Sunday, February 2, 2025

The only thing of eternal significance

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do


not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant

5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.

7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;

10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

 

Ah, love! Moonlit nights and soft violins! Autumn walks in the park with your one and only. The first time he took your hand, or the first time she didn’t pull her hand away. Your first kiss! Love makes poets of lovers. Samuel Rogers wrote an ode to his sweetheart Jacqueline:

“She was good as she was fair, “None – none on earth above her!

“As pure in thought as angels are:

“To know her was to love her.”

Shakespeare observed that lovers can be oblivious to the obvious. In The Merchant of Venice he wrote,

“But love is blind, and lovers cannot see

“The pretty follies that themselves commit” (Act ii. Sc. 6.)

The praises of love are found in literature reaching back into far antiquity. Socrates philosophized about it, Virgil wrote about it, Jesus commanded it.

Watching soap operas or listening to pop music reveals that as a culture we are very confused about love. It’s easy to get the idea that modern Americans think that love is sex. We are very careful about to whom we say, “I love you.” Grownups can say it to their children innocently, and to parents, but cousins are probably off limits. Even in a church we make sure that when we tell each other of our love, it won’t be taken the wrong way.

Obviously, Paul isn’t talking about sex or romance in this passage. He’s not talking even about the profound thankfulness parents have when they consider their children, although that is probably pretty close.

We are called to love one another as Christ loved us. The love we are to have for one another and neighbor is a holy love that displays us in the image of God. God’s love for humanity is not based on the fact that we are lovable because, let’s face it, often we aren’t. God’s love springs from the nature of God’s own being; that’s just how God is. As disciples of Christ, we are commanded to love that way. We are to love one another and neighbor as an act of the will, not because the object of love can benefit us in some way.

There was a small boy who asked his mother, “How old is God?” His mother answered, “Well, no one can say, but he must be at least billions and billions of years old.”

“Wow,” the boy replied, “I wonder whether God ever gets tired of being God!” That stumped Mom until she remembered that the Bible says, “God is love.” So she answered, “No, God never gets tired because God is love and love never gets tired.”

Love, wrote Paul, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

Let me propose that godly love is the predisposition to desire the best for another, and to act accordingly. Thus, God’s will and God’s love can’t be pulled apart. The love of God for creation is found in God’s creative acts to lure each event toward its best possible outcome. I would say that God cannot will anything apart from his love, nor can he love anything apart from his will.

The supremely best thing for humanity is that we exist for all time in the presence of the one God who brought us into being. It is the best possible outcome for human life and has nothing to do with our own character; it has everything to do with God’s character. If that is God’s will – the Scriptures are explicit that it is – then it must be possible for God to bring it about. (If not, then God is merely a dreamer rather than true deity.) God so loved the world that he gave his only son that we might have eternal life. God’s desire for the best for us and God’s actions to bring it about are indistinguishable. God gave God’s own self to reconcile us with him. God’s love and God’s will are the one and the same.

A teacher examined the school enrollment forms of two brothers one day. The first brother had written his birth date as May 10, 1986. The second brother had written his birth date as May 22, 1986. “That’s impossible!” the teacher declared. “No, it’s not,” said one of the brothers, “because one of us is adopted.” “Which one?” asked the teacher. “We don’t know,” said the other brother. “Mom and Dad have never told us. They said it doesn’t matter.”

That’s how God’s love is. Paul wrote in Romans, “. . . we are God's children [and] heirs of God and co‑heirs with Christ,” (Rom 8:16‑17) and in Ephesians that we are “to be adopted as [God’s] children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his delight and will” (Eph. 1:5). And it just doesn’t get any better than that for you and me!

We are not God and what comes naturally to God doesn’t come so easily for us. We continually ask, “What’s in it for us?” or “Does the other person deserve it?” We are finite and limited while God isn’t. And so we have to realize that the best we can do for another is also going to be finite and limited. We will rarely know what is truly best for another. We will often fail to act on what we do know. Sometimes the simple perversities of the human spirit will overcome even the strongest predisposition to give of ourselves. Even so, the fact that we cannot do everything must never hinder us from doing something. Love in the name of Christ is a verb, not a noun.

One month a woman in my congregation named Maxine had foot surgery and was fairly immobile for some time afterward. I took her communion one first Sunday. Maxine and her husband and I shared the Lord’s table together in her upstairs room. I visited for awhile and it was just a wonderful time. We joked and laughed and talked about the church and what her recovery would be like, and we prayed together before I left.

As I pulled out onto Murfreesboro Road to head for the nursing homes I had a sort of epiphany. It suddenly struck me what keeps me doing this pastor thing. I answered God’s call out of fear – I was afraid to say no to God. I began the ministry from duty – I had made a promise and had to keep it. But soon after I left Maxine that day, I had a revelation that I am staying in this vocation from neither fear nor duty. I suddenly understood what my job description is: It is to fall in love every day with Christ’s friends in Christ’s name. That’s it.

My only real job as pastor is to fall in love with God’s people every day. And that’s why I do what I do – because love never tires and every day someone needs whatever of Christ’s love I can share. Being in love in Christ’s name is the best thing about being his disciple; in fact, I guess it’s the only thing about it that matters.

Years ago, every Thanksgiving my family and I joined my brother, Will, and his wife at my parents’ home for dinner, altogether nine gathered around the table. My older brother and his family live in Delaware, too far to come for such a short time. Will and I had a running joke one of us always told Dad whenever we gathered with him and Mother for such celebrations, whether Thanksgiving or birthdays or something else. Sometime during Thanksgiving dinner either Will or I said to Dad, “Of course, you know that all your children who truly love you came home for Thanksgiving.” And Dad responded, “Oh, sure, I know that.” We all laughed because we know it isn’t true.

But at such times, if you looked closely, you could see fleeting sorrow flicker across Dad’s face, and a wisp of wistfulness in his eyes. For the breath of one sentence, Dad’s heart was in Delaware because while the table was crowded, it was not full. Not everyone was there who belongs there.

That moment lingered with me when I read something author Bob Benson wrote in Come Share the Being. He and his wife had three children, and he told of how they grew up and went away to college and then got married and made their own homes. They were proud of their children, he wrote, but after their youngest son moved away, “our minds were filled with memories from tricycles to commencements [and] deep down inside we just ached with loneliness and pain.

“And I was thinking about God,” Benson wrote. “He sure has plenty of children – plenty of artists, plenty of singers, and carpenters and candlestick makers, and preachers, plenty of everybody . . . except you, and all of them together can never take your place. And there will always be an empty spot in his heart and a vacant chair at his table when you’re not home.

“And if once in awhile it seems he’s crowding you a bit, try to forgive him. It may be one of those nights when he misses you so much, he can hardly stand it.”

At the end, says Revelation, there is a family reunion. All God’s children are there, seated at the banquet table.

“And yet,” writes David Lowes Watson, in this day “our joy remains guarded . . . for the homecoming celebration has not yet begun in earnest. There are still empty places at the table. There are sinners who still need to come to their senses. There are millions of God’s family still without enough to eat. There are countless of God’s little ones who are still being sinned against with all the demonic ingenuity” of the human race. “We must help invite them home. We must help Christ dry their tears and heal their wounds” – everyone. Should there be even one empty place at the table, even one person whom we have neglected to invite to the banquet as our brother or sister in Christ, “then God’s cry of anguish will rend the cosmos, and the heavenly feast will be eaten in terrible, terrible silence.”

I think the love we are called to have is a love that gives Christ away and invites people to God’s table, to prepare the reunion of God’s children, to leave no vacancies at the heavenly banquet.

Do we dare to say to each other, “I love you”?

I love you.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

SecDef Hegseth and his pointless name game

NBC affiliate WFMY in Greensboro, N.C., reports:

NORTH CAROLINA, USA — The controversy surrounding the name of North Carolina’s Fort Liberty is back in the spotlight following remarks by the newly appointed Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

In 2022, the U.S. military spent over $2 million to rename Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty, distancing itself from Confederate ties as Fort Bragg was originally named after Confederate General Braxton Bragg. However, during his first day on the job Monday, Hegseth referred to the base by its former name.

“Every moment that I’m here, I’m thinking about the guys and gals in Guam, in Germany, Fort Benning, and Fort Bragg, on missile defense sites and aircraft carriers,” Hegseth told reporters as he entered the Pentagon.

The mention of Fort Benning also stood out, as the Georgia base was renamed Fort Moore in 2023, another step in the Pentagon’s efforts to remove Confederate associations from military assets.

Hegseth’s remarks align with a promise President Donald Trump made on the campaign trail in Fayetteville, North Carolina three months ago. “Should we change the name from Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg?” Trump asked a crowd of supporters, receiving loud cheers. “So here’s what we do: we get elected, I’m doing it. I’m doing it.”

I am a retired Army artillery officer. I served a tour at Ft Bragg in the latter 1980s. I am very definitely a political conservative, but I cannot agree with reverting the name back to Bragg. Here is why:

Confederate General Braxton Bragg
1. Ft Bragg was founded in Sept. 1918 as an artillery training center. Called Camp Bragg at first (because it was considered a temporary installation), it was named for North Carolina native Gen. Braxton Bragg for his artillery actions during the Mexican-American War in 1847. 

So far, so good. Bragg's record as a US Army officer was in fact stellar. But another important reason the camp was named after him was, frankly, to appease Southerners while the US was at war in Europe. In 1918, there was still a large number of Civil War veterans, Union and Confederate, still living, and to their children and grandchildren, that war was not old history, far removed in time or space. So, the camp was named after a CSA general who conveniently was an NC native and Army artillery officer. 

Please note that there are no military installations outside the old CSA that were named after CSA figures. I will also note that Gen. Bragg was a truly dismal battlefield general, which IMO is another reason not to revert to using his name. 

I also think, however, that Fort Liberty is a nitwit name. Find a post-Civil War American military hero or renowned wartime commander and use that. 

2. There are some hard truths about the CSA. I was born and raised in the Deep South. My family's roots in Middle Tenn. go back to just after the Revolutionary War. I have ancestral family members who fought (and some died) for the CSA on both my mom's and dad's side (also for the Union on my dad's). Alexander Stephens, vice president of the CSA, was my wife's great-great grandfather's brother.

I take no back seat to anyone for Southern heritage and upbringing.

Like probably most native Southerners of my generation, I was raised being taught that the real reasons for the Southern states' secession was to preserve states’ rights and that the northern economic lobby was choking the South's economy with high tariffs on Southern goods.

Slavery? Well, it was in the mix somewhere, but slavery was not the real reason for secession. 

It is a lie, pure and simple

The states’ rights and tariffs arguments are entirely absent from Southern apologia until after the Civil War. In 1860 and before, no one in the South was using those topics to justify secession. Furthermore, in 1860 federal tariffs on Southern goods were lower than they had been since 1816. 

Why did the Southern states secede? To protect slavery, period.

Read the 11 seceded states' actual acts of secession, beginning with South Carolina's, and you will see that slavery was the sole reason for secession. South Carolina's act makes this very unambiguous: protection of slavery was the only topic presented as driving secession. Same with Mississippi. And the others.

The Confederate States of America was founded to do one thing only: to preserve the power of one class of people to literally own as chattel property another class of people. There is no other reason the CSA existed.

We are long, long past the time where any figure of the CSA should be honored with naming any federal property after him.  

I wrote  at greater length upon the CSA's secession and raison d'etre here: "Confederate monuments: So what? Now What?"

Monday, January 20, 2025

14th Amendment and "birthright citizenship"

I wrote this on another web site in 2010, so the issue of birthright American citizenship has been contentious for a long time. But the main points are still relevant, so here you go:

----------------------------------------

Many pixels are being lit up by some Republicans' commentary that the 14th Amendment to the 
Constitution "
is in need of review."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told The Hill on Monday that Congress “ought to take a look at” changing the 14th Amendment, which gives the children of illegal immigrants a right to U.S. citizenship.

McConnell’s statement signals growing support within the GOP for the controversial idea, which has also recently been touted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

In an interview, McConnell said the 14th Amendment provision should be reconsidered in light of the country’s immigration problem.

The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Its intention was to ensure that slaves freed by the Civil War could not be denied citizenship. The part of the amendment for that purpose simply states,

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

This has been interpreted in the almost 150 years since as meaning that anyone born inside the US or its territories is automatically a citizen.

The 14th Amendment's crafter never imagined "anchor babies."

Babies born to illegal alien mothers within U.S. borders are called anchor babies because under the 1965 immigration Act, they act as an anchor that pulls the illegal alien mother and eventually a host of other relatives into permanent U.S. residency. (Jackpot babies is another term).

The United States did not limit immigration in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Thus there were, by definition, no illegal immigrants and the issue of citizenship for children of those here in violation of the law was nonexistent. Granting of automatic citizenship to children of illegal alien mothers is a recent and totally inadvertent and unforeseen result of the amendment and the Reconstructionist period in which it was ratified.

For decades after the amendment took effect, American Indians were ruled by federal courts, including the Supreme Court, not to be covered by the 14th Amendment because they were not fully under the jurisdiction of the United States. (The Tribes were then and still are in a treaty relationship with the federal government.) It took a special act of Congress in 1924 to confer citizenship upon American Indians.

In fact, there has never been a federal court that held the 14th Amendment conferred citizenship upon infants born to parents inside the country illegally. It is being done despite that fact.

So at a minimum, Congressional legislation clarifying what birthright citizenship is, within the context of the 14th Amendment, is not only appropriate, it is long overdue. I myself would support a Constitutional amendment to that effect. It would not require repealing or modifying the 14th Amendment. My draft reads:

Amendment 33 - Citizenship by Right of Birth Clarified
1. A person shall be a citizen of the United States by right of birth provided that the person is:

a. born in the United States to parents of whom at least one is, at the time of the birth, both a citizen of the United States and a de jure parent of the newborn, or,

b. born in the United States to parents who, though not citizens of the United States, are legally in the United States at the time of the birth, and who are de jure parents of the newborn, or,

c. born outside the United States to a de jure parent who is citizen of the United States at the time of the birth, provided that the birth occurs outside the United States because of United States diplomatic mission or military orders of a parent, or,

d. born outside the United States to a de jure parent who is citizen of the United States at the time of the birth, provided that the birth and identifying information of the newborn are registered within six months from the date of the birth with a United States diplomatic mission to the jurisdiction wherein the birth occurred.

2. Persons born in the United States and who do not meet a criterion citizenship by right of birth shall not be deprived of due process of law; nor shall any such persons within the jurisdiction of the United States be denied the equal protection of the laws by the United States nor by any State.

3. Congress shall have the power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation.

So there you are.

Update: Here are three more links relevant to this topic. First is an article by George Mason law Prof. Ilya Somin, with whom I have corresponded now and then for going on 20 years, though I have never met him in person. I would say he is, overall, a centrist. he says that Trump cannot simply order it. Click here

Next is George Washington University law Prof. Jonathan Turley, one of the most respected legal scholars in the country. His article is from 2019, "No, It Is Not Racist To Oppose Birthright Citizenship," in which he points out, 

... that one of the outcomes was the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868 to guarantee the rights of citizenship to protect the status of freed American slaves. That much is clear. The problem is that little else is. Since the 14th Amendment was ratified, many leaders have opposed claims of birthright citizenship, including former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Moreover, most countries reject such claims of citizenship. One can be entirely on board with the outcome of the Civil War, not be a racist, and still oppose birthright citizenship.

Finally, here is today's BBC's article, "Trump has vowed to end birthright citizenship. Can he do it?" I read the BBC because in covering American topics, I find it often more balanced and non-partisan than US media. Also, though the article does not say this, foreign nationals enjoy no birthright citizenship in the UK. 

Sunday, January 19, 2025

Water into wine

 Jesus at Cana

 John 2:1-11

1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”

4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”

5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it.

9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. 

Have you ever seen water turned into wine? My wife and I have, many times. When we were stationed in Germany, we lived less than an hour’s drive from the Rhine River. The central part of the Rhine is the heart of wine country in western Germany. If you drive or cruise along the river, you pass mile after mile of vineyards. Germans grade their wine according to three main categories: tafelwein, or table wine, the lowest grade; qualitätswein, the middle grade, and prädikatswein, the highest. It’s the sugar content that makes the grade. The highest grade may not have sugar added by the vintners; the lowest two grade may have added sugar. Within each category there are several grades as well – Kabinett, Auslese, Spätlese, Riesling, and so forth.

The highest-grade wine, and the rarest, is called Eiswein, which means just what it sounds like: ice wine. A good produce of ice wine comes along only about every four years, and then in small quantities. It is the sweetest wine made in Germany. The longer grapes stay on the vine, the more natural sugar they have. The growing season ends with the first overnight frost. If the first frost is too severe, grapes on the vine are ruined and must be thrown away. This happens on average three years of every four, so vintners leave relatively few grapes on the vine that late. But if the first frost is mild, the grapes just barely freeze and the next day are harvested to make ice wine, which is so intensely sweet that I couldn’t abide it. Ice wine commands high prices.

So, to drive along the Rhine is to see water, in the form of rainfall, made into wine. Rain soaks the ground, enters the vines, fills the grapes, is harvested, and made into wine. It happens all the time. We do not wonder at it. It “has lost its marvellousness by its constant recurrence” (Augustine).

A fellow officer named Ed Schmidt lived a kilometer away from us in a house he and his wife rented. They made a number of German friends in their village of Grüningen. Ed didn’t speak a word of German, but he had a German last name and looked like a poster boy for Aryan purity, so the Germans liked him. One weekend Ed and Barbara threw a wine-tasting party under a big tent on their lawn. Most of our battalion’s officers came, along with many of Ed’s German neighbors. Everyone brought at least one bottle of wine. One lieutenant had gone to the Army’s Class VI store and bought some Mad Dog 20-20 and Thunderbird, which are about the cheapest rotgut wine made in North America. Ed didn’t know what to do about the MD 20-20 and the T-Bird. He just knew that if the Germans saw the skid-row stuff surely they’d laugh at the cheap, unsophisticated American palate. So he put them behind everything else and started with the good German wine, figuring that after everyone had partaken of a number of samples of prädikatswein they’d forget about the rotgut.

But the Germans had already seen the cheap stuff and after the rest of the wine had been uncorked and passed from table to table, they asked about the Mad Dog and the Thunderbird. Reluctantly, Ed opened it – not “uncorked” it, because it was so cheap it had a screw-on top. His ego deflated, he handed the bottles to the Germans. Amazingly, the Germans loved it! The bottles never left their table. They drank every drop and complimented Eddie for leaving some good wine for the end.

We couldn’t believe it. In fact, we never did believe it. We agreed that they told each other jokes about the idiot Americans and their terrible wine for weeks afterward.

Wine is a fascinating subject. According to Guinness, the most expensive bottle of wine ever was a bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite that sold in 1985 for $136,248 at auction at Sotheby’s in London. It was engraved with the initials of Thomas Jefferson. In 1986, its cork slipped, and the wine was ruined. No word on how much the empty bottle is worth.

The first mention of wine in the Bible is in the Noah story. After the flood receded, Noah planted a vineyard, made wine, and got so drunk he passed out naked.

Wine was a significant trade item in ancient Israel. Solomon traded wine for timber. Legal fines were sometimes paid with wine. The Hebrews sometimes used wine in worship, offering libations to the Lord. The offerings of first fruits required a quantity of wine, as did the sacrifice of a ram. Psalm 104 says that wine to gladden the heart of is a gift of God. People offered wine to others as gifts of honor, as when David took wine to Saul on the battlefield. Three tribes brought wine to David as gifts when he was made king. Wine was said to revive the faint in 2 Samuel and Proverbs said it was suitable as a sedative for people in distress. Jesus said the Good Samaritan poured oil and wine on the wounds of the injured traveler. Roman soldiers offered Jesus wine mixed with gall when Jesus was dying. Paul admonished Timothy not to drink only water, but to drink wine also.

Yet the Scriptures also recognize the dangers of wine. The Bible condemns drunkenness, beginning with Noah’s tale, and prophets sometimes accused national leaders of being more interested in drinking wine than tending to affairs of state. Paul cautioned the Ephesians to be filled with the Holy Spirit rather than wine. On Pentecost, the disciples glorified God and Christ so energetically that onlookers accused them of drinking “too much wine,” a charge Peter brushed off by responding that they were not drunk because it was only nine in the morning.

And of course, Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding at Cana. According to John, this miracle was the first Jesus performed. Actually, this miracle is misnamed as turning water into wine. When Jesus began, the six stone jars were empty. The servants filled them with water at Jesus’ direction. Jesus really turned emptiness into wine. He made wine out of nothing.

It is a story of extravagance. John leaves out details we would usually think important in order to emphasize the over-abundance of Christ’s work. For example, we don’t know why Jesus and his disciples and Jesus’ mother were invited. (As an aside, John never calls Mary by name – she is always called “the mother of Jesus.”) The wedding itself is never described; we don’t even know the names of the bride and groom. The bride never appears. The groom appears briefly but does not have a speaking part.

The story begins and ends with wine. There’s a wedding. The wine runs out. Mary tells Jesus, who professes not to care. He doesn’t even call his mother, “Mother,” but “woman,” as if she were some kitchen help come out to give him a message. But then again, John says Jesus called her “woman” when he hung on the cross, so it doesn’t appear to have been disrespectful.

“There’s no more wine,” Mary says. Jesus replies, What does that have to do with you and me?

Mary doesn’t say anything. She has been rebuked, however mildly, because Jesus isn’t subject to her beck and call – not hers, not anyone’s. John makes this clear throughout. Jesus acts on his own initiative, guided by the Spirit of God. Ordinary human beings can’t order him around. “Jesus’ actions will be governed by the hour set by God, not by anyone else’s time or will” (NIB).

But they can ask, and Mary does, leaving the solution up to Jesus. Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus says, which, Mary must have known, might have been nothing. Or Jesus might have told the servants to hightail it down to the Food Lion before it closed to pick up a few cases of Mad Dog 20-20 and Thunderbird. After all, when his disciples told him much later that a few thousand people had nothing to eat, Jesus just said, “Well, you give them something to eat.”

Instead, Jesus orders about 150 gallons of water brought in. The modern equivalent of the ancient Jewish measurement isn’t certain. It’s somewhere between twenty to thirty gallons per jar. Call it twenty-five, for a total of 150 gallons. That’s – let’s see – nineteen thousand, two hundred ounces, so if a serving was six ounces, like ours are today, that’s three thousand, two hundred cups of wine. This must have been a great party!

No matter how many guests were there, a few or many, thirty-two-hundred cups of wine is a lot of wine! Everything about this episode is overdrawn: the capacity of the jars, the amount of wine, even the number of words John spends describing the miracle. But as for the exact moment of the chemical transformation of the water into wine, there is no notice. It just happens sometime between the filling of the jars and the drawing out of a serving for the chief steward. There is an abundance of good gifts available through Jesus, but exactly how and when always remain mysterious.

The chief steward doesn’t know the wine’s source; he just assumes the bridegroom kept it back all along. “This is good stuff,” he exclaims, commending the bridegroom for continuing to serve fine wine even after the guests have had plenty to drink.

“In the Old Testament, an abundance of good wine is an eschatological symbol, a sign of the joyous arrival of God’s new age.” Both Amos and Joel used the image of the hills dripping with new wine to describe God’s favor. The miracle at Cana is more than “the first act in Jesus’ ministry. It also stands as the fulfillment of Old Testament eschatological hopes, as the inaugural act of God’s promised salvation” (NIB).

I refuse to get hung up on arguments such as whether this miracle quote-actually-unquote occurred. Discussing it on such a scientific-materialist basis robs it of its real power and meaning. Neither can we arrogantly assume that the people of the first century were so simple-minded that they easily embraced the miraculous. The steward assumes that the wine he drank, while excellent, had been obtained by the bridegroom in the usual way. What he finds unusual is the groom’s hospitality, not the wine itself.

But the servants and Jesus’ disciples know how the wine came to be. Isn’t it interesting that they don’t drink any? Maybe the wine isn’t the point after all. Maybe what the disciples see is that God’s presence is truly among them in the person of Jesus. Jesus offers a new category of understanding reality, and the disciples “believed in him.”

The Reverend William Sloane Coffin once said, “Jesus turned water into wine, but we in the Church have become very good at turning the wine back into water.” The new wine of Jesus – the fulfillment of the hopes of God’s people – is what we long for and hope for. Yet when we look about us, we can see oldness at every level. We carry old fears and anxieties despite our faith in God; we are weak stewards of God’s gifts to us; we see career-minded clergy; we are mired in bureaucratic church structures to do the church’s business. Sometimes it’s hard to see the newness of life, and like the chief steward, even when we do, we mis-attribute it to the usual sources.

Author Mary Collins wrote of attending a Catholic Mass in Bologna, Italy. The church was very poor. Instead of the usual pews, the church had only cast-off chairs from school lunchrooms. The worshipers were mostly broken down, elderly men showing signs of alcoholism and disease and poverty, plus a few poor, old women.

She wrote, “The liturgy progressed as usual. The homily proclaimed the mystery of the Trinity as a mystery of divine love so limitless it is poured out even to the poor of Bologna. Then it was time for the offering. The ushers went forward. We reached for our bundles of lire. Then the unexpected happened. The ushers also reached for stacks of bills, and they moved through the assembly making the church’s offering by giving them small amounts of money. Later, on the street, we learned that the gifts to the poor were given weekly: a token of God’s graciousness and eschatological fullness, something to celebrate the Lord’s Day. In the presence of Christ, not enough becomes plenty for all; in the presence of Christ, the ordinary becomes the extraordinary.”

If we are truly to perceive God’s abundant grace, our response must be thankfulness and generous sharing. The wedding party found itself with so much wine that all they could have done with it was just give it away. Everything we have is a gift from God. Let us believe in Christ! Let us let go of our old ways and old things. Let them go, let them vanish! The newness of life in Christ won’t come until they are gone – BUT . . . in the newness of Christ, the best is yet to come!

Sunday, January 5, 2025

Worlds in Collision - A Magi Tells His Story

On the church calendar, the Day of Epiphany is tomorrow, Jan. 6. It is the day the Church celebrates the arrival of the magi, of wise men as they are often called, to Bethlehem, where they visited the holy family. En route, they stopped at King Herod's palace in Jerusalem, who told the magi to report to him where this apparent pretender to his throne lived. Herod intended to kill him, as he had already done to some of his own sons for the same offense, leading Caesar to observe that it was better to be Herod's dog than his son. 

“Epiphany” simply means manifestation and has been used by the Church for centuries to refer to the manifestation of the Son of God, Jesus, to the Gentiles, for whom the magi, or wise men, were the first Gentiles to behold him. 

Now, here’s a little quiz about this story for us – true or false: 

1. We know that there were three magi who visited Jesus.

2. The magis’ names were Melchior, Balthazar and Caspar.

3. The magi visited the baby Jesus while Jesus was lying in the manger.

All three statements are false. We do not know how many magi went to Bethlehem; that there were three rests on nothing more than they brought three named gifts. The names of the magi are found nowhere in the Bible and in fact are never mentioned in any text until several hundred years after Jesus’ birth. And Matthew says that Jesus and parents were living in a house when they arrived.   

So let’s take a look at the Gospel and try to discern what Matthew is trying to tell us. Here is the passage: 

Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, Magi  from the East came to Jerusalem, 2asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east, and have come to pay him homage.” 3When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who is to shepherd my people Israel.’ ”

 7Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

----------------

My name is Melchior. I was one of the magi who visited Jesus in Bethlehem several months after he was born. I was only thirty at the time. Late in life I learned that Matthew wrote we had seen Jesus’ star in the east, but we knew it was not an ordinary star. Stars remain fixed as they pass from east to west in the night sky, but this star, like a few others, moved back and forth over months of viewing. So we called those stars wanderers, or in Greek, planets. 

This planet was called Rex, or King, by the Romans, later called Jupiter. It entered retrograde motion while in front of the constellation Leo. We knew Leo symbolized the tribe of Judah, which was King David’s tribe. What could that mean but a newly-born king of the Jews?


We knew “what” but not precisely “where.” So, we set out for the palace of the present king of the Jews, Herod, to inquire where the new king was born. That turned out to be a pretty stupid thing to do. Herod had already killed several of his own sons for pretending to his throne. We were boneheads that day, for sure. 

Herod’s priests quoted a prophecy from Micah that said the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, only a few miles away. Herod urged us to confirm it so he could pay homage to the child, too.

Seen from Jerusalem, the planet Rex was motionless directly over Bethlehem as it entered a retrograde. We were delighted that God’s revelation in nature and in Scripture both confirmed his work in the world. We found the child in his house and gave him gold, frankincense, and myrrh, three expensive gifts suitable for a king.  


The next morning, all three of us agreed that God wanted us to stay away from Herod. I said that if we were going home by another route, we’d best get going right away so we could get out of Herod’s jurisdiction before he missed us. So that’s what we did. We did not learn until much later that after Herod didn’t hear from us, he sent soldiers to Bethlehem and killed all the boys under two. It was the way of the world, we knew, but we could not escape the conviction that such a way could never be the way of God’s Messiah. 

A star brought us to Jesus, a dream made us leave. In the beginning, God. In the end, God. God’s presence was with us throughout, but never overwhelmed. After all, Herod and his court saw the heavens just as well as we did but went on with life as before. They knew but did not do. Our dream not to report back to Herod was not known to others. God’s presence and God’s activities are usually subtle. We must be alert and attentive to see God’s working in the world, and act accordingly.

We encountered two kings of the Jews in our travel, Jesus and Herod. Jesus was defenseless and powerless. He was a king with no apparent kingdom. As an old man I learned Jesus did have a kingdom, but a kingdom not like those of the world. It is still here, a kingdom where the ordinary rules of power and politics and the social order don’t apply. It is a kingdom of reversal, where the first shall be last and the last first, where the greatest shall be least and the least the greatest. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is not a place, but a community of persons submitting to God’s grace, a community which transcends both place and time.

King Herod’s kingdom was as firmly of this world as it could be. It was a kingdom which he ruled with Machiavellian skill and power. His kingdom was shot through with political intrigue. It was ruthlessly class ridden. The greatest did everything they could to stay that way, and those who had the most did everything they could to keep it. Herod’s Golden Rule was simple: whomever has the gold makes the rules. 

 These were the two kingdoms into which we magi went to ask where is born the king of the Jews. The conflict between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdoms of this world is what made Herod disturbed when he heard our words, and all Jerusalem with him. 

They were not disturbed as in a sleepless night of worry with a furrowed brow. You can bet Herod was not the slightest bit worried about handling some infant claimant to his throne. Nor did Jerusalem’s disturbance result from a potential threat to Herod’s rule. The Jews by and large couldn’t stand Herod and had long wanted a legitimate king of David’s line to rule over them. 

Their disturbance was the resistance of this world and all its corrupt, fallen systems to the advent of the kingdom of heaven which Jesus was bringing. Jerusalem’s resistance to Jesus would peak in his death on the cross there – where the Roman procurator crucified him with a sign naming him king of the Jews – but it was apparent at Jesus’ birth. The world Jesus would proclaim was already in collision with the world as it was. They still are today.

In later years I reflected why I went on the trip to Bethlehem. I came to know it was by God’s grace. It is God’s grace that leads people to seek the Christ. The yearnings even of those who do not know fully what they seek are met in the act of God at Bethlehem. “The hopes and fears of all the years are met” in Jesus. I was on a quest for ultimate meaning, a desire that runs deep in us mortals. I thought I could find it in my work. Others think they can find it in recreation, or family, or possessions, or politics – the list is endless. But Bethlehem was clarity for me. For I am a witness to the Christ, the Son of God.

So I am glad to tell my story. We magi didn’t come to a Christmas of wrappings and pretty trees and carols. Long before we arrived, the angels and shepherds had gone away, and Jesus and his family had vacated the manger for a house. We had to live with the fact that our visit brought two worlds into bloody collision. Herod thought he could slaughter his way to supremacy. Jesus knew he could only die to it.  

I continued to celebrate Jesus’ birth long after the rest of society had moved on. To continue to proclaim Emmanuel, God with us, is counter-cultural. To worship God born of woman is a form of civil disobedience. So I urge you to linger a little longer at the little town of Bethlehem with the holy family, and to anchor yourselves to Christ, who leads us to be citizens of the kingdom of heaven. 
---------------------------------

Also see, "Why is Christmas on December 25? Whatever date Jesus was born, it almost definitely was not December 25. So why do we date Christmas on it?"

What did the term "magi" mean back in their day

... many scholars believe that the magi came from the area of ancient Babylon and Persia (under Parthian control when Christ was born), which would satisfy the biblical criteria that they came “from the east” (Mt 2:1). Perhaps those from the tribe of Magi were the first to become the caste of Persian priests that were so highly valued by the king. Given their fixation on the star, some attempt to make a connection between the magi and earlier groups of astrologers or astronomers or astrologers from Babylon.

Sunday, December 29, 2024

Why is there Christmas?

 “Why is there Christmas at all?”
This question makes it clear that we are not speaking of a holiday or the layers of secular commercialism that lie atop it. It is to ask, Why was God born into flesh and blood and all that those things entail? It is what we call Jesus’ Incarnation – the deity of God being born as human.
We can say what this did rather easily: it brought the sacred and eternal being of God into the carnal and temporal sphere of human life. God had done this before, though not in flesh and blood. He did so in Sinai in the giving of his Law to the chosen of Israel and in bringing them to the Promised Land. The Jews understood that God was made personally present in every aspect of their lives by the giving of his commandments even when they did not understand all of them.
The Jews call the commandments specifically and the Scriptures generally the Torah, the Word of God. Torah is the main way that Jews understand God to be present with them. The great Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod explained the meaning of the Torah. Instead of becoming present in the Word, wrote Wyschogrod,
    God could have played a godly role, interested in certain features of human existence, the spiritual, but not in others, the material. He could even have assigned [to] man the task of wrenching himself out of the material so as to assume his spiritual identity, which is just what so many [religions] believe he did. Instead, the God of Israel confirms man as he created him to live in the material cosmos ... There is a requirement for the sanctification of human existence in all of its aspects. And that is why God's election is of a carnal people. By electing the seed of Abraham, God creates a people that is in his service in the totality of its human being and not just in its moral and spiritual existence.[1]
Of course, we Christians have a different understanding of what forms the greatest manifestation and revelation of God on earth. We agree with the Jews that God’s Word is the purest manifestation and revelation of God that we have on earth. However, we don’t say “what” is God’s actual presence with us, we say, “who.” John’s Gospel tells us:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
The Word of God, the Torah of God, the revelation of God, the Word become flesh – and so Christmas, of which Charles Wesley wrote:
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.
The Jews are exactly right: “that God and the Torah are one.” Because Jesus is the Word made flesh, the actual, living embodiment of the Torah, when Jesus said, “I and my Father are One,” his Jewish hearers understood him more deeply than the typical Christian reading those words today.
 Jesus of Nazareth is God’s proof that we can become what we should most desire: to be holy in our own flesh, in this life. God sanctifies us in this life, for he took on this life in his own person. We cannot be gods. But we can be godly. The birth of the Son of God into humanity shows us that.
Our daily headlines show us a world not much different from the one Jesus was born into. It was and remains a world of death, of tragedy, of evil, of pain, and of suffering, though thankfully leavened with beauty and joy and goodness. God wages war against everything that resists or opposes God’s intentions for his creation. But God does not war against flesh and blood. Instead, God sanctifies flesh and blood. Paul knew this, so he wrote,
For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.[2]
Yet why does this godly battle require God’s presence in human form? John’s most famous passage explains it quite simply: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son ... .” And John later also quotes Jesus, “There is no greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends.”
We see on our nightly news the horrors visited by terrorists and other random violent acts of no apparent purpose. There are other sufferings we can hardly imagine. Evil is powerful in our world. Father Dwight Longenecker, a pastor in Greenville, South Carolina, wrote,[3]
   The true answer to the absurdity of evil is the supernatural rationality of love, for love is the outgoing goodness that counters evil. By "love," I do not mean merely sentimental or erotic love. I mean a power that is positive and creative and dynamic and pro-active in the world—the power which Dante said, "moved the Sun and the other stars." … Love is the light in the darkness ... .
All who are baptized into the body of Christ cease to be subject to the powers of this world and are transformed and transferred to a new and different kind of life, with different powers and possibilities for life, with new eyes to see the world, with a new family and a new Lord.
That is why to celebrate Advent and Christmas are not simply acts of worship. They are acts of defiance, for in singing carols and reading Scripture we announce that we do not submit to the principalities and powers of darkness or the spiritual forces of evil at loose in the world. To sing, “What child is this, who laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?” is to speak more importantly than all the other voices in the world and to proclaim that we, God’s people,
... do not lose heart because we are being renewed every day. The promises of God far outweigh all the terrors of this world. We live not according to the fallen standards of this world because we are only here temporarily. We live in Christ’s Kingdom because it is eternal.[4]
The Reverend Nadia Bolz Weber put it this way, [5]
   Amongst the sounds of sirens and fear and isolation and uncertainty and loss we hear a sound that muffles all the rest: that still, small voice of Christ speaking our names.  … the very reason we can do these things is not because we happen to be the people with the best set of skills for this work.  Trust me, we are not. ...  – the reason we can stand and we can weep and we can listen is because finally we are bearers of resurrection. We do not need to be afraid. Because to sing to God amidst all of this is to defiantly proclaim ... that death is simply not the final word. To defiantly say that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot, will not, shall not overcome it.
Consider this painting by Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556):


Manger scenes became a popular artistic motif during the Renaissance. In almost all such paintings, the artists included the cross somewhere in the scenery. Sometimes it was on the horizon outside the manger. One artist, Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556), painted a cross on a shelf on the manger’s wall, such as many homes would have had. 


Let us take a cue from those theologically-trained artists. They knew the connection between the manger and Calvary. So did Jesus. As his last trip to Jerusalem loomed, knowing what it portended, Jesus told the disciples, “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour” (John 12:27). 
When we celebrate Christmas, we are celebrating the birth of someone who was born to die, as this artist recognized. For at its most basic level, the meaning of Christmas is the cross. To consider the life and death of Jesus, what possible expectation could we mortals have that the God who created the universe could be required, much less expected, to put on flesh and blood, be born as we are and die as we do, to take upon himself the sin of the whole world? Faced with this fact, what do we do in return?
That is the central question for us who celebrate the birth of Jesus because he put his own body between us and eternal destruction. Jesus died to bring us into everlasting life. The mystery of the Incarnation is conjoined by the shock of crucifixion. Both are resolved by Resurrection. "God With Us" did not start in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, nor was it ended at Calvary. God With Us happens today among those who follow the One who had “no crib for a bed,” the One who died on a cross and then ascended to the right hand of God.
 To celebrate Christmas, therefore, is not simply to sing carols in December in a church garlanded in greens. It is to become holy in this life each day of the year, to emerge victorious over sin, evil and death, to do the work of Christ in the world, to live knowing that Jesus is God with Us, and so we can, and must, be with God.
Every Thanksgiving my family and used to join my parents at the home of my younger brother, Usually there were 17-20 there, but one year there were only nine gathered around the table. My older brother and his wife came a long distance to be there, but only one of their four grown children could come. Our eldest child was not able to come, nor our second or his wife. My brothers and I had a running joke one of us always announced whenever we gathered for such celebrations. Sometime during Thanksgiving one of us would say to Dad, “Of course, you know that everyone who truly loves you came home for Thanksgiving.” And Dad responds, “Oh, sure, I know that.” We all laugh because we know it's just a joke.
But if you had been there that year, you would have seen fleeting sorrow flicker across our faces and a wisp of wistfulness in our eyes. For the breath of a sentence, our hearts were in Delaware or Wisconsin or Ohio or Florida because while the table was crowded, it was not full. Not everyone was there who belongs there.
That moment came to my mind when I read something author Bob Benson wrote in Come Share the Being. He and his wife had three children and he told of how they grew up and went away to college and then got married and made their own homes. They were proud of their children, he wrote, but after their youngest son moved away, “our minds were filled with memories from tricycles to commencements [and] deep down inside we just ached with loneliness and pain.
“And I was thinking about God,” Benson wrote. “He sure has plenty of children – plenty of artists, plenty of singers, and carpenters and candlestick makers, and preachers, plenty of everybody . . . except he only has one of you, and all rest together can never take your place. And there will always be an empty spot in his heart and a vacant chair at his table when you’re not home.
“And if once in a while it seems he’s crowding you a bit, try to forgive him. It may be one of those nights when he misses you so much he can hardly stand it.”
Maybe that is why Christ was born, lived, died and was raised from the tomb – because that’s what God does when he just can’t stand it anymore, when he just can’t stand the gulf of separation between us.
In Jesus’ day there was no occasion more festive or joyous than weddings. The best parties were wedding parties and feasts. The New Testament says that when Christ returns he will be reunited with his church in a celebration so magnificent that the Scriptures describe it as the grandest wedding celebration ever held. 
Are we preparing ourselves spiritually for this banquet? Do we understand how the reward of eternal life with God places a burden on us today? Methodist professor David Watson wrote,
When even a cursory thought is given to the countless millions in the world who are hungry, who are suffering, who languish under injustice, or are ravaged by war, the prospect of anyone celebrating personal salvation . . . borders on the obscene. There are still too many of Christ’s little ones who are hungry, too many who lack clothes, too many who are sick or in prison. There are too many empty places [at God’s banquet table]. The appropriate attitude for guests who have already arrived is to nibble on the appetizers and anticipate the feast which is to come. To sit down and begin to [feast] would be unpardonable . . . especially since the host is out looking for the missing guests, and could certainly use some help.
When we deeply consider what Christmas really means and what it obligates us to be and to do, we can only admit that we have surrendered all our rights to everything except humility.


Why is there Christmas? Because there is a place for every person at God’s table, but not everyone has come. Because God cannot stand the separation between himself and his children.
This day of celebration should also evoke is us an equally unbearable sorrow that we are not doing all we are able to do to close the separation. The best way to celebrate Christmas is to carry out the commandments of Christ all the year long.




[1]Quoted by David Goldman, “Banning circumcision is dangerous to your health,” http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NG03Dj02.html
[2]Ephesians 6.12
[3]http://www.patheos.com/Catholic/Aurora-Murders-Demonic-Possession-Dwight-Longenecker-07-24-2012
[4]See 2 Cor 4.16-18
[5]http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2012/07/sermon-about-mary-magdalen-the-masacre-in-our-town-and-defiant-alleluias/
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Wednesday, December 25, 2024

A Christmas Benediction

 


The grace of God is not mysterious. It is just as we have been told in God's Word: A savior was born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago.

Like the shepherds, we live in a world where the memory of Christmas will be overcome by other events. The shepherds' sheep would still get sick or be attacked by wolves. Our cars will still break down and we'll still have bills to pay. On the outside, everything will seem the same.

But now we are different. God is with us! The glory of the Lord has shone around us, and there are heavenly words: Fear not, for behold, there are glad tidings of great joy. Unto you is born a Savior!

May the love of God, the redemption of his Son, our Savior Christ the Lord, and the strengthening company of the Holy Spirit fill you and fulfill you this day and in all days that follow. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the King of Kings! Merry Christmas!

The only thing of eternal significance

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal...