Idolatry

Notes on substack

Fearing

The "Hymn Sing" tonight was an overview of Jesus' life, and we sang "What Child is This".

It's a little different from the nativity joy songs: "Good Christian, fear: for sinners here The silent Word is pleading."

A little reminder that something overwhelmingly powerful is here. Peter, and the Gerasene swineherds, and no doubt others I can't think of offhand, pled for Jesus to go away; they feared. Otto noticed that awe and fear seem similar -- we're not always eager to meet the awesome. Something about "that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed" probably plays a role too. We're small, and often unclean. And even redemption can be frightening.

This Is My Father's World

Think of us as God's agents in the world, agents with authority to issue decrees backed by God's Amen.

Does that last phrase seem out of place? We're told that everything is sustained by God. No act, good or bad, could exist without His power.

Sometimes, perhaps often, we have no idea of the magnitude of the executive order we've just signed God's name to.

One snowy day I decreed that I would stop in and have some ice cream on the last leg of my walk. And God ratified that – "Ice cream you shall have, and you also shall meet a fascinating woman in the shop." (46 years so far)

Sin is a little more like treachery, since not all our choices are so benign. We'll answer for every word, presumably for every action too. "What is this you have done with My power?" "Do I put AirTags on my brother?" didn't cut any ice the first time around.

16 years ago I wrote about part of this before; about God as the suffering servant.

Ouch

Back in the early 70's a short book of humorous, sometimes ascerbic, religious poetry came our way. No, I have no memory of who the author was. I only recall a few fragments, one of which was:

Savior, like a shepherd lead us.
In Thy pastures fatly feed us.
We are Thine, do Thou defend us.
In Thy cause do not expend us.

Learning through trials?

Maybe not the best paradigm.

Pillar

Revelation 3:12: "He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name."

The three-fold naming caught my attention this morning. Jesus refers to his "new name"--presumably new to us, since we just have the human name of Savior. He sometimes refers to God the Father as "my God". So what is the relationship of the name of the new Jerusalem to the other two names?

The presence of the Holy Spirit, maybe?

Formation

Evangelical colleges have not been on my radar--never really were, since I wasn't planning to study liberal arts. The link explains why they're in trouble: partly demographic change, partly cultural changes (can I get a good job?), and partly heads in the sand.

What's the purpose of them? Liberal arts education and Christian formation, apparently--seminaries seem to be the place to go for specifically church-related credentials like MDiv (*) and MRE.

If the evangelical college is like a secular college but with Christian focus and an effort at formation, then how can this be accomplished more flexibly and cheaply?

Online study is popular, though zoom is an inferior substitute for in-person discussion. One obvious problem is supplying the "Christian formation" part. If the college partners with the home churches, perhaps the local church could implement formation plans. Of course you might ask: "Aren't the churches supposed to be doing that for everybody?"

Well, yes. But I notice that the church doesn't keep close tabs on who "attends chapel," and doing that might cause problems. Unless, of course, the person volunteers for closer supervision and regular meetings with his spiritual advisor.

Even with that voluntary aspect there's still the risk of developing a two-tier church with "ordinary" and "more holy" groups. Which would be very very bad.

There's interest in programs for spiritual formation. Naturally, they will only be as effective as you let the Holy Spirit be. And there's a lot of fuzziness in definitions. I just looked up one (EFCA) program that read like a course description instead of a relationship.

I clearly have quite a bit of reading-up to do. And I should collar one of the pastors and ask some questions.

(*) Master of Divinity -- among all the weird names for a degree, this stands out.

Doxology

I've sung it thousands of times, but had never heard about Thomas Ken before. Maybe he would have liked it that way.

All Praise to Thee My God This Night has as the last verse: "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow" -- the famous doxology.

Ken sounds like he would have been a good man to know.

Wikipedia claims that he wound up crossways with Gilbert Burnet, of whom I had also never heard before, and of whom it was said "Indeed it was not easy to wound Burnet's feelings. His self-complacency, his animal spirits, and his want of tact, were such that, though he frequently gave offence, he never took it." I think I've known a few like that.

Waiting Room

A short story on Substack

Who matters

Chesterton's The Donkey is a fun short poem.

And we're that donkey too, aren't we? Not who we are, but Who we bring with us matters.

Judas

We get some detail about Judas, but not a huge amount. The story isn't mainly about him anyway.

He was a thief, and helped himself to what was in the moneybag. How did John know? Matthew, a tax collector, might have spotted small discrepancies easily enough, and told Jesus, and John, close to Jesus, heard of it. Was Judas afraid of exposure, unwilling to repent?

I've read it proposed that Judas, knowing Jesus' power, wanted Him to quit dilly-dallying and use that power and popularity, and so tried to force Jesus' hand. It didn't work the way Judas hoped, hence his despairing not-quite-repentance. It's quite plausible, but not supported by the texts.

Or perhaps he was jaded with miracles. Many others saw the same miracles and merely got angrier with Jesus, and not at all interested in following Him. Jesus had said some things that would be really hard for a good Jew to listen to ("eat my flesh"), and maybe Judas was wondering if Jesus was really good. We're told that the disciples, when on mission, were also doing miracles--perhaps Judas did some miraculous healings too. People are really good at forgetting inconvenient things, but that would be a doozy to try to forget.

Or perhaps he was sloppy and the devil slowly took hold of him.

Or perhaps his motives were a mix of all of the above.

I heard it asked if Judas had a choice; if the prophecy meant that somebody had to betray Christ. I think that's a bit backwards. If Judas had chosen otherwise, the prophets would have been told something else to say.

It's been claimed that Peter is Everyman, standing in for us all, denying Christ through fear and surprise. But so is Judas, betraying Christ and perhaps not entirely sure why. And so is Thomas, doubting the testimony. And so is John, loved by Christ.

The right kind of sign

In John 6 we read of the feeding of the 5000 and the aftermath: Jesus withdraws to avoid being proclaimed king, walks on the sea that night to overtake His disciple's boat, and is followed by the crowd that had been fed. Jesus accuses them of just following Him for the sake of food, and this follows:

Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.” 28 Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” 30 So they said to Him, “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’”

"What then do You do for a sign?" In light of what happened just the day before, that's an odd question. "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness" Hint hint hint.

"You just gave us ordinary bread and fish. We want a jazzier miracle."

Baseball cards

A few memories forcibly reminded me of some thoughts on foolishness as something that defiles.

After mentally squirming a bit, I moved on to other tasks of the day -- and ran across "The dean of the Episcopal cathedral in Pittsburgh" shoplifted $1000 worth of baseball cards from Walmart.

In light of eternity many things we're fascinated with are foolish, but even by ordinary light: he's 42 and "Very Reverend"; is fascination with children's toys seemly?

"For Wales? Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world ... but for Wales!"

Hunger and thirst

Someone pointed out that while you could go a day without drinking anything, it was nearly impossible, if you were interacting with other people, to go a day without justifying yourself. Sometimes even when alone, we make excuses to ourselves for the less reputable memories.

Perhaps the "hunger and thirst for righteousness" is really very common, but we go hunting for it in the wrong places: Do-it-yourself frameworks (If I do X, Y, and not Z I'm good), excuses, or persuading (or intimidating) other people into affirming you.

All instead of wanting real righteousness and finding the One who can make it right.

Ojibwe Singers

by Michael D. McNally : Hymns, Grief, and a Native Culture in Motion

It's about Ojibwe hymn singers, who usually show up at wakes and funerals to sing Christian hymns in Ojibwe. Never heard of that before? Me either.

This is from 2000, so things may have changed. Most of the singers were older, and it wasn't clear then if youth would aspire to joining the singers, who held a position of respect in the community by their willingness to be there for others in this ritual. I know none of these people, though people I know might know somebody who knows.

Ancient Ojibwe traditions in music have the drum as a central (and spiritual) component. Songs typically have few words with much repetition and vocalisms, many are sacred, and many come from dreams. Catholic and Epicopalian missionaries judged that providing Christian hymns to them in their own language was essential for discipleship. They and gifted converts did their best. Some concepts don't have easy analogs in the other language – even "spirit" isn't simple, since the closest analog in Ojibwe seems to have a primary meaning of "mystery."

From the book:

The way the holy prophets went
The road that leads from banishment
The King's highway of holiness
I'll go, for all His paths are peace

Re-translated back into English from Ojibwe:

The way they were going, those who were wise
The little path that leads straight there
I, too, will go off on it
On the little path that is greatly pitied/blessed

The religious situation on the reservations is complicated: some are adamantly pagan/animist, some are Catholic, some Episcopalian, some various other denominations (Baptist, Pentacostal, etc), and some, to judge from the gang activity, have invested their faith in drugs and guns. Many looked on the hymns as impositions by the whites when they were introduced, and still do over a century later.

But in the meantime singing Ojibwe hymns a capella has become a tradition of its own, most especially among "those who pray" but recognized by the rest as well. So much so, indeed that the author cites:

When one Ojibwe man heard hymns at a ceremony honoring a new drum, for instance, he whispered his opinion that such "Christian" music was disrespectful to the drum. For this man, hymn singing stood in opposition to the other music of Ojibwe tradition in that hymns do not involve a drum. The irony of this particular interchange is also instructive. The drum in question was being initiated or welcomed into the community by entrusting it to the safekeeping and discretionary use of the White Earth singers.

The hymns are often sung very differently, though often the original European tune can be discerned, with much more stress on the individual syllables than either the tune or the lyrics as such. They are sung (not "performed") in a ritual, almost liturgical way, with a clear starting and ending hymn but much variation of songs and silences in between.

The author seemed most interested in the things that made the hymn singing specifically Ojibwe and traditional, and seemed to overlook a different aspect: the hymns are a way of saying two things at once: "This is our tribe's" and "We are also part of a bigger tribe."

The author (and apparently others) found no evidence that there was any intent to subvert the meaning of the hymns in any sort of anti-colonial push. Of course the mere fact that they were in Ojibwe during the era when the government was trying to suppress the language might have been a bit of push-back.

If the subject and its history sound interesting, by all means read it, but be prepared: it is painful to read. Not just the history part – plowing through sociological jargon was not fun at all. (Can you possibly say this in five words instead of a hundred words referencing two different other sociologists?) But his personal experiences and observations made it worth it for me.

And yes, one of the White Earth singers was non-native, but he lived like them and next to them, learned the language, and met the standards of hospitality and respect.

Dogs and puppies

The story of Jesus and the Syrian woman is one of those rather jarring anecdotes and parables that leave you wondering "What gives?" Jesus calls her a dog?

I was told that the translation is traditional, but poor -- there are two words for dog and this is the one "kynarion" that means puppy, as opposed to "kyon" (as used in Revelation 22:15) that means "dog" in a perjorative sense. The Mark passage reads a little differently with that translation:

it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the puppies. But she answered and said to Him, "Yes, Lord, but even the puppies under the table feed on the children's crumbs"

You get the picture, right? Kids feeding the pet dog under the table? It's a lot less harsh.

I gather (same source) that some preachers want to imagine that Jesus learned a valuable lesson about racism from the woman's faith, i.e. Gentiles are just as good as Jews.

Well, there's an extended story that Mark tells earlier, from Mark 4:35-5:43. Jesus tells His disciples to head to the other side of the lake. A storm scares them half to death and nigh sinks the boat. On the other side they meet a demon-possessed pagan, whom Jesus exorcises and sends home with the mission to tell everyone about what God did for him. AFAIK, this is the first apostle whom Jesus commissioned. Jesus cared enough about this (pagan) man and his subsequent mission that travel, scaring His (jewish) disciples silly, the fate of a herd of pigs, and even the temporary death of Jairus' (jewish) daughter were secondary.

That sounds like He had very different priorities than I would have, but they're certainly not bigoted.

Love and Death

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

love ... without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you

The prayer isn't gospel, of course, but since God is love, if we don't have love we, that far, do not fully have God in our life. Which is like not having life in our life.

We kid ourselves about love a lot, of course, thinking we're better at it than we really are, and mistaking sexual attraction and inoffensive habits for the deeper thing.

How much of what I did today was infused with "willing the good of another"? Was all the rest "wood, hay, and stubble"?

Romans 7 and zombies

A few years back I puzzled a bit about the popularity of zombie stories, and puzzled again.. I was thinking then in terms of fear of dissolution of social bonds and expectations, but ...

The zombie is a live body but dead mind and spirit. It looks alive, but isn't really.

Suppose one has a live body and live mind but dead spirit?

What could kill the spirit, though? Christians will probably see where I'm going with this; think of yourself in a world of living dead, with the fear that you are one of them yourself -- or can be one. Or were one.

"Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works." — Robert Farrar Capon

"Apocolypse" means "unveiling", so the zombie apocolypse means the revealing of a world of living dead.

Spiritual Disciplines

"You fight the way you train"

What spiritual challenges and temptations do you expect to face? Not the easy ones, the weaknesses you don't like to think about.

How do you want to respond to them?

How can you train for that response?

I'm not thinking about plotting out dialog. Jesus deprecated that. Explaining the hope that is in you isn't what I'm talking about either.

When I remember some of the things I have faced and try to come up with exercises to train my reactions to try to do better next time, two things come quickly to mind. Some of those old stories about what saints did don't sound quite so outlandish, and "Lead us not into temptation". I can only do so much.

Strangely dim

"Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace."

The Beatific Vision -- seeing God as we've never seen Him before -- is almost by definition greater than anything we see in the world.

And yet I think the wording of the hymn isn't quite right. I think the better we see God, the better we see Him in everything else as well. "Strangely dim" -- but only relatively so.