Teaching Jesus

 I was sitting in the kitchen Wednesday when I overhead on Zoom the pastor at my wife's church tease the next week's Bible study with a question: Is it possible for someone else to teach Jesus?

As questions go, that one’s a no-brainer. I haven’t seen set foot in the church for two years, but I couldn’t help myself. I answered immediately.

“Yes.”

The proof lies in Mark 7, and in a parallel passage in Matthew 15. Mark explains that a Syrophoenician woman came to Jesus to ask him to heal her daughter, whom the distraught mother said was afflicted by an unclean spirit.

If you've been paying attention to the gospels so far, you probably can guess how this will play out. Jesus will rebuke the spirit. He'll embrace the girl in a hug and breathe on her. He might be dramatic, or he might be matter-of-fact, but this story is going to end with the girl better and her mother relieved and grateful. One thing that will not happen, is Jesus will not say no.

Except no is exactly what Jesus  does say. In fact, he doesn't just give the poor woman a paper cut; he pours lemon juice on it and delivers a biting insult.

"It is not right to take the children's bread and feed it to the dogs."

This is the sort of thing that can sink a political campaign. Over the years I've heard lots of attempts at damage control by God's PR team. None of them has been especially convincing.

"Dogs are beloved pets," goes one. "Jesus was basically calling this woman a member of the family."

Except the gospel comes from a culture without $70 bags of Purina dog food for small breeds. Jesus was not comparing the Syrophoenician woman to a toy poodle named Fifi. Dogs in ancient Galilee were unclean animals that inhabited the city dump. They known for their viciousness. not their adorable penchant for sitting on your lap.

"Jesus was testing the woman's faith."

By calling her a dog? We've already seen Jesus heal lepers and blind people without such tests. Luke reports that a woman simply touched the hem of his robe and was healed with no effort on his part.

Here's the simple explanation, in Jesus' own words: "I was only sent for the lost sheep of Israel." He wasn't going to provide the healing because the woman and her daughter weren't Jewish.

But this woman was determined. Her daughter needed help,, and she was confident Jesus was the one to help. Don't give your children's bread to the dogs? OK, then. She had a quick wit and a  ready response.

"Dogs can eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table."

One imagines Jesus stopping, stunned. Of course she was right. The Bible was filled with stories of favored Gentiles. Ruth the Moabitess, a woman from a people so reviled that the book of Genesis recounted a crude ethnic joke about their origins. Rahab of Jericho, who hid Israelite spies scouting out the land. Naaman the Aramean. whom Elisha the prophet had healed of  leprosy.

Blown away by the response, Jesus turned and fed the dog a whole loaf of bread, straight from the oven.

“For such a reply, you may go," he said. "The spirit  has left your daughter.”

It's a stunning moment, mostly because it goes against our notions of Jesus as a perfectly enlightened bodhisattva, but the gospels note that Jesus' whole life was an odyssey of learning. It began with his birth , when he had to learn to latch on to his mother's breast in order to eat. From there he had to learn to crawl and then to walk, and somewhere along the line he picked up Aramaic, along with Hebrew, Greek and probably some Latin. The evangelist Luke notes that Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah, while John reports that he could write as well. Someone had to teach him these skills, along with the trade he learned at Joseph's knee.

This should be no surprise to us. The gospels describe Jesus as one with the Father, and to look at God in the Hebrew Bible is to see a God who is eager to try new things, to see what happens.

God plays in the dirt and sculpts a man. Then he breathes life into this new creature and names him Adan, (There's a first time for everything.)

He brings the animals by. What's Adam going name them? ("Well, this one is a frog. I'm calling this thing a badger. This one is an oliphaunt, and this useless lump over here is called Kevin.")

Any suitable companions to be found? ("Well, the capybara is kind of funny, the way it eats watermelon and soaks in the hot tub; and it's really cute the way the hamster stuffs its cheeks just before we say grace. But the bananaquit seems kind of vicious, and none of them is a big conversationalist...")

The adventure plays out over the years. "Come, let us make bricks," man says, and God drops in for a closer look. "Well, what have we here?' he asks, and then he finds out.

God learns.

Sometimes what we teach him isn't what he wanted to know. "You're doing things that never even occurred to me!"

Sometimes God is impressed by our ability to change, and a great city (and its cattle) are spared judgment.

Sometimes it even seems people manage to teach God about himself.

"Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right?" Abraham asks. And God blinks, and he changes his mind.

God, it appears, is always willing to learn about showing mercy. The real question is whether we have anything to teach him.

This coat I wear

I don't remember when I first got this coat. It must have been when I was very young, because I've had it for almost as long as I can remember. I've no idea how someone else might have enjoyed it; for my part, I have found it to be perfectly suitable for long and meandering walks.

It didn't mean much to me for the longest time. I wore it like I was expected to, but it wasn't until I was almost 17 that I really began to appreciate what having a coat like this means, and what it could mean for me personally.

For a while I ran with a crowd that wore coats like it, but they were a fairly unpleasant group: a little snobbish, very cliquish and carrying a huge chip on their collective shoulder. I took the coat off for a while, but discovered on the eve of college that it was worth more than I had realized. Over the next four years, I patched it up, made alterations and tried to get it to fit but it never did.

I realized eventually how bad a job I had done with it, and I took it to a tailor. He didn't say anything about the alterations I'd made to it, but he took them out and mended the coat properly so that it fit comfortably for the first time that I could remember.

Some years ago, I took a bad spill in the coat, right down the rocky side of a hill, all the way to the bottom. The coat was shredded on the way. The buttons came off, I lost one of the sleeves, and a few pockets ripped open. A few people thought I'd lost it for good.

Nothing doing. Some people don't like the way it looks, or think that their coats are better than mine, which is fine. I've found that the raggedy look suits me. It's certainly not too stiff and uncomfortable, and if I'm cold sometimes, at least I know why.

The coat's got me through a lot. All those tears, those holes, those stains and those missing pieces remind me of places I've been, experiences I've had, and even things that I didn't need after all. I've worn this coat for years, and I expect I'll wear it for many more.

See you on the trails.

Holy Week and Broken Community

 I heard today from my wife that the pastor of her church plans to invite me back to the church this Good Friday and Easter. Faith is best observed, best celebrated in community.

I get that. I agree with that view. Heck, I endorse it.

But please tell that to the people who broke the community, not to the people who kept getting hurt on the jagged edges where they broke it.

I was a part of Point Community Church for 16 years. For years I attended faithfully, pitched in when asked, and expressed an interest in becoming an elder, in leading a Bible study community group, in starting a drama ministry, in reaching out to the communities our church served. It wasn't I who turned a cold shoulder to those offers of time and talent.

When the church's lead and founding pastor left, I expressed an interest in joining the search effort and offered to contribute professional experience and knowledge to the search. I wasn't the one to ignore the offer without a word of explanation. That was the elders.

When I pointed out that the silence was rude, I wasn't the one who apologized for my feelings instead of the offensive behavior. That was Howie.

When I decided I was done with being ignored but wanted to follow the example of Christ in seeking a reconciliation by expressing the wrong done and inviting the elders into a dialogue so bridges could be repaired and they could avoid the same mistakes going forward, I wasn't the one to send a brush-off that showed zero interest in discussion, in reconciliation or mending what had been broken.

That was the elders again, in a one-line email sent and signed by Steve D.

Holy Week is here. It's a time of forgiveness, for reconciliation. 

You want forgiveness? To the extent it can be given without being sought and asked for, it's yours. Giving sixteen years to a church only to get ignored cuts deep. and wounds don't heal by leaving the knife in them. But I forgive you. I owe my soul that much.

But reconciliation? Mending the community? Talk to the people who tore it apart, not the one who'd had enough of it.

I didn't ignore people when they had ideas or offered to help with ministries where they had experience, knowledge and enthusiasm.

Lent: Celebrate

 A few weeks ago at a therapy workshop intensive I met Ron. Ron is about 25 years my senior, and he revealed that his wife is receiving chemotherapy in her fight against cancer. He discovered that I'm a cancer survivor, he asked me for tips on dealing with it.

"Beer," I said. "Lots of it." He laughed appreciatively. and I said more truthfully that I'd found it helpful to keep a sense of humor, even if it's a dark sort of gallows humor that other people don't get. He acknowledged the legitimacy of humor in rough times, we talked about his wife and how they've both been coping. and then break ended and we started talking more about psychodrama.

Two days later we explored Ron's situation in a psychodrama act, and I understood  how badly I'd failed him with my trite answer.

"I realized during the play that I misunderstood you," I said. "You weren't asking me how to deal with cancer. You were asking me how to deal with grief and loss. the answer is, you lean into it."

The fact is we're all mortal, but the sad truth is that we spend most of our life in denial. Coming face to face with death, whether it's by finding an unexpected lump during a mammogram, a near-miss, or a devastating injury or loss, is something that teaches us to number our days correctly.

You no longer put off that trip until next year. You go this weekend.

You stop waiting for a special occasion. Today is special.

You stop taking people granted. You say "I love you" every chance you can, you bury the hatchet and make peace before resentment sets in. You savor bedtime stories, phone calls and sunsets because they're fleeting and won't come back around for a second try.

You stop trying for the golden ring and you decide just to enjoy the carousel while it lasts. You live each day like it's your last because you never know. It just might.

It's Lent, and you are mortal.

Celebrate.

Lent: Spoken

I I wonder what it was like when God spoke to his people in the ancient times.

Was it like you see in revival services, when the preacher has the crowd so whipped up that you can see what is coming, coming a mile away? Amid the whooping and hollering there falls a sudden stillness as people gasp for breath like a goldfish at the top of the bowl. Eyes unprepared for the sight of glory roll back in people's heads. Men and women fall to the floor in a heavenly swoon as they are brushed with the wings of angels. Now there comes a loud cry like a woman giving birth, and in the silence that follows, a voice speaks.

"Hear, O hear, you rebellious and stiff-necked people, the word of the Lord."

Is that what it is like? Or is it more like the hushed and measured tones of a parent speaking to an exasperating child? "I am your mother," the voice says, "and I need you to listen to me."

It is spoken. 

When the Word of the Lord arrives, that's how it comes: directly from the lips and straight to the ears. The word is conceived, the word is spoken, and the word is heard. Listen, or you may miss it and have nothing left but the recollection of what others think they heard.

"Hear the Word of the Lord," the prophet begins, and that's our cue. Creation is not set on runes that God has carved  into the side of a mountain; it is brought into existence by the power of a word that is spoken. 

Rarely does Scripture contain the phrase "Write this down, O Son of Man," and when it does the words are set down for future generations to study. More typically the decision to write is taken at the initiative of the prophet, and surely even though the writing conveys some of the glory, think what it must be like actually to hear the words themselves.

"Let there be light." The words are spoken, and light separates from darkness; and there is evening, and there is morning, the first day.

"My spirit shall not contend with man forever, his days shall be 120 years." The words are spoken, and 120 years later, right on schedule, it starts to rain. Terror builds in the cities of the world as the rivers leave their banks, but the rains just keep coming.

"The spirit of the Lord is upon to me, to bring good news to the poor and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 

The word is spoken.

The world begins to change.

Lent: Light

 When we think of light, we like to go big.

We think of the sun breaking over the mountains, painting their peaks with bright strokes of flaming orange and fiery red. We picture a blanket of snow at high noon on a cloudless day, when it's so bright that it hurts to open your eyes. Or maybe we imagine the big one, as God speaks into the void, and the universe explodes into existence as he speaks four simple words.

"Let there be light."

But sometimes the most important light isn't dramatic, but understated. It's not that big, overbearing moon that children treasure as they steal sweet minutes of extra reading time under the covers. It's the cheap flashlight with Duracell batteries. Sneak out to the beach late at night in Archaie, and it's not streetlights that show you the way home, but the twinkle-twinkle of little stars. And for hundreds of years European sailors navigated the Atlantic by the light of Venus, a candle so dimmed by the day that most modern sailors can't find it.

Even the tiniest light puts shadows to flight.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it."

Ash Wednesday: Live it up

 I'm told Ash Wednesday is a somber occasion, marked by meditation on one's mortality. For centuries it's been the bottle we break to ceremoniously launch the Lenten vessel into penitent waters.

Fast, we're told. Give something up. This is a serious time, not a serious for frivolity. Godliness is marked by how grim your face is.

Bollocks, says Scripture. Christ is near, Joy manifests itself in laughter, not in pained expressions. Holiness is measured by caring for others, not by mortifying yourself.

(And if by chance you do mortify yourself, be sure to clean up properly afterward. Remember what mom always said about wearing clean underwear when you go out.)

As the preacher says, "If a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity."

Eat, drink. Have sex. (It is Valentines Day.) Be merry. These are a gift of God, so enjoy them while you can.

But know the timer is running down.