one year of preparation for her one night with the king. She found favor with the Hegai, the eunuch who was in charge of the harem. But she was one of hundreds–one harem girl in the middle of harem that likely numbered in the 1000s. She would probably spend one night with the king then be sent to the house of the concubines where she would live out the rest of her life alone and with no purpose, unless the king called her again. When her night came Esther went to the king. And in the first coincidence of the book she found favor with Ahasuerus who made her queen.

Shortly after this coincidence number two happened: Mordecai found out about an assassination plot and warned Esther who told the king. The eunuchs planning the assassination were killed, and the incident was recorded. Later Haman rose to power and became the prime minister of the empire. He was second to the king. All of the king’s servants except Mordecai would bow when Haman entered the court. Infuriated that Mordecai would not worship him, Haman began a plot to kill, not only Mordecai, but his whole race, the Jews. Casting pur, or dice, to choose the day he would carry out his murderous plot, Haman received permission from the king to destroy the people whom he said would not obey the king and were trying to overthrow his authority.

The decree was sent to all the provinces and the Jews immediately began to mourn. Mordecai mourned in front of the king’s gate in sackcloth and ashes. Esther heard of it and sent clothes to him which he refused. She then asked what was wrong. He told her of the decree and urged her to go to the king and intercede for her people. Her first response was one of fear. Anyone who goes to the king without being called can be killed, and the king had not sent for her for thirty days. Because we are so well acquainted with the story, we just assume Esther is exaggerating, after all the king does accept her. But Esther really didn’t know that. This was the king who got rid of his first queen on a whim. This was the king who commanded the engineers of a bridge he was building be thrown off the end of the bridge when they fell behind due to a horrible storm. When a father requested this king not to send his last son off to war (he had lost his 3 other sons to this king’s war), the king commanded the last son be killed in front of the father, then had the father blinded so that was the last thing he saw. This was the king Esther was going to, without an invitation.

But Mordecai reminded her that her position as queen would not protect her from the edict, and if she chose not to act, deliverance for the Jews would arise from elsewhere. Then the prod: “Who knows? May be that is why you are here.” Who knows? May be this is why you are married to a pagan Gentile? May be this why all of these coincidences happened? Esther agreed and asked Mordecai to have the Jews of Susa fast for her, and she and her maids would also fast for three days, then she would go to the king–even if it cost her her life. She would do the right thing–she would appeal for the life of her people.

Ahasuerus had deposed the queen who did not come when she was summoned. What would he do with a queen who came when she had not been summoned? Once again Esther found favor with the king and requested that he and Haman attend a banquet which led into an invitation to a banquet the next day. But on his way home Haman saw Mordecai, and once again he was filled with rage at this Jew who would not worship him. Complaining of it at home, his family and friends suggested he build gallows and request Mordecai be hung on it the next day.

Now another coincidence happens: the king had insomnia. He commanded the book of the annals be brought to him and heard the re-telling of how Mordecai saved his life. After finding out that Mordecai had not been rewarded, Ahasuerus decided to reward him. Coincidently, at that moment, Haman entered the court. The king had him brought in and asked him what is to be done with the man the king wishes to honor. Thinking that the king could not possibly want to honor anyone but himself, Haman devises this elaborate show of putting the king’s clothes on the man, sitting him on a horse the king has ridden, setting a crown on his head, and walking through the streets proclaiming that this is what happens for the man whom the king wishes to honor. Ahasuerus loved the idea and ordered Haman to do this for Mordecai. Although Ahasuerus does not know it, he just saved the life of the man who saved his life earlier in the story. Haman did as he was commanded then ran home humiliated. While he was telling his family what had happened, the servants of the king come to escort him to Esther’s second banquet.

At this banquet Esther presented her case to the king. She pled for the life of her people whom Haman would have executed. On finding out Haman’s plot, the king left the room, and when he returned he found Haman on the queen’s couch pleading for his life. Ahasuerus accuses Haman of assaulting the queen, and in a wonderful twist of irony, Haman is taken away to be hung on the gallows he had built for Mordecai. Esther once again intercedes for her people, and a decree is issued that on the day of the intended massacre, the Jews can defend themselves and kill their enemies. But something happened before this day of defense. For the very first time my attention was drawn to the last part of the last verse in Esther 8. Esther 8:17 simply says, “And many among the peoples of the land became Jews, for the dread of the Jews had fallen on them” (NASB). Other people came into the people of God because of Esther’s decision to act to save her people at the cost of her own life. I am reminded of all the passages in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel where God tells the people one of the reasons He is sending them into exile for their sins is so that the nations will know that He is God. One of the results of all of these coincidences piling up is that “many among the peoples of the land”–the people of the nations, is that they see that the God of the Jews is God, and they respond by becoming part of the people of God. The festival that followed this day came to be known as Purim, and Esther is read every year during this feast. And once again we are reminded that this isn’t just for the ethnic Jews. In Esther 9:27 we read, “the Jews established and accepted as a custom for themselves and their descendants and all who joined them, that without fail they would continue to observe these two days every year, as it was written and at the time appointed.”

The thing that stands out most about Esther is the fact God is never mentioned. In fact any mention of God or religion is obviously missing from this book. If Esther is read historically and literally God can be left out all together. It is truly a book of coincidences. That is why we need Esther. To often we think that just because there is no obvious working of God in the world that God is not working. Esther’s discreet witness says otherwise.

And we need these reminders. We need reminders that God working in our world is not always obvious–even to those in the church. We also need reminders that God uses harem girls to accomplish His purposes. Sometimes God uses the small things, the little things, the things that could be easily overlooked to accomplish His purposes. Paul reflects this truth in some of my favorite verses in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 1:25-29: “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”

There are always those times in life when we wonder where God is. Esther reminds us that there are times that God is firmly behind the scenes, and we may not see how He has been working till well after what is taking place now. Part of our walk with God is realizing that God is with us regardless of circumstances or how we feel. The Jews had to have felt abandoned as they saw the decree that would take all of their lives. But seven years before they even realized they were going to need a deliverer, God had made sure a Jewish queen was in the palace. Even in the worst the world can throw at us, God continues to walk with us and provide ways of deliverance for His people. He walks with us through the messes as well as the celebrations.

The book of Esther seems to be driven by whims, accidents, and coincidence. But is it? The underlying, almost invisible, current running through Esther is that God is working His purposes out for the world–He can even use a harem girl and an arrogant, pagan king to do this. The book of coincidences is really a book of grace. In one of the most pagan places possible–the palace of a pagan king who does not even know that he has married a Jew, nor does he know that a decree has went out in his name to destroy his wife and her people, God is working.

One thing which Israel and later the Jews excelled at was their ability to see God at work in their world and in their history. There was no such thing as chance or coincidence. That is why Esther is in the canon. Although there is no explicit mention of God, the implication is that God is working behind the scenes, and He continues to do so right here and right now. I think this is the reason a Jewish philosopher disagreed with Martin Luther. Moses Maimonides said, “When Messiah comes, the other books [of the Bible] may pass away, but the Torah and Esther will abide forever.” In the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, God comes on Sinai with lightning and thunder, and everyone knows He is there. But Esther reminds us that’s not the only way God comes. Sometimes He comes and stays quietly behind the scenes working through harem girls.

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But I Say: Love Your Enemies

My emotions have ran the gamut with the shooting at the Amish School in Pennsylvania. At first was the shock and horror, and then anger as yet again, girls were the target. And then I felt awe as the Amish embraced the family of the man who had slaughtered their daughters. It is very rare we see Christ in action–even from those of us who say we are part of his body: the church. When I look at the Amish community and see their actions, I see Christ. And I see what it means to be Christ in this world. I catch a glimpse of how the church is to be the body of Christ in this world.

Ben Witherington has an excellent evaluation and response to the Amish love, grace, and forgiveness in Lessons from the Amish—the Power of Pacifism.

God, make me more like the Amish. Make more like Christ. Amen.

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Sermon: The Old Testament Says That?

I love the Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures for one simple reason: I love a good story. And over half of the Hebrew Scriptures is story or narrative. A lot of times we just look at the stories in the Hebrew Scriptures as straight history–this is what happened. We tend to view them with Dragnet eyes: “Just the facts, ma’am.” It’s one more history lesson to be put beside the Revolutionary War and the Civil Rights Movement. But that’s not why Israel remembered these stories as Scripture. The reason these stories have been kept and passed down through the generations for three millennia is not just to keep track of family or national history.

These stories were kept and passed down for two reasons: the first is to show what being in a relationship with God looked like in the everyday world. The second is to show what walking away from God into sin looked like in the everyday world. These stories have been remembered and passed on to visually show what living the 10 commandments looks like in the ordinary, everyday, messy world we call life. Stories are also easier to remember than a bunch of rules and regulations–so by putting the Torah into story form to show how it worked in everyday life, the Israelites made it easier for their children and succeeding generations to remember the right way to walk with God. Let me illustrate: how many of you know the laws which govern being a kinsman-redeemer in Leviticus? Anyone know those off the top of your head? Yeah, me either. In fact, I would need a concordance to find where the kinsman-redeemer regulations are in Leviticus. But how many of you know the story of Ruth? How many of you could tell the story off the top of your head? What was Boaz in the story of Ruth?

The story of Ruth is the first one I want to look at. We’re going to be looking at several biblical stories today that illustrate what we’ve been learning on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7). We’ve been studying what is known as the antitheses–where Jesus said “You have heard it was said, but I say to you” (Matthew 5:21-48). These are the three I want to cover:

You have heard it was said to those of ancient times (notice Jesus does not say it was said in Scripture) “You shall not murder.” But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister you will be liable to judgment. You have heard it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

The two sayings of Jesus the book of Ruth illustrates are do not look on a woman in lust and love your enemy. Ruth has traveled to Bethlehem with Naomi because their husbands are dead, and Naomi wanted to return to her homeland of Israel. Ruth would not leave her and followed her. In order to feed them Ruth starts gleaning wheat in the fields that was left behind by the harvesters. She doesn’t know she’s in a field of a man who is a relative of Naomi. Boaz sees the new woman in the fields and wants to know who she is. He is told that she is the Moabite who returned with Naomi and is now gleaning wheat for them. She’s a hard worker–in Ruth 2:7 the servant tells Boaz, “She has been on her feet from early this morning until now, without resting even for a moment.” Ruth was a foreigner, a Moabite. Boaz was not obligated to let her glean his fields: he was only obligated to the children of Israel. Technically Ruth was part of the enemy–part of the nations that had harassed Israel and would for sometime. But Boaz treats her with dignity and respect: he tells her to only glean in his fields, and he orders his men not take advantage of her because she is a foreigner. His compassion surprises Ruth who says, “Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take notice of me, when I am a foreigner?” But Boaz has heard Ruth’s story: how she left everything to follow Naomi and taker care of her. He looks past her nationality to the woman she really is. Not only does Boaz, not take advantage her of because she’s a foreigner, he makes sure no one in his employment does either. Boaz could have looked on this foreign woman with lust and did pretty much what he wanted to with her. But he didn’t. He did everything in his power to provide for both her and Naomi: he fed her at his table and gave her extra wheat to take home to Naomi.

When Ruth made it know that she and Naomi wanted him to act as a kinsman-redeemer by marrying Ruth and taking both her and Naomi into his house, he didn’t balk at marrying a woman who was technically his enemy. In fact, he took care of the matter the next day. There was a closer relative than Boaz, but that relative did not want to jeopardize his inheritance. Boaz married Ruth and fulfilled his obligations as a kinsman-redeemer to a foreign woman whose nation had been and would continue to be Israel’s enemy many times over. In this story we see that Boaz did not take lustful advantage of Ruth but treated her with dignity and respect, and he married her although she was from enemy territory.

The next story I want to look at is wholly about loving your enemy. It’s found in 2 Kings 6:8-23. Elisha is one of Israel’s finest and most powerful prophets. In this story he keeps telling the king of Israel where the king of Aram is going to set up camp and attack, so Israel can win. This hacks off the king of Aram who decides he’s going to get this prophet, so his plans stop being thwarted. He sends soldiers to find Elisha and seize him, so that Elisha would be a prophet for him instead of against him. The soldiers hunt Elisha down and surround the city he is in. Elisha’s servant sees the army and freaks out while Elisha prays for his eyes to be opened to see God’s army encircling them as well. Elisha then prays for the soldiers to be struck blind which happens. Then Elisha leads the soldiers of Aram to Samaria, Israel’s capital city. The king of Samaria wants to kill the enemy. But Elisha retorts in v. 22, “No! Did you capture with your sword and your bow those whom you want to kill? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink; and let them go to their master.” That’s what happens–the enemy who had come to kidnap Elisha and carry him off to Aram is fed and then let go to return to Aram. I love the last part of verse 23: for some strange reason “the Arameans no longer came raiding into the land of Israel.” Aram was no longer Israel’s enemy.

We’ve looked at two stories that positively illustrate what Jesus was teaching on the Sermon on the Mount–they’ve showed what it looks like when we obey God in our everyday, ordinary lives. We’ve looked at two of the three sayings we want to cover: Don’t commit adultery by not lusting and love your enemy. Now we’re going to look at the third–It’s not enough not to murder, but don’t be angry. But this time the person doesn’t obey; he chooses to sin, and anger, which is not dealt with but indulged, leads to murder. This story is found in Genesis 4. Cain and Abel are the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain is a farmer; Abel is a rancher. They both bring offerings to God: God accepts Abel’s and rejects Cain’s. Cain gets angry. God doesn’t let him sulk but says to him in verses 6-7, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.” I want you to notice something–Cain hasn’t sinned yet. He’s angry, but God tells him to deal with his anger before he sins. Which he could have done: he could have offered the right sacrifice and got on with life, but he didn’t. He stayed angry at God for rejecting his sacrifice. The only problem was is he couldn’t get his hands on God. But he could get his hands on God’s favorite: Abel. He leads Abel out to field and murders him giving into his anger. When God confronts Cain with his sin, he tries to pass it off, but God doesn’t let him. We find his punishment in verse 12, “When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” God marked Cain so no one could kill him in revenge, but he would be a fugitive for the rest of his life for not dealing with his anger when he had a chance to.

The last two stories I want to look at deal with all three sayings we’ve been looking at. One shows what happens when the commands aren’t obeyed: lust leads to adultery which leads to murder. The other shows a man who chose to walk with God and obey Him although he would have been justified in indulging in anger, revenge, and murder. I like how both of these stories show how the commands intertwine around one another–how breaking one leads to breaking another, or how obeying one gives you the foundation for obeying the rest. They also show how these commands work in our everyday life in the messy world of reality.

The first story we’ll look at is the negative one: the man who chose to disobey God because he was king and thought he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it. This man was David, and he thought he could take another man’s wife and no one would be the wiser for it. The story is found in 2 Samuel 11–12. Instead of going with his men David stays in the palace. One night he gets up and goes for a walk on the palace roof where he sees a woman bathing. A note here–this was part of the culture. What was basically big barrels were kept on the roof to collect rainwater and then the people would bathe in them. Right then David should have turned around and walked away. But he didn’t and he noticed she was beautiful. Again he could have turned away and worked out his lust on one of his many wives or concubines, but he didn’t. Even after finding out she was the wife of one of his soldiers, whom he had sent out to war, he still commanded her to be brought to the palace. He committed adultery then sent her home thinking that would be the end of it. But Bathsheeba is pregnant. David calls her husband home in hopes he will sleep with her, and everyone will assume the baby is Uriah’s. But Uriah doesn’t cooperate: he will not sleep with his wife while his brothers are still fighting. So David gets him drunk and Uriah still doesn’t go home. David then sends him back to the frontline and has him murdered. And here is the greatest irony. Jesus said “You have heard it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you love your enemy.” Uriah wasn’t the enemy–he was the neighbor. He wasn’t just a soldier either. Uriah was one of David’s 30 mighty men–he was part of David’s inner circle. David took a friend’s wife then had him murdered to cover his own sin. If we choose to sin–one act of sin doesn’t stay one sin for long. It also affects everyone around us. One of the reasons this is one of my favorite biblical stories is it shows the corporate nature of sin: sin is never personal, and it’s never private. If we choose to sin, it will affect the lives of everyone around us. Look at the rest of 2 Samuel. Look at David’s children. A son rapes his daughter. Another son kills the rapist. That son then leads an insurrection against David tearing the country apart, and that son dies as well. I see this in my own family where my parent’s generation has quite a few alcoholics and my generation has drug addicts. Sin multiplies itself and it spreads. That’s why it has to be nipped in the bud while it’s temptation. That’s why it’s so important for us to walk away from temptation and do what God wants us to do. That’s why Jesus said it’s better to gouge out an eye or cut off a hand to keep from sinning. Once an act of sin is committed it will grow and multiply. David committed one act of sin he thought he could get away with, and look at what happened. The sad thing is all David had to do to avoid all of this was turn around and walk away.

David decided to walk in his own ways, but Joseph decided to walk in God’s ways. Joseph’s story is told in Genesis 37–50. If anyone had reason to give into hate and vengeance it was Joseph. Thrown into a pit and sold into captivity by his own brothers, he had good reason to hate them. After he arrived in Egypt he was sold to Potiphar. Things went well in Potiphar’s house. In fact Potiphar places Joseph over his household, and things are looking up for him. Until Potiphar’s wife sees him. She likes what she sees, and she decides she wants Joseph and goes after him. Joseph refused. But she kept on the offensive, and one day devised a plan to get him into her bed. She sent all the servants away so it would be just the two of them. When he came into the house she grabbed him and urged him to lie with her again. Joseph scrambled out his garment and ran out of the house. Potiphar’s wife decided that was the last time that slave would slight her, so she concocted a story of Joseph attempting to rape her. And for being an honest man who would not betray his master and sin against his God, Joseph was rewarded by being thrown in prison.

While in prison Joseph once again found favor in the warden’s eyes. He interpreted dreams for the king’s baker and winetaster, which both came true. And when Pharoah had a dream that disturbed him the winetaster remembered Joseph. Joseph interpreted the dream, and gave the Pharoah a plan that would keep Egypt from starving to death. In the seven years of plenty, food must be stockpiled for the seven years of famine. Pharoah made Joseph the second-in-command over Egypt and in charge of distributing the food during the famine.

The famine was not only in Egypt it was also in Israel. So Jacob sent Joseph’s brothers to Egypt for food. Joseph puts his brothers through a couple of tests to see if they were the same men who had sold him into slavery, and he sees their regret for what they did. He reveals himself to them, and he tells them not to be distressed for God had sent him ahead to preserve the family during this time of famine. Joseph had absolute power over his brothers. He could have commanded them to be jailed or killed. But he didn’t. He forgave them. He forgave his enemy–his family. Then he took care of them. He sent the brothers back to Israel to get Jacob and their families, and he arranged for them have land in Goshen, he provided food for them, and they lived under his protection.

In Genesis 50 after Jacob’s death the brothers once again feared that Joseph might seek the vengeance that was rightfully his to seek for what they did. They went to him with a story of Jacob wanting Joseph to forgive his brothers for the wrong they had done. Joseph once again reassured his brothers that he would not seek revenge. In verse 19 he tells them “Do not be afraid? Am I in the place of God?” He left vengeance in God’s hands. Once again he reminded his brothers that what they had done to harm him God had used to save many lives–including their family. And he reaffirmed his intention of taking care of their families and providing for them.

Joseph–a man who had the right to be angry and take revenge but didn’t. He gave his anger to God and followed God’s ways, no matter how hard it was or how much it cost him. He forgave his enemies–his brothers. He also kept his life pure by not sleeping with Potiphar’s wife when he had the chance. He was tempted to anger, to murder, and to adultery, and in each case he obeyed his God and did what was right.

I wonder as Jesus was saying these things if the people were thinking of these stories. When Jesus said, “You have hard it was said of those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment” were they thinking, “Yeah remember Cain? He gave into his anger and became the first murderer”? When Jesus said, “You have heard it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” were they thinking, “Too bad David didn’t heed that advice? That would have saved him a lot of heartbreak”? And when Jesus said “Love your enemy” did they think of Elisha and the Arameans or Joseph who forgave the worst kind of enemy of all: those who are close to us and betray us?

Jesus wasn’t telling the people anything they didn’t already know. He was just reminding them of their own stories and taking away all of the nonbiblical rules and regulations that had choked out the principles in these stories.

Just as Jesus reminded them of their story, he reminds us of our story. The story reminds us that God has always called his people to live differently than the world around them. Hate is replaced with love, lust with respect, and enemies with friends, spouses, and family.

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