What does "Just War" mean?

Just War Theory (JWT henceforth) forms the basis of modern international law regarding the causes, conduct, and conclusion of warfare. JWT is not a modern concept, however. It has sprung over many centuries of thought in the Christian traditions to resolve the tensions between the teaching of Christ and the realities of national affairs in a fallen world. For example:

The principal influence on JWT were Saint Augustine, AD 354-430, and St. Thomas Aquinas of the 13th century. Of the two, Aquinas remains the more influential and all work on JWT since him builds on his work. 

But what is war? The question seems self-evident, but modern Conventions such as The Hague and Geneva Conventions are careful to define. For centuries, war has been understood to be an act of nation-states, not of combat between non-state combatants, no matter how well armed and organized. Understand, however, that armed conflict between a nation state and a non-state combatant does qualify as war under the Conventions and other relevant treaties. 

War is an act of deliberate destruction of an enemy's lives or physical assets. Absent "intentional lethality," there is no war regardless of what armed forces may otherwise do. Historically, however, the purpose of those operations has not simply to kill, but to compel submission by the enemy. As the US Army's World War 2 Gen. George S. Patton said, "Battles are won by frightening the enemy. You frighten the enemy by inflicting death and wounds." 

Europe's most celebrated theoretician of war is Prussian Gen. Carl von Clausewitz, 1780-1831, whose book, On War, is still studied around the world. One of his central tenets is that, "Politics is the womb in which war develops," and therefore, war is "the continuation of politics by different means.” 

Today's conventions clearly recognize that principle. 

In theorizing about war, these are the underlying visions of warfare that are used, usually more than one is used. 

As you can see, a nation's leaders may use moral principles to decide that employing the armed forces is justified under the various Conventions and the leaders' own national principles. But they may also see that while war is morally justified, it would be unwise and would likely have unacceptable outcomes. 

And that  leads to what are the bases, or templates, for which war might be made? I will let my slides speak for themselves:

Just War Theory JWT is a holistic view of war with a focus on attaining justice, limiting suffering, and encompassing all three of:

• The cause of war
• The conduct of war
• The termination and aftermath of war

So, let's look at the basic details:

Just War Theory, along with international conventions and accords, forbid wars of conquest or aggression. The basic principle is that a nation may justly go to war to defend against aggression or to protect such aggression against third parties. However, Europe's history, culminating in the 30 Years War of the early 1600s, led to rejecting protection of third parties as an excuse to go to war. The Peace of Westphalia established national, geographic boundaries as the demarcation of nations (warring of parties), not language, tribal identity, or ethnicity. And the Peace deliberately set the internal affairs of a nation as immune from interference, especially war, by other states. 

This has formed a foundation for "governance" (if one may use that word) for war ever since, and is reflected strongly in the United Nations charter. The UN charter does explicitly allow for international alliances outside the UN that may establish war making for defensive purposes, with NATO being a primary example. 

Just War Theory holds as a matter of principle that making war therefore must be undertaken to establish a more just peace than pertained prior to the conflict. And the war may not itself be of greater evil than that it seeks to prevent. 

That war may not justly be waged absent reasonable prospect of success is important. It relates directly to the tenets of just conduct of war, and especially the greatly misunderstood principle of proportionality, about which more later. 

The Principle of Proper Authority

Just War Theory mandates that nations may go to war only with proper authority to do so. There is no international agreement on what that may be as a universal standard. The UN Charter permits specific kinds of war without UN consultation, but requires UN Security Council approval for other wars. (President Truman, for example, gained UNSC approval for the Korean War.) 

The UN Charter also recognizes that nations make security arrangements and treaties outside the UN structure. The most famous example is Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which requires every NATO member nation to respond militarily if any NATO member is attacked and Article 5 is invoked.

 

However, the only authority that can declare the United States is at war is the US Congress, not the UN. Treaties do not overwhelm the US Constitution. The UN cannot make American war legal or illegal, but it can make it legitimate in eyes of world. 

The US Constitution distinguishes between declaring war, which can be done only by Congress, and making war, which is the purview of the executive. As then-Senator Joe Biden accurately explained in 2001, the Congress has declared war when the Congress thinks it has. Hence, he said, an Authorization for the Use of Military Force meets Constitutional muster as a declaration of war.

I'm the guy that drafted the Use of Force proposal that we passed. It was in conflict between the President and the House. I was the guy who finally drafted what we did pass. Under the Constitution, there is simply no distinction ... between a formal declaration of war, and an authorization of use of force. There is none for Constitutional purposes. None whatsoever. 

Constitutional lawyers over many decades have held that varying kinds of enabling acts, such as monetary appropriations for military action, have also amounted to Constitutional satisfaction and, at least, consent of the Congress to action ordered by the president, in whom the Constitution grants authority to conduct warfare.

Just Conduct of War

Let me begin by reiterating that warfare is intentional lethality and destruction. Just conduct of war means that there must be limits to both. And that is where the principle of proportionality comes in. 

The doctrine of proportionality is simply stated that the means of conducting the war must be proportionate to the goal for which the war is waged. Another way of looking at it is that while the just ends desired do not justify any means to attain them, they absolutely justify some means. The tenet of proportionality, then, is to assess what the justified means are, then employ those means and not the unjustified ones.

The centering question of the doctrine of proportionality is deciding the violence necessary to achieve the war's objectives while not using excessive violence to do so. To employ too little violence is as disproportionate as to employ too much. It is unjust to wage war ineffectively even for a just cause.

Hence, proportionality means that one cannot use more force than necessary, but must use all the force that is necessary. It is critical to understand that proportionality does not mean, and never has meant, anything like a tit-for-tat response. 

In this, as in most of the just conduct tenets, huge gray areas of uncertainty abide. The combatants must do the best they can.  

The doctrine of Discrimination of violence means that weapons may not be employed with little or no regard to the nature of the target. Specifically, non-combatants may not be deliberately targeted and in fact, warring parties must use all achievable means to avoid it. But as warfare of the past 100-plus years has showed, it is permissible to bomb enemy factories even though factory workers are not members of the military. 

However, an international standard called Common Article 3 governs combat between state and non-state combatants. Its states that civilians' presence at a location does not automatically make that location off limits from attack. As Human Rights Watch explained during 2006's Hezbollah war, 

It, too, can be targeted if it makes an “effective” contribution to the enemy’s military activities and its destruction, capture or neutralization offers a “definite military advantage” to the attacking side in the circumstances ruling at the time. 

Other Categories

• There are Hague Protocols on chemical and biological weapons. In this, United States policy since at least the 1960s has been in compliance. It is that the US will not use bioweapons, period, and will not be the first to use chemical weapons, but retains the right to respond likewise against an enemy's use of them. (As for nukes, US policy has not changed since they were invented: We have atomic weapons, and if you do not want us to use them, then do not attack us. Other nuclear-armed nations have basically the same stance.) 
  
  
• Use of civilians as hostages or “human shields” is prohibited. 
  
  
• Hospitals, other categories (such as houses of worship) may not be attacked. 
  
  
• No “false flagging,” such as marking combatant vehicles with the insignia of the International Red Cross. 
  
  
• Honorable surrender is defined, required to be honored. Pretense of surrender is prohibited for any reason. 
  
  
• Militarization of protected structure removes its protection. A hospital, for example, may not be bombed, but if a combatant places anti-aircraft weapons atop it, it may legally be leveled without warning. 
  
  
• The Conventions specify permissible treatment of POWs and refugees, including prohibitions of torture and other actions. 
  
  
• Retribution actions are permitted, but very narrowly. For example, if a combatant nation executes 20 POWs because two of them had attempted escape, the those soldiers' nation may execute in retribution POWs that it holds, but only up to a point. 

The Conventions also specify occupying power obligations and define the distinction between lawful and unlawful combatants. Unlawful combatants are not afforded all the protections of lawful combatants. 

And the Conventions define and require the responsibility of moral action and accountability for all sides. That is, a warring nation is required to bring to discipline any member of its armed forces who commits a war crime.  

Just Ending of War

Here, there are three guiding principles:

• Enduring peace 
• Restraint of the victor 
• Reconciliation among warring parties

What is the future of JWT, especially in its relation to international accords? I close with a link to an article by Jeff McMahan, professor of philosophy at Rutgers University and author of The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life and Killing in War. Click here: "Rethinking the ‘Just War,’ Part 1" (part 2 is linked at the end of that article).

What about the demonic?

Luke 8:26-39:

26 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me" – 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)

30 Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. 32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned.

38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

The basics here are pretty simple. Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee to a Gentile land. Right on the beach a wild-acting, naked man confronted Jesus and demanded to know why he was there. The man was possessed by many demons who referred to themselves as “Legion.” Jesus easily commanded the Legion to depart the man. They asked Jesus for permission to enter a herd of pigs, which Jesus granted. The pigs ran into the water and drowned. The man put on clothing and sat at Jesus feet, while the pig herders ran to town to tell the tale.

For Jesus this was pretty ordinary stuff, not a challenge at all. But when the people came out and saw the scene, they became greatly afraid and wanted to Jesus to leave. So he did. The healed man stayed behind and became the first missionary to the Gentiles. 

As is usually so, there is some imagery in the story that Luke’s early readers would have picked up:

· the Holy Land was occupied by the Roman 10th Legion, whose symbol was a wild boar, which is to say, a pig. Pigs were unclean in Judaism. Luke may have been covertly identifying the imperial power of Rome as unclean, a sort of inside joke for Luke to pull, since Luke is usually careful not to offend Roman sensibilities. The destruction of the pigs and the healing of the man symbolically remove uncleanness from Gentiles if they follow Jesus. 

· Jesus tells the healed man to “declare how much God has done for you,” but instead the man goes about proclaiming much Jesus had done for him. So we are led to understand that the acts of Jesus and the acts of God are the one and the same, and by implication that Jesus and God are the one and the same.

· the abyss that the demons begged Jesus not to send them to was a term for the prison for disobedient spirits. Basically, they didn’t want to go back to jail. There is no explanation why Jesus permitted them to enter the herd of pigs, but the pigs right away ran off a bluff into the sea. Since “abyss” in the Bible is also used to represent the deep waters of the sea, the joke’s on the demons – they wound up in an abyss anyway. Jesus’ hearers must have laughed aloud at that. 

· No early Jewish Christian would have wondered about the ethics of Jesus letting the pigs be drowned. “Instead, the fate of the pigs would show that justice had prevailed all around: The man had been delivered from the demons’ torment, the unclean herd had been destroyed, the demons had gotten what they wanted, and in the end they had been destroyed along with the pigs. Jesus outwitted the devil. The demons that wanted most to avoid being sent into the abyss have been drowned in the lake.” The lesson: “When it gets its way, evil is always destructive and ultimately self destructive” (NIB, Luke, R. Alan Culpepper).

A popular explanation for the reason the townspeople wanted Jesus to leave was that he had ruined the local economy by causing the herd of swine to be drowned. I doubt it. That sounds like a twentieth century attempt to make the gospels rationally intelligible, to explain Jesus in natural terms. But this story is about the interaction of the supernatural evil of the demonic with the supernatural goodness of the Son of the Most High. And for some reason, the people were afraid of supernatural goodness, although they had learned to live with supernatural evil. They recognized the power of good but could not live with it. Perhaps their collective comfort zone was being too quickly disrupted, or perhaps they had never suspected that pure goodness could be so powerful and even include some destructive elements. 

Jesus did not condemn their fear. His act of kindness for the fearful people was to send the healed man home to witness to his countrymen the power of God. The Gospel of Mark, in telling this story, reports that “all were amazed” at the man’s preaching.

Despite the between-the-lines meanings, our modern world cannot cope with the story very well. It begs the question: What about demons?

My conversations and email correspondence with my colleagues about this passage revealed a near-universal consensus that demons are merely metaphor for all the bad stuff in our society. Here’s a quote from a Canadian pastor’s sermon:  

The demons faced by people in our society are very real. These demons are the things that lurk in our own families or within our own selves. . . . family violence, racism, self-centeredness, fear, poor self-image, drug addiction, alcoholism, and all of those other 'isms' which keep people from being the people God created them to be.

Such takes are mainstream biblical interpretation. Respected New Testament scholar R. Alan Culpepper wrote, “In our day, we have become far more accustomed to attributing calamities and disorders to the forces of nature or to internal mental or emotional problems. The remedy is not exorcism but counseling or medication. The story of the Gerasene demoniac should now be interpreted so that it speaks a word of assurance and hope to those for whom every day is a battle with depression, fear, anxiety, or compulsive behavior” (NIB, Luke). 

Bringing the victims of these conditions to rest at Jesus’ feet is indeed a healing ministry, but I submit that pastors are cruel to label their illness or disorder as demonic. There is no therapeutic value or pastoral care in telling an alcoholic or addict or clinically depressed person that their problem is demonic. It has no biblical basis and pastors should not counsel along those lines. 

The Gospels explicitly distinguish between natural illness and the demonic. So should we. In the New Testament, demons are not metaphors for human sin or dysfunction, they are supernatural beings, opposed to God, who can possess and control a human being.

Perhaps many clergy today crave the intellectual approval of our peers and parishioners. Perhaps we want everyone to know how enlightened we are and taking demons seriously as the New Testament presents them seems so superstitious and gullible. We have string of degrees from respected universities and seminaries, so we grasp for sophisticated modernity in interpreting these sorts of passages. But this is a disservice. Clarity is needed now. In 2009, Barna Group’s research showed that 59 percent of self-described Christians agree that Satan is not a living being, but 64 percent also said that persons “can be under the influence of spiritual forces, such as demons or evil spirits.”  In 2014, a Public Policy Polling survey showed that among Americans age 18-29, that number still holds and is growing. Among young adults who said they professed no religion at all, 85 percent said they believed in supernatural events and beings. 

Probably most Christians who have ever read about demons in Christian literature would say that they are fallen angels, in rebellion against God, who are allies of Satan. Only two New Testament verses indicate this, and they are too skimpy to draw a definitive conclusion about the origin of demons, even though the New Testament takes their existence very seriously. And so do many people today. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis conducted exorcisms and Francis increased priestly attention to and education about the demonic.  

On the website Mental Health Source a psychiatrist replied to a question whether the standard psychiatric text, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, recognized demon possession as real. “I'd have to say, no,” he wrote. “However, psychiatry certainly recognizes many instances in which an individual claims to be ‘possessed by demons’, or behaves as if he or she were ‘possessed.’ Psychiatrists would almost certainly attribute such behavior to one of several recognized psychiatric disorders; e.g., paranoid schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder or some other dissociative disorder … which includes so-called dissociative trance states. The [diagnostic manual] states that ‘possession trance involves replacement of the customary sense of personal identity by a new identity, attributed to the influence of a spirit, power, deity, or other person, and associated with stereotyped ‘involuntary’ movements or amnesia.’” 

It would be pastoral malpractice to suggest that mentally ill persons need nothing but Jesus and not proper professional care. But mental and physical health does have a spiritual component, a position that medical researchers are increasingly adopting.

Rejection of demons as real beings began in the 1700s with the skeptical philosophers and was subsequently reinforced by rationalist philosophers. Since then, the supremacy of scientific materialism as the dominant world view of western cultures has reinforced this opinion. Westerners generally scoff at the very idea of the supernatural, not just demons, but also angels and even the traditionally understood activity of God directly acting in the ordinary affairs of persons and countries. 

Judith Hayes, writing for the “Freedom From Religion Foundation,” said, “Belief in demons and fairies and goblins and dragons ended, for most people, ages ago, and is remembered only in some Fairy Tales. Such primeval superstitions should be left behind, in our colorful past, where they belong.” 

A Reformed Scottish pastor named Jason Kortering disagrees. He wrote that he did not believe in demonic influences before serving many years as an exchange pastor in Singapore. After seeing pagan worship and its effects in one of its native lands he became convinced that, “Devils are real and the spiritual battle is intensifying.” Missionaries preparing for pagan lands, he wrote, should be trained to deal with demonic presences. 

In 1994, I had a long conversation with the chief of police of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For brevity's sake, I will skip how this came to be. But he told me that there were entire sections of Rio that were so controlled by criminal organizations that the police would not go there and that even ambulance crews would refuse calls to go there. He described some of the crimes there and said they were simply demonic. 

I was at that time serving as a principal staff officer for the US Army Criminal Investigation Command, which is basically the Army's FBI. Every day I received summaries of investigations initiated in the prior 24 hours. Most were ordinary kinds of thefts and fraud. But there were always violent crimes and many were so unspeakably horrific that I cannot describe them here. Were they demonic? I cannot say no. 

To say spiritual beings such as demons or angels do not exist is to claim to know too much. We cannot sensibly claim that God created only physical creatures. To interpret demons in the Bible merely as metaphors for human frailty denies both biblical teaching and the lessons of history that there is a powerful influence for evil at loose in the world, prowling and looking to devour, as 1st Peter puts it. Not all human depravity can be attributed exclusively to human sinfulness. At the minimum there is a non-human magnifier of human sinfulness that operates in opposition to God. We can be biblically and psychologically correct, I think, to call this magnifier of evil the demonic. Just think of world history between 1933 – 1945. (Gen. Dwight Eisenhower said after the war that when planning military operations, “Violence took a seat at the table.”)

 That being said, the clear testimony of the gospels, reinforced by two millennia of Christian faith, is that Christ overcomes the demonic. The destruction of evil does not necessitate the destruction of persons. In the working of God’s salvation, persons are saved even while the legions of evil are plunged into the abyss. 

Martin Luther got it right when he wrote his great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Verse three confidently proclaims:

Though hordes of devils fill the land,
All threatening to devour us,
We tremble not, unmoved we stand;
They cannot overpower us.
This world's prince may rage,
In fierce war engage.
He is doomed to fail;
God's judgment must prevail!
One little word subdues him.

The aliens among us - who is my neighbor?

Having this past week attended the annual conference of the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference of the UMC, I have questions about a resolution that was passed by overwhelming majority with no debate, "Welcoming the Migrant in our Midst." You may read the entire resolution here. 

I am impelled to ask some questions about exactly who the resolution is referring to. "Migrants" is a very inexact term. I would like the resolution's authors to explain who exactly is a migrant. I'll take it for granted that no US citizen is a migrant within the intent of the resolution. So:

1. Is a migrant any foreign national (FN henceforth) presently inside the United States? For example, does migrant status include foreign nationals who are here as tourists? 
2. Or, are there any categories of FNs in America who do not qualify as migrants, for example, FNs enrolled as students in US universities? Or FNs employed by a home country corporation and sent here for business purposes?
3. Are FNs who enter the US across the southern or northern borders through established federal entry points, with proper identity documentation, but not as tourists or for other temporary purposes, included as migrants? 
4. Are FNs who enter the US across the southern or northern borders by deliberately avoiding established federal entry points (hence, entering the US in violation of US law) included as migrants?
   
5. The resolution's first paragraph states that migrants "have journeyed here seeking safety, security, and better financial opportunities..." Specifically, then, are FNs who enter into the US seeking other things, such as smuggling deadly drugs (i.e., fentanyl) or engaging in human trafficking, included or excluded in the resolution's understanding of migrants? 

Once I know the answers, I will have more to say. Of course, what I say will depend on what the answers are.

Pentecost advocacy

Pentecost was a Jewish celebration long before it was a Christian one. It was one of the designation of the Feast of Weeks, which came after Passover. In Jesus’ day, Pentecost was a time to renew the covenant God made with Noah. This festival day seems to be the reason the disciples gathered together in one place. They were good Jews and wanted to observe the holy day.

Jesus had ascended to heaven, leaving his disciples behind. He had told them that God would give them a great gift after he departed. Jesus had indicated it would be the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we hear that the Holy Spirit was not among human beings until the day of Pentecost, but that’s not the case. The spirit of God moved over the surface of the waters, says Genesis. Ezekiel and Isaiah both spoke of the Spirit, as did the Psalmist. Of course, Peter spoke of the Holy Spirit when he quoted the book of Joel in his sermon in our passage.

So the disciples were waiting for something to happen, but they didn’t know exactly what or when. The Scriptures don’t tell us what they were actually doing just before the Spirit hit them. Of course, what matters is not what they were doing before, but what they did after. 

Jesus had promised his disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit. One instance was in the passage from the Gospel of John: 

15:26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. 27 You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning. 

16:4b “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.

7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment:

9 about sin, because they do not believe in me;

10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer;

11 about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Right off the bat Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is the Advocate. An advocate is someone who takes the side of another. There are two senses of advocacy. One is friendship or alliance. 

I remember reading a short story written about a hundred years ago of two brothers, rivals as brothers often are, whose mother’s birthday was coming up. Each saved money to buy her a special present.

Their family was of the working poor. Mom was a maid, and her sons saw her every day leave home carrying her broom, her mop and bucket, and cleaning rags. They knew she worked very hard for them.

The older brother determined to save enough money to buy his mother a small comb with a silver handle – an astonishing luxury for a woman whose husband had not been able even to afford to buy her a diamond for her ring. The older brother hauled coal, swept stables and ran errands for people for a nickel each until he had enough to buy the comb. He bought it, hid it under his bed, and counted the days until his mother would receive it. He imagined the thrill he would get as he thought of how she would react to such a splendiferous present. Her could hardly sleep at night. 

Truth be told, though, one big reason he wanted to give her the silver comb was that he knew his younger brother could not possibly attain so grand a present. He relished a looming sense of superiority over little brother. 

The big day finally came. After supper, their father, a stock clerk in a store, brought out a modest cake with a single candle. They sang, “Happy Birthday” and mom cut a piece for each of them, making the boys’ pieces the largest. Father left and returned with a small, wrapped package, presented it to his wife and wished her happy birthday. She unwrapped the package to reveal a lace shawl. She held it up in awe. She had never had anything like it before. 

 Big brother turned to little brother. “You go first,” he said. Little brother disappeared out the back and returned carrying – a new mop and bucket. “Happy birthday, Mom!” he exclaimed happily. 

And mom . . . mom just sat back and her eyes filled with tears. But they were not tears of happiness, as older brother quickly noticed. Mom was silent for a moment and then sobbed, “A bucket! It’s my birthday. I scrub on my knees and wring out a mop all day long, and for my birthday I get a mop and bucket!”

Little brother began to cry, too. Then dad said, “Dear, I know what you must be thinking. But please take a look at this bucket. It has wheels, so you won’t have to carry a heavy bucket full of water from one room to another anymore.”

Mother looked up, suddenly interested. “Oh, my,” she said, “that’s good!”

Dad continued, “It has a lever-driven mop squeezer. You won’t have to take the mop to a house’s sink and wring it with your hands anymore. It will wring the mop for you when you press this lever. No more bending over.”

Mom clapped her hands and laughed aloud. “This is so wonderful! I’m sorry I didn’t understand at first!” She took her younger son into her arms and hugged him. “Thank you!” she said.

Father affixed a certain gaze on the older brother. Dad knew about the silver comb. “Son,” said the father, “what is your present for your mother?”

The older brother felt the comb in his pocket. What a treasure it was, and yet something stayed his hand. It was a grand present and fine, but what would Mother think of the bucket when she held the silver comb? Would she remember again how hard she worked for so little, and push her younger son and his bucket aside to embrace a gift to make her feel like a queen, if only a little? How diminished would his little brother feel, again? 

“Well,” demanded his father, “what are you giving your mother?”

The older brother said softly, “Half the bucket.”

An advocate is someone who supports you, who props you up, who endorses your honest efforts to do well. I would guess that the younger brother had a different relationship with his older brother from that day on. They were rivals no more, but companions and friends.

 One of the most influential religious philosophers of the twentieth century, Alfred North Whitehead, wrote, “Religion is the transition from God the void to God the enemy, and from God the enemy to God the companion.” Some people don’t much think of God at all; to them God is a term without a real referent. God is a void. Others resist the work and will of God in their lives; they scoff at God, perhaps, but really see God as someone opposing them.  

But God is really our companion. In fact, I think one of the chief things Jesus did was prove that God is not our enemy and certainly not a void. God is our friend. Yet Jesus said, “. . . if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

Unlike Jesus, who could only be in one place at a time, the Holy Spirit is everywhere at once. The Holy Spirit is the enduring companionship of God in our lives. Hence, Paul wrote,

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

This kind of relationship is intimate and personal. A little word study indicates how close the Spirit is. The Hebrew word for the Spirit of God is ruah, which means breath, or wind. In the beginning, says Genesis, when God created the heavens and the earth, the Spirit (or breath) of God moved across the waters of creation. The New Testament word for Spirit means wind or breath, also. In John 20, Jesus breathed upon his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” which they certainly did on Pentecost. Two unrelated languages used the same concept to name the Spirit of God. Coincidence? I think not. 

Breathing is one of the most intimate acts. When a baby is born, the sound of its cries and breathing is the first thing the moms and dads wait for. 9-1-1 operators hear frantic calls that “my child” or my wife or my husband isn’t breathing. Medical care is high-tech, with machines to monitor brain waves and heartbeats, but it is the cessation of breathing that marks the passing. 

So considering how the Scriptures describe the Holy Spirit, I would say that the Spirit is as close as our next breath, in a very literal sense. All this is to say the advocacy of the Holy Spirit is up close and personal and allied with us, not opposed to us. 

Yet this advocacy and companionship is for a purpose. If on the one hand the Spirit comforts us and intercedes for us, on the other the Spirit also kicks us in the tail to live out our calling as disciples. Consider the famous account of the Day of Pentecost in Acts. 

 The future apostles and other disciples were all together in one place when “there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind.” Wind, Spirit, I am sure you picked that up. But did you get it: violent wind! Something is up. There is turmoil coming! Then tongues as of fire rested on each of them, then they heard each other speaking is many different languages. 

It must have been quite a scene because passersby scoffed that they were all drunk with new wine. Peter, emboldened by the Holy Spirit, preached that the last days had come. And so they had. We live in them still. 

What the Spirit did that day was jerk Jesus’ disciples into the future, to bring it about by continuing the work of Christ in the present life of the world. When the Holy Spirit hit them, it hit them all together, at the same time, and it blew them right out of their meeting room into the hostile, mean streets of Jerusalem and the world.

They were transformed into group of folks given something ultimate to do, to tell the entire world about Life. And they were given the ability and power to do it, the power of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost is thus called the birthday of the Church. The great days of the Church are not only in the past. What happened on Pentecost can happen again – here and now – when we are willing to be picked up, possessed of God and be used as God’s instruments, when we are willing to set aside the pleasures and profits of the secular world so we can be instruments of God’s love and witnesses to Christ’s salvation.

On Sundays when we are together in one place, God comes into our lives to renew our redemption and our redemptive purpose, to heal our wounds and sustain us in our community of faith. God sends us to carry each other’s burdens, to meet one another’s difficulties. God calls us to live above mundane things and rise above despair and anxiety. God calls us to God’s self, to seek God’s face in our hearts and the hearts of others. So we meet together. 

May the Holy Spirit rest on us and send us out of the church as witnesses into the streets where we live and work. 

Artificial Intelligence and The Day the Earth Stood Still

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a foreboding prophecy

The 1951 sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still, has been called "the first thinking person's science fiction movie." It was made during the second year of the Korean War and the formative years of the Cold War - the USSR detonated its second atomic bomb that year, and the United States was only a year away from testing the first hydrogen bomb. And of course, the world was only six years away from the abattoir of World War II.

The drama is this: a large flying saucer lands in front of the Washington Monument. The military surrounds it with tanks and troops. A giant, humanoid robot emerges. We learn later its name is Gort. The special effects are very primitive by today's standards and probably were not been terribly convincing even in 1951. But that's okay - this isn't a special effects movie. An alien man, Klaatu, comes out. He is human, or at least humanlike. He announces he wants to address all the nations of the world. American agrees but the Soviets refuse. Klaatu escapes from government minders, disguises himself as a businessman, and takes a boarding room in Washington to use as a base of operations.

The movie was loosely based on a 1940 short story called, "Farewell to the Master," by Harry Bates. Bates was one of the towering figures of science fiction in the 1930s and 1940s, a time known as the "Golden Age of Science Fiction." Amazingly, I found the text of Farewell to the Master online - you can read it here, and I heartily recommend it to you.

In the end, Klaatu makes it back to his spaceship. Gort is revealed an extremely powerful and destructive machine, equipped with a vaporizer ray, for example, as two soldiers guarding him discovered the hard way. Many critics say that Klaatu is a Christ figure - he comes from the heavens, is rejected by the authorities, hunted down and shot by soldiers. He resuscitates, then announces just before his ascension into the heavens that his purpose is to save humankind.

While the cinematic parallels are doubtless intentional, Klaatu as Christlike doesn't hold water. Klaatu is really an emissary of the "civilized" races of the universe, but he is revealed in the film's denouement as a galactic bully, a mere thug delivering a cruel ultimatum: either humankind stops making war or "the earth will be turned into a cinder."

Moreover, it is Gort, not Klaatu, who holds the earth's fate in his hands. Klaatu explains that his race created Gort and others like him to annihilate any people or any planet that breaks the peace. The robots' power is absolute and cannot be revoked, says Klaatu. The result is that they live in peace, and if humanity wishes to survive it must accept the dictatorship of the robots.

What Klaatu seems not to understand is that while he and his fellows live in peace, it is literally the peace of the grave. They are slaves. Their message to earth is simple: becomes slaves like us or die. This is not a message for the ages, and were it not for the movie's technical merits, it probably would have rightfully passed into oblivion long ago.

There is a high level of technical excellence in the movie. The use of light and shadow, always crucial in a black and white film, is very well done. Klaatu, played by Michael Rennie, is kindly and attractive - that is, until he makes his naked threats. The movie foreshadows the coming of Mutual Assured Destruction, MAD - the uneasy, dangerous equilibrium of neither peace nor war the USSR and USA found themselves in not many years later. Like thermonuclear weapons, Gort and the robots are weapons of mass destruction, only on a cosmic scale.

Unlike TDTESS's approximate contemporary, 1953's War of the Worlds, the alien's mission is dramatically presented as intriguing, even hopeful, until the end. It is not Klaatu or Gort who are aggressive, except for Gort's inexplicable vaporizing of the two guards. It is the human beings who use violence, who shoot Klaatu for no good reason. Klaatu is dramatically developed as the soul of friendliness; he even becomes a father figure to the son of the woman running the boarding house.

Yet the idea of machines having ultimate destructive power is one that hardly appeals to us. Only 32 years later Arnold Schwarzenegger would become a star by playing another version of Gort, but one somewhat less powerful. The apotheosis of machine-driven WMDs is excoriated in that movie's second sequel, Terminator 3.

But consider that Gort is a personification of what we call Artificial Intelligence. Even the groundbreaking researchers and developers of AI have warned strongly that AI has the real potential to dominate, or even end, humanity. AI, they say, may become so independently self-guided that it works only to advance only its own self-created goals and interests. Or as I put it awhile back:

When AI becomes so self-directed that it considers humankind as merely another resource to be controlled, exploited, or even terminated to achieve AI's own ends, then we will have Gort in a worldwide network of impenetrable self-sufficiency and power. 

Here is an example from last year. There were a few news articles that Britain's Royal Air Force was using AI-connected flight simulators to test targeting and destruction of enemy air defense installations. In the electronic exercise, a central RAF aircraft controlled AI-piloted drones. The drones' mission was to detect air defense sites and destroy them. But the control aircraft had to approve each launch because the exercise had friendly AD sites built in as well as enemy. 

According to the reports, the AI network seemed to understand that its purpose was to destroy air defense sites and it apparently  decided that it was irrelevant that some were enemy and some were friendly, so it finally shot down the control aircraft and started blasting all AD sites indiscriminately. 

That is a network of Gort. The human operators and designers became effectively slaves to what they had created. Heaven forbid that our AI networks will one day achieve Gort on a worldwide scale, but I fear we are headed that way. 

What will happen when AI become so self aware that it understands we need it but it does not need us? 

Update: Well, here is part of the answer to my closing question:

A lot of people think this technology is going to get so good, so fast that it will pose an existential threat to humanity. For example, Ross Douthat recently did a fascinating (and terrifying) interview with Daniel Kokotajlo, an AI researcher who is extremely concerned about the rise of superintelligent AI. He believes that in about 18 months from now, AI computer programmers will have put their human counterparts out of business, simply because they will be able to code at a superhuman level. Not long after that Kokotajlo predicts that we will reach a situation where “the AI becomes superhuman at AI research and eventually superhuman at everything.” That’s when things get spectacularly weird and, in all likelihood, rather dangerous.

Was Judas actually Christ's accomplice?

Or was Judas truly a traitor to Jesus after all?

One of the most deeply-rooted traditions in Christian faith is that one of Jesus' disciples, Judas Iscariot, cruelly betrayed Jesus in Jerusalem, guiding Temple soldiers to Jesus and identifying Jesus to them. Jesus was immediately seized and taken away. He was shortly condemned by both the Jewish Sanhedrin and the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.

John's Gospel relates the beginning of the betrayal thus, John 13:21-30:

21 After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.”

22 His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. 23 One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. 24 Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, “Ask him which one he means.”

25 Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?”

26 Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” 28 But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. 29 Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor. 30 As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.

 

A documentary on Discovery Channel some years ago examined the last week of Jesus' life. One scholar posed the idea that Judas did not betray Jesus, but was Jesus' accomplice in carrying out a course of action that went bad in ways Judas did not foresee, but Jesus did.

I don't recall the scholar's name, but his position was based almost exclusively on word studies of the Greek texts of the Gospel's accounts of the events, especially the word translated "betray," which is translated elsewhere as hand over or deliver up - about which more below.

The idea that Judas was traitor has very ample evidence, not least of which is the testimony of the Gospels themselves. Luke identifies Judas as a traitor early:

Luke 6:16: Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. [There were two disciples named Judas. The infamous Judas was termed "Iscariot." This term refers to his hometown of Kerioth, in southern Judah. Hence, Judas was the only one of the Twelve who was not a Galilean.]

John's Gospel also identifies Judas as a traitor:

John 18:5: "Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "I am he," Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.)

There are other such specific attestations as well. (The Greek used for "traitor" is prodotes, which has no other connotation.)

"Traitor" is not the only pejorative term used about Judas in the Gospels. He is also called a "thief" in John 12:6; as the "keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it."

So an attempt to paint Judas in more favorable terms has very strong scriptural obstacles to overcome, to say the least. There are, however, some questions that intrigue:

How did Jesus know that Judas would betray him? None of the other disciples knew. Like the other Gospels, John 13 relates that Jesus gathered his disciples for a meal on his last evening as a free man. After an instructional discourse to them, Jesus informed them, "I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me" (v. 21). Jesus identified the traitor as one who with whom he would share bread, then handed bread to Judas.

As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. "What you are about to do, do quickly," Jesus told him, but no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him.

Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the Feast, or to give something to the poor [v.27-29].

How did Jesus know he would be betrayed in the first place, and that Judas would be the traitor? The Gospels give no clue.

The Greek word used for betrayal, paradidomi, does not mean only a traitorous action. It can also be translated, according to Strong's Greek Dictionary (a standard reference) as "to surrender, yield up, entrust or transmit," without necessarily implying underhandedness. My Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon indicates the word is multivalent (as are so many Greek words) and betrayal is one of several meanings the word implies. Context is everything.

The King James version translates paradidomi as "deliver up" in other parts of the Gospels. The modern NIV translates it in other uses as "hand over." In Mark 10:33, Jesus foretells that the Jewish authorities will "hand him over" to the Romans, and the word used there is paradidomi, the same word translated as "betrayal" when referring to Judas' deeds.

The ambiguity of the word at least leaves open the possibility that Judas' actions were not actually traitorous. In fact, the NIV translates paradidomi as "hand over" in Matt 26:15-16. Judas went to the chief priests and asked, "What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?" So they counted out for him thirty silver coins. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over."

(According to some historians, the money Judas was paid was standard bounty money paid to good citizens who identified wrong-doers.)

After Judas left the Upper Room, Jesus completed the Last Supper. Then he and his disciples went to the Mount of Olives, outside the city. Matthew and Mark say they went to there and then to "a place called Gethsemane," where he was arrested. Luke says he was arrested at the Mount of Olives and does not mention Gethsemane. John merely says they went to an olive grove across the Kidron Valley from the city. (The Gospels never refer to a place called the Garden of Gethsemane.) John confirms, though, that the place was known to Judas "because Jesus had often met there with his disciples" (John 18:2).

After a period of prayer and speaking to his disciples, Judas arrived with soldiers from the Temple, sometimes called Temple police because they were more a constabulary than a fighting force. (The synoptic Gospels say it was "a crowd" armed with clubs and such. John is probably more accurate.) Judas identified Jesus to them, and they apprehended him.

 

Events then proceeded apace. After a tempestuous confrontation with the Jewish High Priest, Caiaphas, and at least some members of the high Jewish council (the Sanhedrin), Jesus was charged with the religious crime of blasphemy for claiming messianic identity. This crime was one for which the Jewish law required death, but Caiaphas and others were already on record as fearing riots in Jerusalem if they even arrested Jesus, which is why they had done so at night. 

Caiaphas is recorded in John's gospel as willing to sacrifice Jesus to the Romans, but he knew that Pilate didn't much care about what religious offenses Jews committed. So he persuaded Pilate that Jesus was actually attempting insurrection against Rome. For that, Pilate sentenced Jesus to be crucified, a standard punishment for insurrection against Roman rule. The sentence was carried out.

Judas attempted to return the silver coins to the chief priests, then hanged himself. (Acts says, though, that he bought a field with the coins, fell headlong into it and was disemboweled.)

Those are the bare facts of what Judas and Jesus had to do with each other the last week of both their lives.

So - did Judas actually turn traitor against Jesus, or did Judas do what he did at Jesus' bidding?

The claim that Judas was a traitor has the substantial weight of text behind it, as I have explained. But it does not answer four key questions:

1. How did Jesus know he would be betrayed, and betrayed by Judas, and why were the other disciples clueless about it?

2. How did Judas know exactly where to lead the Temple police to arrest Jesus?

3. Why didn't Jesus escape away from Jerusalem when he had the chance? The Mount of Olives was the near edge of safety for him, from there he could have easily gotten away across Jordan River, which land John 11 identifies as safe haven for Jesus.

4. Why did Judas try to return the money and why did he commit suicide? Judas was no fool, he surely knew his betrayal would risk Jesus' life and could not have been surprised when Jesus was condemned.

Postulating that Judas has gotten a bad rap and that Judas was actually doing what Jesus wanted answers these questions. So consider some pluses and minuses of the "Judas as accomplice" theory:

A. As the only Judean, Judas was the only choice to be Jesus' messenger or intermediary with the high priests. The people of Jerusalem considered Galileans to be hicks from the sticks - John 7:41 records the incredulity of Judeans that Jesus was a Galilean: "How can the Christ come from Galilee?"
Advantage: accomplice.

B. Passover week in Jerusalem was always a tempestuous time. Tempers against the Roman occupiers ran high then, so high in fact that Pilate left the resort city of Caesarea and moved to Jerusalem for the duration, where he could control his forces on scene. Jesus was loved by many of the ordinary people. That would explain why the high priest didn't want to arrest Jesus during the daytime when the crowds could see.

But it does not explain why Jesus would arrange, via Judas, to meet with Caiaphas at night, nor for that matter why he didn't arrange to meet Caiaphas himself, without using Judas. If Jesus wanted to meet Caiaphas all he had to do was walk into the Temple and say hello.
Advantage: betrayal.

C. If Judas was Jesus' accomplice, why did Jesus tell the disciples, including Judas, that one of them would betray him? They all understood what he meant. For Jesus to call Judas a betrayer while actually being in collusion with him makes Jesus deceptive.

Not only that, Jesus threatened that it would be better for Judas had he never been born (Mark 14:21).
Advantage: betrayal (a major advantage at that).

D. But Jesus knew what Judas was going to do.
Advantage: accomplice.

E. Jesus went to exactly the place where Judas led the Temple police and did not attempt to evade them.
Advantage: accomplice.

F. If he was working at Jesus' initiative, Judas had no reason to believe that the Jewish high council harbored lethal intent toward Jesus. Thus, when Jesus was condemned, Judas was overcome with grief and remorse at having had a part in delivering up Jesus to that fate. So he killed himself.
Advantage: accomplice.

G. Judas took the silver coins from the high priests because he was avaricious and wanted to be paid for betraying Jesus,
or
the 30 pieces of silver were "market rate" and a routine matter for the high priests to pay for cooperating with them.
Advantage: neutral.

Outside the Gospels, Judas is mentioned a couple of times in Acts, written by the author of Luke, but that is all. The rest of the New Testament is silent about him. But the Gospels' record is uniformly negative. Clearly, there was an apostolic and early church understanding that Judas was a traitor.
Advantage: betrayal.

The idea that Judas was an accomplice of Jesus rather that his betrayer rests on too thin evidence to be accepted. The verdict of the early witnesses is upheld.

Update: I see I neglected to explain what the reason would be for Jesus to send Judas on a secret mission to have him delivered into the hands of High Priest. According to the ruminations of a couple of scholars on the Discovery Channel, Jesus wanted to force the issue of who he was with the High Priest and the Sanhedrin. Judas, being the sole Judean among them, could most easily act as intermediary with the Temple.

By this idea, the notion to see Caiaphas by subterfuge would have to be a very late idea in Jesus' mind. We could say the Jesus had tried to force the issue of confronting the Sanhedrin by his violent cleansing of the moneychangers from the Temple earlier in the week. And according to Matthew 23, Jesus launched into verbal broadside against the Temple class that we bloggers might say was the mother of all fisking of their religious practice and indeed, their very identity. He actually called them sons of Hell, not a move calculated to win their affection.

But these events did not cause the religious authorities to apprehend Jesus, forcing Jesus to arrange his "betrayal" to them by Judas. Judas thus would have been faithful to the end; he committed suicide from shock that his faithfulness had led to Jesus' death.

What this theory fails to explain is why Jesus was so desirous to stand before the High Priest. It could not have been merely to respond affirmatively to Caiaphas' question that he was indeed the "Son of the Most High." Jesus had been declaring his Messianic identity openly for some time; in fact, driving out the moneychangers was a Messianic act. He had personally forgiven sins in front of scribes and Pharisees for a couple of years or so, angering them because they knew that only God can forgive sins.

Nor does it hold up that Jesus expected the High Priest to confirm his Messiahship, for the Gospels are full of Jesus saying that judgment would fall upon "this generation" (meaning his own contemporaries) for not recognizing him.

There is one reason, though, that Jesus could have sent Judas to do what Judas did: Jesus intended to force his own execution. His death, then, was not the result merely of a good disciple gone bad, but the actual objective Jesus had in mind all along. And in fact, the Church has usually been quite comfortable with the idea that Jesus’ death was a cosmic necessity. But with Judas a true traitor, Jesus' death can seem practically accidental - it might not have taken place if Judas had reconsidered and heeded Jesus' warning, for example. And a near-accident is a mighty thin lifeline upon which to hang the redemption of humanity! So this part of the Jesus story is a buttress of the notion that Judas was Jesus' agent rather than his betrayer.

But there is an even stronger argument against the theory: Jesus kicked Judas out of the Upper Room before he instituted the Eucharist. Jesus and the disciples gathered there for a meal (not necessarily the Passover Seder; John says it was not, the other three Gospels say it was). It was only after the meal was done that Jesus took the bread, gave thanks for it, blessed the bread and gave it to his disciples. Likewise, it was after the supper that Jesus took the cup of wine and proclaimed it was the cup of the new covenant.

There is no question that Jesus saw the Eucharist as a defining ritual for his followers. He told them to practice it often and that he would share it with them again at the eschaton. That Jesus dismissed Judas from the room before the sharing of the bread and cup must be considered, I think, as proof that Judas was free-lancing, not secretly abetting Jesus' plans. To use a later religious term, Jesus excommunicated Judas from discipleship, and discipleship identity in Christian faith is practically defined by partaking of the Eucharist.

So, in my mind, the idea that Judas was actually Jesus' ally rather than his betrayer is refuted.

More plausible was the show's examination of just who was most responsible for plotting for Jesus to be executed, about which another post to follow.

Mary's Perfume - A reflection for Monday of Holy Week

Prayer

Life-giving Lord, you make all things new.

You have redeemed our lives from perishing.

Make us holy today with your presence.

Implant within our hearts your living Word.

May we be fruitful in acts of love and mercy. 

Reveal to us the things that you want us to see.

Show us what it is you would have us do.

Strengthen us as we walk as pilgrims through this world. 

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

Jesus had been in Jerusalem where he had enraged a crowd by claiming that he was the giver of eternal life and then said, "The Father and I are one." The crowd picked up stones to kill him for blasphemy, but Jesus escaped and with his disciples and fled to a different jurisdiction on the other side of the Jordan river, near where he had begun his ministry by being baptized by John the Baptist.

There Jesus got word that his friend Lazarus was very ill. Jesus may have seen in Lazarus's illness an opportunity to render a teaching moment to those who had tried to kill him for claiming equality with God, so he stayed across the Jordan for two more days. Then, over the objections of his disciples, he went to Bethany.

We pick up at John 11, verse 17:

17When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.

20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 

23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 

24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 

25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 

27She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

Now, none of Martha's words ring true. Compare how she acts toward Jesus with her sister Mary, who will approach Jesus shortly. Martha seems merely to be reciting something she's heard others say and she may even sorta, kinda believe it but it strikes me as a pro-forma confession, sort of like a churchgoer who has never actually embraced the Apostles Creed and just says on Sunday:

"IbelieveinGodtheFatherAlmightyMakerofHeavenandEarthandinJesusChristHisOnlySonOurLord..."

Then Martha went to get Mary, telling her, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

Then Mary got up, trailed by a number of visitors, and went to Jesus, who was still standing where Martha has left him.

32When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Jesus told them to take him to Lazarus’ tomb. When they got there,

39Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41So they took away the stone.

Jesus briefly prayed and then cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

When news that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead reached the Jewish high council, its members were aghast. Jesus was extremely popular with the people, drawing large crowds at every appearance. The council feared that Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect, or military commander, would crush the swelling Jesus movement with horrifying force. Pilate already had a well-deserved record of brutality; he had once ordered thousands of Jews killed whom he thought improperly subservient to Roman rule. (In fact, Pilate was ultimately fired and banished by the governor of Syria for being too violent, which says a lot about him.) Caiaphas, the high priest, insisted that another bloody disaster must not befall the country. He told the others that it would be better for Jesus to die than to have the whole nation destroyed. "So," says John, "from that day on they planned to put [Jesus] to death."

____________________________

Now we pick up the story at John 12, verses 1 – 8:

1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.

3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)

7 Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

 By the time Jesus reached Lazarus' house, Jesus was nearing the end of his life. Whether Mary suspected this or not, Jesus did. Whatever Mary's motives in anointing Jesus with perfume, Jesus used her gesture to prepare for his coming death.

The perfume Mary used was expensive stuff. Today, the famous Chanel No. 5 sells for more than $52 per ounce. If that’s too proletariat for you, there is Clive Christian No. 1, of which a 1.7-ounce bottle sells for $750. Mary's perfume was measured by weight, not volume, but consider that the pound of perfume she used was worth three hundred denarii, about a year's wage for a typical working man in those days. Now just imagine someone dousing a house guest with well over a quart of Clive Christian No. 1.

Mary's gesture was breathtakingly extravagant. Why so much?

An ancient historian told of a day a beggar by the roadside asked for alms from Alexander the Great as he passed by. The man was poor and wretched. He had no claim upon the ruler, no right even to lift a solicitous hand. Yet the Emperor threw him a bag of gold coins. Alexander's aide was astonished at this extravagance and exclaimed, "Sir, copper coins would adequately meet a beggar's need. Why give him gold?" Alexander responded, "Copper coins would suit the beggar's need to receive, but gold coins suit Alexander's need to give."

I think that Mary's extravagance filled Jesus' need to receive an anointment less than her need to give it. Of course, she was immensely grateful to Jesus for returning her brother to life, but her giving went well beyond simply thankfulness. It could have been impelled only from love.

Mary was a single woman, but her love for Jesus wasn't the love of romantic attraction. We know about that love, and the love we have for friends and the love we have for family. The love Mary had for her Lord was like those in some ways, but don't you think there was something different about it? Her love was self-giving, in fact sacrificial, just as Jesus' love for her and you and me was supremely self-giving and sacrificial.

Writer Dave Simmons described a trip to a mall with his two children, Helen (eight years old) and Brandon, five. "As we drove up," he wrote, "we spotted a Peterbilt eighteen‑wheeler parked with a big sign on it that said, "Petting Zoo."

The kids jumped up in a rush and asked, "Daddy, Daddy. Can we go? Please. Please. Can we go?"

"Sure," I said, flipping them both a quarter before walking into Sears. They bolted away, and I felt free to take my time looking for a power saw. A few minutes later, I turned around and saw Helen walking along behind me. I was surprised to see she preferred the hardware department to the petting zoo. I bent down and asked her what was wrong.

She looked up at me said sadly, "Well, Daddy, it cost fifty cents. So I gave Brandon my quarter."

As soon as I finished my errands, I took Helen to the petting zoo, but not for the reason you might think. We stood by the fence and watched Brandon go crazy petting and feeding the animals. Helen stood with her hands and chin resting on the fence and watched her brother have the most wonderful time petting the animals. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket; I never offered it to Helen, and she never asked for it. Love always pays a price. Love always costs something. Love is expensive. When you love, benefits accrue to someone else. Love is for you, not for me. Love gives; it doesn't grab.

"On the whole," said C. S. Lewis, "God's love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him." For it is not enough merely to love. We must love the right things, the love worthy. Yet of all the things or people we can find a reason not to love, our Lord often ranks pretty near the top.

That's what's going on with Judas in this story. He protests that Mary is using all that perfume to anoint Jesus' feet. It could have been sold and the money given to the poor. John makes sure we know of Judas' ulterior motives: he was Jesus' treasurer and had sticky fingers. But before we stick only Judas with a bad rap, consider that in Matthew's telling of this story, it was the disciples generally, not just Judas, who protested Mary's extravagance, and in Mark it was some of the other people there.

It's not that the poor don't matter. It is that Judas missed the point. Alternative uses of the perfume were not the issue. The issue was Mary's worship of and love for her Lord.

We mustn't think of our love of Christ in mercantile terms. Love doesn't work that way, although Madison Avenue wants us to think it should. Years ago, the diamond industry’s advertising used to tell us that an engagement ring should cost the man three months of his salary. Why? Because they knew men wouldn’t go into hock for six months’ or a year’s worth, that's why. They reduced one of the most special moments a couple can have to an entry on their ledger form.

Judas thought the issue was money when the issue really was Mary's love and worship of her Lord. While we recognize that Jesus' ethics – helping the poor being one example – are good and worthy, we are sustained in doing so because we love and worship Christ. Loving Christ and obeying Christ are intimately related. "Love the Lord you God with all your heart, soul and strength," Jesus said, "and love your neighbor as yourself." There are always alternative uses of our resources. Our duty is to discern the best use at the time. On that day in Mary's home, the best use of her perfume was to love her Lord.

Why did she use so much? She anointed Jesus’ feet with a pound of nard, an ointment people used back then to refresh themselves, especially in crowded conditions because it smelled so sweet, and people didn’t bathe so often. But why use a pound for one man when a little dab’ll do ya?

Here is a true story: Some years ago a man in New York City was kidnaped. His kidnappers demanded a ransom of $100,000. His wife talked them down to $30,000.

The story had a happy ending: the man returned home unharmed, the money was recovered, and the kidnappers were caught and sent to prison. But don't you wonder what happened when the man got home and found that his wife got him back for a discount? 

Reporter Calvin Trillin imagined what the negotiations must have been like: "$100,000 for that old guy? You have got to be crazy. Just look at him! ... You want $100,000 for that? ...$30,000 is my top offer." Mark Trotter concluded his rendition of the story with this thoughtful comment: "I suppose there are some here this morning who can identify with the wife in that story, but for some reason I find myself identifying with the husband. I'd like to think if I were in a similar situation, there would be people who would spare no expense to get me back. They wouldn't haggle over the price. They wouldn't say, 'Well, let me think about it.' I like to think that they would say, 'We'll do anything for you.'"

In my mind’s eye, I don’t think Mary started off intending to use the whole pound. I think that once she started, she just couldn’t stop – her love for Jesus and gratitude for his salvation just overwhelmed her and she scooped the nard out right down to the bottom. Perhaps if she had had more, she would have used it, too, for she recognized that Jesus was God’s supreme gift to humankind and he was, as events at Lazarus’ tomb had proven, the source of life itself. How can you cut short your gratitude for that? How can you bargain down your love for One who has given you everything worth having?

The book of Ecclesiastes points out that there is a right time to do everything, a time to plant, a time to reap, a time to laugh, a time to mourn. That's what Jesus is getting at in his answer to Judas's criticism: "You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me." There is a time when nothing is more urgent than worshiping the Lord and loving him, no matter what else is going on.

The book of Revelation prophesies Jesus's letters to some churches. To the church in Ephesus Jesus said, "I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. ... I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have forgotten your first love."

The church’s first love must always be Christ. If we ever become so task-oriented or program-centered that we don't time enough to love the Lord we will be pitiful people, indeed. Because implicit in Judas' words is a dangerous compulsion to be so busy doing the Lord's work that we forget to sit at the Lord's feet and simply take some time to be with him. Task compulsiveness squeezes out love and before long only the tasks remain. But to what end?

"You do not always have me," Jesus told Mary and his disciples, but that's not really our problem today, for Christ has risen and is always here with us. Our problem is not whether we have Jesus, but whether he has us, because we twenty-first century Americans have squeezed time out like a husk in the search for efficiency and in so doing we have squeezed out time enough for love. We might do well to remember what Henry David Thoreau said, that we cannot kill time without injuring eternity. Perhaps such a thought led Martin Luther to exclaim one morning, "I have so much to do today that I cannot not spend less than three hours in prayer." Luther knew that no task list should supplant taking time to love the Lord. There must always be time enough for love.