R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 87

Who Sinned?

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.”

He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”

He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”

They said to him, “Where is he?”

He said, “I do not know.” (John 9:1-12)

When the disciples saw the blind man, their question was not one of compassion or concern, but instead a question of blame. According to the prevailing theology of the time, if you were suffering, there were only two possible reasons for it: you’d done something wrong or your parents had.

Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question was not what they expected at all. The blind man’s lifetime of suffering was not because he had sinned or his parents had sinned. It was so that God could perform a miracle—which Jesus then proceeded to do by putting mud in his eyes that he washed out in the pool near one of the walls of Jerusalem.

While one of my wife’s friends was in the hospital giving birth to a stillborn baby, a woman commented to my wife, “you know, good comes to good and bad to bad.”

My wife reacted with incredulity: “What possible bad thing could she have done that it would have cost the life of her daughter?” Bad things sometimes happen to good people. We won’t always know why. But we can always be confident that God has his reasons.

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What to Do

The people who had stayed on the east side of the lake knew that only one boat had been there. They also knew that Jesus had not left in it with his disciples. But the next day some boats from Tiberias sailed near the place where the crowd had eaten the bread for which the Lord had given thanks. They saw that Jesus and his disciples had left. Then they got into the boats and went to Capernaum to look for Jesus.

They found him on the west side of the lake and asked, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you for certain that you are not looking for me because you saw the miracles, but because you ate all the food you wanted. Don’t work for food that spoils. Work for food that gives eternal life. The Son of Man will give you this food, because God the Father has given him the right to do so.”

“What exactly does God want us to do?” the people asked.

Jesus answered, “God wants you to have faith in the one he sent.” (John 6:22-29)

It is hard for people to see past the obstacles in front of them. What excited the crowds was not what Jesus had said. What moved them was not the healings or the exorcisms. What really got their attention was when he fed them for free.

Jesus compared the food that he had given them—food that could spoil—to the food that they should really want: the bread that could give them eternal life. Jesus then promised to give them that food. They could have it for free, too.

And what was their response? To wonder what they had to do to get it.

We advance in school because we do our homework and pass our tests. We get paid because we do our jobs. We obey the traffic laws to avoid tickets. In life, we receive reward or avoid punishment on the basis of our behavior. So it was only natural, when Jesus berated the people for coming to him only on account of the free food to think, “ah there’s something he wants us to do. Something that he thinks God requires.”

Instead, all Jesus asked them to do was to trust him. And that’s all Jesus asks of us today: we don’t have to perform a mighty deed. We don’t have to answer a difficult riddle. We don’t have to follow a list of rules. All Jesus needs us to do is to trust him.

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Waiting

Recently my youngest daughter had to study some of Emily Dickinson’s poetry. Her poems tend to be short, and one that I found particularly appropriate to my current state of mind was If you were coming in the Fall:

If you were coming in the Fall,

I’d brush the Summer by

With half a smile and half a spurn,

As Housewives do a Fly.

If I could see you in a year,

I’d wind the months in balls—

And put them each in separate Drawers,

For fear the numbers fuse—

If only Centuries, delayed,

I’d count them on my Hand,

Subtracting, till my fingers dropped

Into Van Diemen’s Land.

If certain, when this life was out—

That yours and mine, should be

I’d toss it yonder, like a Rind,

And take Eternity—

But, now, all ignorant of the length

Of this, that is between,

It goads me, like the Goblin Bee—

That will not state—it’s sting.

At the moment, I feel as if all I’m doing is waiting. My wife is a public school teacher. After years of suffering pay cuts amounting to more than fifteen percent—not factoring in inflation—along with significant increases in the cost of our health insurance (it doubled, jumping by five hundred dollars per month in the past four years) she is finally getting a three and a half percent raise, retroactive to June, 2013. Her so-called union negotiated the pay raise in November. We have yet to see any change in her monthly pay. Likewise, no retroactive check has arrived, either. It’s all “in the mail.” Of course, the local school board did not approve the pay hike until January 20th of this year—and then they have to inform the county, which is who actually provides the funds the local district uses for paying its teachers. So we’ll be waiting a bit more.

February is the month I do our family’s taxes—and so once I’m done with those later this week, then I’ll get to…wait for our tax refund. Given the state of our finances, that cannot come too soon.

In August, the publisher to which I’d sent a science fiction novel I’d written snagged it from their slush pile and sent it on to the editor for “further examination.” Since less than one percent of submissions make it out of the slush pile (the other 99 plus percent are simply rejected), that was certainly good news. I’d been waiting since the beginning of February 2013 to hear from them. Of course now I’ve been waiting additional five months to find out if that “further examination” will result in a contract or a rejection.

Waiting is hard. Dickenson’s point in her poem was that waiting might not be so bad if one knew when the waiting would end. With a tax refund, the IRS and the tax preparation software I use give me a fair idea of when to expect the refund—and I find waiting for something I know is good isn’t as difficult, anyhow. It’s kind of like waiting for Christmas morning. Waiting still isn’t fun, but you know the outcome will be good and you know when to expect the resolution. So, as Dickenson suggests, you can endure that kind of waiting.

But if you’re waiting for something where you don’t know the when—and you don’t know if it will be good news or bad? Well, Dickenson didn’t much care for that sort of experience—and I don’t know anyone else who does.

I could go on about how interminable delay is an ordinary occupational hazard of being an author and how one simply has to get used to it. But being “all ignorant of the length” is not unique to authors. Every human being has to wait unknowingly: the high school senior who has applied to college wondering if she’s been accepted. The job applicant fretting about how his interview went. The politician awaiting election returns.

If you get sued, you wonder when it will end. You wonder whether the outcome will be favorable or unfavorable. When our children were still only with us in foster care, we wondered if we’d be able to adopt them or not. We waited for years—until things finally resolved as we hoped.

If you become ill, you await the outcome of your tests: is it malignant or benign? Can it be treated? How long will that treatment take? It’s all uncertainty on top of uncertainty.

The poet Dickenson merely describes the human condition. She does not provide a solution. Knowing that everyone suffers the “between” just the same is somewhat comforting, I suppose. No one likes to be alone. But waiting, like any kind of suffering, still goads “like the Goblin Bee.”

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The Tower

At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words. As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.

They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.) Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”

But the LORD came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. “Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”

In that way, the LORD scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the LORD confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world. (Genesis 11:1-9)

Who is like God? Humanity is like God. The Hebrew word used for the tower in the Tower of Babel story was used of watch towers. Such towers were placed on city walls so that guards could watch for approaching enemies. That it “reaches into the sky” simply meant that it was tall—not that the people were attempting to reach heaven. The goal of the people in Babel was not to reach heaven: their goal was to make a name for themselves and to stay together in one place. Pride and a fear of isolation was the motivation for building the city of Babel.

God made a remarkable statement regarding human capability during the tower of Babel incident: nothing was impossible for people to accomplish. This story of Babel is one of only two places in the Bible where God used the plural pronoun “we” or “us” in reference to himself. The other place was in the creation account when God created people in his image and likeness. Humanity in all its many parts reflects who and what God is: humanity is like God. The Tower of Babel story demonstrates that only God can limit us.

Therefore, as human beings, our potential is limitless if we choose to work with God rather than against him. Anything we collectively set our minds to accomplish, we will achieve.

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Generosity

“For the Kingdom of Heaven is like the landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent them out to work.

“At nine o’clock in the morning he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around doing nothing. So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. So they went to work in the vineyard. At noon and again at three o’clock he did the same thing.

“At five o’clock that afternoon he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them, ‘Why haven’t you been working today?’

“They replied, ‘Because no one hired us.’

“The landowner told them, ‘Then go out and join the others in my vineyard.’

“That evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. When those hired at five o’clock were paid, each received a full day’s wage. When those hired first came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day’s wage. When they received their pay, they protested to the owner, ‘Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’

“He answered one of them, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage? Take your money and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be jealous because I am kind to others?’” (Matthew 20:1-15)

Do we want what’s fair, or do we want what’s merciful? In Jesus’ parable, all the workers, no matter how long they worked, received the same pay. In the real world, the first hired were always the first paid. But then the conflict and resolution of the parable wouldn’t have been as clear, so Jesus told it the way he did so his point about the kingdom of God would be obvious. God doesn’t treat people the way a real farmer would treat his workers. In the kingdom of the world, we get paid on the basis of how long and hard we work. In the kingdom of heaven, we get paid based on the generosity of God. Our place in the kingdom is not dependent upon what we do. The kingdom of heaven is not about justice. The kingdom of heaven is not about playing fair. The kingdom of heaven is about being generous, merciful, and receiving undeserved gifts.

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Immortality

Someone came up and asked [Jesus], “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?”

“Why do you ask Me about what is good?” He said to him. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

“Which ones?” he asked Him.

Jesus answered,

Do not murder; immortality

do not commit adultery;

do not steal;

do not bear false witness;

honor your father and your mother;

and love your neighbor as yourself.

“I have kept all these,” the young man told Him. “What do I still lack?”

“If you want to be perfect,” Jesus said to him, “go, sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.”

When the young man heard that command, he went away grieving, because he had many possessions. (Matthew 19:16-22)

What do you really want? There are differences between Matthew’s telling of the story of the rich young ruler and what we saw in Mark’s telling of the incident. The list of commandments differs slightly. Matthew also makes explicit what Mark only implies: that if the young man wanted to live forever, then to do so he needed to keep the ten commandments. The list that Jesus gave was in response to the young man’s question about which ones. The young man believed he had done all of them, but he realized he still lacked something. So Jesus told him what that was. It was something that made the young man walk away in tears.

The young man walked away because of his skewed priorities. He rejected the reality Jesus revealed. He thought that Jesus’ request to give up all his wealth was a sacrifice. He could only see what he would lose. He forgot all about what he had wanted to gain: eternal life.

If you really could live forever, and it only cost every cent you had, wouldn’t that be a bargain? But perhaps the young man didn’t really want to live forever. That, perhaps, may be the saddest implication of the story. Since the kingdom of God is of infinite worth, we give up nothing in comparison to that. Do we understand that what we gain from God outweighs what we think we’re losing? In reality, we lose nothing. Paul understood that all he lost in gaining Jesus was worthless garbage (Philippians 3:8).

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Losing My Religion

“Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” (Matthew 13:18-23)

Why do some not endure in Christianity? Two of the saddest who don’t are described as being like “stony ground” and as being among the “thorns.” Jesus explained that people who give up on account of problems or persecution are like seeds in “stony ground.” Likewise, the person among thorns is the one who initially seems interested in the gospel, but soon gets distracted by the affairs of life: the pursuit of wealth, the day to day grind, and the need to survive.

In a modern, western society, the greatest threat to faithfulness is the comfort and ease of life and the many distractions that our world can offer us. Our ground is very thorny. In other parts of the world, the problem tends to be persecution: the “stony ground.” Both things are equally destructive, and equally distracting. People will fall away in either case. But the problem is really not the external distraction, but the individual’s heart and the choices that he or she makes. Jesus pointed out an important reality in his parable: some people respond well to the things that life gives them, and others don’t. Some people in the church, when they face tragedy, pull away and leave. Others, grow stronger and more committed. Some people, when they gain wealth fall away, while others become more committed and use their wealth to benefit others.

How we respond to life is up to us. Jesus planted the same seed in each. Will we be good soil for God’s kingdom or not?

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Knowledge

The disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”

He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:

‘You will indeed listen, but never understand,

and you will indeed look, but never perceive.

For this people’s heart has grown dull,

and their ears are hard of hearing,

and they have shut their eyes;

so that they might not look with their eyes,

and listen with their ears,

and understand with their heart and turn—

and I would heal them.’

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.” (Matthew 13:10-17)

Wouldn’t it be great to ask Jesus a question and get an immediate response? In a way, we can. The disciples wondered why Jesus told parables. Jesus responded by telling them that they were especially blessed, even if they don’t always get the parables right away. How so? Because they were getting information that those in the generations before them could only dream of. They were like Galileo. For untold millennia, people looked at the sky and wondered about the moon and planets. Then Galileo pointed his telescope at the sky and for the first time saw them for what they were.

Like a child passing from one grade to another, gradually learning how to count, how to add and subtract, how to multiply and divide, until they move on at last to algebra, geometry and calculus, so God revealed his secrets to the human race gradually. At last, during the time of Jesus, he gave his disciples the final revelations. They got to know for certain what those before them had only been able to guess at. They spoke and ate with God for years as his closest friends. Today, we stand on the shoulders of those apostles, privileged to know what they knew. Our most important questions have been answered.

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For Granted

There are things we take for granted that we assume have always been, but in fact are relatively recent additions to human experience.

There are obvious things that we recognize are recent innovations, such as cellphones, television, radio and electricity. We understand that there are people, still alive, who can remember when such things did not exist.

But there are other conveniences that seem so perfectly ordinary, so everlastingly obvious on the order of dirt and sky, that being reminded that they are new can shock. For instance, last night at our small group study at church I pointed out that until the advent of the printing press most Christians had never even seen, let alone, read a Bible. Today, many of us are encouraged to “read through the Bible in a year.” Others will decry “biblical illiteracy” and moan about the “dumbing down” of the Christian community. Yet, for most of its history, the church and Christians managed to survive without ever reading a word of the sacred text on their own. They knew only what little they might have gleaned week to week from hearing a sermon. Of course, in some sense, that may still continue to be the case, since surveys rather consistently indicate that the percentage of church goers who regularly read the Bible is rather low (about 20 percent read something from the Bible more than once a week)—and only about half of American Christians have read through the entire Bible at least once in their lives. And if we look back further in time, for most of the people we read about in the Bible, the Bible didn’t even exist yet at all: Noah, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph had no Bible at all—not even a single bit of it. It hadn’t been written yet. And the concept of going weekly to a religious service would not occur to anyone until after the Israelites returned from their seventy years of captivity in Babylon. It was during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah that the idea of the synagogue was born.

This is not an indictment of religious people, however. According to recent surveys, less than half of the American public read even one book—of any sort—in all of 2013. So the percentage of Christians reading their Bibles is consistent with the overall level of book reading in the United States.

So perhaps it isn’t so much that people take the printing press for granted. Instead, they live their lives as if Gutenberg had never been born.

My children are startled when they visit the homes of their friends and don’t see any books. Book-lined walls, books stacked on tables—or even a paperback or two—is a great rarity in most homes (and not because everyone has replaced their books with eBook readers). I’m pleased that my children believe that books are normal and that their absence is weird—despite the reality that my house is the odd one.

A network television show with only a million weekly viewers will be quickly cancelled. A book that has sold a million copies in a year is a run-away best seller. The first Harry Potter book has sold about 107 million copies worldwide since its appearance in 1997. More people will watch the Super Bowl in two hours this Sunday.

Nevertheless, reading books is much more widespread today than it was prior to the advent of the printing press. Nearly every American can read books, regardless of their economic status.

Today, practically every community has a public library where books can be had for free. But precious few take advantage of this opportunity which has only been available since public libraries have become common these past hundred years or so. More recently, electronic books now mean that anyone who has access to the internet can instantly access thousands of books for free no matter where they happen to be: your cellphone can become a library. Retailers such as Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble now offer thousands of free, public domain books.

Those who enjoy reading currently find themselves living in a golden age. Like never before in human history, books can be had without trouble or effort—and largely without cost. The same libraries that offer physical books for free, also offer their electronic versions thanks to their freely available computer and internet hookups, and many public libraries even offer their patrons the ability to download popular books on their Kindles and tablets from home.

Assuming our civilization endures and prospers, the ease of access to books will only become easier and cheaper as we move forward. And yet, we all these books, and our easy access to them for granted—even more than everything else in our lives that we accept without a second thought.

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Running the Numbers on Forgiveness

Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”

Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made.

“So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.’ And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt.

“But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’

“So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’

“But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened.

“Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ‘Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’” (Matthew 18:21-33)

Whenever someone bumped into him, a friend of mine would mutter as a joke, “that’s four hundred eight-nine.” Peter was looking for a number like that. Just how often did he have to forgive someone?

Jesus took Peter’s suggestion of seven times and multiplied it beyond reason. Jesus wasn’t suggesting that Peter keep careful records. Jesus meant that forgiveness was never-ending. But is that practical? If my spouse beats me today and begs forgiveness tomorrow, do I have to keep forgiving him? Do we give the convicted embezzler another job in the bank? Jesus told a parable to illustrate his point about the seventy times seven. In the parable, after forgiving the debt, did the servant’s master then lend him more money?

Jesus point about forgiveness was simple: since God has forgiven us, so why can’t we forgive each other? Forgiveness means that we don’t hold an offense against another person. But it doesn’t necessarily mean we give them opportunities to sin again.

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