Bottom Line

Some people think Pope Francis is a marxist, socialist, radical for his idea of restructuring the global economy so that it revolves around human need rather than "the bottom line." This may be true, but he is in good company.

A girl in India

Courtesy of Varun Chatterji

Those who enact unjust policies are as good as dead,
those who are always instituting unfair regulations,
to keep the poor from getting fair treatment,
and to deprive the oppressed among my people of justice,
so they can steal what widows own,
and loot what belongs to orphans.
What will you do on judgment day,
when destruction arrives from a distant place?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your wealth?

(Book of the Prophet Isaiah 10.1 - 3, NET)

The Verse That Keeps Me Christian (It's probably not the one you think)

Read Part 2 >>

Van Gogh's 'Sorrowing old man'
("At Eternity's Gate")

Sometimes you just feel like your whole life has been a waste. At least I do, and I can't imagine that I'm the only one. Sometimes it just impacts you that your life hasn't turned out at all the way you wanted, that all those hopes and dreams have come to nothing. Sometimes it seems that nobody really cares about you, that no one actually loves you, and when you look at yourself you really can't blame them. Sometimes you just reach bottom -- the bottom of bottom, and it really aches.

Now I hasten to point out that generally I'm a happy-go-lucky, easygoing guy. Ask anybody. But I have been right down in that dark hole. Maybe you have too. The worst part is that it's almost impossible to communicate what you're feeling to anyone else. Nobody seems to get it. You're in that hole by yourself.

Everybody, I would think, handles 'the hole' differently, hopefully in healthy ways (e.g., not drinking yourself into a stupor and deciding to live there). Being a follower of Jesus of Nazareth you'd think I should be able to pull out a magical Bible quote to sustain my soul. And I do have a verse... but it's probably not the one you think.

The Depressing Book

Back in the Old Testament there's a rather depressing little book called Ecclesiastes (or sometimes Qoheleth, after the title of the person who wrote it). It's one of those books that theologians -- Jewish and Christian alike -- have wondered what the ancients could have been thinking when they included it in Scripture. But there it is. Ecclesiastes is the kind of book that doesn't encourage you with the idea that one day you'll go to Heaven; it says, "Who knows?"

That's the book that helps me when I'm in the hole.  My 'magic Bible verse' is in the 2nd chapter:

This made me hate life. It was depressing to think that everything in this life is useless, like trying to catch the wind.

Ecclesiastes 2.17, (ERB).

Not exactly the 23rd Psalm. But this guy gets it, at least for me.  This is God saying, "Welcome to the hole. Yes, I even know about this place."

In my life I have found that what helps me in the depths is not all the encouragement in the Bible, but God's frank acknowledgement and full comprehension of the fact that at that point I hate life and it looks useless.

I have often thought that without a book as 'real' as Ecclesiastes in the Bible, I probably wouldn't trust it as much as I do. The Christian God isn't a fluffy bunny God who doesn't want to hear about certain parts of our little human lives because he'd rather ignore the hard stuff. He's not a Disneyland God; he's a battlefield God, a bad-side-of-town God.

Somehow this sharp little verse sums that up for me.

Flawed

Judah Gives his Signet and Staff to Tamar

One of the main reasons I like the Bible is that it's such a real book. None of the characters in this book are lily-white, 2-D, cardboard cutouts; they're flawed, messed up people wrestling with life and with God, just like us. This morning I was reading the nasty little story found in the 38th chapter of Genesis, which reminded me of this fact like a 2 x 4 between the eyes.

I'll leave it to you to click on the link I just made in the last paragraph and read it for yourself, but I'd like to point a couple of things out.

Your Sister-in-Law?

First, the marry-your-sister-in-law-so-she-can-have-kids thing can be a bit puzzling (to say the least) to us sophisticated inhabitants of the 21st century AD. But this story takes place in the 21st century BC. It's a window into a time when the main business of life still was just surviving. At this point we'd made some progress but it was quite possible for, if not the entire human race then at least your part of it, to be entirely erased from history. All it took was a particularly bad famine, or a plague, or a family unable to leave any descendants behind when they died.

In that type of society, clinging in many cases to existence by their fingernails, the attitude of women to what constituted success was wildly different from today. 4000 years have gone under the bridge since then. Think yourself into their sandals. They were quite aware that the survival of their community depended on them. In this context, having a system set up to ensure you could produce more humans for your family even if your husband died made sense. Tamar, the heroine in this story did her level best to fulfill her duty to the species.

Pigheadedness

Second, her original husband, Er, and the replacement husband/brother-in-law Onan, were both
"particularly wretched human beings in the eyes of the Eternal One." And Onan especially, not because of what he's usually accused of, but because his pigheaded selfishness was keeping Tamar from carrying out her duty to the community despite her best efforts. And doing something like this must have been difficult on her part to say the least.

Both of these fellows were so reprehensible to God that he ended their lives. How evil is that?

So who gets blamed in all this? Tamar.

Judah, the very patriarch whose family Tamar is trying to save, decides Tamar must be the problem. She must be cursed or something because his sons keep dying. It couldn't have anything to do with them being particularly wretched guys, could it? So Judah refuses to let her have her rightful third chance, deciding instead to keep this "deadly woman" away from his 3rd son.

Tamar's Solution

Now take a look at Tamar's admittedly illegal but rather creative solution.  Point A, she is absolutely sure, no doubt due to the patriarch's reputation, that if you put a temple prostitute in Judah's path he will have sex with her, no questions asked.  This man, I must remind you, is the direct ancestor of the renowned King David and Jesus of Nazareth himself.

Point B, faced with an accusation of sexual misconduct by his daughter-in-law, Judah shows no sympathy for what he and his sons have put her through, and not a hint that he's even aware of his own hypocrisy as a man you can depend on to visit every woman he meets who does what Tamar is accused of.  Instead, he condemns her to a particularly horrible death, so bad in fact that you hardly see it anywhere else in the Bible: "Bring her out and expose her for what she is, and then let her be burned!"

But Point C, at least he didn't try to cover up the evidence Tamar produced. Maybe I'm cynical, but he could have done that. He was the patriarch after all; his word was law. But no, he finally comes clean: "She is more in the right than I am. I did not keep my word and give her in marriage to my son, Shelah."

A little bit of redemption for the very flawed Judah.  And Tamar was finally able to carry out her duty despite the rather incredible opposition she had to face.

Nobody came out smelling like a rose in this story. It's almost embarrassing to read. You keep asking, "What in the world's wrong with these people?"

And that, my friends, is why I love the Bible.

Uninsulated

Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer

Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1883

Thoughts for a Sunday Afternoon


“If the world hates you, remember that they hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as it loves its own people. But I have chosen you to be different from those in the world. So you don’t belong to the world, and that is why the world hates you. 

"Remember the lesson I told you: Servants are not greater than their master. If people treated me badly, they will treat you badly too. And if they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours too. They will do to you whatever they did to me, because you belong to me. They don’t know the one who sent me." 

(Gospel of John chapter 15 verses 18 - 21, ERV)


We're moving steadily towards the birthday of the Christian Movement (a.k.a. "Pentecost"). Jesus of Nazareth predicted something very different from a comfortable church-going experience for his followers. That some of us are comfortable doesn't mean he was wrong, but that the place and time we happen to live in is an historical aberration that insulates us. There are plenty of Jesus' followers even today who are not insulated at all.

Today, his followers in ancient France give us a report of what it was like for them.

______________________

The servants of Christ who live as aliens at Vienna and Lugdunum [Vienne and Lyons] in Gaul, to the brothers in Asia Minor and Phrygia. The adversary has fallen upon us with all his might...

In the presence of all the people, the governor had given the order that all of us with our households should be investigated. Prompted by Satan, fearful of the tortures which they saw God’s people suffer, and under pressure from the soldiers who talked them directly into it, pagan slaves in our service brought forth lies against us. These lies were the usual accusations of cannibalism, unnatural sexual unions, and similar ghastly things which we should never speak or think about or even believe that they have ever happened among human beings. When this became known among the pagans, they all flew into a truly bestial rage against us.

Through the slave girl, Blandina, Christ revealed that what is regarded as mean, insignificant, and unattractive by humans is accounted worthy of great glory in the sight of God because of the fact that love towards him proves itself with power and does not vaunt itself for the sake of making an impression. Her comfort, her relief, her refreshment, her painkilling remedy for everything she suffered was the cry, “I am a Christian, and nothing evil happens among us...”

Maturus, Sanctus, Blandina, and Attalus were taken to the wild beasts in the amphitheater, to give the pagan crowd which was gathered there a public spectacle of inhumanity. They ran the gauntlet of whips. They were already used to this. They let themselves be dragged around and mauled by the wild beasts. Everything the raving, yelling mob wanted, now from this side, now from that, they endured. They sat upon the iron chair which roasted their bodies so that the fumes rose up. Yet they heard nothing from Sanctus beyond the confession of faith he had repeated over and over again from the beginning. When they were still found alive in spite of the terrible and prolonged torture, they were finally killed...

The glorified Blandina had already learned to know the scourging, the wild beasts, and the red-hot griddle. Finally they tied her in a fishing net and threw her to a bull. For a long time the animal tossed her about, and so she was killed.

The bodies of those that had perished in prison they threw to the dogs, watching carefully night and day that none of us could be buried. The remains of those who had been torn to pieces by the wild beasts and those charred by the fire they put on public view just as they were. The heads and trunks of the others, carefully guarded by soldiers, they also left unburied for many days. Some of them were raging and gnashing their teeth, seeking to take even more vengeance on them. Others laughed and jeered at them and exalted their own idols, to whom they attributed the punishment of the martyrs. 

The more reasonable ones, those of whom one could believe that they knew pity to a certain extent, slandered them, crying, “Where is your god? How were they helped by the faith which they loved more than their own lives?”

For six days the bodies of the martyrs, mocked in every possible way, were exposed to the elements. Finally they were burned to ashes by these lawless men and swept into the Rhône, which flows nearby. Not a trace of them was to remain on earth. This they did thinking that they could defeat God and deprive them of their restoration. They said that they should not be allowed to have any hope of resurrection, for it was through their faith in this that they introduced a strange and new religion. “Now let us see whether they will rise again, whether their god can help them, and whether he can deliver them out of our hands.”

Letter from Vienne and Lyons to Phrygia (c. AD 177)
Quoted from Eusebius' Church History book 5 chapter 1 ff.

God With Us, How?

Regrettably, God being with us doesn't guarantee an
opulent lifestyle

Matthew, author of a gospel we've referred to frequently during the Christmas season, was quite a skillful writer. In the first chapter we find this famous quote:

"She will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: “Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will name him Emmanuel,” which means “God with us,” (Gospel of Matthew chapter 1 verses 21-23).

Then he bookends that with another statement in the last chapter from Jesus himself: "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age," (Matthew chapter 28 verses 19-21).

The prophetic promise of "God with us" is confirmed and fulfilled by the risen Jesus of Nazareth to whom "all authority in heaven and on earth has been given."

Set Up

So we should be all set up, right? The Messiah whom we follow now has all power and is High King of the universe. And we are constantly being told that we are "in Christ" (e.g., 2nd Letter to the Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17) -- that we belong to and are in union with the Messiah. From now on it'll be smooth sailing, the best of everything -- riches, mansions, perfect health, a Rolex and a Lamborghini or two. All to be used in the spread of the gospel, of course. What better way to attract people to Jesus than to show how blessed Christians are?

C. S. Lewis was once asked, "Which of all the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness?"

"The greatest happiness?" he replied, "While it lasts the religion of worshiping oneself is best!... If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity." (God in the Dock, "Answers to Questions on Christianity," question 11).

The Christian movement is a group of people who have thrown in our lot with the King of the universe alright, but he is a King who walked a hard road and was killed on a cross. Our Advent meditations repeatedly alluded to the fact that he, of his own free will, lived among the poor, the hungry, the ill, the downtrodden. And he did not set himself up as a special case; Jesus makes living the same way a test of our Christianity.

So we don't find the leaders of the early Christian movement living in marble palaces overlooking Nazareth and spending their days in strategy sessions moving little gold crosses around on a map. Instead we find them constantly on the move, being beheaded, enduring beatings, stonings, and shipwrecks. We find them in ragged clothes and considered the dregs of the earth.

Jesus' later followers got much the same, both the leaders and the rank and file. The movement continued to follow Jesus' demand that we care for the suffering, poor, and imprisoned. Interestingly, they also took on the job of freeing slaves wherever they could.

With Us

God is with us, just as he promised, down to the very end. But for those who want to find out what Christianity really is (the purpose of this site), it's important to know what you're getting into. The Christian way is full of joy too, and joy of an intensity and endurance unavailable anywhere else. But it is not designed to make us rich, popular, and happy.

If  you happen to live in a well off culture with a social safety net and the expectation of iPads and smartphones, it is possible to think of joining the Christian movement as rather like joining a Gym. You pay your dues, you try to attend on a regular basis and focus while you're there, and you reap the benefits. Maybe it helps you to have "your best life now." But the focus is on what it does for you. Which is entirely appropriate for a gym membership, but not for following Jesus of Nazareth.

Hardships and pain can and do happen to Jesus' followers and he honestly is always with us, but he is with us through the events of life, not insulating us from them.

As St. Paul put it, “If we are to enter God’s kingdom, we must pass through many troubles.”