Digitize Theological Libraries!

As I was reading of some of the digitizing projects going on in the world at the Vatican and elsewhere, I thought I would both ask and express my sense that the worlds best theological libraries should be actively working together with publishers to digitize all theological books and resources.

1. We know where things are headed. One day, you will be able to "check out" any book that has ever been written online. Google, Amazon, Logos, they've already done most of the work. The days when you have to have a physical library are numbered.  It's all a question of time and details.

2. But there are significant details. There's no motivation for a scholar or writer to write, there's no motivation for a publisher to publish (their ways are also in serious jeopardy, as anyone can self-publish), if everything written is free on the web.  It's like writing songs and such. There has to be some opportunity for profit or we end up with the equivalent of Eastern Europe in books and music (meaning depressing doldrum).

3. One answer is for access to such books being a matter of membership in libraries, who pay some subscription fee. Or perhaps authors get a certain royalty for every time someone "checks out" their book. Perhaps libraries become the new publishers or, in transition, libraries and publishers get into bed with each other. This already happens when libraries subscribe to certain series.

4. I'm sure some of you out there know more than I do about what is already going on. In particular, what if Brill, Mohr/Siebeck, Cambridge, T & T Clark, and all the pricey international monograph series were to form an electronic consortium to which libraries could subscribe?

Where is the breakthrough going to happen?

Waiting to Return 7

What is Jesus doing now in heaven as he sits at God's right hand? He is waiting, for one thing, until the time for his enemies finally to be put under his feet (Heb. 10:12-13). Hebrews perhaps thinks of those who will face God in the judgment when it mentions Christ's enemies (Heb. 10:26-31). 1 Corinthians 15 points to the most significant enemy to be vanquished at the end: death (15:26).

The other thing that Christ currently does in heaven is intercede for us (Rom. 8:34).  To intercede is of course to serve as a go-between in a very active way, to advocate for someone.  The Holy Spirit is our go-between when it comes to our everyday needs. "We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans" (Rom. 8:26). So the Spirit pleads for us to God even though we ourselves do not fully know what we need or what is best for us.

The intercession of Christ is arguably a little different from the intercession of the Spirit.  Christ intercedes for us as a lawyer, as our advocate in the divine court.  "Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us" (8:33-34). Jesus is thus the one who intercedes for our acquittal before God on the basis of his blood. Once we have Christ interceding for us in this way, we will be found not-guilty.

John gives yet another function for Jesus "in the meantime."  He has gone to prepare a place for us in heaven (John 14:2-3). Most of the New Testament seems to look for eternity to be on a transformed earth. [1] Paul speaks of how the creation will be redeemed (Rom. 8:22-23). Revelation speaks of a New Jerusalem coming down to earth (Rev. 21:2). Matthew and Luke speak of people coming from all over the earth to eat with Jesus and the patriarchs of Genesis (Matt. 8:11; Luke 13:28-29).

But perhaps the popular sense that we spend eternity in heaven comes most from John and John 14 in particular. Jesus prepares a place in heaven for his followers. And certainly this location fits with what other parts of the New Testament have to say about the time between Jesus' resurrection and second coming. The Parable of the Rich Man in Luke speaks of a beggar going to Abraham's side after his death (16:22). Paul speaks of how being absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:7; cf. Phil. 1:23).

Again, much of what we are saying about Christ's current activities do not come so much from the gospels as from the rest of the New Testament. What we do find a good deal about in the Synoptic Gospels, and in the rest of the New Testament, is Christ's impending return in judgment, as we discussed in chapter 8. "You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven," Jesus tells the high priest (Mark 14:62). Acts 1:11 puts it this way: "This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."

[1] See especially N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church ***.

Ascension and Exaltation 6

It seems appropriate to fill in some of the remaining blanks in the story of Jesus, even though it requires us to look beyond the gospels somewhat and into the rest of the New Testament. Both Luke and Acts tells us that Jesus ascended to heaven from the vicinity of Jerusalem. Luke 24:51 says he was taken into heaven, meaning into the skies. Acts 1:9 says that, after he was taken up, a cloud hid him from the eyes of the disciples. Christians refer to this as Jesus' ascension, and many Christian traditions celebrate "Ascension Day" on a Thursday, forty days after Easter.

Based on Psalm 110:1, Christians also speak of the "session" or seating of Jesus on the right side of God's throne: "The Lord said to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet'" (Acts 2:34-35). This verse was probably very important indeed for the earliest Christians as they tried to make sense of Jesus' death and resurrection. Mark 12:35-37 remembers Jesus himself mentioning this verse in his debates with certain teachers of the law.

The key is that the earliest Christians saw Jesus' sitting at God's right hand as his enthronement as cosmic king.  Acts 2:32-33 tell about how "God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear."  Acts then quotes Psalm 110:1, making it clear that David did not ascend to heaven--in other words the words are surely about Jesus sitting at God's right hand. Peter's sermon then comes to this conclusion: "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah" (2:36).

The timing of Jesus becoming Lord and Messiah, royal titles, is thus when Jesus sat at God's right hand, after rising from the dead. He was the "heir apparent" before that time, but fully took on the role as king, as "anointed one," "Messiah," after he rose from the dead.  And a number of passages make it clear that Jesus fully took on the title "Lord" at his resurrection. "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that... every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil. 2:9-11). Similarly Romans 10:9: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."  To declare Jesus as Lord implies that you believe God raised him from the dead.

"Son of God" is another royal title Jesus fully took on at that point. [1] Romans 1:3 says that Jesus was "appointed Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead."  Acts 13:32-33 again places Jesus' assumption of this title at the point of his resurrection: "What God promised our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: "You are my son; today I have become your father.'"

What is Jesus doing now in heaven as he sits at God's right hand? ...

[1] The phrase "Son of God" is yet another case study in how words and phrases can take on different meanings and connotations in different contexts. In the context of Acts and Paul, the phrase "Son of God" seems to be a royal title that a king assumes upon his ascension to the throne.  In a sense, a king of the Ancient Near East was not Son of God one moment and then became "Son of God" the next moment as he became king. Thus Psalm 2 is often considered an "enthronement psalm" in its original Old Testament context.

However, as Christians we also believe that Jesus was "eternally begotten of the Father" and thus that he was always the Son of God in terms of his being, not only his office.  Scholars like Richard Bauckham have argued that the New Testament already starts to have this sense in passages like Hebrews 1:5 (e.g., ***). Others like James Dunn have argued that in Acts, Paul, and Hebrews, the title is still a matter of Jesus' office as king (e.g., Christology in the Making).

We do not have to pick one or the other option when it comes to the question of truth. As Christians we both believe that Jesus was always the Son of God and that Jesus assumed the role of king of the cosmos more powerfully after he rose from the dead.

Amanda (Hontz) Drury on Doubt

Heard a great sermon this morning by Amanda Drury at College Wesleyan Church, best sermon I can remember ever hearing on the subject (I love it when God gives object lessons showing that women can preach every bit as well as men).  One of the lectionary texts for today was John 20, where Thomas doubts Jesus' resurrection.  The sermon should come up on the CWC site sometime this week.

I personally had several take-aways:

• Don't doubt alone--doubt among friends (although Amanda indicated that the Josh McDowell approach to doubt is less than helpful for the sincere doubter, let me take her one step further and say that the "Oh, you just need to learn a few things" approach to doubt usually comes from those who know far less than they think they know and is just as likely to push the doubter into an even greater crisis).
• From Karl Barth (pronounced BART): Don't weigh your quantity of doubt against your quantity of faith.  The measure of your doubt doesn't count.  Faith "the size of a mustard seed" outweighs vast measures of doubt (she pitted a bowling ball against a clump of balloons).
• Wait for Jesus to appear next week.  In John, there is a week between when Thomas doubts the appearance to the disciples and when Jesus shows up to quell his doubts.  It may be more than a week before Jesus makes his presence known to your heart... just keep putting one step in front of the next until it happens.
• Trust in the faith of others when you are struggling yourself.  For Amanda, she trusted in the faith of John during a hard spot.  You can also read Scriptures and read the creeds and affirmations of faith during a dark spell--focus on what you believe in them, not on what you are doubting.
• For one of my friends, the main take-away was that you cannot control the "what" of your doubt and you cannot control the "when" of your doubt, but you can control the "how."  Doubt like Thomas did, not like Pilate did.

Great sermon!  Listen to it when it comes up on the CWC site.

Resurrection 5

Mark tells us even less about what the resurrection means than it does about what the death of Jesus meant, although his audience presumably knew exactly what to think.  On the other hand, Matthew implicitly connects both the death and resurrection of Jesus to the future resurrection of the dead. Matthew tells his audience that many holy people from the past were raised to life and emerged from their tombs after Jesus' resurrection (Matt. 27:53).

However, the intriguing thing is that Matthew tells of this event immediately after Jesus' death, along with the curtain of the temple ripping and the ground shaking.  The death thus makes the resurrection possible, but Jesus must rise first.  As in Paul, Jesus' resurrection is the "firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor. 15:20).

The Gospel of John also brings out the connection between Jesus and the future resurrection of the dead. "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die" (John 11:25-26).

What is largely implicit in the gospels is explicit in Paul.  Jesus' resurrection is the ultimate defeat of death, the final enemy to be defeated (1 Cor. 15:26). "Just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man" (15:49). We live out our lives on earth in the human form that Adam had.  But when Christ returns, our bodies will be transformed into a resurrection body like Jesus now has. Christ "will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body"(3:21).

But the benefits of the resurrection do not have to wait until Christ's return.  "Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life" (Rom. 6:4).  In Romans, the primary benefit of the resurrection in view is not the future resurrection of the dead but the power of God to empower a person to live a righteous life right now through the Holy Spirit. This is likely what Paul means when he says that "if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you." (8:11)...

Cornerstone of Seminary Building Laid

Yesterday morning.  Here's the front page picture in the Marion Chronicle-Tribune.

The US's Secret "Laser"

I don't think the US government will mind me leaking that the North Korean rocket broke up as a result of a secret "Laser" that the US has been developing through a little known earmark code-named "Medicare." Ahmadinejad, be warned.

Augustine on when to go non-literal

Do you agree with this comment I made somewhere?
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Augustine is a good pre-modern interpreter, in my opinion. If the literal meaning of a text (as he perceived it) did not fit with his theology, he shifted into a non-literal interpretation.

Since one of the ways Protestantism argued against Roman Catholicism was by pushing the literal interpretation and since the modern era honed our skills at reading texts in their historical and literary contexts, we have found ourselves increasingly in a conundrum. Here are some of the strategies that have resulted:

• Fundamentalism--act like you're following the rules for reading in context, but find a possible way to interpret the evidence to make it come out your way. 
• Evangelicalism at its best--highlight the distinction between "that time" and "our time," so that you can let the text mean what it meant, but then adjust the application for a different context. Deal with potential issues in your theology rather than playing games with the original meaning of the text. 
• "Liberalism"--let the text say what it said and then dismiss it as wrong 
• Theological interpretation--let the text say what it said literally but reopen the door for more than literal interpretations 

Good and Bad Scholarship: Talpiot Hullabaloo

I don't have time to write this morning, but I thought I'd refer anyone interested to some good scholarship on Mark Goodacre's blog about the hullabaloo James Tabor and others have been generating for some time about a supposed "lost tomb of Jesus" found in Israel.

Here's his summary of the situation.

Bad scholarship is when one refuses to let the evidence modify your hypothesis. Tabor and friends are, in my opinion, a good example of bad scholarship. However, they do not represent the vast majority of biblical scholars who are really interested primarily in truth and in following the evidence to its most logical conclusion.

Unfortunately, Tabor and others play easily into America's current problem with "expertophobia," the ironic instinct Americans seem to have that if someone is an expert on a subject, they should be viewed with suspicion because they're probably evil. For example, according to a recent comment in the public sphere, I am a snob for hoping more people can get a college education. This is actually as strong a sign of our decline as a nation as any other. The "greatest generation" didn't feel that way--not at all.

Most experts in a field are exactly that--experts, people who by definition are more likely to be right about that subject than you or me.

Resurrection Appearances 4

continued from yesterday.
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The gospels give us several traditions about Jesus' appearances to various individuals after he rose from the dead. Because we do not likely have the original ending of Mark, Mark as we have it does not go on to tell us about any of the resurrection appearances. However, like Matthew, Mark implies that the eleven remaining disciples saw Jesus in Galilee (Mark 16:7; Matt. 28:16-17).

However, in Luke and John, we also hear of an appearance to the disciples in Jerusalem. In Luke, Jesus appears to the eleven the evening of his resurrection (Luke 24:36). In John similarly, Jesus appears to most of the disciples on the evening of his resurrection (John 20:19). Then he appears again a week later, when Thomas is with them (20:26). Then later in John 21 Jesus appears to Peter and several key disciples--including the mysterious "Beloved Disciple"--around the Sea of Galilee.

In Matthew and John, we also hear of Jesus appearing to some of the women who came to the tomb. John 20 tells us of Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene by herself (John 20:11-18). Meanwhile, Matthew 28:8-10 tells of Jesus appearing to all the women who came to his tomb before they tell the disciples to go to Galilee.

Any attempt to fit these accounts together is inevitably speculative and creates a narrative that gives a different impression from the gospels themselves in some respect. For whatever reason, Luke seems to compress the time after the resurrection, and he omits any appearances in Galilee.  Matthew and Mark tell of no appearances to the disciples in Jerusalem, while John has a little of both.

Two general scenarios emerge. The one is that Jesus made an initial appearance to the disciples, women, and the men on the way to Emmaus in and around Jerusalem. Then the disciples would have gone to Galilee, received the Great Commission, seen Jesus around the Sea of Galilee, and then returned to Jerusalem before Jesus finally ascended to heaven. This scenario harmonizes all the accounts but is a little strange as a sequence of events. What was the point of going to Galilee if Jesus was already in Jerusalem? Was not Jerusalem where they expected Jesus to become king and thus where they expected the kingdom of God to arrive in full force (e.g., Acts 1:6; cf. Luke 2:25, 36-38)? [1]

The alternative is that the initial resurrection appearances were in Galilee and that the disciples then rushed back to Jerusalem in expectation of the full arrival of the kingdom of God and Jesus' full return as king. Jesus would then have appeared to them further before finally ascending to heaven. While this scenario makes more sense as a sequence of events, it does not fit nearly as well with the way Luke and John present the chronology. And of course the more one deviates from the chronology in the gospels, the more speculative any reconstruction becomes.

So we return to the bedrock of the tradition, what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul does not mention the appearances to the women explicitly but mentions Peter as the first crucial appearance, as Luke 24:34 implies. Then Paul says Jesus appeared to the Twelve, whether this refers to an appearance the night of Easter in Jerusalem (Luke 24:36; John 20:19) or to an appearance in Galilee (Matt. 28:16-17).

He appears to a group of over five hundred at once and to James, the brother of Jesus. James would become the leader of the Jerusalem church. We unfortunately do not know how Jesus appeared to James, but it must have been a very convincing appearance, for Jesus' brothers apparently did not believe in him while he was on earth (e.g., John 7:3-5). It is tempting to think that the appearance to over five hundred was the Great Commission of Matthew 28 or the ascension of Acts 1, but those appearances seem restricted to the eleven. Any further attempt to connect it with the gospels or Acts is quite speculative. [2]

Jesus then appeared to the apostles and lastly to Paul. We do not know many of the names of these apostles but we do likely know a few. Barnabas is one (e.g., Acts 14:14).  Romans 16:7 may give us the names of two more, perhaps a husband and a wife: Andronicus and Junia. An apostle was someone to whom Jesus appeared and whom Jesus commissioned to go as a witness to the resurrection (cf. 1 Cor. 9:1). We thus have evidence of at least one woman who was an apostle.

[1] Of course the most obvious answer is that Jesus and the angels told them to go to Galilee.

[2] E.g., to try to connect it with the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2.

Three Rules for Living

I was trying to get across the biggie of ethics again to my youngest two this morning:

2. Do to others what you would have them to do you.

Then of course my daughter, who goes to Justice Middle School, brought up the person who takes advantage of your generosity to them.  I shifted to a second rule.

3. Love must be tough.

We punish and bring justice first to try to reform and help others. Then at some point we sequester them to protect others from them. Then finally when there is no apparent hope we banish them from society all together.

Of course often more abstract but actually the first rule of living is:

1. Serve God.

Christians do this through the other two, but also through worship.  However, the key effect serving God has on us is that it decentralizes ourselves from the throne of our lives as an idol.  It says that we do not live simply for what is in our best interest but in service to God and others.  It says that truth and the greater good are ultimately more important than us as individuals.

Women at the Tomb 3

... continued from yesterday
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It seems very likely indeed that these women found the tomb empty where Jesus’ body had been laid, as well as that they did not initially tell anyone, as Mark 16:8 says. There is first the fact that such specific names are mentioned. For such specific names to be remembered in places far removed from where they were known, surely the tradition started first in the places where they were known, probably well within their lifetime. [1]

Similarly, the fact that they did not initially tell anyone out of fear is scarcely a comment someone would invent. Indeed, Matthew and Luke chose not to mention this little detail even though they were likely copying Mark at this point. The tradition that Paul passes on about resurrection appearances does not mention these women, unless they are part of the five hundred who saw Jesus risen on one occasion.  Their role in the story seems very likely--surely no one in that day would have invented women discovering the empty tomb if it had not happened that way. [2]

We thus have two very interesting likelihoods. First, Jesus’ tomb was empty on Sunday morning. Second, hundreds of individuals were quite convinced that they had seen Jesus alive after his death. [3] If we add a little faith to these two likelihoods, we have Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Obviously if a person does not believe that resurrections can happen, then he or she will find another explanation. But if you believe resurrections can happen, this is the most likely one of all history.

Paul says that the first resurrection appearance was to Peter. This is more than a little intriguing, since none of the gospels clearly tell about the incident. The most we get is an intriguing and allusive comment in Luke 24:34—"he has appeared to Simon." But the story of that appearance is not told, unless John has moved it to his final chapter (John 21).

The way the gospels present the resurrection appearances in general makes it clear that no one of them gives us the full story.  For example, it is easy to think that the Great Commission of Matthew happened outside of Jerusalem right before Jesus ascended to heaven in Acts 1:9. Then we realize that the Great Commission took place in Galilee (Matt. 28:16), a three days journey away from Bethany where Jesus ascends (Luke 24:50).

In fact, Luke-Acts does not mention any of the appearances in Galilee at all, while Mark and Matthew indicate that Jesus' primary resurrection appearances were there.  It would be easy to conclude that there is some artistry involved in these presentations rather than a completely literal presentation.  For example, one of the features of Luke-Acts is to focus the center of his presentation, especially in Acts, on the city of Jerusalem. He has accordingly omitted the part of the resurrection story that took place in Galilee.

Even a brief comparison of the ending of Luke with the beginning of Acts highlights the artfulness of Luke's presentation. If one looks at the timing of Luke 24, you might easily infer that Jesus rises from the dead and ascends to heaven on the same day.  Jesus appears to the men on their way to Emmaus "that same day" (Luke 24:13). They return to Jerusalem "at once" (24:33). "While they were still talking" (24:36) Jesus appears again, and Jesus leads them out near Bethany, where he ascends to heaven (24:50).

But then, when we turn to Luke's second volume, Acts, there are forty days between Jesus' resurrection and ascension (Acts 1:3). This is scarcely a difference Luke would expect his audience to miss. [4] It must have surely been understood that Luke was not simply presenting a documentary of what happened but also arranging and presenting the material in an artful and meaningful way.

If our reaction is, "Luke messed up because the two don't seem to match," then we are not thinking about Luke-Acts in the right way. We are thinking it's all about history when in fact it's all about truth, using history as the medium. This is an important paradigm shift you must make if you are to have a deep understanding of the message of the gospels...

[1] Books such as James Dunn's Jesus Remembered and Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses remind us that such traditions would have likely circulated while these individuals were still living.  The details of such oral traditions might vary quite a bit, but a core tended to travel intact.

[2] That is, if someone were making the story up from scratch, surely they would have had men find the tomb empty. For example, in John, Peter and the Beloved Disciple corroborate the fact that the tomb is empty.  See also Luke 24:12.

[3] A good book on this topic is James Dunn's The Evidence of Jesus.

[4] Although I am using the name Luke for convenience, the author of Luke-Acts nowhere actually gives his name, assuming it was a man.  Technically, Luke-Acts is anonymous.

Women at the Tomb 2

... continued from yesterday.
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We do not really learn about the empty tomb from Paul. However, he does seem to presume some sort of continuity between the body in which we die and the body in which we rise. "The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable" (1 Cor. 15:42). The body with which we are raised is not made up of flesh and blood (15:50), but it is somehow in continuity with our earthly body. So for Paul to believe that Jesus rose from the dead would seem to imply that Jesus' earthly body would no longer be located in the earth.

But it is in the gospels that we hear explicitly about the empty tomb. Mark is again the earliest gospel account. In the final hours of Friday before sundown, before the beginning of Sabbath, they place Jesus' body fairly quickly in someone else's tomb, someone named Joseph of Arimathea. Then early Sunday morning, after the Sabbath is over, some of the women who followed Jesus want to anoint his body with burial spices. Mark mentions Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and a woman named Salome (16:1). [1]

When the women get there, they find the stone in front of the tomb rolled away and the body is gone.  In Mark's account, two remarkable things then happen. First, they are told by a young man in a white robe to tell the disciples to go to Galilee. There the disciples and Peter will see him again, as he promised them. The second remarkable thing is that the women do not tell the disciples, at least not initially, "because they were afraid" (16:8).

This is where Mark as we have it ends. True, many versions go on to print twelve more verses, but they are not likely the way Mark originally ended. The earliest copies of Mark that have survived--and the earliest statements about the ending of Mark up until the early 300s--do not have these verses. Perhaps even more convincing is that these verses don't fit here. Mark 16:9 seems to start all over again as if the first eight verses didn't even exist. Accordingly, the vast majority of experts on the biblical text do not think Mark 16:9-20 were the way Mark originally read.

[insert text box on textual criticism]

However, it does seem quite reasonable that the original version of Mark did have something here. We do actually find another, shorter ending in some ancient manuscripts (hand written copies). No one thinks it was the original ending either, but it demonstrates the early sense that something was missing from the ending at verse 8. Indeed, Mark 16:8 as it stands ends with the word "for," a strange way to end a book.

I think it is quite possible that the original ending of Mark went on to tell of an appearance to Peter or the disciples in Galilee, perhaps some earlier version of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20. Matthew was based on Mark, so perhaps in Matthew 28 we catch some small glimpse of the original ending of Mark. Some have mistakenly claimed that Mark does not believe Jesus rose from the dead. This is quite incorrect, since Mark 16:6 clearly proclaims that Jesus is risen. Mark as we have it simply doesn't narrate any of the resurrection encounters...

[1] Matthew seems to identify Salome as the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee (27:56). Additionally, the other Mary is said in Matthew to be the mother of James and Joseph. Luke 24:10 additionally mentions a woman named Joanna. John 20 only mentions Mary Magdalene.

Resurrection 1

I start this chapter on Easter morning, 2012. Today I and Christians all over the world will celebrate that Sunday so long ago, perhaps in the year AD30, when Jesus physically emerged from the tomb in which they had buried him. For Christians, every Sunday is a little Easter, a little celebration that Jesus has risen from the dead. [1]

We say it was after three days, because the Jewish day goes from sundown to sundown. Jesus was thus dead from about 3pm to sundown on Friday (day one). He was dead all Saturday (day two). Then he was dead from sundown on Saturday to the time when he rose early Sunday morning (day three). [2]

Most scholars believe he was buried in a vault something like this one, today located in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher not far from the traditional site of Jesus' burial.

There is another site, Gordon's Tomb, which is located in a garden today and has a rock outcropping that looks somewhat like a skull. Many Christian visitors say it gives them a better feel for what they picture when they read John 19:41, even though it is not likely the original location. [3]

The earliest report of Jesus' resurrection comes from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7. [4] Since Paul wrote this letter around the year AD54, it is a very early report indeed, likely within fifteen years of the event. Paul says that he himself inherited this tradition (15:3), presumably from people like James and Peter in Jerusalem (e.g., Gal. 1:18; 2:9).

It is not at all likely that he is lying, since he has enemies in the church at Corinth and indeed had conflicts with the Jerusalem church. Both groups no doubt would have loved to show him wrong if he was saying false things about such a fundamental tradition. But we have absolutely no evidence that anyone did. It is thus overwhelmingly likely that the tradition Paul passes on here is exactly what everyone in Jerusalem was saying.

Paul doesn't give much detail. He basically gives a list of those to whom Jesus appeared. Jesus rose on the third day (1 Cor. 15:4). He appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve (15:5). [5] There was an appearance to a large group of over 500 people (15:6).  Then there was a second wave of appearances.  Jesus appeared to his brother James and to all the apostles (15:7), ending with his appearance to Paul himself (15:8).

These were all real people, most of whom were still alive at the time Paul was writing. We have good reason to think that many of them suffered considerably in consequence of this belief. The disciple James, Peter, James the brother of Jesus, Paul--all of them were put to death, still firmly believing that they had seen Jesus alive after his death. It is not reasonable to think these individuals were lying...

[1] The Bible nowhere equates Sunday with the Jewish Sabbath.  The Jewish Sabbath was from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. For Christians, Sunday is a celebration of Jesus' resurrection. For this reason, those who choose to give up something for Lent do not have to do so on the Sundays of that period. No Sunday is a day for fasting.

[2] Being dead three days also makes a symbolic connection with the prophet Jonah. Jonah was in the fish for three days and three nights (Matt. 12:40).

[3] Although the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is currently within the walls of Jerusalem, archaeology has confirmed that it was right outside the city at the time of Jesus. The Romans usually crucified right outside city walls on a path where people would walk by.

[4] It would be very common to think that the gospels were written first because they treat Jesus, who came before Paul. But the gospels were not written by Jesus or at the time of Jesus. They were written later in the century, likely after Paul was already dead in fact.

[5] This would not have included Judas Iscariot at this point. Either "the Twelve" is used loosely or Paul has in mind those who would be considered the Twelve after Judas was replaced.

The Significance of Christ's Death

The earliest gospel, Mark, has only one explicit statement on the significance of Christ's death: Mark 10:45. "the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." [1] Matthew and Luke have little more, and Luke even softens this verse. [2] The temple curtain does rip from top to bottom (e.g., Mark 15:38), which may imply that Jesus' death was a final atonement for sins or that those who trust in his death now have direct access to God.  But the Synoptic Gospels do not say what the significance is.

As we would expect, the Gospel of John is more explicit.  "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life" (John 6:54). So John tells us that Jesus' death is the mechanism by which we can have eternal life. John doesn't specify exactly how it works, but we have good reason to think in sacrificial terms. For example, John seems to have moved Jesus' action in the temple (2:13-25) next to Jesus turning water into wine (2:1-12). The two stories go hand in hand.

The jars into which Jesus has them put water are for the waters of ritual purification (2:6). Turning water into wine may very well then symbolize the transition from Old Testament purification by water to the "wine" of Jesus' blood. Similarly, Jesus "destroys" the temple with his death and raises it up anew when he rises from the dead.

In the minds of the ancients, sacrifices functioned on a deep level. Perhaps most basically, they kept the gods happy, well fed, as it were.  Christian thinkers have long tried to unpack the significance of Christ's death, and the views that relate most to Jesus' death as a sacrifice are the views that see his death as a satisfaction of God's anger toward sin or even some basic satisfaction of the need for justice. Paul puts it this way, "God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished" (Rom. 3:25).

Jesus's death shows that God is just, even though he is choosing not to hold us accountable for our past sins.  There is a general sense, then, that Jesus took our place. He died "for our sins" (1 Cor. 15:3). Mind you, some have taken this picture of Jesus' death far beyond anything the New Testament says. Paul doesn't treat Christ's death as some mathematical equivalent for the exact amount of punishment our sins demand from a standpoint of justice. [3] "For our sins" is the reason he died, not a statement that he substituted for our exact punishment.

Jesus' death satisfies the order of things. It powerfully demonstrates what God stands for. His grace to us came at a huge price.  It also demonstrates how much he loves us, so much that the Father is willing to sacrifice his own life for us.  Indeed, Jesus himself is willing to die for us.

Christianity has never endorsed a single view of how Jesus' death worked. It was a sacrifice. It satisfied the order of things. Jesus took our place. Jesus showed us God's love and his obedience to death is a model for us to follow. All these pictures of Jesus' death are true.

A final one is the idea that in his sinless death, Jesus defeated the powers of Satan. The image of a "ransom" relates somewhat to this view, as well as to the satisfaction view. Jesus' death "pays off" the price to free humanity from sin and death. It is a metaphor that shouldn't push it too far. The "Christus Victor" view is the one that looks at Christ's death primarily as the defeat of Satan and the defeat of the evil powers that enslave the world.

However it might exactly work, the effect of Jesus' death is reconciliation to those who trust in it. God has "reconciled us to himself through Christ" (2 Cor. 5:18).  We are "buried with him through baptism into death" (Rom. 6:4).  We "have been crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2:20). We die with him and will thus rise as he did as well.

All this reflection arguably came after Jesus' time on earth. Jesus' death played almost no role at all in Jesus' own early message and explicit mission.  Perhaps only in his very last days did he begins to speak to his disciples of his death as a kind of sacrifice.

This observation does not in any way deny the central and essential importance of his death. However, sometimes it seems like some Christians ignore the bulk of Jesus' message while he was on earth and focus disproportionately on the saving significance of his death and resurrection. We can preach the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection without ignoring the good news of the kingdom he brought while he ministered in Galilee.

[1] We already discussed earlier in the chapter the probable significance of Jesus' words at his Last Supper.

[2] Luke 19:10 simply says "The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost," leaving out the sense of Jesus' death as a ransom. Luke has nothing to say about the atoning significance of Christ's death but is instead focused much more on the significance of his resurrection.

[3] A view sometimes called penal satisfaction.

Death, Be not Proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

by John Donne

Sermon in Shoes (Children's Song)

A few people had never heard the children's song, "A Sermon in Shoes."  One requested I send an audio of it. It was a book in the shape of shoes that a child or two would be chosen to come forward and hold. Then the children would all sing the song from the book, page by page.

Here are the lyrics and an audio. I'm not sure who owns the copyright or where you could get the book. Publisher, you might get some sales if you comment ;-)

Do you know, Oh Christian, you’re a sermon in shoes?

Do you know, Oh Christian, you’re a sermon in shoes?

Jesus calls upon you, to spread the gospel news,

So walk it, and talk it. 

Live it, and give it.

Teach it, and preach it. 

Know it, and show it.

A Sermon in Shoes.

Here's the audio.

Jesus and Divorce 4

... Perhaps on no other subject have Christians more often taken the Pharisees of the gospels as a model. For example, recognizing the spirit of Christ, some have allowed for separation in cases like child molestation or spousal abuse. But to keep the letter of the law, they have forbid official divorce or remarriage after divorce.

Certainly as Christians we have to believe in miracles and the possibility of restoration. We believe an offender can be redeemed and that the offended should forgive. The Christian virtues of patience and hope are commendable. But Jesus also bids us to be "wise as serpents" (Matt. 10:16). Abused spouses can forgive their former abusers from afar, without putting themselves in harm's way again.

Is the institution of marriage an end-in-itself? Perhaps to some extent it is.  The institution of marriage probably does provide stability to most societies on some level, and it surely did in the biblical worlds. However, we should be careful to recognize that it has done so in different ways at different times and places. So biblical marriages range from polygamous arrangements to perhaps arranged marriages within one's extended family. [1] We do not find the small nuclear family as the norm in Bible times.

But the spirit of Jesus far more bids us look at people as what need to be protected, not laws about marriage. People are the ones who are at the table--husbands, wives, and children--not legalities and ideas. To put a wife or husband in an eternal limbo of separation because of a rule, when wisdom says healing best will take place by moving on, seems completely out of sync with the way Jesus thought, especially in the age of the nuclear family. [2]

I remember a well intentioned believer once telling me that a person remained married in God's eyes to whomever you first had sex with. I have even heard someone wonder if a divorced and remarried couple should divorce their second spouses so they can get back with their first partner, believing that the first partner remained eternally the one to whom they are married in God's eyes. This is an extreme example of an idea driving a rule rather than love of neighbor driving our action. And it is thoroughly unbiblical.

Deuteronomy 24 actually prohibited an Israelite man from remarrying an earlier wife if she had later remarried someone else. It is true that two people having sex become one flesh, but this is true of the polygamist in the Old Testament and the prostitute in 1 Corinthians 6. Certainly Paul wouldn't have urged the Corinthians to marry the prostitute, nor would he have urged someone to wait for the prostitute to become available for marriage if she was someone's first. This perspective breaks down into absurdities upon even a little reflection.

The whole line of thinking also treats sex in a way that the Bible never does. The Old Testament, for example, is much more practical. In Exodus 22:16-17, whether a man marries an unpromised virgin he has slept with depends on what her father wants. Polygamy is an assumed practice in the Old Testament (e.g., Deut. 21:15-16), and Jacob became "one flesh" with both his wives and both his concubines. In Hosea 1:2, God seems to command Hosea to marry a prostitute to make a point.

The bottom line is that sex is something distinct from marriage in the Bible. The ideal is certainly that sex and marriage go together neatly. This is God's ideal. But having sex does not mean two people have become married in God's eyes or that they must certainly get married--a potential recipe for disaster. Those who marry only because of a rule are prime candidates for later divorce. There is an ideal, but it is not an exceptionless one.

If Christians have often been legalistic on the front end of getting a divorce, they have also been legalistic on the back end, after a person has been divorced. Perhaps a person can remarry if they were the "innocent party."  Or perhaps they have to wait until their former spouse remarries before he or she can. Can divorced individuals be ministers or does a previous divorce forever preclude a person from becoming a minister? In some contexts, divorce is a kind of unpardonable sin from which one can never escape the "legal" consequences.

There would seem to be serious theological problems with this perspective. Is there any sin for which Christ's death does not atone? Absolutely not. True, we often have to live with the consequences of our sins.  It takes time for communities and individuals to rebuild trust, even if they are willing to forgive. Healing can take time, and surely it does not glorify God to be naive.

But consequences should ultimately be a matter of the real world, not of artificially imposed rules. If I lose an arm doing something foolish, the laws of nature force me to live with the consequences of my actions. It is something quite different for us to insist a person remain unmarried forever after a divorce when nothing precludes the possibility of going on to have another chance at a healthy marriage. Remaining single then becomes an eternal punishment for a past sin, something quite different from a natural consequence.

It seems that this view involves an inferior sense of Christ's atonement. Perhaps his death can forgive the personal guilt of the sin but it can't forgive the social guilt. And it can't restore. We may talk about God restoring the virginity of a girl who has sex before marriage, but we don't believe it can restore a divorced person to a pure state. This perspective seems deeply problematic...

[1] "Endogamous" marriage where one tends to marry "within" the larger extended family to keep possessions in the group.  See Malina ***.  Family is not a matter of a husband, wife, and kids (nuclear family) but includes grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles.

[2] In other words, there are some significant differences between family then and now. A wife can get a job and there are safety networks to take care of children. The extended family is now divided into relatively independent nuclear families, all of whom are expected to take care of themselves. We do not live in an "honor-shame" culture, where divorce brings debilitating dishonor to the members of a family unit.

Jesus and Divorce 3

... Again, we see that these statements by Jesus are far from legalistic rules.  They are statements full of compassion aimed to protect the weak and helpless in society, namely, the vulnerable Jewish wife of Galilee. Of course, God did not want the wife in broader Roman society to throw her husband away either, and so the possibly expanded instruction is equally valid for the audience of Mark as Jesus' instruction was for his audience in Galilee. [1]

A key difference between Matthew and Mark on the question of divorce is the exception phrase in Matthew: "except for sexual immorality." [2] The fact that Matthew brings out an exception highlights the fact that Jesus' teaching in Mark 10 was never meant to be exceptionless but to give the general rule.  Matthew, which the vast majority of experts believe used Mark as a source, brings out the most significant potential exception to the rule--sexual infidelity.

The fact that Matthew and Mark do not mention other exceptions does not necessarily mean that there were no others. Again, the spirit of Jesus in these instructions was not to set up a rule for its own sake but to show compassion on the weak and chastise the pleasure-seeking husband interested only in his own self-gratification. For example, surely it would violate the very purpose of Jesus' instructions to force an abused wife or husband to remain married to a violent spouse.

Of course, just because a man's wife is unfaithful does not mean that he must divorce her. Matthew suggests that sexual infidelity can be a exception to the general rule not to divorce, but surely the spirit of Jesus could forgive an unfaithful spouse. Surely God would be even more glorified by a couple who, after such a significant crisis, could find reconciliation and healing.

Amid all the legalism that has surrounded the application of biblical teaching on divorce, it ultimately comes down once again to the fundamental principle that God is love and that, for Jesus, the lives of real people trumped rules for their own sake. Jesus did not want spouses to harm each other by throwing the other away in pursuit of selfish pleasure. Today he would not want parents to harm their children by ripping a family apart for selfish reasons.

But children can be harmed by some parents staying together as well. Would Jesus want a spouse to stay in a relationship where the other spouse was molesting a child?  Surely the spirit of Jesus would want to save some spouses from harmful situations even if the spouse hasn't crossed the line in sexual infidelity. It is the Pharisees in the gospels who mistake the rules themselves for the principles behind the rules.

Our problem is that we know people make excuses to justify what they want to do. We want to be able to stop them from getting by with it. We want to stop the person who wants to claim an exceptional situation when it is nothing of the sort.  We humans are very good of coming up with good-sounding reasons that are not our real reasons.

God is not fooled. This is key. We want to be able to stop the person making excuses. We want to expose the fraud. We don't want to leave the pretenders to God. We want to punish them now. But God says that vengeance is his (Rom. 12:19). No one is getting away with anything...

[1] If this interpretation of how the oral tradition developed is correct, then we see that God used the tradition at every point to clarify his will on divorce in more than one context.

[2] The key passages are Mark 10:11-12 and Matthew 5:32 and 19:9.

Jesus and Divorce 2

This raises an interesting question of cultural background. It is not clear that a wife actually could officially divorce her husband in Palestine at the time of Jesus. [1] For example, the Jewish historian Josephus says that it was against the Jewish Law for a woman to divorce her husband, although it was possible for elite women to do it under Roman law. [2] The later Jewish collection of oral tradition, the Mishnah (ca. 200), similarly assumes throughout that only a husband could initiate a divorce. [3]

What then are we do with Mark 10:12, where Jesus prohibits a wife from divorcing her husband? It is a difficult question. On the one hand, the time of Jesus has left us such little evidence that we cannot ignore the possibility that, despite all the information we have from elsewhere, it was still possible somehow in Galilee for an ordinary wife to initiate a divorce. Or perhaps Mark is worded imprecisely and refers to a wife asking her husband for a divorce.

However, the more likely suggestion is that the oral tradition of Jesus' statement on divorce expanded as the saying left Palestine. In the Roman world, it was equally possible for wife to divorce her husband as for a husband to divorce a wife. Mark or the tradition he inherited thus would have taken an original saying, which only mentioned the husband divorcing, and expanded it for a Roman audience to include the wife as well.

The original concern of Jesus in Galilee, then, would have focused exclusively on husbands throwing away their helpless wives. This likelihood changes our sense of the original dynamic in the ministry of Jesus considerably. Jesus' teaching, as we would expect, focused on compassion toward the powerless, namely, the wife in Galilean society. Mark 10 appropriately broadens the principle for a different context.

Another curious aspect of Jesus' teaching here, and perhaps quite revolutionary, is the sense that a husband can commit adultery against his wife (Mark 10:11).  The New Testament anthropologist Bruce Malina has argued that adultery at the time by definition was the shaming of a man by sleeping with his wife. [4] Accordingly, a man could not commit adultery against a woman. If a man slept with another man's wife, he was committing adultery against her husband. Similarly, if a married man slept with a single woman, he would not be committing adultery.

If Malina's analysis of ancient Mediterranean culture is correct, then it would have been shocking for Jesus to suggest that a man might commit adultery against his wife by sleeping with another woman. Jesus would be giving a significance to the wife that was unheard of. What we assume when we read these texts--that adultery goes both ways--becomes another example of Jesus' startling care for the disempowered in society and his shocking preaching.

Matthew 5:32 then must also be somewhat tongue in cheek, typical Jesus. A divorced wife will almost have to remarry to support herself. In that sense, the husband who divorces her is forcing her to sleep with another man.  Tongue in cheek, he is forcing her to commit adultery against himself. Obviously Jesus could not mean this literally. He is shaming the man who would do such a thing. The man who divorces his wife, in effect, is forcing her to shame him by sleeping with another man.

Again, we see that these statements by Jesus are far from legalistic rules...

[1] A recent article discussing the issue is Robert Brody, "Evidence for Divorce by Jewish Women?" Journal of Jewish Studies 50.2 (1999): **

[2] Antiquities 15.259.

[3] Yev 14.1; Qid 1.1; Git 4.2, 8.4, 9.10

[4] The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels.

Jesus and Divorce 1

Thanks for all the honor my family felt was given to my father this last week. I felt that the funeral yesterday was an appropriate send off. For me the song, "Jesus Led Me All the Way" was the most tender moment in the service. Great song and not as well known today. I'm tempted to post it here sometime.

Trying to get back to writing.  I'm in a chapter on the ethic Jesus taught. I thought the section on Jesus and divorce might get me back in the groove.
_____________
The picture of Jesus in this chapter thus far has been consistent.  He allowed his disciples to break the Sabbath rule because they were hungry, and endorsed the priest breaking the rules about sanctified bread to feed David. The Parable of the Good Samaritan implies that helping someone in serious need is more important to God than the purity laws for priests. Everything we have seen so far shows that people took priority for him over Old Testament Law and that he made exceptions to the rules when the two came into significant conflict.

We might be a little puzzled at first, then, to see Jesus seem to take an almost legalistic position on the issue of divorce. Indeed, those who see Christianity primarily as a series of dos and don'ts may pay more attention to the words of Jesus on divorce than to the vast majority of things he said. And churches have sometimes played out divorce as something like an unpardonable sin, in effect ostracizing people from full Christian fellowship if they are divorced--sometimes even when they did not initiate the divorce. 

Matthew 19:9 remembers Jesus' words in this way: "I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." In this passage, Jesus' disciples are so amazed at this restriction on divorce that they conclude it's almost better not to marry at all. Their world was one in which the only restriction was that the husband had to make a divorce official. Beyond that, a man could divorce his wife for pretty much any reason.

Apparently, the men of the time took their sense that a man could divorce his wife for any reason from Deuteronomy 24, to which this passage alludes. While Deuteronomy is actually about the remarriage of a divorced wife to her first husband, Jesus' contemporaries debated whether it implicitly gave a man permission to divorce his wife for anything he might find "indecent" in her. The way they put it to Jesus in Matthew 19:7 is that God commanded a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away.

In itself, there is some mercy even in this interpretation. There are places in the world today where a man can put a wife in limbo by leaving her, maybe leaving her in some village far away from where he is, and never officially severing ties from her. Sometimes this sort of thing happens in societies in places of the world where the woman cannot possibly take care of herself.  She might receive no support from her "husband" and yet be unable to find another man to support her because she is still officially married to her husband.

A command to make divorce official for such a woman is an act of mercy. It allows her to marry another man who will support her and her children. Perhaps some at the time of Jesus were interpreting Deuteronomy 24:1 in that way.  If so, then we can at least commend that sort of divorce as an act of mercy.

But surely Jesus' words on divorce, like his other teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, means to get to the root of the issue. A man should not be throwing away his wife in the first place. Although Jesus does not quote Malachi 2, surely it is in the same spirit that Jesus made his statements on divorce. He is thinking primarily of the husband who is unfaithful to the wife of his youth and stops protecting her, instead choosing to divorce her for selfish reasons.

This raises an interesting question of cultural background. It is not clear that a wife actually could officially divorce her husband in Palestine at the time of Jesus...

Funeral Sermon: "A Sermon in Shoes"

Sermon in Shoes

Funeral of M. Lee Schenck

April 2, 2012

Introduction

Most of us here this morning will remember the children’s song, “Sermon in Shoes.”

            Do you know, Oh Christian, you’re a sermon in shoes?

            Do you know, Oh Christian, you’re a sermon in shoes?

            Jesus calls upon you, to spread the gospel news,

So walk it, and talk it. Live it, and give it.

Teach it, and preach it. Know it, and show it.

A Sermon in Shoes.

That’s what came to mind this week as I thought of what kind of sermon would be appropriate for my father’s funeral. It dawned on me that he had already preached it with his life. He had walked the gospel and talked it. He had lived it, and he had certainly given it. He didn’t so much teach it and preach it, but he certainly showed it. My father was a sermon in shoes. As I told several people at the service in Florida on Friday, by God’s grace my father hit the Christian life out of the park.

The Scripture just read seemed highly appropriate.  As Paul writes the Philippians, he is unsure whether he will live or die. But in the meantime, he urges them to conduct their lives in a way that is worthy of the gospel. In other words, he urges them to be a sermon in shoes.  I’m not sure how long it will be before I see my father again, but his life also urges me, urges us all to be sermons in shoes.

A Servant of the King

What is the gospel? It is much more than how to be saved from God’s judgment. In fact that’s the human-centered, often self-centered version, a paltry shadow of the real gospel. The real gospel is the good news of the kingdom of God, the good news that our God reigns and is in control. When a death like my father’s happens, we are reminded of how much we are out of control. But God is still on his throne; God is still in control. Christ is still king and, indeed, part of the good news is that the dead in Christ will one day rise and that my father’s spirit is already in the presence of Jesus.

My father was a sermon in shoes as a servant of the king.  He showed us all what it meant to be a good and faithful servant. We Wesleyans believe in something we call, “entire sanctification.” Some in the past have unfortunately reduced it to having a certain experience or following certain rules. When I’ve tried to explain what it looks like, I’ve sometimes pictured it as a God-given ability to do the right thing and indeed to like doing it. Godliness has to do with the choices we make. It involves doing the right thing for the right reasons especially when you are tempted to do something else.

My father was one of the best sermons on entire sanctification I ever heard. I never once, never once in my entire life, remember a time when my Dad intentionally made the wrong choice when he knew what God wanted him to do. Oh I’m sure there were many times when he misunderstood God’s will. I’m sure there were times where he didn’t realize he wasn’t doing God’s will. But I can’t think of a single time, not a single instance, where my Dad knowingly did the wrong thing.

My Dad gave God his all, everything he knew to give. He did everything to the glory of God to the best of his understanding. He tithed throughout World War 2 even though he considered himself backslidden at the time (by the way, I don’t believe it for a minute). He did it because he believed he would one day get right with God and would have to pay restitution on back-tithe anyway.

He read Scripture every morning. He prayed every day. He knelt in prayer beside his bed every evening and prayed for his whole family by name. His last night when he felt so weak, he still managed to pray, “Lord help our children,” and then later added a prayer for a family member who is currently in danger.  I suspect he was far more exacting of himself in these matters than God was, but it shows his complete surrender and devotion to his heavenly Father.

My Dad loved the church. Christianity for him was not some vague notion of God you have while hiking through the forest. For him you didn’t go to church for what you could get out of it. He went to church because he was a good and faithful servant of the king.

I like to imagine that moment in heaven when God made him feel through his whole being, maybe for the first time, that he was not just a servant, but a son of the king. My mother, my four sisters and I know how thoroughly and completely our Dad loved us. I have never once in my entire life ever doubted that he loved me. The thought never even occurred to me growing up.

But I delight to think that my Dad now knows how much God loves him, that the love he showed his children pales into oblivion next to the love God has always had for him. Some of us this morning need to be better servants of the king than we are. I ask you to listen to my Dad’s sermon in shoes. But others of you are great servants of the king, but need to hear God’s voice this morning saying that he loves you far more as his child than as his servant.  I ask you this morning to hear that good news.

Standing in one spirit, striving as one person

In the Scripture read a few minutes ago, Paul tells the Philippians to walk worthy of the gospel. What does that look like?  Well, he tells them.  It is for them to be unified, for them to stand with one spirit and to strive in the world as one person. We know from later on in the letter that the church had its share of disagreements. It was not one of those dream churches where everyone gets along.

Most of us are willing to stand together as one person as long as that one person looks a lot like us.  It’s much harder to be one with someone who disagrees with you. The temptation then is to dismiss them—they’re not a real Christian. If they were, they’d see it my way.

My father was a sermon in shoes when it came to getting along with real people who just flat out disagree with you. At one point my Dad went through a Dale Carnegie course as part of his job, and I remember him quoting several times the saying that “A man convinced against his will is of the same mind still.”  The saying must have resonated with him and his experience.

Scripture doesn’t put it quite that way, but it fits Scripture. There’s a time to agree to disagree. At some point I have to live my life faithfully and let others stand before God on their own. So many of us can’t let it go. We want to force everyone else to see God our way or to do things our way.

It’s a losing battle.  Even worse, we often cause more damage than good to the kingdom by fighting over what we think God wants. Paul didn’t tell the Philippians who was right and who was wrong in the conflict between Euodia and Syntyche.  He just told them they needed to get their spirits together and be unified. God looks on the heart, and we can be one in spirit even when we disagree over ideas or courses of action.

My Dad never attacked when he disagreed. It is so tempting to call others names when we disagree even over spiritual things. We call others stupid or perhaps a host of other words that I hope have never been said from this pulpit. I remember one time when someone told my Dad he would go to hell if he did something, something my Dad actually thought was what God wanted him to do.

Again, my father was a sermon in shoes. He didn’t respond in kind—he didn’t de-Christianize the other person. He didn’t treat the other person as an enemy. He continued to act in love toward that person and others even though I doubt he felt much like it at the time.

I have thought more than once after letting my mouth fly with my children that my father never did that with me.  This morning I resolve to listen to his sermon, to control my tongue better. I’m taking it as a charge to keep.

My father also lived out one of the most difficult truths of Christianity to grasp, let alone to live. It is the very truth of Christ’s death in the Scripture read a few minutes ago.  Sometimes losing is winning when you choose to lose for the sake of Christ. The Scripture says, “having been found in shape like a man, Jesus humbled himself, having become obedient to death, even the death of a cross.”

In our world today, we prize the victor, the one who stands up to the enemy and blasts them away. There will be a time for final judgment, although it’s on God’s calendar rather than ours. I believe there is a time to protect your family and your land. My Dad was not ashamed to have served his country in the Army. I believe there is a time when it is not loving to another person to let them run all over you, when “love must be tough.”

But according to Jesus, these are the exceptions rather than the rule. The rule is to love your enemy, to pray for those who persecute you. The rule is not to repay evil with evil. The rule is not to act in judgment toward others. The rule is to show your strength by not responding in the same way your enemy attacks you.  Jesus won by doing God’s will with strength of spirit, even when they beat and destroyed his body in the most shameful way they knew.

My father was that sermon in shoes.  I don’t know if anyone ever thought he was weak because it wasn’t his way to fight back.  But if anyone did, they were wrong beyond anything they could imagine. My father lived out that proverb that says, “A soft answer turns away wrath.” My father lived out Jesus’ instructions to turn the other cheek.

I’m sure it wasn’t always easy for him. The Schenck family isn’t known for holding their tongue or being meek and mild. That just shows how much strength it must have taken for him to be that sermon in shoes.

Putting Others First

One verse in the Philippian passage particularly fits my Dad. It says, “Let everyone consider not only their own interests, but also the interests of others.”  I’ve never met anyone who thought my Dad selfish or stingy. Quite the contrary, my mother said more than once growing up that we would never have a lot of money because my Dad always gave it all away. Some of you have already heard that in my Dad’s car the day he died was a letter to one of my sisters with a check in it to help her with her income taxes.  “Generous” and “selfless” are two adjectives that come immediately to mind when people think of my Dad.

I can only remember once or twice when my Dad actually let me pay for his meal, let alone my own meal. When I was in school he said he’d let me pay after I got a job, but the day never came. “Don’t be too proud to accept a little help,” he would say jokingly. I let my mother pay for the shoes I’m wearing today for his funeral in honor of the never-ending love he showed his children through his generosity.

Last summer when my mother was very weak, he waited on her hand and foot so much that he practically forgot to eat himself. My sister Patricia had to start watching to make sure he was eating.  He lived to serve others, and he consistently put the needs and desires of others above himself. I know one of the frustrating things for my brother-in-laws and my wife is the difficulty my family seems to have at deciding what to do or where to go eat. In other families, the problem would be the stubbornness of people who want to go different places. In our family, the problem is that no one wants to go somewhere the others don’t want to go. 

That is my father’s legacy. “In honor preferring one another” was my father’s watchword and song.  

Again, my father was a sermon in shoes. What does Paul tell the Philippians? “Have the attitude that Christ Jesus also had: although he had the status of God, he did not consider equality with God something to exploit, but he emptied himself, taking the status of a servant.”

This is how we become unified in spirit. This is how we get along with each other and strive together as one person. We do it by considering others first and ourselves second. Sure, there is a time to stand up for yourself. There is even a time when it is not in the other person’s best interest for you to let them take advantage of you.

But imagine what the church would be like—let alone the world—if people truly put themselves in the place of others and tried to look at things from their perspective. What if we truly lived out love of our neighbor by doing to others the good that we would want them to do for us?  It would change the church. It would change the world.

My Dad lived that way. When he visited our house, he wanted to help us with something we needed done.  He would vacuum or want to mow the yard, even when he was beginning to get frail. He would try to fix whatever I predictably hadn’t gotten around to fixing. The day before he died he exhausted himself trying to help my sister Patricia and others with a pitch-in dinner following a concert at church.  He was one of the last ones to eat when most of the food was already gone. It’s easy to be generous with your money, if you have it. It’s much harder to be generous with your self and your time.

In his selflessness perhaps more than anything else, my father was a sermon in shoes.

Conclusion

As I’ve reflected on my Dad’s life, it’s occurred to me that on those occasions when I am at my best, I am being the way I remember my Dad being all the time. When I wait that extra second before losing it with my children, I’m being the way I remember my Dad being all the time. (mind you, I don’t know if my sisters have a slightly different memory) 

When someone attacks me or unchristianizes me because they don’t see things the way I do, and I hold my tongue (or fingers on the internet), I’m being the way I remember my Dad being all the time. When I do something helpful or selfless for someone else that I wouldn’t really have had to do, I’m being the way I remember my Dad being all the time.

Pick any one of the summary statements in the Bible about how to live, and there will be examples in my father’s life that illustrate them.  “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength”? Yes, I remember that sermon my Dad preached in his shoes. “Love your neighbor as yourself”? Yes, I remember that sermon my Dad preached in his shoes. “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God”?  Yep, I remember that sermon in his shoes as well.

We will honor my father today the most—and more importantly, our heavenly Father—if we follow his example and live out the rest of our lives in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We will conduct ourselves worthily if we are good and faithful servants of the king, if we live together in one spirit and strive for the gospel as one person, and if we look not only on our own interests but also on the interests of others.

Do you know, Oh Christian, you’re a sermon in shoes? Then walk it, and talk it. Live it, and give it. Know it, and show it. A Sermon in Shoes.

Memories of My Father 8

Memories 1
Memories 2
Memories 3
Memories 4
Memories 5
Memories 6
Memories 7

And the final post...
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My father always had some April Fools joke. He would get you when you were groggy and just waking up. The only one I remember is when he told my Mom and me that someone had stolen the car in the night.

As we drove back home from Florida these last two days, a number of memories came to mind. There was the final room sweep when we were leaving a hotel, just to make sure we hadn't left anything. There was his writing down the odometer reading each time he filled up with gas and the calculation of gas mileage.

But my final post is about his final days. I consider my father's last year or so as a physical gamble that he ultimately lost. I don't know what the alternative scenario might have looked like. He had some blockage in his carotid, but the memories of my Uncle Maurice's botched catheterization loomed large in my parents' minds. Apparently Maurice's aorta wall wasn't strong enough to stand up to the process.

Last summer was the first time I had a hint that something was up, and when I began grieving. My father has always been a walker. When I was in my teens and twenties at the peek of my physical shape, I could hardly keep up with him when he was walking at full speed. When he visited, we would walk to the gas station to get a coffee and an Indianapolis Star.

This last time was different. Tommy, Dad, and myself were going for a little walk. We had only gone a couple blocks when his back started hurting and we turned back. He put Ben Gay on the "muscle" in his back. Come to find out that he had been doing this for some time. My wife Angela immediately suggested it might be his heart.

It was with great difficulty that we got him to go to a doctor, and he was not even happy about my sister Debbie's insistence that he get a chest x-ray. His chest was clear and the doctor simply pointed out that his heart murmur caused by a leaky valve would only get worse (I guess it's called mitral valve prolapse). He had passed up on fixing it some ten years ago. Since this state can cause an arrhythmia, where the heart gets out of beat, and since my Dad died of V-fib, I suspect this is what ultimately caused his death Monday.

Four weeks ago today, on a Sunday afternoon, my father became violently sick. My sister Debbie called and asked me to pray. I was so grateful that he survived that episode. It allowed me time to talk to him on the phone the last three weeks of his life nearly every day. It allowed my sister Juanita and Sharon to visit with him along with most of their families.

My step-daughter Stefanie and father-in-law both were able to visit him. On the phone, he was so cheerful and optimistic. My family and I were even going to be with him and Mom today in Florida, had he made it one more week.

No one seemed to realize the severity of his situation. You can tell from the pictures that he was weak. We learned subsequently that he was having trouble lifting a gallon of milk. These were all signs. He had some significant sneezing two week ends before his death. He should have gone to a doctor.

But we can't know the other story line. Would he have spent his final days in a hospital and died on an operating table? What a terror that would have been to him. Or would they have fixed the valve and given him another ten years? In the moments when the EMTs were working on him, I hoped that maybe this might turn out to be a blessing in disguise, forcing him to get things fixed.

It was not to be. Although I mourn the loss of my Dad, he lived an incredible life, as I hope I have shown. He knocked life out of the park. He passed all the markers. He finished his course; he kept the faith.

As deaths go, he had a good one. He drank his cup of coffee, sat down with my mother, ate half a McDonald's sausage biscuit and after a few moments of pain, he slipped into eternity.

When the funeral director asked my brother-in-law Dennis for my Dad's address, he said Hallelujah Avenue. We have enjoyed pictures of my father socializing with family and friends in heaven. And if there is such a thing as heavenly coffee, I know my father has already had quite a few.