R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 110

The Split Baby Decision

Wisdom counts on the power of love.

One day two prostitutes appeared in Solomon’s court, together with a single baby. Each woman claimed to be the baby’s mother, spinning a sad story that they had both given birth to a baby, but that one night, one of the babies had died. The woman whose infant had died (apparently of SIDS—this is one of the earliest examples in literature of the still mysterious illness) had taken the dead baby and switched it with the one still living. The next morning, the woman whose infant had been switched, was at first beside herself with grief, but then realized, upon examination, that it wasn’t even her baby. Now she demanded Solomon do something, but of course the other woman told the opposite tale. Solomon listened to them argue back and forth, and then came to a decision: “get me a sword and I’ll split the child; each woman can have half.”

One of the two women broke down in tears and begged Solomon to go ahead and give the baby to the other woman. In contrast, the other woman expressed agreement with Solomon’s suggestion.

Solomon immediately issued his ruling: “The weeping woman is the infant’s mother. Give the baby to her.”

Only a fool underestimates the power of love. In the Song of Songs, the author writes that:

Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.

If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned. (Song of Songs 8:7)

If a madman put a gun to your head and told you to stop loving your daughter or he’d pull the trigger, would you be able to comply? Would you do it for a million dollars? Love cannot be turned off like water from a spigot. There is no way of undoing the gift of one’s heart to another.

Get Those Weeds

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaimed that people should not worry about such things as food or clothes. He pointed out that birds neither plant crops nor harvest them, yet God provides them with food. God makes flowers beautiful, yet they don’t have to work for it.

Human beings are far more valuable than birds and flowers. So why should people ever worry about the mundane things of life? Jesus insists that God knows what people need and he will take care of them. Therefore, people should simply focus their energy on doing God’s will. They should not spend the energy they need now on what hasn’t yet happened. Jesus told the audience, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)

Martin Luther, the Reformer of the 16th century, was busy hoeing weeds in his garden. One of the men from his congregation came up to him and asked, “What would you do if you knew Jesus was going to come back tomorrow?” Without looking up from his gardening, Luther responded, “Well, first I’d finish getting rid of these weeds.”

Seeking God’s kingdom is not only preaching or being a missionary in a distant land. Seeking God’s kingdom is not being religious. Seeking God’s kingdom is something you do as you perform your necessary tasks every day. Seeking God’s kingdom is hoeing your garden, repairing your car, doing your homework, cleaning the bathroom, playing with your children, or going to work. Seeking God’s kingdom is not forgetting who you are in Christ. Seeking God’s kingdom is your life. Seeking God’s kingdom is to always do the will of God, in everything you do.

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17)

Leaving Everything to Get it All

Elisha left everything just to become a servant. Following his victory over the prophets of Baal in the god contest—and after his subsequent meltdown—Elijah got God’s approval for retirement, though he first had to find and train his replacement. His replacement was named Elisha. Elisha was part of a team plowing a field with twelve yoke of oxen the day Elijah found him. Elijah approached him and tossed his cloak over him, thereby informing him that he had been chosen to become the next prophet of Yahweh. Elijah began walking away, but Elisha followed him and said, “Let me kiss my father and mother good-by,” he said, “and then I will come with you.” Elijah’s response was, in essence, “whatever.” Elisha then quickly gave his goodbyes, took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them, then he took his plowing equipment and burned it, using the fire to cook the meat of the slaughtered oxen, which he distributed to the people around him. Then he followed Elijah and became his servant. (1 Kings 19:16-21)

Elisha, thus, gave up his livelihood, left his family, and took a low position with a poor man who was a prophet of Yahweh. He left one life for a new one.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:25-34)

Song of Songs Note

Thanks to St. Augustine and then the later Puritans and many modern incarnations of the same attitude, many Christians get the impression that there is something inherently wrong with sex. Sermons are preached that “it’s not the pear in the tree that was the problem, but the pair under it.” Though a nice play on words, if you happen to approve of bad puns, it is abominable theology. In Genesis, God’s first command to Adam and Eve were to reproduce: that is, to go have sex. It should come as no surprise then, given how much we enjoy God’s first commandment, that there should be a part of the Bible devoted to the subject (it should also serve as a reminder that the laws of God are not there to keep you from having fun; quite the opposite).

Although some theologians, especially in the Middle Ages, attempted to explain that the Song of Songs was an allegory about Christ’s love for his church, anyone who reads the poem would find that hard to believe. It is, quite simply, an erotic love poem that celebrates the joys of physical intimacy.

Hosea’s Lesson About Love

In order to illustrate God’s troubled relationship with his people, he had his prophet Hosea marry a woman that would give Hosea nothing but trouble. He told her to marry a prostitute named Gomer and though Hosea seems to have loved her, his love was hardly returned. She continued seeing other men, and it would surprise no one if the children she gave birth to were not Hosea’s. Eventually she left him and continued her promiscuous ways. But her life choices resulted in disaster for her and she wound up getting herself sold into slavery.

At that point, God told Hosea to buy her back, to rescue her from the consequences of her bad behavior and bad choices—and to love her.

There is nothing in Hosea’s short book of prophesy to let us know if Hosea and his wife wound up living happily ever after, or if once again, she went back to sleeping around.

Love is rarely rational and it is easy to give our heart to a person who will not take care of it.

But Hosea’s love for his wayward wife, and God’s love for his wayward people, serve as an illustration of what love means to God. For Him, love is not a many splendored thing. Instead, it is merely painful and never fully requited. True love desires and works for the best of the one beloved, regardless of the response: the best most people ever come to it is in our relationship with our children. An infant does nothing but cry, demand immediate attention. It gives back nothing but sleepless nights and dirty diapers. Things don’t change all that much as they grow older–especially when they become teenagers. And yet, despite everything, we continue to love our children and want what’s best for them, no matter how they treat us.

God loves us more than we love our babies, more than the father loved the prodigal son (in Luke 15:11-32).

Prayer in the Extreme Times

The seventh year of King Hezekiah’s reign brought crisis to both him and his nation. A recorded in 2 Kings 17-18, the Assyrian king Sennacherib had already invaded the northern kingdom of Israel and had conquered it. After deporting nearly thirty thousand of its inhabitants, he sent his “supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem” and demanded surrender, pointing out that the gods of each of the other kingdoms Sennacherib had invaded had failed to withstand him and protect their peoples. Therefore, why should Hezekiah or the people of Judah think that their god, Yahweh would be able save them?

Hezekiah took the letter, with it’s insults and took it to the temple, then spread it out before the altar and prayed, “O LORD, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God.”

The news was bad and realistically, Hezekiah knew that the situation was hopeless. His wisest course of action was an unpleasant one: to obey the king of Assyria and simply surrender. At least then, his people would be spared war, siege, starvation and the like.

The prophet Isaiah responded with an answer from God: fear not. The army of Sennacherib would be vanquished and all would be well: both Sennacherib and the people of Judah would see the power of Yahweh.

That very night, Sennacherib’s army died of a plague, forcing Sennacherib to withdraw.

Bad news is not always unexpected. When you can’t pay your car payment for several months, a call from the finance company informing you that they are repossessing the vehicle is bad news but not unanticipated.

But sometimes bad news comes out of the blue, as when you turn on the television and discover that terrorists have destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. Or when you wake up in the morning and discover that your baby died of SIDS. Or the phone rings and you learn that one of your friends is dead from a heart attack at the age of forty.

Hezekiah’s news from an invader shows us a helpful response to bad news: prayer.

Regardless of whether God answers as he did Hezekiah, or with a quiet “no”, as he does other some other characters in the Bible, the comfort in prayer is the knowledge that God is still there, going through the problem with you. For the believer, the answer is not as critical as the relationship. Simply having someone to talk to, to share, to bear the burden with you, is a comfort.

Out of Food

Elijah told Ahab, the king of Israel, that God would not send rain again until Elijah said so. Elijah then immediately went into hiding. Although he knew Ahab probably wouldn’t believe at first, after three years of drought and then famine, Elijah knew that Ahab would start hunting for the prophet. And the king was not averse to using whatever methods might be necessary to get Elijah to beg God for rain.

So, Elijah spent the beginning of the drought living in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan river. There was a brook there, supplying his water, and ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening. Eventually, however, the brook dried up. There was a drought on, after all. God told him to go to Zarephath of Siden, where there was a widow who would be happy to take care of him.

The widow didn’t know anything about that, however, and when Elijah showed up at the city gate and asked her for a jar of water, she was happy to oblige. But when he also asked for some bread, she told him, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.” (1 Kings 17:12).

Elijah told her not to worry about that, that God promised to take care of her and that “The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land” (1 Kings 17:14). So she made him bread, and took care of Elijah and her only son for a long while.

But then one day, her son became desperately ill and died.

She blamed Elijah, but Elijah prayed to God, complaining also, “O LORD my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” (1 Kings 17:20) God heard his prayer and raised the boy back to life. The widow then commented, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth.” (1 Kings 17:24)

In the New Testament, Jesus is recorded as commenting, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’

“I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.” (Luke 4:23-26)

Our parents did not give us everything we asked for at Christmas. With parents, there are several reasons for this. Sometimes, it’s a simple matter of economics: they would love to give what their child asked for, but there is simply not enough money in their bank accounts to afford it. Sometimes, it’s because what the child asked for is impractical for their situation–such as when a family lives in a tiny apartment in the heart of New York City and the child asks for a pony. The child is going to be disappointed.

With God, when we face hard times and ask for help, sometimes the help we want doesn’t arrive. I knew an out of work couple who begged God for work to keep them from losing their home to foreclosure. But the work didn’t come. Their prayers to God for money, for some way out, were met with the same silence. They lost their house.

Does that mean that God was unable to help? Or that it was impractical? We have no way of knowing.

On the other hand, I know people in the same situation who begged God for help and the help arrived in the nick of time.

Sometimes, in desperate circumstances, as with the widow with whom Elijah lived, the cavalry rides in. But as Jesus pointed out, there were many widows in Israel during Elijah’s life. Only one got Elijah.

Why?

Neither Jesus nor the author of the book of Kings bothers to tell us.

What of the couple who lost their home? They eventually found jobs and a place they could rent. Within a few years, they’d saved enough to buy another house. Why did they have to suffer the loss of their jobs, suffer the indignity and stress of foreclosure, make-do for years, and only after much effort, finally return to the same status they had before?

Some look at such suffering and conclude that it means there cannot be a God, because they cannot understand why God would allow such misery. Unfortunately, those who argue that way are making the same mistake, in reverse, that those who argue God exists because no one can explain how a given thing works. God-of-the-gaps is a mistake. You cannot prove the existence of God by pointing at ignorance. The opposite, Atheist-of-the-gaps (that no one can explain how come God allows evil and pain) is just as flawed–and for exactly the same reason.

God’s Will

Walking in the path that God has laid out for you might be neither easy nor pleasant. Jesus himself told his followers that:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

Certainly it is the case that many people in the Bible faced setback after setback as they did exactly what God told them to do.

In Judges 20, after a horrible crime went unpunished by the people of the tribe of Benjamin, the rest of the Israelites went to war against them. The Israelites had an overwhelming advantage numerically over the Benjamites. And when they came to the point of battle, the asked God: should we do this? And God told them yes. And so they attacked and the Benjamites slaughtered 22,000 of the Israelites and routed their army, despite the fact that the Benjamites had but 26,000 soldiers compared to the Israelite 400,000.

After the defeat the Israelites once again asked God, should we attack? And once again, God told them to attack.

And this time the Israelites lost the battle, were routed and 18,000 more Israelite soldiers lay dead.

Finally, the Israelites asked God a third time whether they should attack the Benjamites, and once again, God told them to attack. And finally, on that third attack the Israelites defeated the Benjamites.

So. Three times they did what God told them to do, but only on the third attempt did they achieve what they thought God wanted them to accomplish. The first two times, things went really, really badly.

Moses went to Egypt to rescue the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. He had two signs to impress the Pharaoh: a stick that could become a snake and then turn back into a stick, and he could make his hand become leprous and un-leprous. Pharaoh was unimpressed with both signs and instead of letting the people go, he made their lives more miserable, increasing the amount of labor they were required to do. God told Moses to rescue the Israelites, but instead, he made things worse for them—and the Israelites knew he was responsible and hated him for it.

Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.” (Exodus 5:22-23)

Then, it took ten plagues before the Pharaoh finally agreed to let the Israelites go. So nine times out of ten, the plagues accomplished nothing.

And then we have these words from Paul, the apostle:

I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. (1 Corinthians 11:23-28)

Paul was doing what God asked him to do, walking the Path that God laid out for him, living precisely in the center of God’s will for him—and look at all the problems he faced as a result!

So, just because you face setbacks, obstacles, and misery, and you don’t see that what you’re doing is ever going to pay off or achieve what you thought God asked you to do, it doesn’t mean you didn’t hear God or aren’t doing what he wants you to do. What you need to understand is that things are usually a lot more complicated than you expected—but it doesn’t mean you’re not making progress just because you can’t see where you’re going and you’re wondering if it’s worth the effort when nothing seems to be working right. God sees the whole picture, he knows the whole plan. You, not so much. Just do God’s will. That’s always your best choice, no matter how unreasonable or stupid it might seem at any given moment.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

Debating God

While Moses was receiving the ten commandments from God on top of Mount Sinai, the Israelites despaired of his ever returning. As his time with God stretched from days to weeks, the people began to lose hope and asked Moses’ brother Aaron to do something. So Aaron made a couple of calf idols and the people began having orgies.

God told Moses what was going on and said:

“Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

“I have seen these people,” the LORD said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” (Exodus 32:7-10)

Interesting how the people were now Moses’ people, whom Moses’ had brought out of Egypt. “Go talk to your son,” said the father to the mother.

But notice something interesting. Moses didn’t just acquiesce to God’s plan. Instead, he told God no. “Don’t do that.”

Based on some traditional notions of God, one might expect Moses to now become a smoking pile of ash. But that’s not what happened.

Instead, God listened to Moses–and he spared the disobedient Israelites:

But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. “LORD,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’ ” Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. (Exodus 32:11-14)

God does not ask for blind obedience. It’s apparently okay to question God, disagree with him, discuss things with him, and ask him to change his plans. And remarkably, sometimes God listens and does what he’s asked. One might argue that God’s plans all along were to spare the Israelites, and that God said what he said to Moses in order to elicit the reaction he got. But that’s not how the story reads, is it?

Enterprise

On Pearl Harbor Day, 2009—64 years after the Japanese attack—the first commercial suborbital space ship was unveiled in Mojave, California. The then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the then New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson officially certified the name of the first of seven SpaceShipTwos to be built: the Virgin Space Ship Enterprise.

Built by Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composits for the world’s first spaceline, Virgin Galactic, the VSS Enterprise is designed to fly to the edge of space, about 68 miles up, where the Earth’s surface is curved and the sky is black. For about five minutes, its passengers will experience weightlessness.

With a maximum speed of but two thousand six hundred miles an hour, this Enterprise will never get into orbit (that takes a speed of nearly eighteen thousand miles per hour). But with the completion of this vehicle’s construction, the beginning of commercial space flight is now upon us. Perhaps by next year–ten years after SpaceShipOne first flew into space to win the Ansari X-Prize–paying customers will start flying on a daily basis to space. They will be traveling to the same place that Alan Shepherd flew alone in a Mercury capsule stuck on top of a Redstone missile in 1961. That first Mercury flight, with the first American in Space, never achieved orbit, either (nor was it designed to). It reached an altitude of 116 miles, a bit higher than that planned for SpaceShipTwo flights. But rather than landing like an airplane, the Mercury capsule, named Freedom 7, parachuted back to earth and plopped down in the Atlantic ocean 302 miles from its launch pad after its fifteen minute flight.

The VSS Enterprise is much larger than that first Mercury capsule. It’s also more than twice as long as SpaceShipOne, that five years ago won the Ansari X-Prize of ten million dollars: sixty feet verses twenty-eight feet. SpaceShipOne had room to carry three people, though it never flew with more than just one, the pilot, while the Enterprise will carry eight people (two pilots and six passengers).

More than three hundred people have already put down their money for a ticket to space aboard a SpaceShipTwo, at two hundred thousand dollars a person. Flying into suborbital space is not for the middle class, yet. So far, only the wealthy can afford it, much as only the wealthy could afford to fly in the early days of air travel. Far more people will be able to afford the tickets on Virgin Galactic, the spaceline that will fly the SpaceShipTwos, than can currently afford the cost of a trip to orbit on a Russian Soyuz to the International Space Station. Currently, the two week trip to orbit will set you back about thirty million dollars. So far, only five people (one of whom did it twice) have managed to pony up that kind of cash.

Assuming that Virgin Galactic is successful with its nascent spaceship service, the price will likely decline and larger vehicles will be built. There is talk of using SpaceShipTwos or their descendents for not just tourist trips for people to experience weightlessness, with take offs and landings to the same spaceport, but of using them for transport. A trip from Los Angeles to Japan, for instance, would take no more than two hours, verses the current fastest trips which take over eleven hours.

Bill Richardson, the now former governor of New Mexico was at the unveiling of the VSS Enterprise because Spaceport America, from which the Enterprise and its sister ships will fly, was then under construction in New Mexico. Its ten thousand foot runway was completed by the summer of 2010, while the Terminal/Hangar Facility that will house the operational offices of Virgin Galactic’s world headquarters were completed just last year.

Virgin Galactic is the space travel company created by Sir Richard Branson in 2004 and at the moment, it is the only customer for Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipTwos. The aircraft that carries the SpaceShipTwo to launch altitude (about 50,000 feet up) is likely to be used for more than just launching the passenger carrying SpaceShipTwo. Virgin Galactic has also been working on a project called LaucherOne, which is designed to work with the Eve Mothership. It would be a two-stage vehicle about the same size as a SpaceShipTwo that could lob small satellites weighing up to 440 pounds into low earth orbit for a price tag of between one and two million dollars.

Soon, space flight will no longer something that only government employees can enjoy.