Through the Bible, Week 9

The Monarchy of Israel

Israel's evolution from a tribal confederacy into a monarchy is partly due to their need to maintain a central military authority capable of restraining Israel's surrounding enemies.  We see early in the book of Samuel the repeated defeat of Israel at the hands of various Canaanite tribes, including even the capture of the Ark of the Covenant by the Philistines (1 Sam. 5-6).  It is in this context of constant military threat, and even annihilation, that Saul, then David, emerges as the king that Israel urges the prophet Samuel to anoint to lead them (1 Sam 8:7).

David became King by divine choice, not heredity.  Under the laws of heredity, Jonathan, the son of Saul, should be king.  Instead, Jonathan recognizes David's divine election and enters a pact with David to protect him against his own father, King Saul, as well as against his own self-interest (1 Samuel 18-20).  David was already the anointed leader of Israel but not yet enthroned when they entered this agreement.  (The delay between divine election and human recognition is an important narrative analogue in depicting the emerging reign of Jesus in the Gospels.  A minority of faithful, valient men surround Jesus just as they did David - confident the nation will eventually recognize what they do.)

David's capacity and excellence in leadership is evidenced in these years through his military  prowess and, in particular, his conquest of Israel's nemesis, the Philistines.  It is also  evidenced by his diplomatic skills.  He chooses Jerusalem as the new nation's capital (rather than his local Hebron) because of its neutral location, straddling the border between southern and northern Israel.  

It was in the context of having defeated most of Israel's surrounding enemies and unifying the confederacy under one national capital, that David meets his greatest battle. In the eight book of Israel's primary history (Samuel) David violates the eight command (you shall not commit adultery).  This episode is sandwiched into larger battle episode, a literary technique known as "intercalation."  IT is designed to help the reader see the inserted narrative in terms of the larger one (2 Sam 11:1; 12:26-31).  David is engaged in battle with the Ammonites.  He has just defeated the Arameans to the North, the Canaanites to the South, the Philistines to the West.  And now his gaze is directed Eastward.  He sees a woman taking a ritual bath, the wife of one of his commanders.  David is about to engage his greatest battle and suffer his - and the country's - most humilating and enduring defeat.

We will explore that battle, and what it reveals about King David and Israel's monarchy,  in subsequent posts.

The Three Amigo's

One of the joys of serving Truro are the great people I get to work with.  Tim Mayfield and Coleman Tyler are really wonderful men who love God, their wives and our congregation.  This was a light moment at the beginning of our largest Alpha Course.

A Sermon by Bishop Justin Welby (new edition)

A Pentecost Homily from the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury 

It was announced today that Bishop Welby has been appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury.  As I got to know this truly remarkable and holy man I confess to hoping he would not get the job - the ultimate "meat grinder" in the Church.  We Anglicans really don't deserve someone this good.  But God in his goodness and mercy seldom gives us what we deserve.

In a recent conversation he referenced this sermon.  In the sermon he describes his meeting with me and the Bishop of Virginia at HTB in May.  I looked it up and now I share it with you dear reader.  It is a window into the soul of a very fine  Christian leader.

http://www.durham.anglican.org/userfiles/file/Durham%20Website/News%20and%20Events/From%20the%20Bishops/Bishop%20Justin/PENTECOST%20SERMON%202012.pdf

Canon Theologian of Dodge City, Kansas

The inimitable Ashley Null is teaching Cranmer's Theology of Worship at Truro this week.

I met Ash the first time a decade or so ago at the vicarage of Holy Trinity Brompton.  Ash had been the tutor of The Rev Sandy Millar's son, Sam, while at Cambridge.  We hit it off immediately.  Once we learned we both hailed from Western Kansas, we have been thick as thieves.

After Cranmer, the poet of Anglicanism, we share enthusiasm for cowboy poetry, High Plains lore and the writings of interesting people like Jim Hoy.  Jim is a medievalist by training and cowboy poet by temperament and calling.

Our next big project is preparing a conference for the sesquicentennial of the Chisholm Trail and then riding it together in 2017.  A true "City Slickers" moment.  Hopefully, Truro will be in its new buildings by then. 

Through the Bible, Week 8

When Everyone Did What Was Right In Their Own Eyes

Between the Exodus from Imperial Egypt and the reign of King David in a United Monarchy, lies a rugged terrain of partial conquest, enduring fratricide and an emerging but then full-blown anarchy in the land of Israel.  Despite their experience of a totalitarian state, Israel continues to hanker for a king like the nations around them.  After deliverance by Gideon, the men of Israel make a request; "Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you ahve saved us from the hand of Midian." And Gideon said to them, "I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you.  But God will rule over you" (cf. Judges 8:22-26).  Why do the children of Israel ask for a king when God has delivered them without one?  We need not look very long in the book of Judges.  There is a cycle of eight episodes characterized by deliverance from a political enemy, moral decline, apostasy and oppression - thus undoing everything the conquest was supposed to achieve.  The people repent, call to God who delivers them through the agency of a "judge" (or charismatic leader) and the cycle begins afresh.  Why does this keep happening?  The narrator leaves nothing to the imagination.  It is because the Judges rule in a time when everyone did what was right in their own eyes.  The people of Israel subsequently conclude that they prefer a king to anarchy.  It becomes apparent that the only alternative to anarchy is the establishment of a standing political and military power strong enough to maintain order internally and protect the people externally.  They need a political state or kingdom. Thus, they desire a king to rule over them. 

Generations later the scene is repeated during the judgeship of Samuel, who warns the people of Israel who continue to ask for a King: "This will be the custom of the king who will reign over you.  He will take your son and post them for himself on his chariots, and to be his horsemen, to run before his chariot....He will take a tenth of your sheep, and you will become his servants [avadim].  And you will cry out on that day from before the king that you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not answer you on that day" (cf. 1 Sam 8:11-18). When Samuel tells the people that if they establish a king they will all become his "servant" [avadim], he necessarily uses the same word that the Bible uses to describe the slaves of Pharaoh. 

As much as the people initially hanker for radical autonomy (political anarchy), the verdict of biblical history is not for it.  The reason is simple: it does not work as one might hope.  This is another sign that people are no longer fit for Eden, even if Eden was provided to them.  There is something unruly about the human condition which requires us to be accountable to the other.  Indeed, it requires transformation.  The book of Judges (and to a lesser degree Samuel) is one long indictment against anarchy, making it the pivot on which the biblical narrative turns from Empire to Monarchy.  The people long for a king for they need a king, but not just any king.  In the story of Saul and Solomon (which Samuel foreshadows above) we find that more is required of monarchy than simply a king.  There must be king whose heart is turned toward God.  Otherwise a monarchy will quickly slide either back toward empire or catapult into anarchy.  A godly monarchy is a knife's edge, restraining anarchy on the one hand and resisting the pull towards empire on the other. 

The beginnings of the messianic hope, the mandate of Jesus, find its origins in this political development.  But the Bible reader will have to wait till the Gospels to witness its inauguration. 

Through the Bible, Week 7: A Story about Truth-telling

Ten Commandments

The 9th commandment is: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."

We see the violation of this ninth commandment memorably portrayed in the ninth book of Israel's primary history, Kings.  The book of Kings is full of irony. It recounts a nation founded on the truthful speech of the covenant, divided by calumny and false witness.  Many atrocities are committed in Kings but one stands out as emblematic of this ironic era.    At the heart of the narrative is a faithful farmer, tending his vineyard according to the precepts of the Lord. Naboth (a play on the word "nabi" meaning prophet) becomes the object of Jezebel's - the barren queen and her eunuch-like stooges -  dissimulation, distortion and deceptive speech.  There are two interrelated ironies in this story.

1st irony: The faithful (Naboth the farmer) is injured by the false witness of the faithless (Jezebel the barren queen, whose fruitlessness is manifest in her words, which ironically come true in her own death) (see 2 Kings 9:30-37).

2nd irony: The faithless uses the form of faithful speech - the word of a prophet - to persecute Naboth (1 Kings 21:1-14).

Let's consider these two ironies in reverse. In 1 Kings 21:1-14, we learn how the barren one seeks to undo the fruitful work of Naboth through faithless words communicated in faithful form.  By faithful form, we mean the command-compliance form that is normally used to convey the prophetic message.  The command-compliance form is used to convey the Lord's message to Elijah earlier (cf 1 Kings 18:41-4619:4-8; etc), but now it is used to convey the message of Jezebel to her "two worthless men" (21:10).  Her parody of faithful speech bears repeating: "proclaim a fast" (v9); so they proclaim a fast (v12). She writes, "Seat two worthless men opposite, and let them bring a charge against him" (v10); so "the worthless men brought a charge against Naboth in the presence of the people" (v13).  She even supplies the charge and punishment: "You have cursed God and the king.  Then take him out and stone him to death" (v10); "saying, Naboth cursed God and the king.  So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death with stones" (v13).

Naboth is the victim of calumny, a form of false witness that harms the reputation of another and gives occasion for false judgements against him. However, Jezebel is rightly consumed by her own words, falling to her death on stone pavement and mutilated (a reverse stoning) (2 Kings 9:33-35).  People who falsify, dissimulate, distort and the like end up consumed by their own machinations.     

It was this command, and this form of diminishing the dignity of another human being, that Paul had in mind when he exhorted us to: "put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another (Ephesian 4:24-25).

Respect for the reputation and dignity of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury.

We live in a divided Communion as well as a divided Nation, so we live in the conditions ripe for the "barren queen and her two worthless men."  But the conditions are even more ripe for the word of God and fruitful speech, the healing word that allows people to live with great difference without enmity.  Sisters and brothers, don't be content to sit firm in the company of distortion and deceit but speak the truth with your neighbor and watch all distortion, detraction and deception give way to the reconciling word of Christ. That is the promise of the "third use" of the ninth commandment.

Through the Bible, Week 7, Applied to Heresy

The Ten Commandments

The Ten Commands function as fence, protecting us from erroneous behavior.  This is known as the "first use of the law".  They are also seen as a mirror showing us our sinfulness and need for grace.  This is sometimes referred to as "the second use of the law."  But the Ten Commandments also function as a lens, clarifying the nature of reality around us and directing us into a greater apprehension of the truth.  This is sometimes referred to as the "third use of the law."

The first law, which instructs us to worship and obey the LORD God exclusively, functions according to the third use of the law by illuminating heresy.  Christians sometimes disagree about what a heresy is or what beliefs count as heretical.  For example, Roman Catholics and Orthodox believe that Five Point Calvinism is a heresy.  (This was an assertion recently made by Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church of America.  Some were stunned to hear this, but it was not surprising to those who know and understand Christian tradition.  IT is common knowledge.)  However, most protestants do not consider Calvinist heretics.  I certainly do not believe that.  Some may be doctrinal deviants, but not heretics.  Most of the Calvinist I know are devout and orthodox.

So what is a heresy?  The first commandment is a helpful interpretative device in this regard.  The first command requires us to nourish and protect faith in God.  Heresy is one of many ways of sinning against faith.  On a continuum between voluntary doubt (where someone disregards the revelation of God and consensual teaching of the Church) to apostasy (the total repudiation of the faith) there stands heresy.  Heresy is an obstinate doubt, a severe doctrinal deviation but one that falls short of apostasy.  Heresy is dangerous because it usually involves schism (a breaking of the communion of the church and the unity for which Christ himself prays - John 17:21) and thus a distancing from the life of God which saves us.  John outlines this order of salvation in I John 1:3 - "that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." According to John, we come into fellowship with the Triune God through the fellowship of the community of faith.    Through proclamation and hospitality, we come to into the fellowship of the Church, which participates in the fellowship of the Trinity.  It is the actual reality of divine communion, our particiation in the fellowship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the communion of the Church that saves us - not merely doctrines about it, as important as those doctrine are for the nourishing and strengthening of that fellowship.  Heretical teaching violates that unity which ensures our salvation.

Apostasy is full-on, overt repudiation and separation from that divine-human fellowship.  Various forms of voluntary doubt and obstinancy prevents growth in the faith as well as growth in spiritual virtue.  This is often evidenced by a vicious, sterile spiritual life that with proper instruction and formation, could have become a virtuous and fruitful one.  In this instance, one is most likely some kind of doctrinal and spiritual deviant but not necessarily a heretic. Doctrinal deviants are often recognized by their barrenness, the inverse of spiritual fruitfulness (see Matt 7:16-18, Jn 15:16-17, Rm 7:4-6, Gal 5:22-26, Phil 1:9-11, etc).  Heresy is moving from the later to the former - from vountary doubt, to deviation, and unless corrected, develops into full blown repudiation.  So heresy is doctrinal and spiritual deviance on the trajectory towards apostasy.  Thus one can be both a Christian AND a heretic.  Indeed, in the Roman Catholic Church protestants are usually considered both "heretics" and "brothers."  Unlike an apostate, a heretic is not yet lost to God. Which is why Augustine was tireless in challenging the deviance of Donatists and Pelagians and urging them to return to the Catholic fold.  The heretical trajectory can be turned.  Doctrinal deviance can be repudiated.  Augustine sought to help other Christians turn the heretical trajectory and repudiate the doctrinal deviance many found themselves in.  I will explore the relevance of Augustine in this matter in later posts.

The First Command, by upholding fidelity to the true God, also teaches us about sins against faith and thus functions as a lens on spiritual reality.  Each of the commands have such a "third use," which clarifies reality and thereby secures greater apprehension of the truth.