Saturday, January 28, 2006
The Munchies and Me
Today has been a busy--a happily busy--day. This morning, I team-taught Catechism with Debbie. We were with our terrific class from 9:00 to 2:30.
I came home, took a quick nap, wolfed down some food, and then headed back to our church building to get things ready for our 5:30 worship. Although we faced some technical glitches, God was there and all turned out well.
In the midst of all this, I've been struck with a massive case of the "munchies." No, I haven't been doing the wacky weed. (In fact, I'm such a control freak that never in my entire life have I partaken of the weed or any other illegal stuff. This character flaw of mine--my loathing of not being in charge of my faculties--has actually been my friend when it comes to drugs.)
My munchies come from a legal source. After I'd taken the last antibiotic for my "creeping crud" earlier this week, I woke up on Thursday morning with intense sinus pressure. I called my doctor who said, "Listen, we've been messing with this long enough. I'm calling in a prescription for Prednisone for you."
Prednisone, of course, is a steroid. It won't make me buff. But, if past history is any indicator, it will do two things: Literally knock the snot out of me and make me ravenously hungry.
The second thing has definitely happened already. So far today, I've had four pieces of toast, two glasses of Orange Juice, two bananas, two hot dogs, a plate of Cincinnati-style chil (the first time I've eaten it, although I've lived here nearly sixteen years), an Apple Danish, a bowl of Oatmeal, a serving of lasagna, and something like 27-gallons of water.
Right now, it's almost eleven-o'clock at night, my stomach is growling, and I'm about to hit the kitchen for my next meal. All I can say is, "Bon appetit, baby!"
I may not get buff. But I have the feeling that once this latest regimen of treatment is through, I will be bigger.
I came home, took a quick nap, wolfed down some food, and then headed back to our church building to get things ready for our 5:30 worship. Although we faced some technical glitches, God was there and all turned out well.
In the midst of all this, I've been struck with a massive case of the "munchies." No, I haven't been doing the wacky weed. (In fact, I'm such a control freak that never in my entire life have I partaken of the weed or any other illegal stuff. This character flaw of mine--my loathing of not being in charge of my faculties--has actually been my friend when it comes to drugs.)
My munchies come from a legal source. After I'd taken the last antibiotic for my "creeping crud" earlier this week, I woke up on Thursday morning with intense sinus pressure. I called my doctor who said, "Listen, we've been messing with this long enough. I'm calling in a prescription for Prednisone for you."
Prednisone, of course, is a steroid. It won't make me buff. But, if past history is any indicator, it will do two things: Literally knock the snot out of me and make me ravenously hungry.
The second thing has definitely happened already. So far today, I've had four pieces of toast, two glasses of Orange Juice, two bananas, two hot dogs, a plate of Cincinnati-style chil (the first time I've eaten it, although I've lived here nearly sixteen years), an Apple Danish, a bowl of Oatmeal, a serving of lasagna, and something like 27-gallons of water.
Right now, it's almost eleven-o'clock at night, my stomach is growling, and I'm about to hit the kitchen for my next meal. All I can say is, "Bon appetit, baby!"
I may not get buff. But I have the feeling that once this latest regimen of treatment is through, I will be bigger.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Seipp Says Conservatives Shouldn't Defend Bad Ethics, Even When Perpetrated by Conservatives
National Review Online columnist Cathy Seipp is catching heat from fellow conservative Michael Fumento. Why? Fumento had engaged in payola, accepting bribes from various corporations for writing puff pieces for companies like Monsanto.
Notes Seipp on her blog:
Read a coulmn in which Seipp gives more details here. I think she's courageous...and right.
Notes Seipp on her blog:
Fumento says...I should not have cooperated with the NY Times [which investigated payola schemes and had asked Seipp about a time when she had been approached about a payola scheme]. According to his way of thinking, we on the right are all in this together, and should circle the wagons against any attack. But I have no more sympathy for that argument than I do for the notion that [her fellow] Jews should support Jack Abramoff.If Republicans are to remain a vital and majority force in US politics, they must avoid the tendency to always defend criminal or unethical behavior simply because the people doing it wear the Republican tag.
One reason I moved from left to right is that over the past 10 to 15 years the right has proved more tolerant of different points of view. You can't remain a member in good standing of the left if, like me, you're against gay marriage or affirmative action, but I can write for National Review even though I think abortion should remain legal -- and for Reason even though I think various libertine activities, like prostitution, should remain illegal.
Another reason, though, is that the right has been less willing than the left to tolerate disreputable ideas and behavior. Michael Moore and Al Sharpton remain liberals in good standing, but when those on the right screw up (like Pat Buchanan, with his many anti-Semitic remarks, and Trent Lott's racial gaffe at Strom Thurmond's birthday party) they get slapped down by their own side, as they should. It's a big tent, and I like to see it kept clean.
Read a coulmn in which Seipp gives more details here. I think she's courageous...and right.
You Say It's Your Birthday...
...it's Mozart's too. I'm not really into classical music, but three of my favorite bloggers have pieces on Mozart's birthday:
Richard Lawrence Cohen
Readeriam
Pastor Jeff
UPDATE: Back in 1999, BBC web-voters picked Mozart as the second-best composer of the preceding millennium. Someone else was picked number one.
Richard Lawrence Cohen
Readeriam
Pastor Jeff
UPDATE: Back in 1999, BBC web-voters picked Mozart as the second-best composer of the preceding millennium. Someone else was picked number one.
Bolsinger's Series Worth Reading
Tod Bolsinger, one of my favorite bloggers, is doing a series critiquing poller and marketer George Barna's new book. Says Tod in introducing the series:
I am a church guy.Read all three installments here, here, and here.
Twenty years of pastoral ministry, two books and a Ph. D. on the subject and I still have trouble recognizing myself as such, but it is true. I remember being a young youthworker running Campus Life clubs for Youth for Christ and talking passionately about the difference between “religion” and “relationship”, about the need to be a disciple of Jesus and that there is “no church to join, no institution to support, nothing to do but believe and follow Jesus.” If you had told me 25 years ago that I was going to be the pastor of a church I would have laughed. I figured it was far more likely that I would end up a flamenco dancer. Youth evangelist? Sure. Missionary? Ok. Urban social worker, leader of a parachurch organization or movement or radical group? Possibly.
As a young Christian, I was weaned on ideas like living on the “cutting edge” of the faith, the “frontlines” of mission, about being a “pioneer” and not a “settler”. I really considered myself as part of the “radical” maybe even “revolutionary” fringe of followers who lived out our faith and didn’t just “go to church.”
To me, back then, church was boring, status quo and conservative. So what happened to me? How did I become “The Reverend Doctor”, rightly ordained and installed as a pastor in a mainline denomination? Is it just that I settled or was there something more, something of God’s own spirit that led me see that now that the church, the local church, the often dysfunctional, frequently disappointing, and regularly dull gathering of people in every town and community is in fact the “cutting edge,” the “front lines” and indeed, in the words of Bill Hybels, “the hope of the world.”
May the Unrest Continue
Strategy Page has a summary of recent protests in China:
January 27, 2006: China's Ministry of Public Security admitted that, last year, there were 87,000 riots, demonstrations and smaller protests, an increase of 6.6 percent over 2004. The most common cause of this unrest is government corruption, particularly among Communist Party members. The government has responded by pledging to come down hard on anyone who disturbs the peace, as well as finding and punishing corrupt officials. More restrictions are being placed on public access to the Internet (which over 110 million Chinese use.) All this was the same response the government had last year, when it was announced that unrest had been up for several years.(Thanks to Instapundit for linking to this piece.)
The End of the Spear
Hugh Hewitt has some thoughts on the work of missionaries based on seeing the movie. Read it here.
Silly Me!
Once upon a time, I thought that the women's movement would free us from the destruction of people's identities that happens when we treat other human beings like objects for our pleasure.
Enter My Humps, the latest hit from rap/hip hop artists, Black Eyed Peas. Humps, if you don't know refers to the female derrierre.
In this song, the female lead extols the virtues of her humps and talks about how she's going to use them to get jewelry and other goodies.
The male lead wants to mix his "milk" with a woman's "cocoa puffs." (Don't you just love the subtle stylings of great poetry?)
Sex has always sold, to be sure. But I think there's a difference between the romantic sexuality of two people who are crazy about each other and want to devote themselves to each other forever, on the one hand, and the sexuality of exploitation. One is very cool. The other is painful...and ultimately, boring.
Of course, I was an idiot to have thought some thirty-five years ago when the modern women's movement began, that it would bring lasting change to our attitudes. No human movement, dogged as it is from the start by our human limitations, will ever cause us to treat each other with respect.
That has to come from another source. Genuine, respectful, self-giving love is always imported into the human psyche. It comes from the one who inspired these words, directed at believers in Jesus Christ: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)
Enter My Humps, the latest hit from rap/hip hop artists, Black Eyed Peas. Humps, if you don't know refers to the female derrierre.
In this song, the female lead extols the virtues of her humps and talks about how she's going to use them to get jewelry and other goodies.
The male lead wants to mix his "milk" with a woman's "cocoa puffs." (Don't you just love the subtle stylings of great poetry?)
Sex has always sold, to be sure. But I think there's a difference between the romantic sexuality of two people who are crazy about each other and want to devote themselves to each other forever, on the one hand, and the sexuality of exploitation. One is very cool. The other is painful...and ultimately, boring.
Of course, I was an idiot to have thought some thirty-five years ago when the modern women's movement began, that it would bring lasting change to our attitudes. No human movement, dogged as it is from the start by our human limitations, will ever cause us to treat each other with respect.
That has to come from another source. Genuine, respectful, self-giving love is always imported into the human psyche. It comes from the one who inspired these words, directed at believers in Jesus Christ: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)
Mothers and Daughters
This week, NPR correspondent Susan Stamberg interviewed author Deborah Tannen about her new book on the relationships of mothers and daughters, You're Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation. (To hear Stamberg's profile of Tannen's thoughts and to read an excerpt from the book's first chapter, click here.)
I have a feeling that most men and even women raised in households in which the testosterone levels were especially high or where pleasing everybody else in the family was so important that nobody ever said unpleasant things--to their faces, would do well to read this book.
Most sons relate to their fathers and to other men in basically two ways, it seems to me:
But for many men, the relationships of mothers and daughters, specifically, are a real quandary. Consider this passage from Tannen's first chapter:
But not all mothers and daughters pull that off. In fact, my observation is that, the pattern of fury intermingled with delight is present in the relationships of many mothers and daughters beyond their twenties and thirties, when the stabilization I'm talking about begins to be negotiated.
These are shirtsleeve obervations on my part, based on being the brother of three sisters, a husband, a father of a daughter, and a pastor for twenty-one years. (If you want a ringside seat on the relationships of mothers and daughters, preside over a wedding sometime!)
But I have learned a few things about what you should do as either a father or husband observing the often emotionally undulating relationships of mothers and daughters:
I have a feeling that most men and even women raised in households in which the testosterone levels were especially high or where pleasing everybody else in the family was so important that nobody ever said unpleasant things--to their faces, would do well to read this book.
Most sons relate to their fathers and to other men in basically two ways, it seems to me:
- We ignore each other
- We're pals
But for many men, the relationships of mothers and daughters, specifically, are a real quandary. Consider this passage from Tannen's first chapter:
“My daughters can turn my day black in a millisecond,” says a woman whose two daughters are in their thirties.Men who observe the ways in which mothers and daughters relate can get a kind of psychological whiplash. When my wife and I were first married, I saw how, within the space of a few hours, she and my mother-in-law could in turns, be furious with one another and then have the most enjoyable times of conversation or be laughing their heads off. As both grew into more adult ways of relating, a process that took some years and prayer, the roller coaster stabilized and they became friends.
Another woman tells me, “Sometimes I’ll be talking on the phone to my mom, and everything’s going fine, then all of a sudden she’ll say something that makes me so mad, I just hang up. Later I can’t believe I did that. I would never hang up on anyone else.”
But I also hear comments like these: “No one supports me and makes me feel good like my mother. She’s always on my side.” And from the mother of a grown daughter: “I feel very lucky and close with my daughter, and particularly since I didn’t have a close relationship with my mother, it’s very validating for me and healing.”
Mothers and daughters find in each other the source of great comfort.
But not all mothers and daughters pull that off. In fact, my observation is that, the pattern of fury intermingled with delight is present in the relationships of many mothers and daughters beyond their twenties and thirties, when the stabilization I'm talking about begins to be negotiated.
These are shirtsleeve obervations on my part, based on being the brother of three sisters, a husband, a father of a daughter, and a pastor for twenty-one years. (If you want a ringside seat on the relationships of mothers and daughters, preside over a wedding sometime!)
But I have learned a few things about what you should do as either a father or husband observing the often emotionally undulating relationships of mothers and daughters:
- When conflicts arise between mothers and daughters, your bias should always be to shut up!
- Except in the most extreme of circumstances, you should offer your opinions about conflicts only when asked. Other than that, shut up!
- Never, never, never force your wife to choose between you and your mother-in-law or between you and your daughter. It isn't fair.
- Remember that 99% of the time, after blow-ups, mothers and daughters will say nothing that will permanently destroy their relationships, no matter how harsh their words to one another or how much they may cry. Their openness is probably something we males could learn to emulate.
- Learn to be an interested listener. As the old saying puts it, "God gave you two ears and one mouth. We should communicate proportionately."
- Remember, Daniels' Maxim on Love--which I really stole from the Bible: Love is less about how you feel than it is about what you do, sometimes in spite of how you feel. If you're a father, keep doing acts of love toward your wife and daughter. If you're the husband of a daughter, keep doing the acts of love toward your wife and mother-in-law.
- When in doubt, shut up!
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Second Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Mark 1:21-28
[To help the folks of Friendship Church and any other church that uses the lectionary prepare for worship this weekend, I present these summaries of my study and reflections on the Bible passages on which worship will be built. The link to the first pass at this week's Bible lesson is here.]
Mark 1:21-28:
21They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 25But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
Summarizing Others' Thoughts:
General(1) Brian Stoffregen sees this passage as being part of a larger unit, encompassing verses 21-45. Its theme is Jesus' Authority Over Demons and Illness.
(2) Stoffregen asserts that "the significance of these miracles goes far beyond the physical or biological cures. It seems unlikely that Jesus would have been tortured to death for simply healing the sick."
He goes on to look at first-century Judea's "sociocultural" understanding of illness, based on an article by J. Pilch in Biblical Theology Bulletin, 1985. Pilch said that there are, as Stoffregen puts it, "two approaches to illness. There is the biomedical perspective that emphasizes diseases and cures of individuals." The second approach is from the sociocultural perspective, which takes into account relationships with other people."
Pilch talks about leprosy in Judean culture, for example. Leprosy wasn't a biomedical condition, but one that threatened "communal integrity and holiness" and had to "be removed from the community." This is why there were leper colonies.
Old Testament law provided for the steps to be taken should a leprous person be cured of their disease. They were to go to a priest--not a physician, as one might expect from the biomedical perspective--who would certify the person's fitness for resuming their former life, including living with family members, practicing their profession, and so on.
Stoffregen's presentation of Pilch's work helped me, for the first time, to understand the climactic comment on the healing of Simon's mother, which appears in next week's Bible lesson, Mark 1:29-39. Mark says that as soon as the woman was cured of her fever, she stood up and served people. I used to think, "That's well and good. She was healthy enough to work. But it seems like a ripoff for her to have had to serve others as soon as she was feeling better!" I was looking at the text as a twenty-first-century person who hates sexism.
But for Mark, the woman's ability to once more serve others meant that the dignity of her station had been restored. Illness prevented people from functioning in the community. They were "put out to pasture." Healing allowed them back in.
What all of this suggests is that part of the opposition that developed against Jesus had to do not only with when He brought them healing, exorcism, or restoration--the healing in this passage occurs on the Sabbath, thereby violating the commandment not to work on that day--but also that He uses extraordinary means to restore people to community. He freed people from being trapped on the sidelines of life.
For people like Scribes and Pharisees, who selfishly occupied positions of superiority in the religious hierarchy, Jesus' liberation of the demon-possessed and the ill represented a threat to their authority.
(3) The foregoing discussion may all be unnecessary babbling if the old, long-dead Bible scholar, R.C.H. Lenski is right. Lenski insisted that exorcisms and healings by Jesus, although both being signs of His power, are two completely different categories of activity. There is some warrant to his perspective, I think: Mark always mentions these ills as belonging to two different evils conquered by Jesus.
By Verse
v. 22: (1) They were astounded at his teaching: The word for astounded is ekplessein in the Greek of the New Testament. Lenski renders this "dumb with amazement." With good warrant, Stoffregen says that a literal translation would be "blown out of their minds." He's right.
Matthew uses the same verb, Lenski points out, at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. There (Matthew 7:28), it's used to describe the people's reactions to Jesus' teaching.
(2) What amazes the people is Jesus' teaching here as well. Lenski is probably right in saying that the teaching is the same as in Mark 1:15.
(3) he taught them as one having authority: The Interpreter's Bible (IB) says that, "Jesus...spoke with immediate and personal authority."
Lenski says that the deity of Jesus shone through His words.
(4) The authorititativeness of Jesus' teaching is seen by the synagogue crowd in contrast with the teaching of the scribes.
Stoffregen points out to Jesus people attribute "authority," exousia in the New Testament Greek, a word that can also be translated as power.
They also say that Jesus presents a "new teaching." A better translation of the adjective here would be "fresh."
The power of Jesus' teaching then is that unlike the stale approaches of the scribes, Jesus' teaching has the freshness of God-Power. Only those who surrender to Christ can speak or act with such power today. As Lenski reminds preachers, "pulpit talks" that fail to convey Jesus' teaching or the Word about Him aren't really preaching.
(5) My old mentor, Richard Jensen, in his commentary on Mark says that, "Scribal authority was based on their ability to recite the opinion of many Rabbis on a given topic. Jesus' word had authority because when he spoke, it came to pass."
That may explain why in verse 27, the crowd refers to Jesus' casting the demon out of the man as "a new teaching."
v. 23: (1) I once doubted the existence of demons. Then I met missionaries who served in places like Africa and India. They actually encountered people who were under the slavery of demons and saw many liberated from them in Christ's Name.
Why don't we seem to see this phenomenon in the twenty-first-century West? I have a theory. The serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to sin in the book of Genesis was described as the most subtle of the creatures. As such, I think he represents the subtlety of evil and of the evil one. He finds ways to market his evil that will work in any given culture or on any given individual. More subtle approaches are appropriate for us in the sophisticated First World. After all, if people dismiss your very existence, why allow their defenses to be erected by disabusing them of that notion? But can any of us look at things like racism, sexism, sexual promiscuity, materialism, drug and alcohol abuse, and other ills and actually say that the demonic is absent from our world?
Another reason that we fail to clearly identify the demonic in our part of the world is that we have buried our sensitivity to the elemental and instinctive aspects of life beneath veneers of self-assured rationality. We believe that we can explain everything. Evil plays to that egotistical viewpoint, I think.
(2) The term "unclean spirit" hardly appears outside the New Testament, says IB. It's cited in two books of the Apocrypha, which Protestant Christians don't consider to be part of the Bible and in the Old Testament, at Zechariah 13:2.
(3) "unclean spirit" is in contrast to "the Holy One of God" Who is teaching on the sabbath in a holy place, the synagogue, Stoffregen says. Holy versus unclean is one of several important contrasts in this incident.
v. 24: (1) Demons, says Lenski, always recognized Jesus' deity. And, according to IB, a look at other ancient documents, including those from Greek culture, show that, "Demons often sensed the power of the exorcist."
(2) Holy One of God: This was not a usual title associated with the Messiah, IB points out. In Psalm 16:10, the writer refers to himself in this way, although the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible renders it, "faithful one."
Stoffregen suggests that this may be an effort on the part of the demon to get the upper hand on Jesus. In ancient thought, to tag someone or something with a name was to take control of it. We see this notion at work in Adam's naming of the animals in the Old Testament book of Genesis.
Really, it's not such an "ancient" idea. When I go to the doctor's office and undergo tests for some bothersome symptoms, I feel great relief and more in control once the results have come back and the doctor can name my malady. My condition hasn't changed, but naming it indicates a regimen of treatment through which change will come.
v. 26: Lenski points out that this is the first miracle of Jesus recorded by Mark. It fits the theme of the first half of this Gospel: Jesus shows Himself to be the Christ "by his mighty teaching and deeds."
v. 27: (1) Lenski says that, "...no one seems to have inquired about who Jesus really was." Instead, they ask about what has happened, not yet getting Who is standing among them.
(2) IB says, "The new teaching is authenticated by the manifestation of power to ban an evil spirit."
(3) IB also comments on the phrase, unclean spirits that this event is representative of other signs that Jesus would perform in His ministry.
Mark 1:21-28:
21They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 25But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
Summarizing Others' Thoughts:
General(1) Brian Stoffregen sees this passage as being part of a larger unit, encompassing verses 21-45. Its theme is Jesus' Authority Over Demons and Illness.
(2) Stoffregen asserts that "the significance of these miracles goes far beyond the physical or biological cures. It seems unlikely that Jesus would have been tortured to death for simply healing the sick."
He goes on to look at first-century Judea's "sociocultural" understanding of illness, based on an article by J. Pilch in Biblical Theology Bulletin, 1985. Pilch said that there are, as Stoffregen puts it, "two approaches to illness. There is the biomedical perspective that emphasizes diseases and cures of individuals." The second approach is from the sociocultural perspective, which takes into account relationships with other people."
Pilch talks about leprosy in Judean culture, for example. Leprosy wasn't a biomedical condition, but one that threatened "communal integrity and holiness" and had to "be removed from the community." This is why there were leper colonies.
Old Testament law provided for the steps to be taken should a leprous person be cured of their disease. They were to go to a priest--not a physician, as one might expect from the biomedical perspective--who would certify the person's fitness for resuming their former life, including living with family members, practicing their profession, and so on.
Stoffregen's presentation of Pilch's work helped me, for the first time, to understand the climactic comment on the healing of Simon's mother, which appears in next week's Bible lesson, Mark 1:29-39. Mark says that as soon as the woman was cured of her fever, she stood up and served people. I used to think, "That's well and good. She was healthy enough to work. But it seems like a ripoff for her to have had to serve others as soon as she was feeling better!" I was looking at the text as a twenty-first-century person who hates sexism.
But for Mark, the woman's ability to once more serve others meant that the dignity of her station had been restored. Illness prevented people from functioning in the community. They were "put out to pasture." Healing allowed them back in.
What all of this suggests is that part of the opposition that developed against Jesus had to do not only with when He brought them healing, exorcism, or restoration--the healing in this passage occurs on the Sabbath, thereby violating the commandment not to work on that day--but also that He uses extraordinary means to restore people to community. He freed people from being trapped on the sidelines of life.
For people like Scribes and Pharisees, who selfishly occupied positions of superiority in the religious hierarchy, Jesus' liberation of the demon-possessed and the ill represented a threat to their authority.
(3) The foregoing discussion may all be unnecessary babbling if the old, long-dead Bible scholar, R.C.H. Lenski is right. Lenski insisted that exorcisms and healings by Jesus, although both being signs of His power, are two completely different categories of activity. There is some warrant to his perspective, I think: Mark always mentions these ills as belonging to two different evils conquered by Jesus.
By Verse
v. 22: (1) They were astounded at his teaching: The word for astounded is ekplessein in the Greek of the New Testament. Lenski renders this "dumb with amazement." With good warrant, Stoffregen says that a literal translation would be "blown out of their minds." He's right.
Matthew uses the same verb, Lenski points out, at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. There (Matthew 7:28), it's used to describe the people's reactions to Jesus' teaching.
(2) What amazes the people is Jesus' teaching here as well. Lenski is probably right in saying that the teaching is the same as in Mark 1:15.
(3) he taught them as one having authority: The Interpreter's Bible (IB) says that, "Jesus...spoke with immediate and personal authority."
Lenski says that the deity of Jesus shone through His words.
(4) The authorititativeness of Jesus' teaching is seen by the synagogue crowd in contrast with the teaching of the scribes.
Stoffregen points out to Jesus people attribute "authority," exousia in the New Testament Greek, a word that can also be translated as power.
They also say that Jesus presents a "new teaching." A better translation of the adjective here would be "fresh."
The power of Jesus' teaching then is that unlike the stale approaches of the scribes, Jesus' teaching has the freshness of God-Power. Only those who surrender to Christ can speak or act with such power today. As Lenski reminds preachers, "pulpit talks" that fail to convey Jesus' teaching or the Word about Him aren't really preaching.
(5) My old mentor, Richard Jensen, in his commentary on Mark says that, "Scribal authority was based on their ability to recite the opinion of many Rabbis on a given topic. Jesus' word had authority because when he spoke, it came to pass."
That may explain why in verse 27, the crowd refers to Jesus' casting the demon out of the man as "a new teaching."
v. 23: (1) I once doubted the existence of demons. Then I met missionaries who served in places like Africa and India. They actually encountered people who were under the slavery of demons and saw many liberated from them in Christ's Name.
Why don't we seem to see this phenomenon in the twenty-first-century West? I have a theory. The serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to sin in the book of Genesis was described as the most subtle of the creatures. As such, I think he represents the subtlety of evil and of the evil one. He finds ways to market his evil that will work in any given culture or on any given individual. More subtle approaches are appropriate for us in the sophisticated First World. After all, if people dismiss your very existence, why allow their defenses to be erected by disabusing them of that notion? But can any of us look at things like racism, sexism, sexual promiscuity, materialism, drug and alcohol abuse, and other ills and actually say that the demonic is absent from our world?
Another reason that we fail to clearly identify the demonic in our part of the world is that we have buried our sensitivity to the elemental and instinctive aspects of life beneath veneers of self-assured rationality. We believe that we can explain everything. Evil plays to that egotistical viewpoint, I think.
(2) The term "unclean spirit" hardly appears outside the New Testament, says IB. It's cited in two books of the Apocrypha, which Protestant Christians don't consider to be part of the Bible and in the Old Testament, at Zechariah 13:2.
(3) "unclean spirit" is in contrast to "the Holy One of God" Who is teaching on the sabbath in a holy place, the synagogue, Stoffregen says. Holy versus unclean is one of several important contrasts in this incident.
v. 24: (1) Demons, says Lenski, always recognized Jesus' deity. And, according to IB, a look at other ancient documents, including those from Greek culture, show that, "Demons often sensed the power of the exorcist."
(2) Holy One of God: This was not a usual title associated with the Messiah, IB points out. In Psalm 16:10, the writer refers to himself in this way, although the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible renders it, "faithful one."
Stoffregen suggests that this may be an effort on the part of the demon to get the upper hand on Jesus. In ancient thought, to tag someone or something with a name was to take control of it. We see this notion at work in Adam's naming of the animals in the Old Testament book of Genesis.
Really, it's not such an "ancient" idea. When I go to the doctor's office and undergo tests for some bothersome symptoms, I feel great relief and more in control once the results have come back and the doctor can name my malady. My condition hasn't changed, but naming it indicates a regimen of treatment through which change will come.
v. 26: Lenski points out that this is the first miracle of Jesus recorded by Mark. It fits the theme of the first half of this Gospel: Jesus shows Himself to be the Christ "by his mighty teaching and deeds."
v. 27: (1) Lenski says that, "...no one seems to have inquired about who Jesus really was." Instead, they ask about what has happened, not yet getting Who is standing among them.
(2) IB says, "The new teaching is authenticated by the manifestation of power to ban an evil spirit."
(3) IB also comments on the phrase, unclean spirits that this event is representative of other signs that Jesus would perform in His ministry.
More on Google's Cave-in to Chinese Government
We're told:
Google's new China search engine not only censors many Web sites that question the Chinese government, but it goes further than similar services from Microsoft and Yahoo by targeting teen pregnancy, homosexuality, dating, beer and jokes.While it appears that some of the poor search results on the new Google.cn site are because of errors, most are attributable to Google's volunteering to help the Chinese government censor the exchange of ideas. Read the whole thing.
In addition, CNET News.com has found that contrary to Google founder Sergey Brin's promise to inform users when their search results are censored, the company frequently filters out sites without revealing it.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Google Joins Microsoft in Cave-in to Chinese Government
Google will now do the Chinese government's censoring for it. Is the world's largest media company so desperate for revenue that it's willing to co-conspire with a regime that represses its people, has the US economy by the throat, harbors hegemonic designs, and persecutes Christians? Apparently.
Just like Microsoft.
Just like Microsoft.
You're Wrong, Mr. Cowherd! (Column Version)
[I write a column for a local chain of suburban Cincinnati newspapers. Here's the column version of my "rant" about radio host Colin Cowherd's assessment of Peace Corps volunteers.]
Most radio talk show hosts follow a simple formula: Say something outrageous, inciting incensed people to call in, causing others to listen, and do it all so that the station can sell advertising. I get it.
Because of my unwillingness to be "played" by these folks, I rarely listen to conventional talk radio of any kind. These days, that includes sports radio, to which I once listened with fair regularity.
But recently, I tuned into the show of ESPN Radio personality, Colin Cowherd. Cowherd is smart, quick, often funny. Not this day, though.
Cowherd was addressing the return of Theo Epstein as general manager of the Boston Red Sox. This baseball wunderkind who reconstructed the long-suffering BoSox franchise, turning it into a World Series winner in 2004, left the team a few months ago. But the Red Sox have lured him back.
Apparently, at the time of his departure from Boston, there was talk that Epstein might join the Peace Corps. The remembrance of this uncorked a scurrilous rant from Cowherd who proclaimed that Epstein was too smart and too much of a winner to join the Peace Corps.
The Peace Corps, Cowherd said, was a place for thirty-nine year olds who just got axed from their jobs. It's an organization, he expanded, for people "we don't need here." Life, he said, is about "a good steak and a good laugh," not being a do-gooder digging ditches in Borneo.
Theo Epstein, Cowherd said, can take any co-ed in Boston home with him any night of the week. He can go to any bar in the area and get his drinks for free. The notion that Epstein would give up the good life to do something as useless as volunteer in the Peace Corps was, Cowherd exclaimed, "AB---SURD."
Apparently, Cowherd has never met anybody who's been in the Peace Corps.
I think of Karen, late member of the congregation I serve as pastor. Right after college, she joined the Corps and went to Sub-Saharan Africa. Why did she do it? Karen was a deeply committed follower of Jesus Christ and believed in service as a way of gratefully responding to God's love, forgiveness, and life.
Even after she came home, settled into her career as a manager with an environmental engineering firm, married, and had a family, she saw service as an important element in her life. She was active in our congregation and also volunteered with a local agency as a tutor, teaching adults how to read.
On her thirty-fifth birthday, Karen learned that she had cancer. The prognosis wasn't good. Yet, as her health deteriorated, she continued to play guitar in our church musical ensemble, helped us serve dinners to the poor in Cincinnati's inner-city, and when an opening appeared on our Church Council, volunteered to serve as vice president. When she volunteered, I asked her, "Karen, are you sure that you want to do that?" "Mark," she told me, "I've decided that I want to give whatever time I have left to Jesus Christ."
Cowherd’s words may have been mere bombast. But he sure got it wrong! I love baseball and I respect Theo Epstein for what he's accomplished in Boston. But I can't say that his achievements are of greater value than those of a faithful, world-wise, funny, intelligent servant of Jesus Christ named Karen. She was in the Peace Corps and she wasn't a loser.
Jesus once said that the first will be last and the last will be first. Maybe from the short-term perspective of free drinks and one-night stands, some people are deemed to be first. But in the longer view of eternity, the real winners are people like Karen. Gratefiul for God's service to us in Christ, they serve others. Because they do, they enrich and ennoble the whole human race one person at a time.
Most radio talk show hosts follow a simple formula: Say something outrageous, inciting incensed people to call in, causing others to listen, and do it all so that the station can sell advertising. I get it.
Because of my unwillingness to be "played" by these folks, I rarely listen to conventional talk radio of any kind. These days, that includes sports radio, to which I once listened with fair regularity.
But recently, I tuned into the show of ESPN Radio personality, Colin Cowherd. Cowherd is smart, quick, often funny. Not this day, though.
Cowherd was addressing the return of Theo Epstein as general manager of the Boston Red Sox. This baseball wunderkind who reconstructed the long-suffering BoSox franchise, turning it into a World Series winner in 2004, left the team a few months ago. But the Red Sox have lured him back.
Apparently, at the time of his departure from Boston, there was talk that Epstein might join the Peace Corps. The remembrance of this uncorked a scurrilous rant from Cowherd who proclaimed that Epstein was too smart and too much of a winner to join the Peace Corps.
The Peace Corps, Cowherd said, was a place for thirty-nine year olds who just got axed from their jobs. It's an organization, he expanded, for people "we don't need here." Life, he said, is about "a good steak and a good laugh," not being a do-gooder digging ditches in Borneo.
Theo Epstein, Cowherd said, can take any co-ed in Boston home with him any night of the week. He can go to any bar in the area and get his drinks for free. The notion that Epstein would give up the good life to do something as useless as volunteer in the Peace Corps was, Cowherd exclaimed, "AB---SURD."
Apparently, Cowherd has never met anybody who's been in the Peace Corps.
I think of Karen, late member of the congregation I serve as pastor. Right after college, she joined the Corps and went to Sub-Saharan Africa. Why did she do it? Karen was a deeply committed follower of Jesus Christ and believed in service as a way of gratefully responding to God's love, forgiveness, and life.
Even after she came home, settled into her career as a manager with an environmental engineering firm, married, and had a family, she saw service as an important element in her life. She was active in our congregation and also volunteered with a local agency as a tutor, teaching adults how to read.
On her thirty-fifth birthday, Karen learned that she had cancer. The prognosis wasn't good. Yet, as her health deteriorated, she continued to play guitar in our church musical ensemble, helped us serve dinners to the poor in Cincinnati's inner-city, and when an opening appeared on our Church Council, volunteered to serve as vice president. When she volunteered, I asked her, "Karen, are you sure that you want to do that?" "Mark," she told me, "I've decided that I want to give whatever time I have left to Jesus Christ."
Cowherd’s words may have been mere bombast. But he sure got it wrong! I love baseball and I respect Theo Epstein for what he's accomplished in Boston. But I can't say that his achievements are of greater value than those of a faithful, world-wise, funny, intelligent servant of Jesus Christ named Karen. She was in the Peace Corps and she wasn't a loser.
Jesus once said that the first will be last and the last will be first. Maybe from the short-term perspective of free drinks and one-night stands, some people are deemed to be first. But in the longer view of eternity, the real winners are people like Karen. Gratefiul for God's service to us in Christ, they serve others. Because they do, they enrich and ennoble the whole human race one person at a time.
You're Wrong, Mr. Cowherd!
I rarely do this. But I'm going to vent. You see, right now, I'm furious!
Most radio talk show hosts are provocateurs who follow a simple formula: Say something outrageous, inciting incensed people to call in, causing others to listen, and do it all so that the station can sell advertising. I get it.
Because of my unwillingness to be "played" by these folks, I rarely listen to conventional talk radio of any kind. These days, that includes sports radio, to which I once listened with fair regularity.
But today, following a meeting and an appointment, I decided to tune into the show of ESPN Radio personality, Colin Cowherd. Cowherd is smart, quick, often funny. Not this day. This day, he was disgusting.
Cowherd was addressing the return of thirty-two year old Theo Epstein to the general managership of the Boston Red Sox. This baseball wunderkind who reconstructed the long-suffering BoSox franchise, turning it into a World Series winner in 2004, left the team about eighty days ago. But the Red Sox have lured him back.
Apparently, at the time of his previous departure from Boston, there was talk that Epstein might join the Peace Corps. The remembrance of this uncorked a scurrilous rant from Cowherd who proclaimed that Epstein was too smart and too much of a winner to ever be bothered with something like the Peace Corps.
The Peace Corps, Cowherd said, was a place for thirty-nine year olds who just got axed from their jobs. It's an organization, he expanded, for people "We don't need here." Life, he said, is about "a good steak and a good laugh," not being a do-gooder digging ditches in Borneo.
Theo Epstein, Cowherd said, can take any co-ed in Boston home with him any night of the week. He can go to any bar in the area and get his drinks for free. The notion that Epstein would give up the good life to do something as useless as volunteer in the Peace Corps was, Cowherd exclaimed, "AB---SURD."
Apparently, Cowherd has never met anybody who's been in the Peace Corps.
I think of Karen, late member of the congregation I serve as pastor. Right after college, she joined the Corps and went to Sub-Saharan Africa. Why did she do it? Karen was a deeply committed follower of Jesus Christ and believed in service as a way of gratefully responding to God's love, forgiveness, and life.
Even after she came home, settled into her career as a manager with an environmental engineering firm, married, and had a family, she saw service as an important element in her life. She was active in our congregation and volunteered as a tutor with a local Laubach literacy group, teaching illiterate adults how to read.
On her thirty-fifth birthday, Karen learned that she suffered from two rare strains of cancer. The prognosis wasn't good. Yet, as her health deteriorated, she continued to play guitar in our church musical ensemble, helped us serve dinners to the poor in Cincinnati's inner-city, and when an opening appeared on our Church Council, volunteered to serve as vice president. When she volunteered, I asked her, "Karen, are you sure that you want to do that?" "Mark," she told me, "I've decided that I want to give whatever time I have left to Jesus Christ."
Maybe your words were mere bombast for effect, Mr. Cowherd. But you sure got it wrong! I love baseball and I respect Theo Epstein for what he's accomplished in Boston. But I can't say that his achievements are of greater value than those of a faithful, world-wise, funny, intelligent servant of Jesus Christ named Karen. She was in the Peace Corps and she wasn't a loser.
Jesus once said that the first will be last and the last will be first. Maybe from the short-term perspective of free drinks and one-night stands, there are people deemed to be winners. But in the longer view of eternity, the real winners are people like Karen. Gratefiul for God's service to us in Christ, they serve others. Because they do, they enrich and ennoble the whole human race one person at a time.
[By the way, if you'd like to tell Mr. Cowherd what you think of his rant, you can email him at theherd@espnradio.com.]
Most radio talk show hosts are provocateurs who follow a simple formula: Say something outrageous, inciting incensed people to call in, causing others to listen, and do it all so that the station can sell advertising. I get it.
Because of my unwillingness to be "played" by these folks, I rarely listen to conventional talk radio of any kind. These days, that includes sports radio, to which I once listened with fair regularity.
But today, following a meeting and an appointment, I decided to tune into the show of ESPN Radio personality, Colin Cowherd. Cowherd is smart, quick, often funny. Not this day. This day, he was disgusting.
Cowherd was addressing the return of thirty-two year old Theo Epstein to the general managership of the Boston Red Sox. This baseball wunderkind who reconstructed the long-suffering BoSox franchise, turning it into a World Series winner in 2004, left the team about eighty days ago. But the Red Sox have lured him back.
Apparently, at the time of his previous departure from Boston, there was talk that Epstein might join the Peace Corps. The remembrance of this uncorked a scurrilous rant from Cowherd who proclaimed that Epstein was too smart and too much of a winner to ever be bothered with something like the Peace Corps.
The Peace Corps, Cowherd said, was a place for thirty-nine year olds who just got axed from their jobs. It's an organization, he expanded, for people "We don't need here." Life, he said, is about "a good steak and a good laugh," not being a do-gooder digging ditches in Borneo.
Theo Epstein, Cowherd said, can take any co-ed in Boston home with him any night of the week. He can go to any bar in the area and get his drinks for free. The notion that Epstein would give up the good life to do something as useless as volunteer in the Peace Corps was, Cowherd exclaimed, "AB---SURD."
Apparently, Cowherd has never met anybody who's been in the Peace Corps.
I think of Karen, late member of the congregation I serve as pastor. Right after college, she joined the Corps and went to Sub-Saharan Africa. Why did she do it? Karen was a deeply committed follower of Jesus Christ and believed in service as a way of gratefully responding to God's love, forgiveness, and life.
Even after she came home, settled into her career as a manager with an environmental engineering firm, married, and had a family, she saw service as an important element in her life. She was active in our congregation and volunteered as a tutor with a local Laubach literacy group, teaching illiterate adults how to read.
On her thirty-fifth birthday, Karen learned that she suffered from two rare strains of cancer. The prognosis wasn't good. Yet, as her health deteriorated, she continued to play guitar in our church musical ensemble, helped us serve dinners to the poor in Cincinnati's inner-city, and when an opening appeared on our Church Council, volunteered to serve as vice president. When she volunteered, I asked her, "Karen, are you sure that you want to do that?" "Mark," she told me, "I've decided that I want to give whatever time I have left to Jesus Christ."
Maybe your words were mere bombast for effect, Mr. Cowherd. But you sure got it wrong! I love baseball and I respect Theo Epstein for what he's accomplished in Boston. But I can't say that his achievements are of greater value than those of a faithful, world-wise, funny, intelligent servant of Jesus Christ named Karen. She was in the Peace Corps and she wasn't a loser.
Jesus once said that the first will be last and the last will be first. Maybe from the short-term perspective of free drinks and one-night stands, there are people deemed to be winners. But in the longer view of eternity, the real winners are people like Karen. Gratefiul for God's service to us in Christ, they serve others. Because they do, they enrich and ennoble the whole human race one person at a time.
[By the way, if you'd like to tell Mr. Cowherd what you think of his rant, you can email him at theherd@espnradio.com.]
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
First Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Mark 1:21-28
[To help the people of our congregation--and anybody else who might be interested-- to prepare for worship, I try to keep people updated on my study and consideration of the Bible lesson around which our weekend worship will be built each week.]
This weekend's Bible lesson, for this Fourth Weekend after the Epiphany, is Mark 1:21-28:
v. 21: (1) Capernaum, according to Mark, became the center of Jesus' ministry in the Galileean region.
(2) It was Jesus' habit to go to synagogue for worship on the sabbath day. As Jesus put it, He came not to ab0lish the Old Testament law, but to fulfill it. The Ten Commandments' call to "remember the sabbath, to keep it holy" has not been revoked even today. While people may be forced to work on days of worship, we are still called to set aside time to allow God's Word to come to us and to praise God. This is one reason our congregation, like many others, offers Saturday, as well as Sunday, worship opportunities.
v. 22: (1) There was a custom in those days of asking visiting teachers of Scripture to share a reflection on the Old Testament with the people assembled for worship in the synagogue.
(2) Jesus had "authority" (the word in the Greek is exousia), not like the Scribes. The Scribes were experts in the content and the application of God's Word. Jesus often condemns them for using the Old Testament Scriptures to hamstring people in rigid rules which had the effect, deliberately or not, of enhancing the Scribes' power. It's the same thing that happens any time a professional clergy class presumes to claim that it has a monopoly on God.
None of this is to say that the function of the scribe was illegitimate. To this day, we need our scribes. The faith and the lives of everyone in the Church are enriched by those who delve more deeply into the Scriptures and help us to know God better.
But whether the Scribes studied and shared God's Word impudently or humbly, their authority was inferior to that of Jesus. Jesus' authority was original because He was God. The scribes' authority was derived from the Word God imparts in the Scriptures.
Even today, lower level scribes like me must say, "This is what I think God's Word means. But I could be wrong. And I'm not better than anybody else."
v. 23: "Unclean" means just what we might imagine: without purity. The man with the unclean spirit enters a holy assembly and confronts the pure and holy Savior of the world.
v. 24: (1) I believe that the "us" for whom the demon speaks is all the demons.
(2) Demons always recognize Who Jesus is. They know their enemy.
v. 25: Jesus commands the demon to be quiet. The reason for this, I suppose, is that one must come to identify Jesus as the Savior-Messiah by faith.
Besides, Jesus maintains "the messianic secret" throughout His ministry. While Jesus willingly affirms those who worship Him as Lord, God, Savior, and Christ, He never initiates such overt identification, even in the Gospel of John.
And even to those who make such confessions, like Peter, Jesus gives instructions to remain silent until His entire ministry has been fulfilled. It's only after Jesus' death and resurrection that we see His Lordship over death and life, understand that His Kingdom isn't of this world, and see that we too must endure death before the final fulfillment of His promise of life.
Until we become acquainted with these realities, we might be tempted to see Jesus as a cosmic kewpie doll, a pushover king who will do our bidding, no matter how selfish and self-aggrandizing it may be. "When Christ calls a man," the martyred opponent of Nazi Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, said, "He bids him come and die."
The crowds who riotously welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday all believed that Jesus would be a pushover king who would give them all they wanted. As the week wore on and they realized that Jesus had no intention of leading a revolt against the Romans who occupied Jerusalem and Judea, they became disenchanted with Jesus. This is why they asked the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, to release a rebel terrorist, Barabbas, instead of Jesus. They had come to the conclusion that Jesus was, in the words of Rick Warren, more concerned with their "character" than their "comfort."
The good news of Jesus is good news. But, as someone has said, before it can comfort us, it must first make us miserable. It does this in several ways:
v. 26: The unclean spirit tries to resist, but can't. I think of the line in A Mighty Fortress is Our God where Luther says of the devil, "one little word subdues him." By that, Luther means, one word from Christ.
v. 27: Jesus' act of power is seen as a "teaching" about Him, although in the end, none of the worshipers at the synagogue confess Him as Lord.
I hope to write more later...
This weekend's Bible lesson, for this Fourth Weekend after the Epiphany, is Mark 1:21-28:
21They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 25But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.A few thoughts...
v. 21: (1) Capernaum, according to Mark, became the center of Jesus' ministry in the Galileean region.
(2) It was Jesus' habit to go to synagogue for worship on the sabbath day. As Jesus put it, He came not to ab0lish the Old Testament law, but to fulfill it. The Ten Commandments' call to "remember the sabbath, to keep it holy" has not been revoked even today. While people may be forced to work on days of worship, we are still called to set aside time to allow God's Word to come to us and to praise God. This is one reason our congregation, like many others, offers Saturday, as well as Sunday, worship opportunities.
v. 22: (1) There was a custom in those days of asking visiting teachers of Scripture to share a reflection on the Old Testament with the people assembled for worship in the synagogue.
(2) Jesus had "authority" (the word in the Greek is exousia), not like the Scribes. The Scribes were experts in the content and the application of God's Word. Jesus often condemns them for using the Old Testament Scriptures to hamstring people in rigid rules which had the effect, deliberately or not, of enhancing the Scribes' power. It's the same thing that happens any time a professional clergy class presumes to claim that it has a monopoly on God.
None of this is to say that the function of the scribe was illegitimate. To this day, we need our scribes. The faith and the lives of everyone in the Church are enriched by those who delve more deeply into the Scriptures and help us to know God better.
But whether the Scribes studied and shared God's Word impudently or humbly, their authority was inferior to that of Jesus. Jesus' authority was original because He was God. The scribes' authority was derived from the Word God imparts in the Scriptures.
Even today, lower level scribes like me must say, "This is what I think God's Word means. But I could be wrong. And I'm not better than anybody else."
v. 23: "Unclean" means just what we might imagine: without purity. The man with the unclean spirit enters a holy assembly and confronts the pure and holy Savior of the world.
v. 24: (1) I believe that the "us" for whom the demon speaks is all the demons.
(2) Demons always recognize Who Jesus is. They know their enemy.
v. 25: Jesus commands the demon to be quiet. The reason for this, I suppose, is that one must come to identify Jesus as the Savior-Messiah by faith.
Besides, Jesus maintains "the messianic secret" throughout His ministry. While Jesus willingly affirms those who worship Him as Lord, God, Savior, and Christ, He never initiates such overt identification, even in the Gospel of John.
And even to those who make such confessions, like Peter, Jesus gives instructions to remain silent until His entire ministry has been fulfilled. It's only after Jesus' death and resurrection that we see His Lordship over death and life, understand that His Kingdom isn't of this world, and see that we too must endure death before the final fulfillment of His promise of life.
Until we become acquainted with these realities, we might be tempted to see Jesus as a cosmic kewpie doll, a pushover king who will do our bidding, no matter how selfish and self-aggrandizing it may be. "When Christ calls a man," the martyred opponent of Nazi Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, said, "He bids him come and die."
The crowds who riotously welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday all believed that Jesus would be a pushover king who would give them all they wanted. As the week wore on and they realized that Jesus had no intention of leading a revolt against the Romans who occupied Jerusalem and Judea, they became disenchanted with Jesus. This is why they asked the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, to release a rebel terrorist, Barabbas, instead of Jesus. They had come to the conclusion that Jesus was, in the words of Rick Warren, more concerned with their "character" than their "comfort."
The good news of Jesus is good news. But, as someone has said, before it can comfort us, it must first make us miserable. It does this in several ways:
- Showing us the gap between our sinfulness and God's holiness, even the gap between our own standards of goodness and our performance.
- Showing us that there is no way we can ever be good enough to earn God's forgiveness or Jesus' good grace.
- Showing us that the only way to reconciliation with God is complete surrender to God and helpless acceptance of Jesus' offer of free help. This is what the Bible means when it talks about "dying to self": Dying to a self-driven life and accepting a God-crafted life.
v. 26: The unclean spirit tries to resist, but can't. I think of the line in A Mighty Fortress is Our God where Luther says of the devil, "one little word subdues him." By that, Luther means, one word from Christ.
v. 27: Jesus' act of power is seen as a "teaching" about Him, although in the end, none of the worshipers at the synagogue confess Him as Lord.
I hope to write more later...
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Called Apart
[This is the message which I was going to share with the people of Friendship Church today. But for the second time in twenty-one years, I couldn't lead worship or preach today. The Creeping Crud laid me low. But I'm thankful to the wonderful people of our great congregation for filling in. Pam shared the message you see below and Steve led the worship. It's a blessing to be the pastor of such a great congregation!]
Mark 1:14-20
At this time of year not long ago, a mother and father excitedly told their kids, “We’ve got a chance to spend the summer in Ireland!”
The reaction was less than enthusiastic. The older teenager said the Irish “are creepy people, they talk all the time and they talk funny. Besides I want to spend summer with my friends”
“But, it's a great offer,” the parents insisted. “Airfare is taken care of and so is the rent for the cottage.”
“Cottage?” the younger teen groaned. “I don't want to live in any cottage. Is it air-conditioned in Ireland? Besides, I have early football practice this summer.”
“You don't need air conditioning in Ireland, the parents explained. “And a cottage is really a nice house.”
Even the younger one hung his dejectedly at the thought of leaving familiar haunts behind and spending a whole summer in some foreign country.
No matter what the parents said, the kids were unconvinced. And so, the family passed on their Irish vacation.
I read that true story from Father Andrew Greeley, the best-selling novelist and sociologist the other day, and I could hardly believe it. But as Greeley pointed out when he told this story in a sermon a few years back, “How many opportunities have we wasted in life for reasons that are pretty similar?”
There is, to me, an air of mystery about our Bible lesson today. It begins immediately after Jerusalem and the surrounding Judean territory have gone abuzz with the news that John the Baptizer has been arrested. Eventually of course, John will be executed, a turn of events that most people who learned of his arrest probably would have foreseen. But while everyone is processing the bad news about John, Jesus doesn’t lay low, as you might expect. Instead, He begins His public ministry.
According to the Gospel of Mark, from which our lesson is drawn, Jesus has a simple, three-part message.
A man in my former congregation suddenly died, the result of an accident. It was horrible news! On the evening of his death, I went to visit his widow and family. We sat at the kitchen table at which he’d had his morning devotions that very day. Setting there on the checkered table cloth, next to the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin holder, was his well-worn Bible and tucked inside it, marking the passage he’d read, was a devotional booklet like the Our Daily Bread you and I use.
For us, it was good news in the midst of bad news. Why? Because it demonstrated that he had been listening to Jesus’ call: He recognized that in the timing of God, Jesus the King had not only come into the world, but into his own life. This man had done just as Jesus called people in those days after John the Baptizer’s arrest and just as He calls us still today: He had kept on repenting--kept on turning his mind and life over to Christ. And he had kept on believing that the risen Jesus turns our sorrows into endless tomorrows, our dying into our rising.
The Bible on that man’s kitchen table gave silent witness to the fact that because he lived and died with Jesus here, he would surely rise and live with Jesus in His everlasting Kingdom. That's good news even when the world assails you with bad news.
What I love about this passage though, is not so much Jesus’ sermon. It explains what Jesus was about, to be sure. But Jesus does a lot more than articulate some high-sounding words.
Pete and I met this past week to discuss plans for our small group ministry at Friendship. We have several different small groups already. But we’re going to introduce more, particularly associated with Forty Days to Servanthood coming up during the Lenten season, starting on March 1. I explained to Pete that one of the reasons we asked him to be on Church Council is that we noticed how he and Dara handled recruiting people for Sunday morning ministries. They put out their pleas for volunteers during the worship announcements, of course. But then, they personally approached people during fellowship time and asked, “Would you like to help?”
That’s akin to what Jesus does in our lesson today. After announcing what He had come into the world to do and what He calls us to do, He started approaching people. And this brings us to what I consider the most mysterious thing about this whole passage. Jesus approaches two brothers named Andrew and Simon. Then, another set of brothers, James and John. Jesus tells them all, “Follow me.” He does tell the first two men that they will be “fishers of people,” but He doesn’t explain what He means by that.
All these guys--Andrew, Simon, James, John--could have reacted the way those children did when their parents offered them a summer in Ireland. They could have thrown up roadblocks. They could have ignored Jesus’ call. They could have given excuses: “This is a busy time of year.” “We can’t leave our work.” “Where exactly are we going to go if we follow You, Jesus?” But we have no record of any such excuses or questions or roadblocks. They followed.
You see, Jesus’ followers, disciples, are people who are called apart. To me, that means three things.
First: We’re called to repent, to turn away from the world’s usual way of doing things, to be different. Have you noticed how many people are apologizing these days? Any number of public figures are issuing apologies for things they've done or said. But so many of these apologies--not all--seem to have caveats or escape clauses. “Had I known what I know now,” some of them say, “I wouldn’t have done this or said that.” Or, “If I offended anybody, I’m sorry.” Most of these statements can only be described as unapologetic apologies: “I’m sorry...I got caught.”
But the repentance to which Jesus calls us is different. “God,” we may say, “I know that the sin of which I’m guilty”--be it sex outside of marriage, anesthetizing my brain with alcohol, stealing from my employer, taking my family for granted, talking badly about someone behind their back, acting self-righteous and holier-than-thou, stuffing my face full of food even when I’m not hungry, looking down on others because they don’t have money, craving money or power or sex, whatever my sin might be--“And God, I know my sins are wrong. But I can’t control myself. I’m turning to You once again today because I know You can help me control myself. You can help me to live as a human being is meant to live. You can help me to adopt the positive and joyful lifestyle that’s only possible when You’re at the center of a person’s life.” God will answer the prayer of a helpless person who keeps on repenting! God will turn our can'ts into His cans!
Second: We’re called to believe the good news of Jesus and to keep on believing it. This too, is something that we have to keep on asking God to grant. Martin Luther wrote in The Small Catechism about the mystery of faith, “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him. But the Holy Spirit...” makes it possible for us to believe that His Good News wins in a bad news world.
Many of us in this community saw how bad the news can get this past week when a young woman from Glen Este took her own life. It’s a heartbreaking thing! It challenges our ability to believe that Jesus is triumphant over sin and death. But if we can also tell Christ honestly, “Lord, I can’t believe, but I want to believe in You,” our faith will surely be built up.
Third: We’re called to be fishers of people. My wife and I went to San Francisco a few weeks ago. On a tour, our guide took us through the Fishermen’s Wharf district and said, “You really need to come back here at about 6:00 tomorrow morning and buy the fresh fish that the fishermen who have been out in their boats all night bring back.”
The fishermen in San Francisco do their work like the fishermen who Jesus called in our Bible lesson did theirs. Each night, they take their boats out and drag their nets through the water. Some mornings, they come back with big hauls. Other days, they have less fish. But the point is, they keep fishing.
You and I are surrounded by people who need Jesus Christ. Our call is to keep offering His embrace, to keep inviting them to follow Christ with us. Sometimes, people will say, “Yes.” Sometimes, they’ll say, “Maybe.” Sometimes, they’ll say, “No.” But we're to keep offering Christ to them, nonetheless.
Babe Ruth was once asked the secret of his success as a hitter in baseball. “I keep on swinging until I hit one,” he said. As fishers for people, you and I are called to keep on fishing. We can’t be successful as a congregation or as individuals if we try to attract others to Christ on our own power. But, with Christ powering us, we can be fishers of people.
When, like those first disciples, we follow Jesus, we can’t be certain of where He may take us. But we can be sure that wherever He takes us, He will be with us, helping us repent, believe, and tell our friends and neighbors that in Christ, there is good news that lasts forever!
[The true story of the family that didn't go to Ireland was told, I'm informed, by Father Greeley in a sermon on this very Biblical text. But I haven't been able to determine exactly when or where.
[The title and theme for the message was once again inspired by the great staff of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Burnsville, Minnesota.]
Mark 1:14-20
At this time of year not long ago, a mother and father excitedly told their kids, “We’ve got a chance to spend the summer in Ireland!”
The reaction was less than enthusiastic. The older teenager said the Irish “are creepy people, they talk all the time and they talk funny. Besides I want to spend summer with my friends”
“But, it's a great offer,” the parents insisted. “Airfare is taken care of and so is the rent for the cottage.”
“Cottage?” the younger teen groaned. “I don't want to live in any cottage. Is it air-conditioned in Ireland? Besides, I have early football practice this summer.”
“You don't need air conditioning in Ireland, the parents explained. “And a cottage is really a nice house.”
Even the younger one hung his dejectedly at the thought of leaving familiar haunts behind and spending a whole summer in some foreign country.
No matter what the parents said, the kids were unconvinced. And so, the family passed on their Irish vacation.
I read that true story from Father Andrew Greeley, the best-selling novelist and sociologist the other day, and I could hardly believe it. But as Greeley pointed out when he told this story in a sermon a few years back, “How many opportunities have we wasted in life for reasons that are pretty similar?”
There is, to me, an air of mystery about our Bible lesson today. It begins immediately after Jerusalem and the surrounding Judean territory have gone abuzz with the news that John the Baptizer has been arrested. Eventually of course, John will be executed, a turn of events that most people who learned of his arrest probably would have foreseen. But while everyone is processing the bad news about John, Jesus doesn’t lay low, as you might expect. Instead, He begins His public ministry.
According to the Gospel of Mark, from which our lesson is drawn, Jesus has a simple, three-part message.
- First: The time is right for the Savior to be revealed to the world.
- Second: The Kingdom of God has come near.
- And third: Repent and believe in the good news. More literally, in the Greek, Jesus says, “Start repenting now and keep repenting and start believing now and keep on believing in the good news that all who entrust their lives to Me will live with God forever.”
A man in my former congregation suddenly died, the result of an accident. It was horrible news! On the evening of his death, I went to visit his widow and family. We sat at the kitchen table at which he’d had his morning devotions that very day. Setting there on the checkered table cloth, next to the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin holder, was his well-worn Bible and tucked inside it, marking the passage he’d read, was a devotional booklet like the Our Daily Bread you and I use.
For us, it was good news in the midst of bad news. Why? Because it demonstrated that he had been listening to Jesus’ call: He recognized that in the timing of God, Jesus the King had not only come into the world, but into his own life. This man had done just as Jesus called people in those days after John the Baptizer’s arrest and just as He calls us still today: He had kept on repenting--kept on turning his mind and life over to Christ. And he had kept on believing that the risen Jesus turns our sorrows into endless tomorrows, our dying into our rising.
The Bible on that man’s kitchen table gave silent witness to the fact that because he lived and died with Jesus here, he would surely rise and live with Jesus in His everlasting Kingdom. That's good news even when the world assails you with bad news.
What I love about this passage though, is not so much Jesus’ sermon. It explains what Jesus was about, to be sure. But Jesus does a lot more than articulate some high-sounding words.
Pete and I met this past week to discuss plans for our small group ministry at Friendship. We have several different small groups already. But we’re going to introduce more, particularly associated with Forty Days to Servanthood coming up during the Lenten season, starting on March 1. I explained to Pete that one of the reasons we asked him to be on Church Council is that we noticed how he and Dara handled recruiting people for Sunday morning ministries. They put out their pleas for volunteers during the worship announcements, of course. But then, they personally approached people during fellowship time and asked, “Would you like to help?”
That’s akin to what Jesus does in our lesson today. After announcing what He had come into the world to do and what He calls us to do, He started approaching people. And this brings us to what I consider the most mysterious thing about this whole passage. Jesus approaches two brothers named Andrew and Simon. Then, another set of brothers, James and John. Jesus tells them all, “Follow me.” He does tell the first two men that they will be “fishers of people,” but He doesn’t explain what He means by that.
All these guys--Andrew, Simon, James, John--could have reacted the way those children did when their parents offered them a summer in Ireland. They could have thrown up roadblocks. They could have ignored Jesus’ call. They could have given excuses: “This is a busy time of year.” “We can’t leave our work.” “Where exactly are we going to go if we follow You, Jesus?” But we have no record of any such excuses or questions or roadblocks. They followed.
You see, Jesus’ followers, disciples, are people who are called apart. To me, that means three things.
First: We’re called to repent, to turn away from the world’s usual way of doing things, to be different. Have you noticed how many people are apologizing these days? Any number of public figures are issuing apologies for things they've done or said. But so many of these apologies--not all--seem to have caveats or escape clauses. “Had I known what I know now,” some of them say, “I wouldn’t have done this or said that.” Or, “If I offended anybody, I’m sorry.” Most of these statements can only be described as unapologetic apologies: “I’m sorry...I got caught.”
But the repentance to which Jesus calls us is different. “God,” we may say, “I know that the sin of which I’m guilty”--be it sex outside of marriage, anesthetizing my brain with alcohol, stealing from my employer, taking my family for granted, talking badly about someone behind their back, acting self-righteous and holier-than-thou, stuffing my face full of food even when I’m not hungry, looking down on others because they don’t have money, craving money or power or sex, whatever my sin might be--“And God, I know my sins are wrong. But I can’t control myself. I’m turning to You once again today because I know You can help me control myself. You can help me to live as a human being is meant to live. You can help me to adopt the positive and joyful lifestyle that’s only possible when You’re at the center of a person’s life.” God will answer the prayer of a helpless person who keeps on repenting! God will turn our can'ts into His cans!
Second: We’re called to believe the good news of Jesus and to keep on believing it. This too, is something that we have to keep on asking God to grant. Martin Luther wrote in The Small Catechism about the mystery of faith, “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him. But the Holy Spirit...” makes it possible for us to believe that His Good News wins in a bad news world.
Many of us in this community saw how bad the news can get this past week when a young woman from Glen Este took her own life. It’s a heartbreaking thing! It challenges our ability to believe that Jesus is triumphant over sin and death. But if we can also tell Christ honestly, “Lord, I can’t believe, but I want to believe in You,” our faith will surely be built up.
Third: We’re called to be fishers of people. My wife and I went to San Francisco a few weeks ago. On a tour, our guide took us through the Fishermen’s Wharf district and said, “You really need to come back here at about 6:00 tomorrow morning and buy the fresh fish that the fishermen who have been out in their boats all night bring back.”
The fishermen in San Francisco do their work like the fishermen who Jesus called in our Bible lesson did theirs. Each night, they take their boats out and drag their nets through the water. Some mornings, they come back with big hauls. Other days, they have less fish. But the point is, they keep fishing.
You and I are surrounded by people who need Jesus Christ. Our call is to keep offering His embrace, to keep inviting them to follow Christ with us. Sometimes, people will say, “Yes.” Sometimes, they’ll say, “Maybe.” Sometimes, they’ll say, “No.” But we're to keep offering Christ to them, nonetheless.
Babe Ruth was once asked the secret of his success as a hitter in baseball. “I keep on swinging until I hit one,” he said. As fishers for people, you and I are called to keep on fishing. We can’t be successful as a congregation or as individuals if we try to attract others to Christ on our own power. But, with Christ powering us, we can be fishers of people.
When, like those first disciples, we follow Jesus, we can’t be certain of where He may take us. But we can be sure that wherever He takes us, He will be with us, helping us repent, believe, and tell our friends and neighbors that in Christ, there is good news that lasts forever!
[The true story of the family that didn't go to Ireland was told, I'm informed, by Father Greeley in a sermon on this very Biblical text. But I haven't been able to determine exactly when or where.
[The title and theme for the message was once again inspired by the great staff of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Burnsville, Minnesota.]
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