R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 95

Right Time and Wrong Time

He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and He said to him, “Follow Me!” So he got up and followed Him.

While He was reclining at the table in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came as guests to eat with Jesus and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

But when He heard this, He said, “Those who are well don’t need a doctor, but the sick do. Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Then John’s disciples came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?”

Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests be sad while the groom is with them? The days will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one patches an old garment with unshrunk cloth, because the patch pulls away from the garment and makes the tear worse. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. But they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.” (Matthew 9:9-17)

Mark Twain once said that it wasn’t the stuff in the Bible that he didn’t understand that bothered him. It was the stuff he did understand.

Jesus told the religious leaders that the sick needed a physician, not the healthy. Jesus told John’s disciples that fasting would be an odd choice at a wedding party. Then Jesus illustrated what he meant by talking of new wine in old wine flasks, and patching old clothes with unshrunk cloth. No one would be so silly. So what was Jesus’ point?

Some have suggested that Jesus was referring to Judaism versus Christianity, the Old Testament versus the New Testament, but in the context, that doesn’t fit. The context is the healthy versus the sick, fasting versus not fasting. Jesus continues that theme of polar opposites with old versus new. But he doesn’t say that one is better than the other.

Instead, Jesus’ point is very simple: do the right thing at the right time. Jesus was playing off the passage in Ecclesiastes, that there is a time for everything: a time to mend, a time to tear, a time for joy, a time for sadness. Thus, the disciples of John and Jesus’ pharisaical critics were failing to discern the times.

11-22-63

November 22, 2013 was the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of the thirty-fifth President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. It comes to my mind, not so much because of the endless retrospectives on TV, but because I recently finished reading Stephen King’s science fiction novel, 11/22/63. The book is nicely summarized by this description of it on Amazon.com:

“Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

“Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life – a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.”

If you enjoy science fiction and time travel novels, or if you are a Stephen King fan, then you’ll likely enjoy the book. He does a very good job, I believe, at capturing a sense of what the United States was like during that period between 1958 and 1963. Spoiler alert: in the end, Jake Epping discovers that his alteration to history was a mistake. The universe without Kennedy’s assassination turns out to be a miserable and unhappy place, and so he undoes his intervention.

From a Christian perspective, this actually makes sense. And Stephen King is a Christian (specifically a Methodist).

The seventeenth century philosopher and mathematician, Gottfried Leibniz (who, together with Isaac Newton is credited with inventing calculus) wrote a book called Theodicy. In it, he argues that this “is the best of all possible worlds.” He arrived at this apparently counter-intuitive idea this way: if God is good and loving, he would want to make a world that is the best possible one for his creatures. If he is all powerful, then he would have the ability to do so. Thus, this world in which we find ourselves must be the best of all possible worlds. King apparently takes that basic point of view with his novel 11/22/63.

For those of us who are old enough, Kennedy’s assassination is not just a moment in history akin to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln or James A. Garfield. Instead, it is part of our lives: a memory.

At the time Kennedy was assassinated, I was in first grade. Its effect on me was similar to the effect the terrible events of 911 had on my children: something vague and unpleasant, but not particularly traumatic.

My memories of that Friday in 1963 are very much focused on my narrow interests and concerns as a small child. The school I attended in Albuquerque New Mexico was within easy walking distance of my house. I came home every day for lunch. Kennedy was assassinated at 12:30 PM central time in Dallas Texas. New Mexico was Mountain Time, so I arrived for lunch only minutes after he was shot. I was unhappy that I couldn’t watch my normal lunchtime television program. Instead, my mom insisted on watching “the news.” I didn’t comprehend that there was nothing else on at that moment.

After lunch I returned to school as normal. I had been looking forward to the afternoon because Friday was the day for “show and tell,” and this Friday it was my turn. I intended to “show and tell” about my rock collection. But not long after I got back to the classroom, the teacher told us school was being dismissed early. I had to go back home.

“What about show and tell?” I asked.

“Not today,” she responded.

So my biggest memory of that fateful day revolves around my disappointment at never being able to show everyone my rock collection. But my selfish, small-child disappointments weren’t over. There were no cartoons that Saturday morning, either. Instead, the only thing on TV was “news.” I did not much care for the news. But there was nothing else until Kennedy’s funeral on Monday, November 25, 1963.

The world was a much different place on September 11, 2001 for my children. They experienced none of my childhood disappointments. Although CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews had nothing else to talk about, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon continued with their regular programing. Since we had more than one television in our home, our children continued watching what they normally did. For my children, an awful day in history barely disrupted their lives at all.

In 1963 my life had returned to normal by the following Saturday: the cartoons were back. The priorities of a first grader are far different from those of his or her parents. But I probably remember Kennedy’s assassination better than my children now remember 911.

Missing Something

“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.

“I do not receive honor from men. But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God? Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (John 5:39-47)

Do you read the Bible looking for answers to your questions? Or do you read the Bible looking for God’s answers to his questions? Jesus told the religious establishment that they were indeed very serious about the Bible, but that it wasn’t doing them a whole lot of good. They read the Bible. They knew what it said. But somehow the implications and the whole point of God’s words still entirely escaped them. Instead of seeking the esteem of God, they only cared about the esteem of their colleagues.

The word translated “trust” and the word translated “believed” are the same in Greek, so Jesus expressed what seems to be a paradox. “You’re trusting in Moses, but if you trusted in Moses, then you would trust me.” And then, “Since you don’t trust in Moses, then it follows that you don’t trust in me.” Huh?

Jesus was pointing out the cognitive dissonance that existed among the religious leaders. There was a gap between what they claimed to believe and how they lived. By pointing out their internal conflicts, Jesus hoped they would confront the contradiction, recognize the problem in their lives, and then change their minds. Jesus wanted the religious leaders of his people to recognize the truth. Interestingly, after his resurrection the book of Acts reveals that many Pharisees and priests did become believers in Jesus.

It’s better to listen to Jesus and discover what matters to him, rather than listening only to your own heart and what matters to you.

Getting Along

“I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! I have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished. Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against.

‘Father will be divided against son

and son against father;

mother against daughter

and daughter against mother;

and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law

and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’ ”

Then Jesus turned to the crowd and said, “When you see clouds beginning to form in the west, you say, ‘Here comes a shower.’ And you are right. When the south wind blows, you say, ‘Today will be a scorcher.’ And it is. You fools! You know how to interpret the weather signs of the earth and sky, but you don’t know how to interpret the present times.

“Why can’t you decide for yourselves what is right? When you are on the way to court with your accuser, try to settle the matter before you get there. Otherwise, your accuser may drag you before the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, who will throw you into prison. And if that happens, you won’t be free again until you have paid the very last penny.” (Luke 12:49-59)

Jesus did not come to bring peace to the world. Instead, he said that he came to divide it. How so? Isn’t the gospel good news? Doesn’t Jesus offer us peace, not as the world gives? Didn’t he say that the world would know Christians were his disciples because of the love they would have for one another?

Jesus offered peace to his followers. But just as Jesus was estranged from his own family thanks to his ministry, so those who choose Christ may find themselves at odds with their family, their friends, their religious leaders, and their government. Peace is not always possible or even desirable. The religious establishment and the Roman government violently opposed Jesus and his disciples. Jesus was and continues to be a divisive figure.

There is a time for peace, and a time for conflict. Jesus brought the truth when he came to Earth. Some people liked the truth, some people didn’t. That’s the way it has always been and always will be. What matters most to you? The truth, or just keeping your head down and getting along?

Dishonest

He also said to the disciples: “There was a rich man who received an accusation that his manager was squandering his possessions. So he called the manager in and asked, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you can no longer be my manager.’

“Then the manager said to himself, ‘What should I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I’m not strong enough to dig; I’m ashamed to beg. I know what I’ll do so that when I’m removed from management, people will welcome me into their homes.’

“So he summoned each one of his master’s debtors. ‘How much do you owe my master?’ he asked the first one.

“‘A hundred measures of oil,’ he said.

“‘Take your invoice,’ he told him, ‘sit down quickly, and write 50.’

“Next he asked another, ‘How much do you owe?’

“‘A hundred measures of wheat,’ he said.

“‘Take your invoice,’ he told him, ‘and write 80.’

“The master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted astutely. For the sons of this age are more astute than the sons of light in dealing with their own people. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of the unrighteous money so that when it fails, they may welcome you into eternal dwellings. Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much, and whoever is unrighteous in very little is also unrighteous in much. So if you have not been faithful with the unrighteous money, who will trust you with what is genuine? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to someone else, who will give you what is your own?” (Luke 16:1-12)

Jesus’ parable of the dishonest manager is disturbing because Jesus seems to be encouraging dishonesty. The hero of Jesus’ story is was a dishonest man. He squandered his employer’s property. Then he had his employer’s debtors alter their bills to their advantage.

But his employer praised him for his cunning. And Jesus encouraged his disciples to be just as cunning. So what’s going on here? Did Jesus encourage stealing and lying?

No, but the parable should still be taken at face value. Jesus was encouraging his disciples to be as shrewd in their work for the kingdom of God, as the people like the Pharisees were in working for the kingdom of the world. Work as hard for God as this crooked manager worked to protect himself. Go ahead and make money, but use it for God’s kingdom, not for your own selfish ends. Money is worthless, except as it is used in this world to make preparation for the next.

He also said to the disciples: “There was a rich man who ...

He also said to the disciples: “There was a rich man who received an accusation that his manager was squandering his possessions. So he called the manager in and asked, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you can no longer be my manager.’

“Then the manager said to himself, ‘What should I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I’m not strong enough to dig; I’m ashamed to beg. I know what I’ll do so that when I’m removed from management, people will welcome me into their homes.’

“So he summoned each one of his master’s debtors. ‘How much do you owe my master?’ he asked the first one.

“‘A hundred measures of oil,’ he said.

“‘Take your invoice,’ he told him, ‘sit down quickly, and write 50.’

“Next he asked another, ‘How much do you owe?’

“‘A hundred measures of wheat,’ he said.

“‘Take your invoice,’ he told him, ‘and write 80.’

“The master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted astutely. For the sons of this age are more astute than the sons of light in dealing with their own people. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of the unrighteous money so that when it fails, they may welcome you into eternal dwellings. Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much, and whoever is unrighteous in very little is also unrighteous in much. So if you have not been faithful with the unrighteous money, who will trust you with what is genuine? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to someone else, who will give you what is your own?” (Luke 16:1-12)

Jesus’ parable of the dishonest manager is disturbing because Jesus seems to be encouraging dishonesty. The hero of Jesus’ story is was a dishonest man. He squandered his employer’s property. Then he had his employer’s debtors alter their bills to their advantage.

But his employer praised him for his cunning. And Jesus encouraged his disciples to be just as cunning. So what’s going on here? Did Jesus encourage stealing and lying?

No, but the parable should still be taken at face value. Jesus was encouraging his disciples to be as shrewd in their work for the kingdom of God, as the people like the Pharisees were in working for the kingdom of the world. Work as hard for God as this crooked manager worked to protect himself. Go ahead and make money, but use it for God’s kingdom, not for your own selfish ends. Money is worthless, except as it is used in this world to make preparation for the next.

Believing

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” (John 10:22-33)

Miracles don’t convince people of anything. The winter “festival of Dedication” is better known as Hanukah. It commemorated the rededication of the temple following the successful outcome of the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes, the king of the Seleucid Empire. Nearly two centuries before Jesus, Antiochus had killed many Jews and defiled the temple in Jerusalem by sacrificing a pig to Zeus on its altar.

After his defeat, the Jews cleansed the temple. They had only enough oil to light the temple lamps for a single day, though the cleansing and rededication ceremony took eight days. But they began with what they had and God kept the lamps burning the full eight days.

Every year after that, the Jewish people celebrated the miracle.

So during the celebration of Hanukah in Jerusalem, religious leaders approached Jesus and demanded that he announce plainly that he was the Messiah, if indeed he were. Jesus’ response was that he’d already done that, but they didn’t believe him.

Belief is a choice. Sometimes people imagine that “if only they could see a miracle” that they would believe. But it simply doesn’t work that way. Those who rejected Jesus had seen his miracles and they’d heard him speak with their own ears. And yet they still refused to believe. Belief is a choice, not an inevitability.

Thanksgiving

Once again the holiday season has fallen upon us. The older I become, the quicker the year rotates back around to the joyful times. The speed of the year is a matter of perspective, of course. For a five year old, one year is fully a fifth of his life. For a more than fifty year old, it is a much smaller percentage and seems, therefore, correspondingly tiny.

My children are in high school or college, and so the days leading up to one of the big holidays seem to drag endlessly for them. This year, my children get the entire week of Thanksgiving off and are looking forward to not having to get up early in the morning.

My family lives on the other side of the country in Ohio or Florida. But my in-laws followed their daughter—my wife—to California after we were married (something about a job transfer. A likely story.) So, as usual, this holiday season, our home will be the destination for most of my wife’s family–well, her mother and sister, anyhow.

My hope is that the day will consist of the children all having a good time jumping about, playing video games, and making as much noise as such not-so-tiny anymore people are capable of producing. The adults will mostly sit in scattered chairs trying to talk to one another above the teenager-induced racket. At some point, there will be food, followed by more sitting and talking and maybe some watching of DVDs on the television as the day winds down and people begin wandering away back to where they came from.

And so what am I thankful for this year? I am thankful that after feeding all the people that will show up at my house I will still be able to afford to pay my mortgage. I’m thankful that my children are healthy. I’m thankful that my wife and I are both healthy and well.

It is easy, in the day-to-day grind, and with the added stress of the holidays, to lose sight of just how much there is to give thanks for. Whether you’re happy with the current President and Congress, one can still be thankful that we at least are able to have elections and have been having them peacefully for more than two hundred years. There aren’t many places in the world that can say that, or that can have confidence that the transition from one administration to the next will occur without bloodshed of any sort—and we can always easily replace the current rascals we’ve elected with new ones soon enough.

We can be thankful for the things that we usually don’t notice. I’m thankful for my morning coffee every day. I’m thankful for hot water in my shower. I’m thankful for modern medicine and dentistry. I’m thankful for the roads and the other benefits of civilization like electricity and microwave popcorn.

I’m thankful for a bed to sleep in and for cheap and plentiful food supplies. Historically, the sin of gluttony was condemned because it meant you were eating more than your fair share, taking food that could have sustained someone else. Now, when we think of gluttony, we see it as poor discipline: a lack of self-control. For most of human history, our biggest problem was starvation. In these United States, our biggest worry now is obesity. And the fattest among us tend to also be our poorest (who can’t afford gym memberships or racquetball court fees). How odd is that?

Something else to be thankful for as we sit down to overeat this Thanksgiving.

Witnessing Tomorrow

While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him.

“You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus,” she said.

But he denied it. “I don’t know or understand what you’re talking about,” he said, and went out into the entryway.

When the servant girl saw him there, she said again to those standing around, “This fellow is one of them.” Again he denied it.

After a little while, those standing near said to Peter, “Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.”

He began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know this man you’re talking about.”

Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept. (Mark 14:66-72)

Only hindsight is twenty-twenty. Even if you knew what the future held, it wouldn’t affect your choices. Peter knew the future; he knew his future. But Peter remembered Jesus’ words and took them to heart only after he had fulfilled them. He did not remember Jesus’ words the first time he denied Christ. He did not remember them the second time. He didn’t even remember them after the third time! He only remembered the words of Jesus when he heard the rooster crow. After it was too late. Only when Jesus’ prophesy was completely fulfilled did Peter recognize that he had somehow done just what Jesus predicted he would do.

Prophesy does not get in the way of human freedom of choice. Peter was not a puppet being pulled along by his strings. He made every bad choice of his own free will, not once, but three times. And when it was over, he did not think to himself, “I had no choice in that,” or “God made me do it.” He didn’t even think, “the Devil made me do it.” He knew, in the depths of his soul, that he had done it all by himself. So he reacted accordingly: with overwhelming guilt and despair. He knew it was his own choices that had brought him to that place.

That God knows ahead of time what you will do, that in some sense the future has already been determined, nevertheless does not violate your freedom—or the responsibility you bear for your actions.

Believing is Seeing

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:25-32)

Sometimes the elephant in the room really is impossible to see. When Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples were as slow to recognize him as they had been slow to understand his predictions regarding his death in the first place.

When we see the sun sink beneath the horizon at sunset, we know that in fact we are witnessing the Earth rotating on its axis, rather than the motion of the sun. But before Copernicus, most people took what they saw and interpreted it as the sun moving instead of the Earth. The people of Jesus day could read the words of the Bible as easily as we do today. But they interpreted them in a different way. That affected how they saw the events of Jesus’ life before his resurrection. After his resurrection, Jesus explained the familiar words of scripture in brand new ways for them, helping them to understand that what had happened to Jesus was not a defeat, not a mistake, but in fact what the Bible had foretold all along for the Messiah. Only after Jesus had retrained them, could they see the world as it actually was. At that moment, they suddenly recognized Jesus was there, alive just as he’d predicted all along.

We see what we believe, and it took Jesus’ words to help them believe the truth so that they could see indeed.