A Spiritual Almamac

Scripture Luke 12:49-56 (CEB)  

49 “I came to cast fire upon the earth. How I wish that it was already ablaze! 50 I have a baptism I must experience. How I am distressed until it’s completed!  51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, I have come instead to bring division. 52 From now on, a household of five will be divided—three against two and two against three.53 Father will square off against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

54 Jesus also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud forming in the west, you immediately say, ‘It’s going to rain.’ And indeed it does. 55 And when a south wind blows, you say, ‘A heat wave is coming.’ And it does. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret conditions on earth and in the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret the present time?

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Derek Penwell is the senior pastor of Douglass Boulevard Christian Church in Louisville, KY, the author of several books published by Chalice Press (the Disciples of Christ publishing house), a regular contributor to a number of publications, a blogger, a colleague, and someone I consider a friend.  He is very political, and we don’t agree on everything but we get along very well, anyway.

Yesterday I was reading the comments on his most recent blog post, and I was appalled at the vitriol and hatred that some people spewed.  Fans and detractors alike were throwing Bible verses around like fragmentation grenades, attacking one another, sometimes with the very same passages!  Not Derek.  He would not engage with any of them.  He just said, “Thank you for reading”, and left it there.  Some of the comments were so threatening that friends were concerned he might be in physical danger.   It was clear to me that the Peace of Christ is not with us.   Rather, it seems that we are in a time once again when father and son square off against each other, and mother and daughter, in the name of Jesus.  It’s sort of cliche that mother-in-law and daughter-in-law might not get along, and I suspect the potential for trouble in that relationship goes back to the first time a son brought a wife home to his mother’s cave . . . but the point Jesus was making was that the household would be divided because of him and his teachings.  And his household, of course, is the world.     

Disagreements about sincerely held beliefs are part of being human.  Even in Jesus’ time there was not one monolithic Judaism that agreed on every aspect of theology and practice.  The Sadducees and Pharisees disagreed on many things — the Sadducees did not believe there would physical resurrection at the end of days, whereas the Pharisees were quite certain there would be.  There were at the time two prominent rabbinic schools of thought which were divided on whether obedience to the letter of the law or the spirit of the law was most important.  We all know which of those schools Jesus belonged to because he was constantly fussing with some of the Pharisees and scribes over their legalism.  After the resurrection, Jesus’ disciples would alienate some of their co-religionists by proclaiming Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, and they would be persecuted by the likes of Saul for their blasphemy.  Even among the Jesus followers, although the 2nd chapter of Acts has them all sharing everything and praying and worshipping together, I don’t think it was even a few months before they were embroiled in conflicts with the potential to kill the movement before it really got off the ground.  Greek Christians and Jewish Christians argued because some of the widows were not getting equal assistance.  Ananais and Sapphira dropped dead because they were greedy.  There were arguments over such details and technicalities as whether circumcision was necessary to be baptized.  Some of Paul’s churches were tempted to follow other preachers.  Eventually, the Roman Church broke away from the Greek Church, heretics were burned, the Inquisition happened, and Henry VII, Martin Luther and others broke away from the Roman Church.  Catholics and Protestants killed each other over details of our shared Christianity about which we disagree.  We are a contentious lot, we humans.  

How many of you are familiar with the Farmer’s Almanac?  It is a great book.  In continuous publication since 1818, the Farmers' Almanac mixes a blend of long-range weather predictions, humor, fun facts, and advice on gardening, cooking, fishing, conservation, and other topics.  It tells Farmers when to plant, when to expect the first frost, whether we could anticipate strong storms in the summer or blizzards in the winter.  My first husband, an avid hunter and fisherman, would not plan a trip anywhere without consulting it.  And that included our honeymoon, because  he wanted to know ahead of time whether there would be enough rain in the Poconos to make the Bushkill Creek a viable trout fishing spot or whether he should try elsewhere.  The Farmer’s Almanac would tell him, and it was nearly always accurate.  It was better than a weather app.  

Jesus said to his followers, look,  you can tell whether it’s going to storm, or if there is a dry spell coming.  You are sufficiently connected to the natural world that you can tell these things.  Why is it, then that you cannot see the inevitability of the conflict that I bring? Because I am telling you to do exactly the opposite of what society tells you to do.  I am telling you to cast aside concerns about your day to day lives and trust that God will take care of you.  I am teaching you to go out and spread the word that the Shema, the commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your being and all your strength, is the greatest commandment of all, greater than all of the others combined.  I have been teaching you that even the laws governing the Sabbath are not as important as the commandment to love your neighbor.  I am teaching you what loving your neighbor really means and who your neighbor is.  I am calling the Temple leadership to account for their collaboration with the Romans, and for their love of money and power.  And I am calling all people to account for their willingness to go along with whatever the rich and powerful say instead of standing up for righteousness and justice.  What I am doing and saying is pretty much guaranteed to cause conflict between the ones with ears to hear and those who are willfully deaf, and it will not be pretty and peaceful and nice.  Why can’t you see this coming? 

Jesus was not the first to bring this message.  The prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, all of them - called out the leaders - the kings and the priesthood - and the people for worshipping God with their lips but not with their actions.  They were the Spiritual Almanac of their times.  Jeremiah called for the leadership of Israel to act right.  “Hear the word of the Lord, O King of Judah sitting on the throne of David—you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place. . . . if you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. 6 For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah” (Jeremiah 22:3-6)   Further, he spoke against false prophets,  “25 I have heard the prophets prophesying lies in my name.  . . .  26 How long will deceitful prophecies dominate the minds of the prophets? Those prophets are treacherous. 27 They scheme to make my people forget me by their dreams that people tell each other, just as their ancestors forgot me because of Baal. “ (Jeremiah 23:25-27) 

One of the commenters on Derek’s writings said repeatedly that Jesus’ commandments were only spoken to individuals, and that governments were not held to them.  That we, as individuals, certainly need to take care of those who need to be cared for, but that governments were exempt.   And yet, Jesus and all the prophets before him most certainly spoke to the leadership of their times.  They called upon those in power to care for their people as God’s laws require of them.  No one was exempt from God’s word as spoken by the prophets.  We must remember too, that the government is made up of individuals, each of whom must make all decisions in accordance with their conscience and with their understanding of God’s will, which might not be in accord with our own understandings.  We must also remember that even the Temple leadership of Jesus’ time were not being evil on purpose.  They truly believed they were doing what was best for their people, for if they did not do as the Romans required, if they were unable to control their people, their entire nation would be destroyed.  And in fact, that did happen thirty-some years later.  The Temple was torn down and the Jewish people were scattered to the ends of the earth.  

We are called upon to pray for those in leadership, as it says in 1st Timothy 2: “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.”  So let us pray for the Peace of Christ to enter the hearts of all those who have positions of leadership. Let us pray that those we choose to lead us will open their hearts and eyes and ears to see the worth of all persons in their care.  Let us pray for the divisions we see in our households, and in our Church, and in our nation to be healed through that very same Lord.  Let us pray for people to stop using the Bible as a weapon and start using it as a means to bring reconciliation to the world, as a Spiritual Almanac,  guiding us in the way that our God has laid out for us, so that the Kingdom of God may come to fruition on earth as it is in heaven.   In the name of Jesus the Christ.