Turned Upside-Down

In September the ordered world of Proverbs and James is read against the cross of Mark’s world. Walter Brueggemann reminds us of Karl Marx’s dictum, "The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class."

Who benefited by our pious simplistic characterizations of the Hebrew scriptures as law and the New Testament as grace? How did reading Proverbs and not the Prophets prepare us so easily to turn the symbol of the authorities’ answer to those who defied them into a symbol of the devotional life that posed no threat to the authorities? September’s meditations will bring a chill to "whatever is, is right."

Likewise, October’s Bible passages may enlarge and disturb our image of God. We meet a God who asks us questions. We meet a God who balances the scales in the marital relationship and puts children at the center of what God is about, and a woman who models what it means to be faithful in a relationship.

New world a-coming.
Disturbing world a-coming.

September 4
Who Are God's People?
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23; Psalm 125; James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17; Mark 7:24-37

Earlier translations render the first verse of today’s scripture as "The rich and poor meet together," but the New Revised Standard Version specifies the basis of the meeting: "The rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the maker of them all."

These proverbs assigned to a royal author do not question the fact that there are rich and poor people in the world. He is only concerned with how they are to be treated. He who has a "bountiful eye" will be blessed.

The responsive psalm assures us the Lord protects the people. The nagging question stays with us: Who are the Lord’s people?

The gospel begins to break through with unexpected answers to that question. In the first place, Jesus is in Gentile territory—no longer in the land of the chosen people. In the second place, he has an encounter with a woman—a feisty woman at that. He is tired. He wants his whereabouts to be unknown, but a woman, a Gentile with an urgent mission—her daughter is ill—finds out he is there and comes for help. His reply to her has troubled the commentators on this passage for hundreds of years.

God-made-man responds in all his humanness. He is tired, weary, a Jew encountering a Gentile. "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs." The woman is undaunted. She takes the worst he can throw at her and tosses it back at him. "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs."

Too little attention has been given to this, one of the great encounters in the New Testament. It doesn’t fit with our pious picture of Jesus. Did he laugh? She had turned the tables on him. Did he say, "Lady, you win"? The record doesn’t say. We can only imagine. The record does say that "for saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter."

The people of God have been enlarged.

September 11
How Long Will You Love Being Simple?
Proverbs 1:20-33; Psalm 19; James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38

The mysterious and attractive figure of Wisdom enters our meditations. She cries aloud in the streets, asking a poignant question: "How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?"

How long, O Lord, how long?

How long will we refuse to understand?

Psalm 19 tells us of the wonders of God. "The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork." Image is piled on image: The sun comes out like the bridegroom and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. The law is as much a wondrous creation as the heavens, "sweeter also than honey."

Wisdom’s question remains with us. How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will we refuse to understand?

Within the joy and beauty of Psalm 19, we are reminded that the law is as much a wondrous creation as the heavens. To the nature worshipers comes he who fulfilled the law and paid the price of a cross.

The gospel brings us to that moment on the road to Caesarea Philippi when Jesus was trying to make the disciples understand. "Who do people say that I am?" he asked them. He got a variety of answers—all good possibilities but none reflecting the new thing God was about to do. Finally Peter said Jesus was the Messiah ("Christ" in Greek), he by whom the kingdom of God would be made known.

In parable after parable, Jesus had told them what the kingdom of God was like, but a world turned upside-down was outside the realm of the possible for them. A suffering and dying Messiah? A crucified Messiah?

Too complicated for us. We love our sweet little Jesus who died for our sins—not because of our sin, the choice against God’s way.

Is it possible we love being simple? It is safer that way. If we don’t understand, we don’t have to be challenged, confronted, disturbed. If we don’t understand, we can keep our religion personal and private. Wisdom was right. We love being simple.

September 18
Week of the Law
Proverbs 31:10-31; Psalm 1; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37

This week we are back to simplicity—and a rude awakening. The reading from Proverbs presents us with the well-known image of the good wife. In the year of our Lord, 1994, it is almost impossible for many women to take this image of the biblical paragon seriously. We live in an age of comic strip figures—Hi and Lois where Hi is left to placate the children with a makeshift dinner while Lois dashes off breathlessly, attache case in hand, to close out a real-estate deal (surprisingly, not unlike the good wife of Proverbs who "considers a field and buys it"). Ms. 1994 will surely note that missing from this is the husband who only appears to praise.

What can we learn from this passage? Is it wishful thinking? An apology for all the harsh images of women elsewhere in Proverbs?

The responsive psalm is Psalm 1, the epitome of the well-ordered world of Torah life. Into that well-ordered world crashed the Prophets with a new message—"I abhor the pride of Jacob." And then the last and greatest of the Prophets, who, as Ched Myers says in his commentary on our passage from Mark, constructs a new social order.

It may seem strange to us that immediately after hearing Jesus talk about his impending death, the disciples would argue about who is the greatest. Not so at all. These young men had risked everything to embark on a great adventure, following a leader who would change the world. They didn’t understand what he was about any more than the church 2,000 years later understands. They saw the adventure coming to a glorious conclusion. There would be a struggle with the powers in Jerusalem, he would win, and they would reap the spoils of victory. They had better get the pecking order assured now. The rude awakening was that there would be no place for that kind of thinking in the new order Jesus would bring in. The new order would turn the old order upside-down.

September 25
Radical Trust
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22; Psalm 124; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50

The lesson from the Hebrew scripture is the story of Esther, one of the beloved heroines of the Bible. (It is not a part of our lectionary, but take a peek at the story of Vashti [1:10-23], also a remarkable woman and definitely not "a good wife"!) But Esther claims our attention now—a young woman, dutiful, loyal, courageous, and very beautiful. She didn’t hesitate to use all of her feminine charms to save her people. She, too, might say, "For this was I born, and for this I was brought to this place."

With the success of her stratagem, she might have given thanks with Psalm 124, a psalm of thanksgiving for a communal deliverance. Let Esther sing, "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us, then they would have swallowed us up alive."

The ninth chapter of Mark closes with a collection of quotations from the tradition that are not necessarily connected. The original context is lost. Together, however, they make some radical statements about the nature of Christian discipleship.

The community does not have to worry about tests of membership: "Whoever is not against us is for us." A good deed done by anybody rebounds to the glory of God and makes the kingdom of God more visible—"Oh, that’s what it’s like!" It’s a sobering discipline to practice. God is everywhere, and God is always working. Watch for God’s footsteps.

The next batch of quotations suggests in what high regard we should hold our relationship with God. If any part of us gets in the way of that relationship, don’t hesitate to get rid of it.

This may be one of the times when a personal application of the tradition may be more helpful than a community application. It is more difficult to discipline oneself than to see the offending member as one of the community. The church has a sorry history of judging and excluding. "Go and sin no more" is an example of the radical trust our Lord gave.

October 2
Pressed Down and Overflowing
Job 1:1; 2:1-10; Psalm 26; Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16

These scripture passages are too varied in their content even to be touched on in one devotional period, but too important to be passed over with just a cursory reading.

The drama of the book of Job is precipitated by one of the great religious questions: Does Job worship God for nothing? The beginning is an extravagant picture of Job’s wealth and piety. He is so scrupulous in his religious observances that he even makes sacrifices for the sins his children may have committed in their hearts.

God offers Job as exhibit A to a skeptical Satan, who promptly throws down a gauntlet. Doesn’t Job’s piety benefit him greatly? God is sure Satan’s cynicism misreads the situation and so gives Satan freedom to destroy all Job’s comforts.

The searing question remains with us. Why do we worship God? For benefits in this life—or in the life to come?

The responsive psalm is well-chosen. "Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity." The Special Providence of America’s founding religion; the automatic whine, Why did this happen to me? The smug acceptance of all the good things that happen.

In the gospel we meet the radical Prophet who turned that thinking upside-down. In this week’s scripture, he is disturbing a more specific detail of the status quo and calling for a new reimaging of relationships.

To the crowds he rooted the marital relationship in the very purposes of God in creation. Any alteration in that relationship was a human accommodation to a human hardness of heart. With his disciples he went on to an even more radical understanding. Men and women have equal rights and equal responsibilities in the marital relationship. The implications of the radical new thing were being spelled out.

The disciples still living in the old order wanted to protect him from the children, but Jesus welcomed them. "This is what I am about," he said. How do children manifest the kingdom? Their lack of status? Their willingness to trust? Their openness to new possibilities?

October 9
What Is God Like?
Job 23:1-9, 16-17; Psalm 22:1-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31

Job, afflicted by God and harassed by his friends, is still laboring under the old delusion that God is reasonable: "Oh, that I knew where I might find him." Job would come to God’s dwelling and lay his case before God. He is certain an upright person could reason with God and be acquitted.

God is like an honest judge.

Job’s agony is fittingly reflected in Psalm 22, mirror of the woes of the rejected and engraved on our hearts as the cry from the cross.

But in Mark’s gospel Jesus adds another dimension to the right way to respond to this all-powerful God. A rich man offered his credentials for finding favor with God. He had kept all the commandments from the days of his youth. Jesus told him he lacked one thing. Sell all he has, give the money to the poor, and come and follow him. The man was shocked, as indeed Job would have been, as indeed all of us who strive to impress God on our own terms would be.

Jesus responded to his shocked disciples with a venture into humor, which, if the Twelve got it, the church has missed almost completely because we have been unwilling to see a love of money excluding a love for God. What kind of God demands that we choose between them?

Hebrews presents us with a God whose word is fearsome, "sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow...before him no creature is hidden...to [this One] we all must render an account."

Perhaps we need to live into that image of God before we can fully appreciate the vision of the great high priest of Hebrews. We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. The old gospel hymn well expressed the feeling:

"Can we find a friend so faithful/Who will all our sorrows share?/Jesus knows our every weakness—/Take it to the Lord in prayer."

October 16
The Secret Messiah
Job 38:1-7, (34-41); Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45

George Croly, a popular 19th-century English divine, wrote prolifically during his lifetime, but only one hymn outlives him. It contains a line pertinent to our reflection on this great poetic passage of the voice from the whirlwind, the Hebrew scripture for our meditation this week: "Stoop to my weakness, mighty as thou art/and make me love thee as I ought to love."

God answers Job’s questions with questions of God’s own. The modern mind tends to resist this image of the Almighty God roaring out of the heavens at God’s pitiful creature and flees for its religious comfort from the God of the Old Testament to the sweet and gentle Jesus of the New. Hear, O people of God, the Lord thy God is one.

And the God of the whirlwind hears and heeds and responds in the most beautiful poetry.

What more do you want God to do? What do you think God wants you to do?

Job would understand the responsive psalm. God is the creator and sustainer of all things, but there is a right way to respond to this all-powerful God, and woe to those who don’t.

The gospel is the story of the disciples’ amazing response to Jesus’ announcement of his forthcoming passion and Jesus’ even more amazing description of the way of the new order.

For the third time, Jesus had told them what was going to happen to him in Jerusalem. In response, the two with Peter, the inner circle, the ones closest to him, make an audacious request for place and privileges. They were still very much into old order thinking.

The messianic secret that runs through Mark—Jesus constantly telling his followers not to reveal who he is—was the effort not to build on the old expectations that would be aroused by the use of the term "Messiah." The Messiah was the one who would restore the Davidic kingdom and make the Jews once more a world power. Jesus is still misunderstood today. We hear, "My kingdom is not of this world" as a designation of geography, not of a way of life.

Jesus called the disciples together and patiently explained what life would be like in the new order, the kingdom he would bring in. There is little evidence that the church—the churches—that the disciples left behind got it. There is little evidence that the church today has got it.

October 23
What Do You Want Me to Do for You?
Job 42:1-6, 10-17; Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22); Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52

The God of the whirlwind has made the case. Job’s surrender is unconditional. He even uses God’s words of judgment. He admits to speaking about things too wonderful for him to understand. He repents in dust and ashes. The friends are rebuked by God because they had not spoken of God as God is.

If only the compilers had left the poem there! The mystery of God is too great for us. There is no reward deserved for comprehending that elementary fact. The only right relationship between creature and creator is faith.

We might have wished for Psalm 139 as the responsive psalm: "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me/It is so high that I can not attain it." But our lectionary chose Psalm 34, a praise for deliverance from trouble. Like the ending of Job, it makes no place for the non-deliverance in life. "And they all lived happily ever after" is the stuff of fairy tales. We need the prophetic faith that affirms that the creating Word of God will accomplish that which it intends.

The gospel is the dramatic story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus. Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. With the audacity of the desperate, Bartimaeus calls out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Son of David? Is that a recognition of royal lineage? Are the powers of Earth and hell being put on notice? The minions of the status quo order him to be quiet, but he is already moving in another world.

He calls out even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stops, saying, "Call him here." The blind man with reckless abandon throws off his cloak—the mark of his way of life—springs up, and comes to Jesus. Those first young fishermen he had called had not responded more readily.

And then Jesus’ startling question: "What do you want me to do for you?" The obvious answer is, of course, I want to see. But is it? What you don’t see you don’t have to take responsibility for. A queen, told her subjects had no bread, replied, probably as much out of ignorance as callousness, "Let them eat cake." A president of the United States, sponsoring a trickle-down theory of economics, propounded, "A rising tide lifts all boats."

Blindness protects us from harsh realities. Blindness also means someone else will take care of us. Think, Bartimaeus. There is cost as well as promise to the new life that will open up for you. "What do you want me to do for you?"

"I want to see."

He regained his sight, and the record is that he follows Jesus on the way. The way to the cross.

October 30
Toward New Possibilities
Ruth 1:1-18; Psalm 146; Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 12:28-34

The Hebrew scripture for the week begins the story of another remarkable woman of the tradition, Ruth the Moabite. A famine in the land of Judah caused a certain man of Bethlehem to go to Moab to live with his wife, Naomi, and two sons. The sons took Moabite wives, Orpah and Ruth. He died, and the two sons died, leaving Naomi alone in a country strange to her. Hearing that the famine was over in her homeland she decided to return.

Following the custom of their land, her daughters-in-law went with her, but she released them from any obligation to her, and Orpah turned back to her native land.

Not so Ruth. Despite Naomi’s protest, Ruth clung to her with the memorable words of Ruth 1:16ff:

Entreat me not to leave thee,/or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God.

Surely it recalls the Word of the Lord to Abram: "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee." This woman did no less than the father of our faith.

The responsive psalm appeals to Israel’s memory of the acts of God on behalf of the powerless. The Lord upholds the orphan and the widow.

The gospel passage shows Jesus on the other side of the questioning process—and doing very well. In fact so well that our pericope shows a scribe, impressed by Jesus’ answers, trying out on him the favorite issue of the disputers. "Which commandment is the first of all?" Jesus answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength," and he added, "The second is you shall love your neighbor as yourself."

The scribe was so delighted with the response he elaborated with a little homily of his own and caused Jesus to commend him with the words, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

Hebrews continues with its excitement about the new possibilities of the new priesthood. Again an old gospel hymn rings through our meditation:

Not all the blood of beasts/On Jewish altars slain/Could give the guilty conscience peace/Or take away the stain/But Christ the heavenly lamb/Takes all our sins away/A sacrifice of nobler name/And richer blood than they.

So sang the old folks.

The question for us is what difference does it all make? For what new possibilities for the world are we cleansed and made new?