This teaching features author and scholar Barbara Brown Taylor as she taught at our sister church, Riverside, in NYC. Enjoy!
The Right Answer
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
Today I am featuring another great voice in the Christian tradition - Barbara Brown Taylor. This video was taken a few years ago - sorry about the grannies - but I think you will agree that it is an excellent teaching. Enjoy!
Luke 10:25-37 (NLT)
One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”
The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”
The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.
“By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.
“Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’
“Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.
The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.”
Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
Jesus the Ingrate: The Subversive Power of Gratitude
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
This talk features Author and Scholar Diana Butler Bass tackling the issue of gratitude on a level we may not readily consider. Could it be that gratitude is deeper than a Hallmark card or journal entry?
What sticks with you about this teaching? What does her message compel you to do?
Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy: Moralism, Mysticism and You
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
This is the last of a five-session series featuring Richard Rohr as he presents an Alternative Orthodoxy. The process questions below are from a small group resource entitled Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy.*
As you’ve seen and heard, Richard Rohr names things as he sees them! In one moment he uncovers religious dysfunction and holds it up to the light; in the next he presents a vision of relationship with God that is transformative and inspiring. Given the breadth of the territory, it’s inevitable that Richard touches themes in your own journey of religious and spiritual growth.
From the 10 statements below, choose one or two that connect with your own story in some way. Share, either with one or two other people or with the members of your small group, how these statements in some way speak to your own experience or the experience of people close to you:
1. People who are initially attracted to religion are people who like social order. They think that God came to earth to be a policeman. This attention to social order in religion has a place in the first half of life when the ego needs to be contained in boundaries. If you stay in this first half of life religion, you stay at the moralistic level.
2. Scripture, Jesus, the mystics and saints recognized that the goal of religion is not a perfect moral stance, but union with God.
3. Union with God is achieved by doing things wrong rather than by doing things right. Perfection is not the goal.
4. Moralism is less concerned with love and more concerned with creating an ego identity that can hold the moral high ground. Too often the heads of religion are involved in finding sinners and in managing sin.
5. We see Jesus exposing ugly morality throughout the gospels. It’s always the same story: the one who is always wrong is, in Jesus’ eyes, revealed as right.
6. What undoes moralism is a moment of unitive consciousness, a moment of grace, a moment of unearned love, a moment of forgiveness, a moment of unmerited consolation. That’s the only thing that breaks down the quid pro quo world of morality.
7. God has come to save us all by grace. The mystics have no trouble surrendering to that. For Bonaventure, God is a fountain full of outflowing love, only flowing in one direction, always and forever. There is no wrath in God; there is no anger in God. There is only outpouring love.
8. You will obsess about moralism if you don’t get to the mystical level. You become more anal-retentive the older you get when you haven’t experienced God. It’s not joyful; it’s not a wedding banquet; it’s not happiness. You get more desperate, more impatient, and you want more laws to obey.
9. When you get moralistic, it’s not long before you get violent. When you are sure you are on higher moral ground than other people, it’s very quick that you have a right to torture them, exclude them, punish them, kill them and, as Jesus says in John’s Gospel, when you do it you will think you are doing a holy duty for God.
10. The mind that emerges from mystical experience, from second-half-of-life maturity is the contemplative mind. You don’t calculate life; you contemplate life. If you want to grease the wheels to second half-of-life consciousness—to the mystical level—the best way is to contemplate.
THE WEAKER I GET, THE STRONGER I BECOME!
Richard spoke enthusiastically about Paul in Session 3 and returns again with glowing affirmation of Paul’s understanding of the mystery of the cross. Here are some key lines to remind you of what Richard said about Paul:
· If you take the whole corpus of Paul, it’s 90% mystical.
· Paul reveals that all these constructs to create order in the world are doomed to failure.
· Paul’s key for creating order in the universe is by introducing disorder at its center. That’s what he means by the mystery of the cross.
· Your only ordered world is your ability to deal with disorder and failure.
· Paul introduced a new order that is recognizing, honoring and using disorder for good purpose.
Below are three passages from three of Paul’s letters. Read each of these aloud and discuss:
Where in his writing do you see Paul giving expression to the interplay between moralism and mysticism that Richard is uncovering in this session? Feel free to go to other passages from his letters that come to mind.
Paul may not have anticipated that his letters would be read not only by the folks in Corinth, Rome and Galatia, but also by us. What would you say to Paul in response to the passion and vulnerability of his writing?
Galatians 2:19-21 (The Message)
What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.
Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.
Romans 7:4-6 (NRSV)
In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (The Message)
Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, “My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.”
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.
GROWING MYSTICS
Doug opens up an exploration of how churches can both be a barrier to the experience of God as well as a community to open up that experience when he asks:
Essentially, you’re saying that the destiny of every Christian is to be a mystic. That seems so implausible that we put it off to the next life! I say to folks (half joking) that I set out to be a mystic and then got ordained. The sheer busyness of the job rendered it nearly impossible. I can see individuals and small groups coming together to enter into that kind of unitive consciousness and I can see that having an effect in action, but how in the world do you make it a bigger phenomenon?
Richard responds:
When I say mystical, I mean experiential. It is possible if we get out of the realm of law and doctrine. Most people have God experiences but there’s no one to tell them, “You just had it!” We’ve made it a churchy thing as we ministers well know: you’ve had it when you’ve been around candlesticks and vestments. This is why we get back to this need for spiritual direction—wise people who can say, “That moment of communion you had with your little baby while you were breast feeding today—that’s it! That moment of enjoying that wildflower and feeling that jerk of joy in your heart—that’s it!” We need to un-churchify the gospel. It’s just too darn churchified! People are having religious experiences and don’t know it.
In the conversation that follows Richard’s reflection, the members of the group open up various aspects of this matter of church as a block to mystical experience or church as a guide in that process. Allow their conversation to be a source of reflection for yours:
Raymond asks:
Can church be a place where people are helped to identify the presence of God in their everyday lives, a place where people can talk together about how their everyday lives are an experience of God?
What would it take for church to be more like that? What success have you had in creating
that kind of opportunity?
Suzanne asserts that people can have experiences of God in any moment quite apart from the presence of a priest, rabbi or preacher. The other members of the group support that, and Richard speaks about “the training into subtle consciousness” that is required as individuals move to this deepening practice of Presence. The group recognize the power of community in this process, and Richard underscores the need for communal support of the individual:
If there isn’t community holding you accountable to what you say you’ve experienced, helping you unpack your experience, it doesn’t go anywhere. I could be heard to be encouraging individualism, but I’m not. That doesn’t go anywhere. We’re social beings. Unless I let your holiness rub off on me, I won’t experience my own. As Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am.” We have a total promise of presence, just as strong as in the bread and the wine.
Talk together about the power of community (whatever size) to be a place for holding you accountable in the growth of your mystical consciousness, as well as a setting in which you become ever clearer about the daily presence of God in your life.
NO MORE COUNTING
Richard offers this final reflection at the end of the five sessions:
Here in this second half of life—
the mystical, the contemplative, the adult Christian—
you stop counting and let God stop counting.
The counting game is over.
The ego counts; the soul experiences.
It lets it be and learns from it, but it doesn’t weigh and measure.
Here in this American culture of entitlement—
people counting what they deserve
and think they have a right to—
entitlement creates unlikable people.
We worry about our children growing up
in an entirely entitled society.
But then there’s the world of grace—
the world of the gospel,
the world of mercy.
It’s all gratitude and confidence, the confidence
given by God’s gratuitous choice and love
to use you as an instrument,
to dwell in you.
Validated at the deepest inner level:
no need to be rich,
no need to be famous,
no need to be good-looking,
no need to think that I’m better than you.
The need itself is taken away.
If you can just notice in your own mind and emotions
whenever you’re counting
or thinking God is counting,
that’s not where you want to be.
It’s a waste of time.
It’s finally self-defeating.
Organized religion creates membership requirements,
and then you’re right back into counting.
The gospel
is a great leveling
of the playing field.
All of us equally carry that divine image.
All you can do is give thanks, because it’s totally undeserved.
It has nothing to do with you: gift, gift, gift, gift, gift.
The grace of God freeing us
from the burden of counting.
What insights and practices will you take away from this series that will help you give up counting?
How will you support yourself in being in the culture of entitlement without being of that culture?
BE THOU MY VISION
Be thou my vision, O joy of my heart;
naught be all else to me save that thou art,
thou my best thought, by day or by night,
waking or sleeping thy presence my light.
Be thou my wisdom, my calm in all strife;
I ever with thee, and thou in my life;
thou loving parent, thy child may I be,
thou in me dwelling and I one with thee.
Riches I heed not, nor vain empty praise,
thou mine inheritance, now and always;
thou and thou only, the first in my heart,
great God of heaven, my treasure thou art.
Great God of heaven, after victory won,
may I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O ruler of all.
Irish ca. 8th century; translated by Mary Elizabeth Byrne, 1905;version by Eleanor H. Hull, 1912.
* Adapted from Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy: A 5-Session Study by Richard Rohr with Tim Scorer, Morehouse Education Resources, 2014)
Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy: Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
Below are process questions from the small group series* featuring the teachings of Richard Rohr.
LIVING YOURSELF INTO A NEW WAY OF THINKING
Here are some memorable statements from Richard as he speaks about the priority of orthopraxy over orthodoxy:
1. You do not think yourself into a new way of living; you live yourself into a new way of thinking.
2. Every time the church split, we lost half the gospel. The half we lost in 1054 at the Great Schism was contemplative practice.
3. Let the institutional church maintain the superstructure of creed, ritual and doctrine; that frees us to worry about the structure of our daily lives.
4. You can be perfectly orthodox and not understand the lifestyle of Jesus one bit!
5. Begging keeps you at the social level of everybody else, in their lives and in solidarity with their pain.
6. The great thing about orthopraxy is that there is really nothing to argue about until you do it! You don’t believe something until you have done it.
7. We got lost in proving our metaphysics and then making others believe it. We spent all our time in enforcement, as if Jesus came to earth to enforce ideas.
8. I don’t know a single example of any of our churches burning anyone at the stake for not taking care of the widows and orphans.
9. We live in a wonderful time when we see that faith is not about belonging systems or belief systems. If Christianity is going to be renewed and reformed, it has to move to practice-based Christianity.
10. The globalization of spirituality is making practice essential, because people don’t believe you any more until you’ve done it. Most of the things we said we believed were no skin off our back!
11. The wonderful thing about orthopraxy is that it asks something of you. That’s why we’ve avoided it for so long!
12. Going to a place in my daily prayers where for 20 minutes I have to go into this kenosis—this dying to myself, dying to my feelings, dying to my own angry thoughts—no one wants to do that!
13. Orthopraxy asks something of you. Orthodoxy allows you to be a policeman of other people and never really do it yourself. This gives you a false high moral ground without deserving it for a moment!
14. The word orthodoxy is not found in the scriptures. Jesus never encouraged this mentality, in fact, quite the contrary.
15. Isn’t it ironic that a religion that believes that the word became flesh puts so much credence into words!
Imagine a line down the center of your meeting space. This is a continuum. At one end is extreme orthodoxy (#1) and at the other extreme orthopraxy (#10). Of course, there are many points on the continuum between the two extremes (#2-9). Choose a point that represents where you see the measure of your faith life in terms of these two ends of the continuum and go stand there. Why did you choose that spot? Are you where you want to be? Why or why not? If you want to be somewhere else on the continuum, what might it take to get there?
SOUP BOWL MUTUALITY
Suzanne shares her concern about churches that serve food to the poor and homeless but only on condition that they hear a sermon. She advocates for a principle that says, “In order to get a bed and a bowl of soup you don’t have to join my club.”
In response, Richard offers insight about true mutuality of relationship:
The need to have people join your group to convince you that you are right is much more love of self than love of God.
Christianity has largely been a belonging system instead of a transformational system. We have this attitude in our history that the best thing we can do for “them” is to present the gospel and get them to come to church.
The assumption is that I’ve got the truth and you don’t. I ensconce myself in a superior position. The great thing that our Catholic missionaries learned after they were in the mission for as little as three years can be summed up in this way: “I came to convert them and they converted me.” Until that realization comes, the I-thou relationship of the true body of Christ hasn’t happened.
When the other has as much to teach me even though I’m the one providing the bowl of soup, that’s mutuality. When I know what that other person has suffered and can hear their story and allow that story to influence me, that is the body of Christ re-formed. We can’t maintain this one-sided evangelism where one group ensconces itself as the giver and keeps the other group co-dependent on them as the receiver and call that being like Jesus. I’m sure many people do that with the best of intentions, but very often it preserves them in a kind of hidden egocentricity.”
1. When have you had an experience anything like that of a missionary in which you were the one converted (transformed) in a situation where you thought that you were the converter?
2. It’s quite possible that you have not risked the kind of vulnerability and transformation implied in this conversation. What yearning for personal change and growth emerges in you as you listen to Richard speaking about the challenges of the Way of Jesus and the promise therein?
3. Perhaps your church is involved in service to the poor, to the homeless, to people in extreme economic distress. What practices are in place that ensure that the system isn’t one of co-dependence, conversion, superiority and egocentricity?
4. Richard makes reference to a passage from the letter of James, James 2:14-18. What meaning does it have for you as you struggle with this matter of a life as envisioned by Jesus and the early Christian community?
GOOD THEOLOGY STILL MATTERS
The emphasis in this session on orthopraxy leads Doug to raise the critical matter of concepts and belief:
We are incapable of having a content-less mind. So, what difference does it make what we believe conceptually?
In affirming that good theology is important, Richard raises a historical situation in New Mexico that involved the Franciscans:
When they were withdrawn for political reasons, the Franciscans trained laymen to run the church with no priests. For more than 100 years these sincere, well-intentioned laymen ran the church without any infusion of good theology. In that time the church became very guilt-centered, punitive and moralistic. That’s an extreme example of how devolved Christianity can get if you have no content with good sources. What happens is you get charismatic, manipulative and dominant personalities taking over. It’s true in any institution: the loudest and most manipulative personality controls the show. So, you finally have a choice between good teaching and good thinking, or a cult of personality. I can talk this way because the Franciscans gave me excellent education in theology. You get to know the “big Tradition,” then you can critique the “small tradition.”
1. How do you ensure that your practice is grounded in good theology?
2. When have you been aware of situations where practice was grounded in bad theology?
WAITING FOR THE GOD EXPERIENCE
Richard offers some observations on why it is that most people who have no experience of Holy Presence are unable to sustain a contemplative practice:
The Center has been here 27 years now. I’ve seen the vast majority of people experiment with contemplation but not last. If you haven’t had a previous experience of an actual lover/presence/encounter/person you don’t know what you’re waiting for. You get tired of waiting for an energy or idea or “enlightenment.” If they haven’t had a Jesus encounter of any type—a baptism in the Spirit, as charismatics would call it—I find that by and large most people give up on contemplation.
I find again and again in my own experience here that people who stay with it are people who already know that there’s someone to wait for, that God is real. They’re not trying to manufacture God experience; they’re trying to deepen already existing God experience. It really gives me sympathy and patience for people who give up. They don’t know what they’re waiting for or if it’s worth waiting for. Contemplative prayer doesn’t give you a lot of pay-off if you’re not committed to the practice itself.
1. How are people in your discussion group being sustained in their contemplative practice through a real experience of Presence or encounter with the Divine?
2. And what about the absence of that experience? How have you been sustained in your desire for a deepening relationship with God even when there is no word? (The word of God was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. 1 Samuel 3:1)
FALL ING UPWARD
Doug says: “I’d like to hear you, Richard, talking more about keeping people engaged in pursuing that experience even if they haven’t had it.”
Richard responds:
The reason I wrote Falling Upward is because I feel for the vast majority the falling experience, which is inevitable if you are living a real human life, is the normal path of transformation. I say in Naked Now that great love and great suffering are the classic paths. You don’t fall into great love or great suffering without falling. You don’t go there intentionally. It’s always outside your control: I can’t succeed at this; I don’t look good; I just lost my house…my money…my marriage. We don’t want to wish these things on anybody but, again and again, you see these are the things that catapult people into the second stage of life, or unitive experience. We know we can’t program those, but we clergy were given the impression that’s what Sunday was about. We would program a religious experience.
1. What do you understand to be the significance of the title of Richard’s book, Falling Upward?
2. In what ways have you experienced this great truth of human life—that the falling experience is the normal path of transformation?
ACCOMPANIMENT
The conversation brings the group around to a consideration of the importance of accompaniment: There’s a task we have to accompany people so that they can give language to their experience in a way that leads them beyond the practice to deeper consciousness. We often don’t have the words.
Richard states:
We only have the language of faith as assent to doctrine. That’s totally inadequate to the inner experience. The ministry of spiritual direction (accompaniment) is growing broadly. There is a recognition of it in Buddhism and Judaism as well. In the matter of accompaniment, there have to be elders who are at least one step beyond you. I want someone to be a little ahead of me. Those kind of people as teachers and learners are just proliferating today. It’s wonderful.
1. Who is it who accompanies you in enabling you to put into words and awareness your experience of the divine? What access do you have to someone who is trained as a spiritual director?
* Adapted from Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy: A 5-Session Study by Richard Rohr with Tim Scorer, Morehouse Education Resources, 2014)
George Floyd, Race, Rioting, and Reacting Whitely
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
Our country - and humanity - has come a long way, yet we have a very long way to go because of the depth and strength of the undercurrents regarding racism. When the violent rioting regarding George Floyd erupted, my wife and I had the same visceral reaction of dread. We know the riots and looting are in angry response to four centuries of unjust, inhumane treatment of people of color on American soil, where “the darker your skin, the worse the injustice” has been the unwritten rule of law. George Floyd was murdered, and even white people were upset. But as soon as the violent riots began, my wife and I knew that the worst caricaturization of people of color just got validated in white people’s eyes, and the care and curiosity regarding systemic injustice and inequity was eclipsed instead of piqued. Every time I have taught on race, at least some of the feedback I received were clear displays of white fragility. My white friends: please do not dismiss the riots because they are violent. Instead, lean in and wonder what the underlying story might be. Choose to learn about this more deeply instead of shrugging your shoulders in confusion. White Fragility is very sobering, as is So You Want to Talk About Race? Because white people dominate the power structures in the United States, it is incumbent on white people to recognize and address the problem in concrete ways. We don’t like to hear that racism is a “white” problem when the headlines sure seem to indicate otherwise. Welcome to Systems Theory: People of Color are not the problem but rather the symptom of a greater problem that they alone cannot correct. As white people, we need to lend our voice and inherent power to the long-term goal of true equality and equity - something we have taken for granted that others have never known. This is a stated ideal in our nation’s founding documents, and much deeper than that, is deeply connected to Jesus’ life and teaching.
This teaching was part of an ongoing series based in part on Adam Hamilton’s book, Unafraid and originally published on April 22, 2018 as a part of a series dealing with fear.
Fear of difference creates a very constricted, exclusive, and small religion and life—the very opposite of the abundance into which God invites us. – Richard Rohr
Adam Hamilton and I grew up in the same neck of the woods – suburban Kansas City. Being six years older than me, our life experience from our earliest years was very similar. He grew up in Prairie Village, the suburb where my dad was pastor of Prairie Baptist Church, which enjoyed the vibrancy of being a church in the “new” part of town where all the professionals lived. Our family lived further out in Overland Park, which is now a sprawling, massive suburb that extends way south of where it used to end. Like Hamilton, while I grew up in a household that would never tolerate hate speech, I also did not experience much exposure to non-white people. We had an Asian family at church who became good friends. Some refugees from Laos. Down our street lived my brother’s best friend, Billy, who was Filipino. I can’t remember knowing anyone black my first eight years of life.
To give a concrete expression to the undercurrent of prejudice that existed in the state proud of its Underground Railroad heritage, Hamilton offered a covenant from one of J.C. Nichols’ housing developments: “None of the said lots shall be conveyed to, used, owned nor occupied by Negroes as owner and tenants.” Later, the covenant was extended to Jewish people, which meant, of course, that Jesus would not be allowed to live next door… Racism lived in the community that raised me, written right into the neighborhood HOA.
Let’s get some definitions under our belt about this subject. Racism is defined as “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.” Prejudice is defined as “dislike, hostility, or unjust behavior deriving from unfounded opinions.” And finally, xenophobia is defined as “intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.” Do any of these descriptions describe you? Lucky for you, there is a very quick, simple test to find out whether or not you are on some level racist, live with prejudice, and struggle to some degree with xenophobia. Using your middle finger from one hand, place it on the wrist of the opposite hand (or on your jugular vein on your neck) and check for a pulse. If you have a pulse, you struggle with all three of these things. How dare I say such a thing about a good person like you? Because it is human nature. We are biased toward our own kind. Interestingly, we are also biased toward the dominant kind of the culture we grew up in. In the United States, this means there is an implicit bias toward Caucasians. Move to a part of the world where whites are not dominant, and you will discover that the bias shifts toward the majority. Calling BS on me? Take a test from Harvard University that will open your eyes to what you see.
Hamilton suggests that the longest running fear in the Bible revolves around being afraid of “others” who are not like us. While the story of Cain and Abel certainly is about much more than that, he makes the case that it may point to a division between herdsman who roamed the land feeding their livestock and farmers who tilled the land. The disdain toward Gentiles (non-Jews) in the Old Testament is easy to find and extends into the New Testament as well.
Jesus’ first sermon poked the racist bear, so to speak, when he clearly spoke about how God’s favor is not exclusive to Jewish people, but extended to non-Jews as well via Israel’s most beloved prophets of old – Elijah and Elisha! It nearly got him killed. The sermon provided an allusion to what was ahead for Jesus’ life and teaching. Above all others, Samaritans were the most loathed by Jewish people. So, naturally, Jesus went on to befriend a Samaritan woman at a well, and probably his best known parable positioned a “Good Samaritan” as it’s hero while portraying Jewish religious leaders as severely lacking. Very bold moves toward inclusion.
Peter, one of Jesus’ original disciples and key leader of the early Christian movement struggled with his racism even though he walked with Jesus where he never thought he would. The account of Peter and Cornelius is a remarkable picture of two people who overcome their prejudice which led to inclusion soon thereafter. Paul, who had plenty of implicit bias to work out, became a champion of inclusion as he started up church after church all around the Mediterranean from Israel to Rome. His entire letter to the Roman church was in response to racist-based division between exclusive Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians who wanted a place at the communion table. His letter to the churches in the region of Galatia was in response to well-meaning but narrow-minded “Judaizers” who were trying to impose inappropriate laws on inferior Gentiles. This is where Paul wrote the famous words:
“For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.” – Galatians 3:26-29 (NLT)
These biblical examples serve to illustrate the fact that this human issue of fearing those who are not like us is clearly not new. What we may not appreciate, however, is that it is still a serious issue here in the United States where we proclaim liberty for all. It’s still an issue for me and you, even if we can’t admit it. This is not to say that I believe you’re all a bunch of cross-burning KKK members looking to lynch anybody who isn’t lilly-white and blue-eyed. What I am saying is that the issue remains – and will remain – but can be managed down in us and in those we influence if we know what to recognize as racist and learn how to live with different sensibilities.
Brene Brown, in her excellent book, Braving the Wilderness, identifies a method that humanity has used to enable racism to grow to its ugliest and most horrific expressions. Dehumanizing is a primary way we step toward legitimizing mistreatment of “other” people. She writes:
Dehumanizing and holding people accountable are mutually exclusive. Humiliation and dehumanizing are not accountability or social justice tools, they’re emotional off-loading at best, emotional self-indulgence at worst. And if our faith asks us to find the face of God in everyone we meet, that should include the politicians, media, and strangers on Twitter with whom we most violently disagree. When we desecrate their divinity, we desecrate our own, and we betray our faith (58).
In her book she illustrates how dehumanizing is what enabled Nazi Germany to kill millions of Jews: they were systematically dehumanized. Killing a Jew wasn’t killing another human being in their rhetoric – may as well have been a rat. When we use derogatory, sweeping terms for entire people groups, we are engaging in dehumanization. When we denigrate others by speaking of all Hispanic people as Mexicans or illegals, we dehumanize. When we call the LGBTQ community “the Gays”, we dehumanize. When we slur our way around using pejorative terms about women, liberals, conservatives, Muslims, Jews, the poor – fill in the blank here – we dehumanize, which allows us to treat them inhumanely.
To bring this up close and personal (and current), Brown bring up the Black Lives Matter Movement and the controversy around supporting police and all people everywhere. She writes:
Shouldn’t the rallying cry just be All Lives Matter? No. Because the humanity wasn’t stripped from all lives the way it was stripped from the lives of black citizens. In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy, sell, beat, and trade people like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of a culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us. We can’t undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe Black Lives Matter is a movement to rehumanize black citizens. All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into moral inclusion. Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of demonizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery (59).
So many times I have heard people who look like me say, “I just don’t understand why they…” protest, commit crimes, riot, etc. Exactly. We whiter folk just don’t understand. We don’t get it because we’re not black, LGBTQ, female, Hispanic, Muslim, an immigrant, or any other form of other. The best way for us to move forward, if possible, is to discover ways to meet people who are different than us so that we increasingly grow toward the conclusion that there is no “them”, only us. Much of our fear is based in ignorance. The sooner we can discover just how false our expectations have been, the sooner we can be free from the fear of people not like us. We can do this by befriending someone different than ourselves, and we can do this by learning from their perspective (books, articles, movies, TedTalks, etc.)
One of the last letters written in the New Testament came from John. Speaking to people who were struggling to discover how to live like Jesus amidst people who were “different”, he offered these words:
God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.
If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both. – 1 John 4:17-21 (The Message)
The Greek word used for love here is “agape”, which is not simply a loving feeling, but an active love that serves even if personal sacrifice is required. Hamilton, building from John’s words above, gives us this rule to live with when faced with fear of others. He encourages us to ask ourselves, “In the situation I find myself in, what is the most loving thing I can do?” That’s good advice that helps minimize fear and serves to create a better world in which to live. For everyone.
Embracing and Alternative Orthodoxy with Richard Rohr: The Cosmic Christ
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
TOUCHING THE COSMIC CHRIST
You’ve heard Richard Rohr talk about his understanding of the Cosmic Christ, a key element of alternative orthodoxy that is an aspect of the legacy of the early Franciscans.
It may be a challenge for you to really grasp all that is intended by the term Cosmic Christ, but the presence of your group and its process can support you in coming to terms with this theological perspective. Discuss the four questions below as you work together to understand this concept. For each question, there are key words related to an aspect of this theology:
· Key Words: the big bang—the first incarnation—the birth of the Christ mystery—the interplanetary Divine.
o What are the implications of saying that the birth of Christ occurred at the moment of the creation of the material universe?
· Key Words: a second incarnation—2000 years ago—an exemplar—for Christians—the mystery of God
o What does it mean to use the two words Jesus and Christ together, not as two names for Jesus but as an expression of a mystical reality?
· Key Words: Eucharist—elemental incarnation in a material universe—“Oh my God, I am the body of Christ!”
o How might you now experience the Eucharist differently as you consider these insights about the Cosmic Christ?
· Key Words: Nothing is secular—grace indwelling—mountains as cathedrals—Divine image
o In unitive consciousness, how you love anything is how you love everything. How might your life be transformed if you embraced the Franciscan vision found in Richard’s teaching in this session?
PAUL GETS IT!
Richard Rohr encourages us to see the gift that Paul is to us as we struggle to grasp this vision of the Cosmic Christ. Read the following indented text then consider the questions that follow:
The personal incarnation happened 2000 years ago, we believe as Christians, which is Jesus. They became so infatuated with this person of Jesus that very quickly they seemed to call him the Christ, although there’s no evidence that he ever called himself that. The scriptural evidence is that it was Paul who got it. Paul gets it because Paul knew Jesus Christ the way we do. He never knew Jesus in the flesh. He hardly ever quotes him and yet he talks with such authority, such certitude. He met the Christ mystery and until you know that, you do not understand the mystic Paul. He is in love with this Christ mystery, which is the same Jesus Christ that you and I meet.
So when we introduce people to Jesus without the rest of the incarnation—the Christ—we end up with a moralistic religion. Moralism takes over whenever you don’t have mysticism. You will become more moralistic the less it touches upon unitive consciousness. The Christ is something you know mystically. When I say mystically, I mean experientially. Whatever happened to Paul on the Damascus Road, he knew experientially some universal meaning to this Jesus figure—and he universalized from that. His most common single phrase in his authentic letters is in Christo—in Christ. That’s his code word for this understanding.
We are living inside this incarnation. We are the Christ too! He’s not denying Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the holon, the exemplar of the whole, the stand-in for everybody. We can’t fall in love with concepts, energies, ideas and forces. You’re not going to give your life for a force. As 1 John says, we need someone we can see, and touch, and look into his or her eyes, and relate to. Persons love persons. That pulls our soul out of itself.
1. When have you “experienced” the Christ mystery in the way that Paul seems to have done?
2. Paul and Richard would have us see that we are living inside an incarnation—in Christ—but we don’t fall in love with a concept. What do you fall in love with in such a way that your soul is enlivened?
OUR GOD MAY BE TOO SMALL
If we follow Franciscan orthodoxy, which teaches that Christ is incarnated in all creation right from the big bang, then sooner or later we have to deal with the matter of other civilizations, cultures, traditions, revelations and religions in a way that honors the Christ mystery that is incarnate in the immense diversity of creation. Read Richard’s reflections on this matter and then consider the questions that follow:
Jesus is the personal personification of the eternal Christ mystery, but the Christ mystery was already available to the Stone Age people, to the Persians, to the Mayans, to the so-called barbarians and pagans. These were not “throw away people!” That’s what you came down to if you were Roman Catholic: God was waiting for the Pope to appear and everything else was throwaway. Imagine that! You’d have to say that this is a petty God, a small God.
If we don’t balance out Jesus with Christ, our very theology is going to become a very limited worldview. It ends up being in competition with other world religions instead of a vision that is so big, so cosmic that it includes everything and everybody.
When you return to a Trinitarian notion of God, it opens up interfaith dialogue, because you admit God is formless. You admit God is energy and spirit, which is the Holy Spirit. Suddenly we have all kinds of levels for dialogue. What happened when we pulled Jesus out of the Christ mystery and out of the Trinity? We overplayed the Jesus card apart from who Jesus really is. That made us unable to talk to Hindus and Buddhists, to respect the Jewish roots of this very Jesus.
Jesus then becomes in competition with Muhammad or Buddha. It becomes a personality issue: “Do you like Jesus. Well, if you don’t like Jesus, well then God doesn’t like you!” Come on! The question is, “Do you like the Christ Mystery?” I can see your answer to that in the way you walk down the street and the way you respect the person at the checkout counter. There are some Hindus that like the Christ mystery much better than a lot of Roman Catholics, Evangelicals, Lutherans and Episcopalians. I’m happy to be Christian, but that doesn’t put me in competition or a race with the other world religions to prove that I’m better.
We’re not trying to be rebels anymore; we’re not trying to be reactionary or heretics. We’re just trying to be honest about our experience. And that ability we now have to be honest about our experience is making us ready for an adult Christianity, for an adult notion of what’s really happening, without throwing out Jesus. You’ll go back and fall in love with Jesus more than ever before, but now you’ll recognize that this Jesus is not just the Savior of my soul, but he’s the naming of the very direction of history—the Alpha and Omega—this perfected humanity that he reveals in one moment of time and where we are all being seduced toward.
1. In a creation of such awesome diversity, where the Christ mystery is available to all, what is it that gives you your Christian identity? What do you claim as a follower of Jesus Christ?
2. Richard has a way of provoking more good questions even while answering the earlier ones. What questions would you like to ask him as part of deepening into a more adult Christianity?
3. What would you like to talk about with people from other faith traditions now that we can acknowledge that they have something to say?
A LOT TO WRAP OUR HEADS AROUND!
For many who are listening to Richard, what he is proposing is nothing less than a shift in worldview at the deepest level. He helps us to appreciate the challenging journey of transformation by reminding us several times of the levels of consciousness that Ken Wilber has articulated: archaic—magical—mythical— rational—pluralistic—mystical (non-dual).
Jennifer gives voice to the kind of challenge involved in this intentional movement toward non-dual living:
It’s hard for me to wrap my head around it. It goes back to Richard’s definition of faith: the dichotomy of not knowing and knowing. A lot of it’s my upbringing in the scientific method and the emphasis on proof. I think that’s why the historical Jesus is so attractive at the rational level because there are things you can know and things you can understand. Yet, at the same time we don’t call ourselves Jesus-ians! We call ourselves Christ-ians. So we really need to understand what it is to be Christian and to understand Christ and God in all creation from the beginning. It didn’t just begin with “I”— incarnated here on earth. It’s a lot to wrap your head around!
Richard acknowledges Jennifer’s observation and hints at what the process of transformation might look like:
Your mind, your prayers, your songs, your reading of the scripture will almost have to readjust for two years; but then you’ll see it everywhere. Once you see it, you’ll know this isn’t my idea. It’s there, but no one told me to pay attention to it.
1. Where do you find yourself in this process of growing consciousness? In what ways does Jennifer give voice to your thoughts and feelings?
2. Richard is hinting at a classic process of spiritual practice and discernment: “putting on a new mind” as Paul would say. What are your practices for opening yourself to a new way of seeing that would transform your life completely?
MOVING LIBERALS ALONG
Doug makes an observation that holds a mirror up to liberals, the very people who are likely to be using this study:
There’s a liberal temptation to focus so much on the historic Jesus until we can say X, Y and Z about the historic Jesus. When you get the cosmic aspect it blows open both the conservative and liberal paradigm.
Richard responds:
It critiques the liberal just as much as the conservative, because neither of us understands the Christ very well. Ken Wilber has pointed out in describing the level of consciousness that the downside of the pluralistic level—where most liberals are—is that they are so in love with pluralism that they hate any notion of hierarchy. When you go to the mystical level (the Cosmic Christ level), then you really appreciate hierarchy. Then you have a new criterion for critiquing the liberal just as much as the conservative. Liberals tend to be trapped because they are just smart enough to dismiss everyone below as superstitious and ridiculous and everyone above them as falsely religious in their mystical silliness. They stay there, many of them, the rest of their lives and can be just as dogmatic, authoritarian and dualistic while thinking they are not. You can really appreciate what Wilber calls hierarchy. Yes, there are things that are still needy of analysis and critique—not dismissal—and that includes the liberal mind, the pluralistic mind, which thinks that the goal of history is pluralism. The goal of history is union with God which honors pluralism but doesn’t get trapped there as an end in itself.
1. Where do you find yourself in this analysis?
2. How might churches with a liberal bias encourage their members to experience the goal of history as union with God?
BENEDICTION
Christ whose glory fills the skies,
Christ the true, the only light,
sun of righteousness arise,
triumph o’er the shades of night.
Dayspring from on high, be near;
daystar, in my heart appear.
Dark and cheerless is the morn
unaccompanied by thee;
Joyless is the day’s return,
till thy mercy’s beams I see,
till they inward light impart,
glad my eyes and warm my heart.
Visit then this soul of mine,
pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
fill me, radiancy divine,
scatter all my unbelief;
more and more thyself display,
shining to the perfect day.
- Charles Wesley
* Adapted from Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy: A 5-Session Study by Richard Rohr with Tim Scorer, Morehouse Education Resources, 2014)
Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy: Eco-Spirituality
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
Process Questions for Session 2: Eco-Spirituality*
Introduction to Eco-Spirituality
1. What do you understand to be the connection between ecology and spirituality?
2. When have you witnessed the bond between ecological concern and spirituality being positive for creation, including humanity? Conversely, when have you witnessed it being less positive for the creation?
3. How is your knowledge of God related to your relationship with the environment?
4. Take a moment to write your own definition of eco-spirituality in the space provided here
The Mouth that Rohr’d
In the course of his initial presentation, we hear Richard Rohr speak boldly about many issues of both alternative orthodoxy and ecospirituality. You will remember much of what he said. Here is a selection to inspire group conversation:
Richard on individualism:
The single biggest heresy that allows us to misinterpret the scriptural tradition is individualism, revealed now in the problem we are facing with earth care, with sustainability, with animal species dying off. We became so anthropocentric that God cared not about the new heaven and the new earth, but “just us” and, as I said, not very many of us. That’s what happens when you go down the track of individualism and lose the mystical level of perception.
Richard on the Franciscan worldview:
Francis is the first recorded Western Christian who granted animals, elements and planets subjectivity, respect and mutuality by calling them brothers and sisters. It’s a participatory universe that Francis expresses with wind, with fire, with Sun and Moon; the whole universe is a participatory experience.
Richard on incarnation:
You’d think that Christianity would have got incarnation early and first because we’re the only religion that concretely believes that the Divine took on flesh. No one else claims that the Divine became a human being. But much of our history has been ex-carnation, that is, how to get out of the world. We didn’t get incarnation except in a very narrow sense. And now we’re paying the price for it: the huge dying off of species and the pollution of the earth.
Richard on cosmology:
Cosmology is the new name for theology. Like no other generations, we know the extent of the mystery of the universe. We can give a date for its beginning. Ninety-nine percent of it is emptiness, is silence, is space and is darkness—all the things we avoid, run from and deny as important. God created a universe that is mostly dark, empty, silent space! Does that have anything to teach consciousness? Until you can honor silence you don’t know how to interpret the particles inside the spaces. They have no meaning except in the relationship between them.
Richard on mysticism:
The emphasis on the individual reflects the lack of the mystical level. Mysticism is always about more and more connecting. You realize that you are participating in something bigger and you are part of a mystery. You wonder if the one thing we all share in common across all religions is that we’ve all stood on this same earth and we’ve all looked up at this same Brother Sun, Sister Moon. Could it be that the mystery is already encapsulated there?
Richard on the “first Bible”:
The early Franciscans called creation “The First Bible.” If you murdered and mangled and manipulated and did not attend to or respect the First Bible, the assumption was that you would murder, mangle and manipulate the second Bible. You could make the case that the Bible has done as much damage in human history as it has done good.
Richard on religion and ecology:
I can’t give up on religion. Religion grants inherent sacrality, inherent holiness, goodness, value and worthiness to the material world. No religion does that better in theory than Christianity. But we individualized it—we pulled it into our private human selves, and we didn’t have the mature eyes to see that it isn’t only I that have materiality, but my dog has it too and those trees have it. They share in that same material universe that I share. It creates a truly global spirituality of which humanity is capable. We’re not just capable of it; if we don’t get it, we’re in trouble
1. Richard Rohr is one of the most widely read Christian theologians in North America today. He has a large and enthusiastic following. As you can see and hear, he doesn’t mince words. Many folks would say, “This is exactly the kind of bold and prophetic leadership we need in Christianity today!” What do you think?
2. From the various things you have heard Richard say, what one thing would you take and share with friends? Try putting that into your own words and saying it to friends in this circle of learning right now.
What Are We To Do?
Jennifer asks Richard: “So what are we to do?”
Suzanne speaks of how, when it comes to ecological crises such as the oil spill in the Gulf, she is torn between “mopping up” and “changing the mindset”:
If we get into the mopping up, it’s just a vicious cycle of fixing the problems they generated as opposed to following the vision of St. Francis.
In his response Richard proposes three ways of moving forward in deepening our eco-spiritual consciousness while addressing our theological dysfunction:
A lot of us have been saying in recent years that much of our teaching is unlearning. That’s why I resort to the teaching of contemplation so much because contemplation in practice is a daily exercise in self-emptying, in detaching, in unlearning your learned patterns.
We have to grant a kind of humility to religion again because it hasn’t been very humble.
We do well to emphasize an optimistic worldview. We need something to be for much more than something to be against. You need a great big positive vision to seduce the soul out. To simply operate out of pure praise, glory and love—that’s a higher level of motivation, but one that doesn’t easily come our way.
1. How would you apply these strategies to your situation both personally and communally?
2. What other strategies would you offer to move us beyond the dire situation that Richard earlier describes?
Developing Contemplative Seeing
Raymond recalls times when he has been surrounded by the awesomeness of nature. There he notices the sublime reality that we humans are just one of millions of species on this planet and not necessarily here forever. At such times the truth of God’s everywhere presence in creation settles into him.
In response Richard reflects on contemplative seeing, describing it as:
An open-eyed reverencing of reality—seeing that it all has value without label, without functional purpose. Experiencing universal connection, reverence and awe, I walk into that massive canyon, the rock soaring above. I am humbled. It was here long before me and it will be here long after. I’m walking through it this day. Who am I to think that I name it; perhaps it’s naming me!
1. When are you captivated by the awe of creation in the way Raymond and Richard describe?
2. What are your practices for developing your contemplative seeing?
3. What mystical insights have come to you through contemplative seeing?
Incarnation, Grace, and Evolution
When someone introduces the topic of evolution into the conversation, Richard seizes the opportunity to use it to further illuminate the potential of incarnation fully realized:
You would have thought if we had understood incarnation, Christians should have been on the front lines of understanding evolution, because grace is inherent to creation. We’re the ones who believe God created all things, and yet grace was still extrinsic to the universe. So evolution was not in our natural understanding.
Francis took incarnation to its logical conclusion. That’s what makes us a minority position inside the church. Even though mainline Catholicism was sacramental and supposedly saw the physical world as a doorway into the spiritual world, by and large most Catholics also saw grace as extrinsic to the universe: God who occasionally visited and gave you grace. The light didn’t shine from inside! That’s why we weren’t prepared for evolution—and even fought it.
1. How do you see it: God’s grace intrinsic to the universe, including the whole journey of evolution, or extrinsic and occasionally granted?
2. What does evolution tell you about God?
Transformation and Church Structures
Doug acknowledges his excitement at everything that Richard is saying, but then wonders as a parish priest:
How do you get people to calm down enough to understand what contemplation really is, to undergo the transformation of consciousness that enables them to look at their dog and say, “This is a fellow creature”?
In his response Richard moves us into an examination of the insufficiency of current church structures:
We need structures that encourage people at the mystical level, because that is the level that Jesus is at. If you want to understand Jesus, you’ve got to have an openness to it or you pull him down into dualistic thinking: either/or, for me or against me.
People come to church with the expectation not to be changed; it’s to be told again what they already agree with. The structure itself doesn’t lend itself to transformation. The future isn’t in the large congregation because it doesn’t come with the expectation of transformation, grace and growth. It doesn’t come with “beginner’s mind.”
1. In what ways is your church’s structure facilitating or inhibiting change and transformation?
2. How badly do you want to be transformed into the Way of Jesus? What might it cost you?
3. What kind of faith community activity and structure would support you in your desire for transformation?
Transcend and Include
In response to Doug’s weariness with the extent of anxiety at the future of the church and his observation that there is more obvious spiritual discipline in spiritually-focused groups outside the church than inside, Richard introduces Ken Wilber’s principle, Transcend and Include. He adds his own formulation when he says, “If you have transcended, you can include.”
As a way of making this principle even more concrete, Richard presents the way that Francis modeled it:
In 13th century Italy, Catholicism was the only game in town, so Francis found a way to survive inside it but did it very differently. He moved outside the walls of Assisi and he didn’t fight the Bishop and priests inside the walls. He would still go to those churches on feast days and occasions, but he did it differently.
Richard sums up the conversation in naming one of the principles of his Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque:
The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.
1. What does living the principle of “Transcend and Include” look like for you and for others who share your frustrations, concerns and visions within the current structures of church?
2. In what ways are you actually living “the practice of the better” as a positive way of moving beyond that which needs to be left behind
Personal Reflection
Following the session you will continue to think about issues raised both on the video and in your small group. This suggestion for journaling is offered to support you in continuing your reflection beyond the session time.
1. You may not have had time in the session to address all the topics. Go back on your own to the ones you missed and reflect personally on the issues addressed there.
2. How will you honor and advance the contemplative part of your life? There are so many opportunities: yoga, centering prayer, Buddhist mindfulness, meditation of many kinds, chanting, worship in the style of Taize, spiritual direction, Celtic walking, healing touch and so much more. Consider that there may be merit in inviting other members of the group—or of your congregation—into an intentional practice of contemplative formation.
* Adapted from Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy: A 5-Session Study by Richard Rohr with Tim Scorer, Morehouse Education Resources, 2014)
Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy: Atonement Theology
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
Stories of unmerited grace are hidden in plain sight in the remembered history of Jesus. The seventh chapter of Luke’s Gospel features three stories of favor given by Jesus to unlikely candidates: a Roman officer, a widow who just lost her son to death, and an infamously immoral woman. Before the last story in this chapter there is an interesting scene where the imprisoned John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is, indeed the anticipated Messiah or if they should be looking elsewhere. Jesus’ response was to report to John that, in short, grace was happening. While the story of the officer and the widow show us what happened in the moment, the final story is about what happened in response. A woman showed up unexpectedly to a dinner party at which she was uninvited hosted by a holier-than-thou Pharisee who became immediately unsettled at her presence. She made a spectacle of herself, pouring expensive perfume on Jesus’ head, and washing his feet with her tears and hair. Recognizing the indignant attitude of the Pharisee, Jesus turned it into a teaching moment about grace and gratitude. In short, the woman’s actions were a response to the love and grace she received from Jesus.
Grace given while Jesus was alive and well. Long before he died. Long before the cross and the forgiveness it represented. Long before the ransom was paid. Long before the substitutionary Lamb of God died for her sins. She was forgiven long before all of that, which, in and of itself, calls into question our thoughts about the when and how of grace.
The next five weeks are going to feature insights from Richard Rohr, one of many voices who are speaking from a fresh approach to Christianity that is scholarly, biblical, experiential, aware of history and our place in it. I have read many of his books and largely agree with him. He’s got something to say, and we have a lot to learn from him. So, get your nerd on and enjoy the videos, and please, please, please use the process questions below to help this stuff sink in.
Process Questions for Session 1: Atonement Theology*
Many participants like to come to the group conversation after considering individually some of the issues that will be raised. The following five reflective activities are intended to open your mind, memories and emotions regarding some aspects of this session’s topic.
1. Traditional atonement theology can be summed up by the roadside sign that announces “Jesus died for our sins.” This theology requires that there be a transaction—a deal—so that God can love what God created. God’s acceptance is purchased through the death of Jesus. Where have you encountered this theology? What place does it have in your belief system and in your faith community?
2. An alternative view of atonement (at-one-ment) tells us that God’s love has always come without conditions and still does. No deal is necessary. As you go through these days, engaged in the ordinary tasks of living, watch for signs of the overwhelming, unconditional love that God has for the creation, for you and for all that you choose to love.
3. Jesus models for us a life path that is all about letting go of illusion and pretense (the small false self ) and embracing the fullness of life—including death—in a way that the true self has space to emerge and to be known ever more fully. How is your “self ” doing as you follow this Christ path from the false to the true?
4. Quid Pro Quo names a way of dealing with things “tit for tat”—an eye for an eye. Retributive justice is like that, ensuring that the wrongdoer be adequately punished according to the laws of the state. Restorative justice, on the other hand, focuses on the just restoration of relationship in which the concerns of all those affected by the wrong done are addressed. Restorative justice makes space for the exercise of grace. Where have you seen grace being given space to make a difference recently?
Historical Background to Two Approaches to Atonement
Franciscans had an alternative understanding of the atonement from their inception 800 years ago. The Roman Church did not deem this heretical. In the broad-mindedness of the 13th Century, it was possible to have a minority position as well as a majority one without anyone being kicked out of the Church.
Mainline Protestantism by and large fully accepted the majority position on atonement. Because Franciscans were something of a sideshow within Catholicism, they were never as invested in it as most evangelical Christians are today.
1. Richard Rohr on the Majority Position on Atonement
Some insights that Richard offers in his introduction:
A. The mainline position on atonement that anyone in any denomination has probably been influenced by is summed up in the phrase you see on highway signs: “Jesus died for our sins.”
B. Traditional atonement theology claims that there needed to be a transaction for God to love what God created. God’s love had to be purchased in some way.
C. This theology is based on many quotes from the New Testament where this kind of language is being used: ransom, satisfaction, paying the price and died for us.
D. In the first 1,000 years of Christianity, the normal Christian consensus was that the debt was being paid to the devil.
E. It was Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) who, in his paper Cur Deus Homo (Why Did God Become Human), made a case for the debt being paid to God, not the devil.
F. Atonement made sense to Jewish people from their experience of Temple sacrifice, where there was some transaction necessary because the language and metaphors were already part of their tradition.
2. The Franciscan Minority Position on Atonement Theology
Having offered an introduction to traditional atonement theology, Richard then proceeds to offer a critique of it by presenting the Franciscan view of atonement beginning with a quote from Franciscan John Duns Scotus, one of the most important philosopher-theologians of the High Middle Ages:
Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity,
but to change the mind of humanity about God.
Here are seven quotes from Richard’s presentation of the minority Franciscan position on atonement:
1. God organically loved what God created from the first moment of the Big Bang. There was an inherent love relationship between God and creation. God wanted to show God’s Self in material creation.
2. The Christ existed from all eternity. The Christ was the first idea in the mind of God.
3. Jesus is the image of the invisible God from all eternity. There is simply a union to be named: at-one-ment.
4. The first idea in the mind of God is to reveal who God is. Jesus is the revelation of God’s Plan A. Jesus is not a mop-up exercise after Adam and Eve ate that darn apple!
5. When we say in traditional atonement theology that there needs to be a transaction for God to love what God created, we create a barrier to mystical thinking and to the understanding of the unconditional love of God.
6. The traditional atonement theory doesn’t say much good about God. It suggests that God doesn’t have an inherent love for what God created; God is “pissed off,” so to speak.
7. No transaction was necessary. No blood sacrifice was necessary. No atonement is necessary. There is no bill to be paid.
Richard states:
When you make these challenges to traditional atonement theology people feel like you’re taking away their faith because many people have based their understanding of Jesus on this.
This may be true for you too. Perhaps this challenge to traditional atonement theology comes as a shock. It may take a while to fully absorb Richard’s challenge and to consider the implications for your own theology.
1. What impact does Richard’s critique of atonement theology have on you?
2. Now that we have these two conflicting approaches to atonement laid out so clearly, what do you affirm for yourself about these matters:
· God and creation
· Christ in creation
· Jesus as revelation
· the death of Jesus
· atonement vs. at-one-ment
3. Richard says:
When we say in atonement theology that there needs to be a transaction for God to love what God created, we create a barrier to mystical thinking and to the understanding of the unconditional love of God.
In other words, there can be no conditions on God’s love. That love existed from the beginning for all creation, and it is still here for you billions of years later. It did not need to be bought, and it will never need to be bought. What convinces you of the love of God, fully present with no conditions?
The Self-Emptying Way
Doug asks:
Jesus asks that the cup be passed and then goes on to say, “nevertheless, not my will but your will.” So he willingly dies. There is implicit in that a notion that, in some measure, God required of Jesus that he die. How does that fit in to plan A?
Richard responds:
I wouldn’t say that God required it. I would say that reality requires the letting go of what I call the “false self.” Reality requires the letting go of illusion and pretense. In my Christology I would say that Jesus died willingly, surrendering the Jesus “small self ” so the Christ “universal self ” could be born. In doing that he models for all of us the same path. I know this isn’t attractive to Western Christians, but death is part of the deal. That’s not a negative statement, a morbid, punishing or threatening statement. It’s just that animals know it, trees know it—the cycles of death and life. What we see in Jesus is a willing surrendering to that, an embracing of that.
Raymond adds:
Paul talks about Jesus emptying himself—in Greek, kenosis. The actual atonement that Jesus did was the emptying of himself to do what God wanted.
Richard responds:
You name it that way, and suddenly Buddhists take notice. We’re saying the same thing and, of course, if truth is one (as it has to be or it’s not truth), wouldn’t that make sense that the great religions are coming to very similar conclusions. So using that word “emptying” from Philippians is right on if we see it as an entire process of self-emptying instead of a dramatic three hours on the cross. For some Christian denominations the first 30 years of Jesus’ life mean nothing: his teaching can be ignored. It’s just those last three hours. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it amounts to “get that blood” instead of a whole life of self-emptying.
1. Richard encourages us to see this path that Jesus followed in letting go of the false self and giving birth to the true self (or universal self ) as something to be emulated. He acknowledges that this path isn’t attractive to Western Christians. What would it actually mean “to let go of the false self ” and to fully embrace the natural cycles of life and death?
2. What is it about this path that makes it unattractive to Western Christians?
3. If it’s attractive to you and is, perhaps, the way you live, what makes it so?
Shaped by Willfulness; Yearning for Willingness
Doug asks:
Isn’t it inevitable that experience is going to have to teach us that quid pro quo doesn’t work?
Richard responds:
We’ve been shaped much more by American culture. We like will-power religion: “I can do whatever I need to do.” The language of the scriptures and the mystics and saints is not the language of willfulness but willingness—the language of surrender. Jesus surrenders to his passion. He’s not steering the whole thing, he’s surrendering to what has to happen, what’s inevitable. That’s a very different language than “pulling up by my own bootstraps”! We are so formed by that notion that we pretend it’s the gospel. Christian preachers talk that way: “You can do it! You can do anything you want!”
In biblical theory that’s pure heresy, yet you can get away talking that way in a pulpit. Willfulness appeals to the egocentric, low level self. It looks like winners win. What the gospel is saying is losers win. We should all be happy about that because it includes all of us. That’s why I wrote the book Falling Upward. I wanted to show that you’ve got to go through that falling experience. Your initial self-created game for superiority has to disappoint you, has to fall apart on some level or you never get to the second half of life, which is the gospel possibility.
1. This is a huge condemnation by Richard of the meaning of religion within American culture. And it’s an alarming description of the consequence to individuals of that cultural reality. This conversation about surrender and falling into the second half of life has to be one of the hardest conversations for privileged North Americans! Listen with care. Speak with courage. How is this characterization of religion in America borne out in your experience and observation?
2. What has America lost as a result of the appropriation of religion that Richard is describing?
3. How has this tension between willfulness and willingness been lived out in your life? Where do you find yourself now?
A Deep Concern for the Generations to Come
Suzanne and Jennifer give voice to their passion for ensuring that these insights that come under the title alternative orthodoxy will be available to and desired by their children and grandchildren.
Suzanne puts it this way:
I hope that my son and his generation will not have to fight the fight that I’m fighting now. It took me a while to get to this because I was trying to remain loyal. Finally, through years of reading and being open to other ways of thinking, I realized this is no threat at all: I can hang on to these other things. I don’t want the next generation to have to undergo that. Maybe if we do our part in introducing this to them early on, telling them, “This is important, but so is this: God is a loving God!”
And Jennifer adds:
Something I’ve seen in working with adults in education are grandparents who see that their adult children aren’t baptizing the grandchildren, so the grandparents do it. And it’s not out of love, but out of fear, fear that if this child does not have water poured on its head and a ritualistic formula said exactly this way, then if the child dies he or she will go to hell. That to me says so much about what your image of God is. It’s so important to communicate to our children, to our grandchildren a different image of God than what I had. I had the cosmic attendance-taker keeping track of my sins and of my attendance at mass instead of a God who from the get-go planned to come and meet us where we are.
Richard responds briefly:
We’ve discovered—and I’m sure you as educators know this—it’s not what parents say, it’s what they’re excited about. If you talk about this in an excited way, it’s sold. It takes.
1. We are in a time in mainline Christianity when participation in the life of the congregation at all age levels, but especially at younger ages, is in dramatic decline. Many congregations have neither children nor younger adults participating in the life of their faith community, so this issue raised by Suzanne and Jennifer really matters. Theology matters. Why would people stick around to hear about a God who is keeping track of your sins and your attendance at church? Richard reminds us that genuine excitement about something that really matters makes a difference to those who are learning and seeking. What do you think about all this?
2. Is it too late for Christianity to recover from its history of bad theology?
3. What do you intend to do in terms of the spiritual and faith-formation of the generations to come, especially the ones in whose lives you have an influence?
* from Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy: A 5-Session Study by Richard Rohr with Tim Scorer, Morehouse Education Resources, 2014
Leah: Hope for Women Everywhere
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
Dr. Jenny Matheny, Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Nazarene Seminary in Kansas City, brings this insightful teaching about an often undervalued woman in biblical history.
Calm
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
Graffiti. During this shelter in place mode of this COVID-19 season, I have been trying to take breaks throughout very busy, intense days. I’ve been getting in over 10,000 steps most days, and it has really helped. In the last few days, some indicators have popped up that express the stress some people are feeling at this time. On the rusty steel frame of a bridge I cross regularly is written in chalk, “OPEN THE USA” referring to our shut-down economy, as well as “VIRUS HOAX”, “OPEN SCHOOLS NOW” and ISOLATE THE SICK”. The same sentiment has shown up on patches of sidewalks here and there. To be clear, COVID-19 is no hoax. Try telling that to people who are struggling with it, or their families, or worse, the 50,000+ families that are grieving the loss of loved ones. Such language is deeply offensive and tone deaf in its insensitivity. Everyone wants to get out of this. Everyone wants is to be sooner than later. I really don’t think anyone wants more people to get sick or bring on a surge. We’re just simply stressed. The stress is real – real income lost, real businesses closed, real hunger in homes, real domestic violence increased, real sickness that lasts for months, real people now dead. No hoax on any level – this is real.
Face Coverings. I went to the grocery store last weekend, an errand I have worked hard to avoid given the work I do – I never know when I might be called to go into a situation with a compromised person so am staying away from everyone as much as possible. I put my mask on and entered the store and was surprised to discover that maybe 60% of my fellow shoppers were wearing face coverings. There were even some store staff members who weren’t wearing face coverings, or, when they talked, lowered it, making the covering moot. In one case, a couple walked by, the woman wearing a N95 and her husband wearing nothing. Weird. I felt pretty uneasy about the experience. In our neck of the woods, we know that the odds of acquiring COVID-19 are pretty remote. Homes are spaced out. Lots of room to get around. We’re not stacked up on top of each other like NYC. My unease wasn’t so much about the risk factors, which are impossible to calculate since many carriers don’t know they are carriers. My struggle was on what was being communicated by those not wearing face coverings. We know that face coverings are not great at preventing COVID-19 getting into your nose or mouth and on into your lungs. We do know that the face coverings significantly limit the distance the wearer’s exhaled breath travels. Instead of six feet of water-droplet travel, it’s half that or less. Given what we know and don’t know about COVID-19, while these “face-naked” people may have been exercising their right to take heed or not, their freedom put the freedom of the rest of those around them on the line. The same could be said about social distancing. Some take liberties because they hate the isolation and long for community. But when do our personal needs cross the line and infringe on the wellbeing of others?
Grizzly Bears. Doug Seus walked out the back of his Utah ranch and spotted a grizzly bear. It charged immediately toward him. There was no escaping what was about to happen. As soon as the bear was a few feet away, the 1,200-pound giant rose on his hind legs, soaring nine feet. The furry beast stretched out his front legs/arms and… gave Seus a literal bear hug. Seus, 78, is an animal trainer, and had raised Little Bart since he was a cub. He has trained a number of brown bears that have been featured in a range of movies you’ve probably seen. What would possess a guy to take such a risk in the face of such danger?
In a Boat in a Storm. Doug Seus’ calm in the presence of a being six times his weight reminded me of a story from Jesus’ life. He and his disciples had wrapped up a lot of teaching and serving along the shore of the Sea of Galilee:
Late that day he said to them, "Let's go across to the other side." They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along. A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, "Teacher, is it nothing to you that we're going down?"
Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, "Quiet! Settle down!" The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass. Jesus reprimanded the disciples: "Why are you such cowards? Don't you have any faith at all?"
They were in absolute awe, staggered. "Who is this, anyway?" they asked. "Wind and sea at his beck and call!" – Mark 4:35-41 (MSG)
When we read an account like this, we need to wonder about it on a couple of levels. First, thanks to how we have been conditioned by the modern Western world, we might wonder what the literal meaning of the story might be for the disciples and ourselves. Surely part of the intent of this recorded story is to give listeners confidence that Jesus was so deeply connected to God that he could do something only God could do – command the wind and waves to calm down! In this light, his power is the point. Jesus was known for being a miracle worker from third-party sources in antiquity, which matters. He wasn’t a snake oil salesman – something very powerful was at work in him. This increases our faith. However, the downside of limiting our perspective to this literal level alone creates problems when we face storms, cry out to God, and end up drowning.
There is another level, another lens, with which we can view this story. If we take the story as metaphor, which is simply going beyond the literal meaning of the text, a very big world opens up. Asking the question about what this text means beyond the black and white takes us to the very Jewish practice of Midrash practiced by Jesus, Paul, and all who were in the rabbinical tradition. Actually, even the most literal interpreter of any text goes to metaphor eventually, because as soon as we wonder what the implications are of a particular text, we move into this broader space. As an Eastern tradition, Judaism has always been more interested in collectively finding ourselves in and unpacking the story more than the logical analysis or formulas derived from the text – that’s a Western tradition (which is home for most of us).
Taking a more-than-literal, metaphorical approach to handling this story, we find a lot for our lives today. The disciples were leaving the shores of certainty, safety, and success, headed toward a foreign region that may be hostile. They left calm waters and encountered a storm. While the disciples were focused entirely on the raging storm around them, the one they had chosen to follow was sound asleep. At peace. Content in the middle of the storm. Disciples, by definition, are the students of a Master Teacher. Apparently, they skipped class at the moment until they couldn’t take it anymore and they realized they had better get Jesus’ wisdom. So, they woke him up. Jesus was present with them while the storm raged, and then spoke calm into the situation. The disciples learned a lesson beyond whatever literal thing took place. They learned that calm, peace, contentment is not determined by outward circumstances. Calm can happen even while the storm rages. I wonder who really woke who up that night on the boat. It seems to me that Jesus was the one who was “woke” in his rest while the disciples were the ones “asleep” as they were freaking out.
The point of the story is not that we should give up or take a nap when we really need to be attending to our lives. One point is that as we encounter storms of many kinds – and we will, one after another – we learn from Jesus, the Master Teacher, about how to stay grounded, focused, which allows for calm and rest. Learning and practicing how to do this takes time yet yields a life that brings with it many benefits physically, emotionally, relationally, and of course, spiritually. The question then: how do we get there?
A Grizzly Relationship. Doug Seus didn’t just wake up one day and decide to try petting an apex predator. He did, however, have a series of shifts in his life where his relationship changed. He shifted from focusing on bears (and other wild animals, too) as something to be feared to something to be revered. Fear leads us into increasing fight or flight reactions. Reverence, however, is all about respect, appreciation, and awareness. His relationship to the world changed from wherever it was to one where he recognized the shared existence between himself and the created world. Because he began seeing the world through that lens, revering it, he began treating it differently and experiencing even grizzly bears with calm and peace. How we see ourselves and the world in which we live impacts and informs how we relate to it. Seus woke up at some point and it changed everything for him.
Jesus was talking about a similar reality when he said a person needs to be born again to experience the Kingdom of God. He was talking about waking up to a very different view of life which changes how we see ourselves, others, the created world, and God. In contrast to other ancient cultures at the time, Judaism offered a very different view of God, creation, and humanity. The first chapter of the Hebrew scriptures (Genesis) starts with a poem describing the origins of all creation. It’s a poem written at a very primitive time – it’s not meant to be scientific. It communicates that the Creator is benevolent, creating from love and loving what was created, calling everything “good” along the way, and human beings “very good”. The earlier, even more primitive creation story follows in Chapters 2-3, where we find the Adam, Eve, Tempter, and Redeemer story. There we see God giving much to Adam and Eve both out of love. They get tripped up as humans do, lured by selfishness into destructive behavior and experience shame and guilt. God reenters the story not with condemnation, but with restoration. Consequences of mistakes were present (as they always are), but hope remained. They lived. Thrived. All helped by a God who loved them. How differently we would see ourselves, the world, and the people in the world if we started from this framework! This paradigm is what Jesus was referring to when he stated that the greatest commandments (which fulfilled all commandments) are to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. When we view the Creator and the created with love and as lovely, we find ourselves grounded, rooted, founded in love. In a parable about building a house on rock instead of sand, this is what Jesus was talking about. When we follow Jesus’ lead in this Way of life and living, we are able to withstand the storms and be at peace in rockin’ and rollin’ boats. When we shift our eyes off of primarily ourselves and wake up to God who is everywhere and in everything, our attitude shifts, and so does our behavior.
Ray Liotta. In a recent interview in Men’s Journal (May/June 2020), when asked about the role that faith should have in a person’s life, he responded, “I think religion is more of a way of controlling, and consoling, people. Still, to this day the thought of what’s out there scares the shit out of me, but that’s only because I don’t have a real belief. My mom died in my arms, and my dad died in front of me, and that shook me. The older I get, the more I want to believe something is out there.” Ray’s experience is shared by many. At distinct moments in time, the Christian faith became really focused on orthodoxy as having the right beliefs when it should have been focused on believing in the right way. The first really is all about controlling and consoling. The latter is about life and living awakened, born again to a way of seeing that transforms our very lives and seeks the restoration of life everywhere for everyone and everything, all grounded in love.
Same Storm. Same Boat? CrossWalker and extraordinary human being Terri Conwell posted a writing on Facebook this past week. The author, while anonymous, is clearly awake. Here’s what it read:
I heard it said that we are all in the same boat, but it's not like that. We are in the same storm, but not in the same boat. Your ship could be shipwrecked and mine might not be. Or vice versa.
For some, quarantine is optimal: a moment of reflection, of re-connection, easy in flip flops, with a cocktail or coffee. For others, this is a desperate financial & family crisis.
In some homes a sole occupant faces endless loneliness. In others, family members are getting peace, rest, and time with each other — while in still others, quarantine means an increased danger due to domestic violence.
With the $600 weekly increase in unemployment some are bringing in more money to their households than they were working. Others are working more hours for less money due to pay cuts or loss in sales.
Some families of 4 just received $3400 from the stimulus while other families of 4 saw $0.
Some were concerned about getting a certain candy for Easter while others were concerned if there would be enough bread, milk and eggs for the weekend.
Some want to go back to work because they don't qualify for unemployment and are running out of money. Others want to kill those who break the quarantine.
Some are home spending 2-3 hours/day helping their child with online schooling while others are spending 2-3 hours/day to educate their children on top of a 10-12-hour workday.
Some have experienced the near death of the virus; some have already lost someone from it, and some are not sure if their loved ones are going to make it. Others don't believe this is a big deal.
Some have faith in God and expect miracles during this 2020. Others say the worst is yet to come.
So, friends, we are not in the same boat. We are going through a time when our perceptions and needs are completely different.
Each of us will emerge, in our own way, from this storm. It is very important to see beyond what is seen at first glance. Not just looking, actually seeing.
We are all on different ships during this storm experiencing a very different journey.
Just respect others when in public and be kind. Don’t judge fellow humans because you’re not in their story. We all are in different mental states than we were months ago. So, remember, be kind. – Author Unknown
A Model for Staying Awake. The disciples knew Jesus was tapped into the Spirit of God so much that the transformation was obvious. They wanted to know how to pray and asked him to teach them. He gave them what we call The Lord’s Prayer. While it’s a good one to memorize, it was never meant to be a quick, casual prayer we simply pull from rote memory. Rather, it was meant to give us a structure for our meditation to continually foster our becoming more and more awake. Instead of racing through it, take your time, spending time on each line/movement, reflecting on what is being stated and what it is inviting us to see.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed (holy) be Thy name.
Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever.
Amen (may it be so).
The Great Reset: Mind Cure
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
As part of "The Great Reset" series, this teaching featuring an interview with Zen Buddhist Priest, scholar and author Wakoh Shannon Hickey, Ph.D. will give you historical perspective on the development of meditation and mindfulness in the United States as noted in her book, Mind Cure. Toward the end of the interview, Wakoh leads a guided meditation.
The Great Reset: Relationships
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
Erin Findley, Psy. D. was my guest this week, offering insight from Emotionally Focused Therapy. I encourage you to check out the following resources to help you experience greater relational health:
1. Hold Me Tight Book
2. Hold Me Tight Online - (It's actually $147 USD, not $147 CAD as I was originally told - sorry about that!)
https://holdmetightonline.com/
3. Northern CA Community for Emotionally Focused Therapists
4. My website
2020 Easter
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
As we were approaching Spring Break my freshman year of college, my roommate and I were talking about what we were going to do during our week at home. I talked about what my family did for Easter, which piqued his curiosity. “What is Easter about, anyway?”, he asked. As a guy who literally grew up in church (my dad and both grandfathers were pastors), I couldn’t believe what he was asking. I soon discovered that even though he went to church with his mom on Easter and some occasional Christmas services, and even though he identified with Christianity as his religion, he didn’t know anything about Easter, really.
What does Easter mean to you?
Jesus’ week in Jerusalem did not end well. After being sold out by one of his disciples (Judas), he was arrested, tried by religious authorities who didn’t obey their own rules, then tried by the Roman authorities who had Jesus severely beaten and eventually executed by crucifixion. He died late Friday afternoon, and a wealthy benefactor had his body placed in a cave-tomb and sealed with a stone. Guards were even sent to make sure nobody tried to steal Jesus’ corpse. The disciples hid in fear of being arrested and facing a similar fate. After the Sabbath was over Saturday night, the next morning some women followers of Jesus went to properly prepare Jesus’ body for extended burial. When they arrived at the tomb, they could see that no guards were present, the several-hundred-pound stone had been rolled away, and Jesus’ body was no longer laying inside the cave-tomb. Naturally, they wondered what had happened. They were greeted by an angel of God who asked them a peculiar question: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? Don’t you see, he is not here. He is risen!” Soon thereafter, Jesus was experienced alive by his followers, albeit in a new form. Depending which of the four Gospels referenced, there are slight differences in what happened, but the gist is the same: Jesus was dead, then was experienced alive again. For many Christians to this day, Easter is simply about that: there is life after the grave and believing in Jesus guarantees it because he said if we believed, we would be welcomed into heaven. For many Christians, this is the primary – if not only – reason to have faith.
This message for many is a bit ho-hum. In my experience, the overwhelming number of people believe in an afterlife for themselves and everybody they care about. I’ve presided over hundreds of funerals and memorial services in my pastoral career. In nearly every case there was strong belief that the person being remembered was in heaven, playing golf, or fishing, or playing poker, or…. In a sense, this is evidence that the Church has done a good job with this aspect of the Easter message – most everybody seems comfortable with the idea of some form of life after the grave, and that God will welcome us home. This assumption has not been the case for most of humanity since Jesus walked the earth, however. This is a fairly recent development, historically.
The disciples lived at a time when there was not a lot of confidence in anything happening post-grave, except perhaps for a very elite few – the prophet Elijah and another obscure character named Enoch from the Jewish tradition. Good Roman citizens may have believed that some of the Caesars lived on since they were at times viewed as demigods. Let the historical context sink in a moment to appreciate this important fact. The disciples had little confidence in life being more than a few decades of hard living before being crushed by death. Jesus’ resurrection completely changed all of that. The hope was real, and it radically changed and empowered them. Their confidence is everything he said skyrocketed after Easter morning, and the hope it communicated was extremely compelling to others who, up to that point, had no hope for more than this life. A strong belief in heaven was a serious game changer. It still is. Ask anyone truly facing death or their loved ones – hope that there is more can bring great peace.
We live at a moment where we could use more peace. A microscopic virus has wreaked havoc over the entire globe, disrupting literally everyone’s lives in one way or another. Many have lost jobs that may or may not return. Some have lost their business. Many have lost sight of a hopeful future. Over a million have contracted the virus, and worldwide the death toll is already staggering and will continue to rise in the weeks to come before leveling off. All of a sudden all of humanity has been brought to its knees. While most people will not die or even get sick from COVID-19, it has forced us into a season where we are faced with loss and death on many levels. Literally in terms of physical health, and metaphorical on many fronts. Whereas before when we had no social distancing or sheltering in place restrictions put upon us, now we cannot turn to the same coping mechanisms that once worked to help us deny this perpetual reality of the human experience. Loss and death are very real physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, economically. We may find ourselves with many deaths and losses that we are facing, that have been laid in a tomb and sealed shut. We may find ourselves, like the disciples, locked away in despair, not knowing what to do next, trapped in hopelessness. Yet if Easter is anything, it is a proclamation that death and despair don’t get the last word. Easter means hope. And hope makes all the difference between simply surviving and prevailing.
Easter proclaims that there is a power at work that is greater than flesh and bones and market crashes and viruses combined. This hope brought Jesus’ disciples out of their doomy-and-gloomy sheltering-in-place into a new light and a new future. What they were sure was the end got flipped – it was a new unprecedented beginning. They launched from that day with a level of confidence and energy unimaginable prior to Easter Sunday morning. The power and hope of Easter lasted the length of their lives and was stronger than the pain and suffering they all would endure, even when facing martyrdom. Don’t miss this: they still faced hardship in life – that’s inevitable – yet it did not stand a chance against the power and presence of God which provided an everlasting stream of life and direction. That same reality is possible for all of us today. COVID-19 may rob us of life, health, finances, and freedoms, but it need not rob us of hope. There is a power that is deeper, that is experienced, that is real, that is lasting.
To tap into the deep power that is Easter we need to learn some things from those first disciples. They were the first to experience the resurrected Christ. They all believed what they experienced together – they did not doubt it. Yet this kind of believing in Easter ran way deeper than intellectual assent. Surely there are a lot of people that have confidence that Jesus’ resurrection experienced by the disciples was true, yet they remain in despair. The abiding power of the resurrection came because of something the disciples had been learning for the three years or more leading up to that first Easter. They had learned and adopted the way of Jesus and were living in his footsteps.
If you’re looking for the secret sauce the disciples had that helped them experience the power of Easter, given them hope and courage for the rest of their lives, it was that they adopted the way of Jesus as their own. So much so, in fact, that the early Jesus followers were called the people of The Way referring to Jesus’ teachings. Not to be confused with some form of legalistic adherence to a bunch of do’s and don’ts, the Way was an ethos, a way of being that transformed the way they viewed God, themselves, the world around them, the intersecting systems, and their engagement in the world. Like the Karate Kid who waxed on and waxed off, the disciples walked in Jesus’ footsteps, listened to his teachings which he repeated in every new town, watched how he did life, how he treated others – everything – because all of that together is what kept Jesus so tightly aligned with God. They rightly figured that if it was important to Jesus, it should be important to them, and if it worked for Jesus, it just might work for them. They were correct. They began to live like Jesus, and they saw the same kinds of things happen in and through them that they saw in Jesus. Profound insights, vision to see things clearly, courage to call out injustice and call for love, and even power to facilitate healing like Jesus did. The secret sauce for how they embraced and harnessed the power of resurrection was their devotion to the Way of Jesus, making it their own. This still works. In fact, I would submit to you that it still is as much The Way as it ever was!
In my experience, a lot of people believe in Easter intellectually and maybe even emotionally, but not with their whole being, which also includes their attitudes and behaviors. Their faith in God and Easter isn’t much more powerful than their faith in their laundry soap, and often not as powerful as their faith in the US flag. Keep your laundry soap and your flag, yet realize that there is something much bigger offered here that transcends Tide and is stronger than our democracy (and its military). The power of Easter is the game changer and life restorer, calling for a deeper and greater allegiance than even our patriotism, and providing much more. Beauty where there was ugliness and destruction, strength for fear, gladness for mourning, peace for despair, and life where there was once death.
Many years ago I officiated a funeral service for a guy that in many ways wasted his life. For whatever reason, he was pretty much all about himself, used people again and again (especially women), lost multiple jobs due to either his anger problem or drinking problem. His health was as good as you might guess for a guy who drank a 12-pack of beer every day along with smoking two packs to go with it. He got cancer and died. His brother showed up for the funeral, and he gave every indication that he was not happy to be there. Not because of grief, but disgust, anger, disappointment. The only other person who came was a woman in my church who introduced me to the guy. He wanted me there as he was taking his last breaths. I tried to convince him of the unconditional love of God which loved him then and forever, a love large enough to welcome him home. But I don’t think he really bought it, because he never really lived it. Easter isn’t something we just sign off on. It is something we live and discover that it lives in us and produces in us life we hadn’t thought possible. In the Christian tradition, the Easter life begins with a yes to follow in the footsteps and teaching of Jesus, which is followed with many more invitations to say yes to, all leading us to learn and grow and see and do in ways that tie us to the heart of God which is eternally good and loving. That’s why Easter is more than a one-off historical moment, and more of a movement – we become resurrected here and now, with a growing hope for what comes next.
What will Easter mean for you today? Especially during this global reset event of COVID-19, why not say yes to a new approach, the Way of Jesus that leads to life?
Palm Sunday 2020
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
How quickly things can change. A bit over 30 years ago, when I was in high school I was working out in my basement with a friend. We never spotted each other on the bench press until our third set. On the 10th rep of my second set, my arms went jelly and 225 pounds fell on my face. A lot of blood, a lot of stitches, a new scar. How quickly things can change. Nearly 20 years ago I was driving my car on a windy road when a deer jumped in front of me. I overreacted, rolling my car off an embankment that blew out my sunroof leaving my head to drag along the pavement. A lot of blood, a lot of stitches, a new scar. Ten years ago I was doing some pullups when my chin-up bar gave way. I landed on the small of my back. After eight months of incredibly painful sciatica, I got surgery. I suppose there was a fair amount of blood involved, a bunch of stitches, and a new scar. How quickly things can change.
I bet you have stories like this. Physical stories of accidents. Heartbreak stories. Paradigm shift stories. Good news stories, too – falling in love, getting pregnant, having a kid, getting accepted into college, getting the job, getting the house. One moment you’re one way, and then something happens, and everything has changed. How quickly things can change.
It’s a part of the human experience.
We’re living in one of those right now, aren’t we? The whole world, together, in this unwelcome moment, fighting together an enemy we can’t even see with the naked eye. Something most of us knew nothing about a matter of weeks ago. How quickly things can change.
Jesus was no stranger to the human experience. The very last week of his life was no exception. It began with a Sunday parade or sorts. He was coming into the city of Jerusalem and a crowd of his fans lined the street to celebrate him with cheers, shouts of adoration, and gestures to honor him. They waived palm branches. They laid down a make-shift red carpet type thing for him with their coats. Jesus likely knew his fans were going to do something like this, and he was very intentional about how he chose to enter the scene. He could have walked. Or he could have borrowed a horse used mainly for military purposes. Instead, he chose a lowly donkey. This ride communicated peace, not war. Instead of a Hummer, he showed up in Herbie.
Jesus had a lot of fans, mostly from the northern part of the country around the Sea of Galilee where he lived most of his life and did most of his ministry. There is ongoing debate about what exactly happened, but suffice it to say he had an experience that woke him up. He saw his life, the world, the people of the world, power structures, religion, politics – everything – differently. At the center of his awakening was his understanding of God as ever-present, the source of life itself, and characterized by an uncontrolling love. When this happened (and kept happening), it was one of those moments that changed everything. One moment he was a dirt-poor day laborer hanging out at the Home Depot parking lot hoping to get some work to buy food for his mom and siblings. The next moment he was commanding capacity crowds at the local amphitheater, sharing his experience and understanding of it all. Of course, the crowds never lasted. Jesus was really honest about the way of life he had discovered. He knew that it ran counter to cultural norms, and even to lizard-brained self-preservation. The big secret to the way he found was a reckless abandonment to God. Choosing to give the reins of his life to this Greater Other, this Ground of Being, the Spirit, Higher Power. It was a decision to simply live in the reality of the loving presence of God for the sake of being in the loving presence of God. Not for personal gain. Not to win heaven or avoid hell. Not to get wishes granted. Simply to be immersed in Love. After a rousing teaching or day-long seminar, he would drop the bomb of this greatest truth about sacrificing self in order to gain our real identity. The result? The overwhelming majority of people walked away. How quickly things can change.
The week that began with a parade was even worse. A few days later, one of his closest followers sold him out. He was arrested. Beaten. Falsely accused and illegally tried. Beaten some more. In an unprecedented move, the Roman Governor made room for some democracy: a decibel vote between Jesus and an insurrectionist named Barabbas. Jesus got the loudest cheer. The prize? Execution by crucifixion. Sunday morning came with cheers of acclamation. Friday afternoon – shouts of death. How quickly things can change.
How did Jesus choose to respond with it all? Surrender. That Thursday evening when he was arrested, he prayed his heart out. He sweat blood. He didn’t want to go through the nightmare he imagined would come. He asked that the cup pass. At the end of his prayer, however, he surrendered: not my will but yours be done. Not that God was wanting Jesus to die, but that the uncontrolling love of God meant that bad things will happen in life, but God’s love remains with us. The next day as he was severely beaten – a lot of blood, no time for stitches, would’ve been a lot of scars – he could have fought back at least with his words. Instead, he honored who he was as a beloved child of God. Among his last words as he was dying? “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” Followed soon after with, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” Surrender. One moment alive. The next, dead. How quickly things can change.
One thing was constant, though, according to Jesus. God’s love. Even as we go through inevitable highs and lows, we do so immersed in the love of God which is everywhere, all the time. Giving us strength. Hope. Peace. Perspective. Promise. I don’t know exactly why, but it gives me some peace of mind knowing that Jesus went through life with all of its ups and downs. Jesus. The guy who so completely nailed it. Still struggled.
This approach to life isn’t punting, by the way. It’s not giving up the fight. We still do our part to do what is right and good, aligned with what we believe is loving toward God and all of creation. Sometimes, though, despite our best efforts, our life experience still sucks. Yet we are still swimming in the presence of God just the same.
As we go through this COVID-19 trauma together, know that you are not alone. We are all, quite literally, in this together. Love God and love other people. Stay awake, stay woke to the fact that we are all swimming in the grace of God, and always will, no matter what comes. Because things can change quickly, including our emotional wellbeing. The prophet Isaiah declares that God gives beauty for ashes, strength for fear, gladness for mourning, peace for despair. It can happen as quickly as a prayer. How quickly things can change.
O God, if I worship you in fear of hell, burn me in hell. If I worship you in hope of paradise, shut me out from paradise. But if I worship you for your own sake, do not withhold from me your everlasting beauty. —Rábi‘a (717–801), Islamic mystic and poet
Self Care Under Stay at Home Orders
1. Lower expectations of everyone right now, and practice radical self-acceptance. In your current situation, you cannot fail – there is no roadmap, no precedent, and we’re all doing the best we individually can to manage.
2. Try to maintain a routine: sleep/wake times and a loose knit schedule but give yourself tremendous grace in the keeping of it. Dress for the day. Wear clothes that improve your mood.
3. Set limits for yourself regarding work, with the exception of emergencies. You, too, are experiencing the Pandemic. You may feel disoriented, or out of focus. This is normal. Slow your daily work down as you seek and find equilibrium in this crisis.
4. Develop a self-care toolkit. This can look different for everyone… a soft blanket, photos of vacation, comforting music, scented oil, a journal, an inspiring book. For children, help them create their own first aid kit for being sad, or angry, or scared or overwhelmed. A bin, or shoebox that they can decorate. Put bubbles for blowing (breathing regulation), a stuffed animal, snacks, a coloring book, paints and paper.
5. Get out/get exercise 30 minutes a day.
6. Have everyone find their own ‘retreat’ space. With children, find a space, and make it cozy for them to go when they feel stressed. (Tents or forts) You find yours too. There are times I need to say, “I think I’ll take five…”
7. Expect behavioral issues with children. Respond gently. All of us are disrupted in routine, and routines constructed by others helps them feel safe, and know what will come next. Their anxiety will be increased by these disruptions and may manifest with fears, nightmares, testing limits and meltdowns. Do not introduce major behavioral plans or consequences at this time. Hold steady.
8. Focus on attachment. It’s easy to get caught up in deadlines, keeping a schedule, homeschooling children, keeping the household sterile. Focus on strengthening connection. Spend time following a child’s lead/play (they can’t say how they’re feeling, but they can playact it) Don’t be surprised to see themes of illness, doctor visits, or isolation play. This is cathartic to children. It’s how they process their world and problem solve. You can help them by your play.
9. Reach out to others. Set virtual playdates for your children.
10. Eat well, and stay hydrated.
11. Stay up with news about Covid-19, but be careful how much time you spend on it. Limit social media time to avoid raising anxiety. And be very careful how you speak to your children about it. Don’t let them overhear adult conversation. I found three places for positive news stories from around the globe. I’d be happy to send them to you, if you’d like. Let us know via email.
12. Find something you can control and control the heck out of it. Your corner of the world. Clean a closet, organize your bookshelves, organize your library. Sort out client files. It anchors us to here and now, not how bad things are out there.
13. Chunk down your quarantine. Morning/afternoon/evening. Take it hour by hour if you need to. I remember when I was operating in 15 minute increments.
14. Jewel box in the mind. Find the meaning or construction that can come out of destruction. Or what we can learn big and small from the crisis.
15. Notice the good in the world, and point it out to your family and friends, and especially your children and grandchildren.
16. Find lightness or humor each day. Funny pet videos, or standup comedy, or a funny movie. We need comic relief in our day – every day.
17. Radical acceptance of all of our emotions is the cornerstone to resilience
The more you suppress emotion, the greater control it has – it’s amplified internally
Own your feelings, discuss them
You can change your reaction to these emotions
18. Try something different and new during this time of different and new routines and realities (i.e., read a book you wouldn’t ordinarily pick up, discover a blog and consider creating your own, experiment with baking, cooking, watch a whole series on Netflix, etc.)
19. Give yourself and others the benefit of the doubt – buckets full of grace.
Ancestors: David
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
David: Mr. Courage. David was no wimp. The youngest brother learned to fight his way in life, and it showed. It takes courage to be the youngest (I know because I am one!). At a young age, he took on (and took down) the giant Philistine warrior, Goliath, in a winner takes all match. He was a kid that had courage to use his sling well. He was an accomplished musician and was forced to play for the criminally insane King Saul when he would find himself in a fit of rage and throw spears at him – courage required. A valiant warrior, his renown outshone the king’s which drove the latter mad – Saul killed his thousands, but David killed his tens of thousands. Outlawed by Saul, David had the opportunity to kill the king in an especially humiliating way. He chose not to, however, which shows not only great strength, but courage to be noble. He became the second king of Israel, leading them to relative security thanks to his military wisdom and strategic marriages – every battle and every “I do” required courage. During his reign, he wrote many psalms and songs that became a part of the national cultic practices. It takes courage to put your stuff out there on display. Related to worship, he loved to dance. One time, he was leading a worship processional, dancing his best barely dressed, which his wife thought ridiculous (and let him know it). Not every man has courage enough to dance naked in front of others. His first-born son, Absalom, attempted a coup against David, and nearly got away with it. He was eventually killed. David knew what courage it takes to grieve the loss of a child. Later in his life, he agreed to not build a Temple for worshipping God, even though he could have put his name on it as a lasting legacy to himself. Instead, he made the choice to let someone else enjoy the moment – that takes courage.
His most infamous chapter, without doubt, was his affair with a woman named Bathsheba, which also required courage on David’s part. It was during the season when kings went to war, and David realized that his battle days were over – it was time for the next generation to lead the charge. That took courage to admit. While his forces were off to battle, he noticed a woman bathing on her rooftop not far from the palace rooftop deck while he was strolling at the same time each day. Whether or not she was doing this to get noticed by David is the subject of debate to this day. Regardless of her intentions, he sent his people to bring her to him. This really didn’t require a lot of courage on his part. In fact, it was driven out of cowardly lust – he wasn’t bringing her up to play chess…. She became pregnant, which was awkward because her husband was a warrior on the front line of war. A cover-up was attempted to no avail, and finally David orchestrated the death of Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, at which point he took her as his wife. These moves were bold, but not really courageous.
Bathsheba had the baby, but then the baby got sick and died. She thought she was cooked. David asked what he could do to console her, and she requested that her next son become the next king of Israel (ahead of David’s other sons). The request was granted (which eventually led to Absalom’s coup attempt). All was well in the kingdom of Israel.
But Nathan, a prophet of God, got clued in about what had happened and held the king accountable with great savvy. Very courageous on his part. David then made some of his most courageous moves. He stopped lying to others and himself, acknowledging his wrongdoing. This takes an enormous amount of courage. He made a truly heartfelt public confession via a psalm/song/poem we know as Psalm 51. Confessing your sin is one thing, owning it is another, vulnerably sharing your story is quite another. Courage. Courage. Courage.
So far, I wonder if you are resonating with David. When have you faced similar life experiences as he did? Did you know that David was known as “a man after God’s own heart”? It’s one of the reasons why he was so beloved by people, respected for his faith, and hailed as their model king. When have you faced times in your life that really required you to act with great courage, which probably also had you on your knees, so to speak, because you sensed you needed God to get through it?
The story of David and Bathsheba has been rightly applied to the issue of personal sin, repentance, and God’s forgiveness. That is certainly an aspect worth noting. For some of you today, it may be the most relevant take-away: you feel like you have really blown it, and you wonder if God can truly forgive you. God can, will, and, in fact, has already. This grace is yours to embrace. It has been there all along. Take it all in. Embrace the salvation that knowing the forgiveness of sins affords.
Part of the Bathsheba story is David’s repentance. The word can be translated in a number of ways. The simplest is to turn around. Another is a bit clearer on direction – to turn back to God. A beautiful, nuanced way to think about it is to return to the mind of God. Turning around, turning back to God, returning to the mind of God – all of it implies that somewhere along the line a person or society shifted so as to eventually need to return. This brings me to a couple of final thoughts regarding David’s courage.
There were a couple of seasons when David did not evidence courage when a lot was on the line. When he began lusting and obsessing about Bathsheba, not only did he lack courage to turn away, or go play golf or something, but more importantly, he lacked the courage required to ask himself why he would entertain the thought of being with her in the first place. It takes great courage to take an honest look in the mirror. What was his lust saying about his current marriage? What had he done to contribute to the health or disease of the marriage he was already in? What was happening with him emotionally that would make him vulnerable to temptation? I can tell you this, in my experience, people who are connected to their partner are much less vulnerable to temptation than those who are not. There is simply no room for another when the marriage is healthy. Imagine how things might have been different if David had shown courage at that point instead of losing his mind, turning away from what he knew was right and best, turning away from God, choosing to not be driven by the mind of God. Two marriages would have had a chance at greater health. A husband would not have been killed. A woman would not have been shamed. And then there’s the son who became an unintended consequence: Absalom.
Another moment when David lacked courage was more subtle. Absalom was his first son and rightful heir to the throne, until Bathsheba brokered a deal to save herself and her son from certain doom. When it was clear that Solomon was going to be king, one could say that David and Absalom’s relationship was damaged! David caved in that moment of losing the mind of God. Unfortunately, he never regained it concerning his first-born son. Many years later he finally asked a question he needed to be asking every day: how is my son Absalom? David’s lack of attentiveness to his son caught up with him over time when Absalom tried to take the throne, eventually leading to his death. How would things have been different if David would have had the courage to take an honest look in the mirror and wonder about his role as a father in his son’s life?
I have no idea how all of this hits you, or which aspect of these stories inspires you, or calls you on the carpet. I do know that we all have a choice to return to the mind of God – and stay there! We are invited by the Spirit of God to walk deeply and closely in the Spirit of God, where we discover the Way that leads to life and the courage to follow.
Where in your life right now do you need to be courageous? Where in your life right now do you need to return to the mind of God? What is holding you back? We are in an uncomfortable season just like David was, when we aren’t allowed to be ourselves. Sometimes we don’t want to feel what we’re feeling so we distract ourselves with other things. Sometimes these things are harmless time-wasters – Netflix binging, anyone? Yet sometimes the pain of the emotions we feel is so strong we need something more potent to ignore and alleviate our agony. This is when we might find ourselves tempted to self-medicate in ways that fit our personality. For David, it was giving into the temptation of lust. For some, it’s alcohol and drugs. For others, it is choosing to dive into something to the neglect of more important things.
What are you feeling? What are your feelings telling you about the state of your life? What are your feelings calling you to examine that might take you to places of healing and wholeness? Grab a notebook and get to it – the Spirit of God will join you in this process of becoming, of insight, and of healing. Perhaps this unwelcome pause in our daily routines will provide a moment to help us course-correct our lives, so that we might one day look back and celebrate more famous moments of personal courage, and fewer infamous ones of cowardice.
God and Coronavirus
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
CrossWalk had scheduled to have Tom Oord join us for a live talk and Q&A session, but the coronavirus pandemic altered our plans! We hope to reschedule him in the fall. Tom was kind enough to let me (Pete) interview him this week, which is great, because the theological framework he offers is quite helpful for us who are trying to navigate our way through these challenging days. Watch or listen to the recorded interview, and read his essay here.
Ancestors: Ruth
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
SERMON NOTES & REFLECTION QUESTIONS
March 8, 2020
Sermon Title: Sowing Hope, Reaping Blessings
Rev. Laurel Balyeat Morrison
Texts: Ruth 1: 8 & 9 (Naomi); 16-17a (Ruth); 2:12 (Boaz); 2:20 (Naomi); 3:13 (Boaz); 4:14-15 (women)
A. Facing Loss and difficulties
1. What are some of the ways you have coped with loss?
2. Which are healthy and which are unhealthy?
3. How can you strengthen your faith so that it is stronger than your feelings about what you are going through?
4. Here is the quote Laurel shared by
Joan Chittister in her book, The Story of Ruth, pg. 11). “Loss, once reckoned, once absorbed, is a precious gift. No, I cannot be what I was before but I can be—I must be—something new. There is MORE OF GOD IN ME, I discover in emptiness, than I have ever known in what I once took to be fullness.” How do you respond to this?
How can you have “more of God in you” in loss and difficulty?
B. Cultivating Opportunies
Laurel stated that some of the ways God works are through the places we are in, the timing of events and circumstances, people, and our own intentions and hopes.
5. How is God active in your field of work, service or areas of influence?
6. Is there unusual timing of events in your life?
7. Are there people through whom God is especially working?
8. If you seek favor, do you question God when you get it?
C. Discerning Direction from God
Laurel taught that we can discern direction from God: by trusting God, listening to godly people, and stretching ourselves beyond our comfort zone.
9. How are you showing God trust these days?
10. What input or counsel are godly people giving you? How is God speaking through them?
11. Are you letting your need for comfort and/or control keeping you from stepping outside of your comfort zone?
12. What are your resistances to following where God is leading? What are your fears?
13. Who does God want you to become?
D. Celebrating Blessings
14. As you look at the story of your life, what are some of your greatest blessings?
15. What role did change and loss play in your story?
16. Wonders are things only God can do. What wonders has God done?
17. What blessings are you celebrating in this season of your life?
Ancestors: Samson
Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
If you’re looking for action and adventure, the Bible’s book of Judges should probably be your top pick. It remembers (and embellishes, no doubt) the history of Israel between the conquest of the Promised Land and the era of the kings, when judges led the tribes. Most of the judges were military rulers, except for Deborah, who also served as an arbitrator. On the whole, the story of Israel and her leaders remembered in the book is one slow decline, where the Jewish people keep blowing it one way or another, which makes them vulnerable to neighboring enemies. Yet God hears their cry each time and responds with redemption.
The last judge the book recalls is Samson. He may be the most familiar of all the judges. His story surely is entertaining, even if disturbing. His birth came with a heavenly announcement to an unlikely couple. They were instructed to raise him from birth keeping the Nazarite vow, which was usually kept for a season rather than a lifetime: he could consume any grape product, eat anything unclean, and could not cut his hair. He was supposed to be a model of good citizenship. Instead, he was a self-absorbed, immature louse and bully. He chose to marry foreign women (breaking a Jewish covenant), ate unclean food (honey out of the carcass of a dead animal), enjoyed copious amounts of wine (from grapes, not cherries), pleasured himself at the expense of a foreign prostitute, and had a nasty temper: if you crossed him, you could be confident that you would be repaid unjustly – the eye for an eye ethic was lost on this guy. He was as corrupt a judge as you could get, really. One weird part of the story is that he broke two thirds of his vows with no real consequence (except, perhaps, of losing people’s respect). Growing his hair out was the only one that he apparently kept. Maybe he thought it helped his chances with women…
He was best known, of course, for his apparent superhuman strength based on the maintaining his vow to God – he never cut his hair. Most people can also recall the woman who brought him down, too – Delilah – who was relentless in bugging him to share the secret of this strength until she got it, which led to betrayal (as had the other times when he lied to her). His strength lost, he was easily bound, his eyes gouged out, and put into service as a slave.
Especially when appreciated in context, the story of Samson serves to reflect just how far the people of Israel fell from their original covenant with God. By this time, they were satisfied with a leader who was all about using fear and intimidation with the superpower he had at his disposal. Samson wasn’t trying to look out for the people – he was all about himself. He was in some ways a reflection of the people he was supposed to serve. The people of Israel had abandoned God with great fanfare, and even turned out their own judge to their adversaries.
My first reaction to Samson is one of utter disdain and judgment. His story triggers memories of every self-absorbed leader I’ve known – from teachers to coaches to directors to bosses to colleagues to pastors to business leaders to government leaders. I think about how their ego-driven decisions made their lives a little easier, often at the expense of others (including myself). I think we’ve all known people like this, and I bet just thinking about them can make your blood boil. We can easily find ourselves rehearsing what we would say to them if we had the right opportunity and courage to do so. We enlist the rage of friends who share similar views. Before you know it, we find ourselves surrounded by a host of people frustrated by the same “enemy.” Nothing unites people together quicker than a common enemy, after all. Samson is a pretty good target. He was an unscrupulous louse by every account. And yet for the people of Israel, he was their louse, which complicated things. We don’t read much about the attitude of the Jewish people toward Samson. In some ways, I am sure many liked him, because, even though he didn’t give a rip about basic Jewish law or innate human dignity, when he wasn’t sleeping with a Philistine (or drinking with them), he was kicking their butts and keeping them at bay. He was a one-man national defense strategy. Gotta love him for keeping us safe, right? And burning our enemy’s crops? That’s brilliant – they will need to buy from Israel which will bring an economic boom. So, even though the Jewish people cringed a lot when their “I’m-sensitive-about-my-hair” leader failed repeatedly to act like a healthy human being, they probably felt safer, and their 401k’s were in better shape. As James Carville coined nearly 30 years ago, for many people, the single most important reality for them is “the economy, stupid.”
Seeing Samson in this light is exactly what the writers of the book of Judges hoped would happen. Why? Because Samson’s story would provide a mirror for the entire nation with which to see themselves in an honest light. Samson’s follies echoed themes throughout the book. Samson’s utter lack of care for what it meant to be a healthy person as directed by the Law was clearly mimicked by the people he protected. Israel was Samson. Samson was Israel. When Samson finally died, unlike the judges before him, his leadership offered no lasting peace for those he served. They may have been okay as long as they had their tough guy, but as soon as he was gone, there was no structure, no relationship, no treaties, no nothing to protect the people he was supposed to serve. Samson was too self-centered to see it. So were the Israelites. So are we.
Anytime we point a finger at someone, we have three pointing back at us. The writers of Judges weren’t wanting people to simply rally around their hatred of Samson (or love for him for those that were like him). They wanted people to take a look at themselves. Sometimes when we do the work to really identify what we don’t like about the other person, we discover that it is something we don’t like about ourselves. Maybe you can’t stand how the person doesn’t listen to anyone around them – do you? Maybe you can’t stand the person’s hypocrisy – what about your own? Maybe it’s their greed – how’s that going for you? Maybe it’s the attitude they carry with them – what’s yours? Maybe it’s their quick-to-judgment-and-anger you dislike – how have you been guilty of the same? Continuing to take shots at the object of our loathing likely won’t do much good – not even for the sake of catharsis. In fact, it may entrench us in a binary mire that is incredibly difficult to escape.
Samson’s wake-up call, literary, was the sound of scissors. His hair represented his strength and power that he had abused his entire life. His decisions caught up with him. How’s your hair today? If you were Samson, what would your hair represent, and what would cutting it represent? The haircut represented Samson’s compromising writ large. He couldn’t come back from this one. Have you ever had any of these moments? They really, really suck. If we are experts at denial, we can avoid the pain for a long time – a lifetime, in fact. Yet we never really escape a bad haircut. When we come to our senses, however, which always requires humility, we find a strange peace. That peace allows for perspective which affords the opportunity to try again and try it right. That second chance is found within Samson’s story.
There is a very weird twist at the end of Samson’s story which speaks much about God and ourselves. Recall that the Nazarite vow prohibited Samson from eating any grape product, from touching a dead animal, and from cutting his hair. That last one, for whatever reason, was tied to his strength. Once he got a shave, it was over. Imprisoned slavery was his new life: God’s “judgment” (consequences) of Samson’s lack of moral resolve. But Samson’s hair grew back. His last prayer was to pay back Israel’s enemies one last time. This is the only instance in the Old Testament where a person asked to die and got their wish. He had the strength to do it once again. This time, however, he put the ball in God’s court instead of making it his decision.
Samson’s regrown hair is a symbol of hope for all of us. God is forever faithful, forever offering a hand to help us get back on our feet, always graceful and forgiving, ready to help us move forward from a renewed foundation of love. There are times in our lives when our decisions really catch up with us. We feel enslaved to them. Without hope. Yet Samson’s hair still grows. Even if we really are in our eleventh hour, we have a chance to do something redemptive with it. Samson wiped out a local god whose worship undoubtedly forced women and perhaps children into prostitution and cost the poor what little they had. Samson’s last moment was spent on something “good”.
From that stance of wondering what good we might do with our regrown hair, we can then look at ourselves and our Samsonite leaders with more humility and choose to respond instead of react in order to call out the best of those around us. We become a part of the solution instead of the noisy problem. We use the remainder of our lives pursuing what is good and best together for everyone. Like Samson, I believe that is something God will actually grant.
Notes to Nerd Out On…
From The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary (Dennis T. Olson)
SAMSON, THE LAST JUDGE
Overview
The seventeenth-century poet John Milton retold the biblical story of Samson in an epic poem entitled Samson Agonistes. Milton himself had tragically become blind, and he put this searching question into Samson’s mouth:
Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed
As of a person separate to God,
Designed for great exploits; if I must die
Betrayed, captive, and both my eyes put out …?
(Line 30)
Milton’s question captures the essential riddle of great expectations and tragic humiliation that is the story of Samson. More than any previous judge, Samson is wondrously chosen by God from birth. He is a special judge, a Nazarite called to deliver Israel from the oppressive Philistines. Tragically, all our expectations about what a judge should be fall apart in Samson. He leads no Israelites into battle. He marries a Philistine woman. He attends drinking parties with the enemy. He spends the night with a foreign prostitute. He engages only in personal vendettas with little sense of working in service to God or for the well-being of all Israel. He succumbs to Delilah’s pleas to know the secret of his strength, which leads to imprisonment, torture, and blindness. In the end, Samson prays to God to let him die and destroy the Philistines and the temple of the god Dagon in the process. Samson is no ordinary judge. He plays an important and even climactic role as the last of the judges of Israel in the book of Judges.
The importance of the Samson cycle for the book of Judges is demonstrated by the extensive number of motifs the writers or editors have borrowed from earlier judge narratives and incorporated into the Samson saga. The following is a list of sixteen important allusions to other parts of Judges, both allusive parallels and contrasts.
(1) In the first chapter of Judges, the role of the tribe of Judah was positive, bold, and courageous in leading the fight against Israel’s enemy (1:1–15). In the Samson story, the people of Judah simply acquiesce to the Philistines’ oppressive rule over them. They show no courage or ability to resist the enemy (15:9–11). Instead, they betray their own judge Samson, bind him with ropes, and hand him over to the Philistines (15:12–13).
(2) Judges 3:6 condemned the Israelites for intermarrying with other nations, since marriage with foreigners led to worshiping foreign gods. Samson loved and married a foreign woman (14:1–4). His marriage violated God’s prohibition to the Israelites in 2:2: “For your part, do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land” (2:2). Moreover, Samson also slept with a foreign prostitute (זנה zōnâ, 16:1–3). The same Hebrew root (זנה znh) is used to describe Israel’s “prostituting” and “lusting” after foreign gods elsewhere in Judges (2:17; 8:33).
(3) The last rogue judge, Samson, is the reverse image of the first model judge, Othniel (1:11–15; 3:7–11). Othniel’s exemplary marriage to the Israelite Achsah contrasts with Samson’s troubled marriage and relationships with foreign women. Othniel leads Israelite soldiers in a successful holy war. Samson is a loner who has no desire to lead Israel in any way. Othniel “delivered” Israel from its enemy and gave Israel “rest,” or peace, for forty years (3:9, 11). Samson will only “begin to deliver Israel” from the Philistines, and no period of rest will result from his judgeship (13:5; 16:31).
(4) In all the previous judge stories, it is always Israel who cries in distress and causes God to intervene (3:15; 4:3; 6:7; 10:10). In the Samson story, Samson replaces Israel as the one who cries out to God, once when he is dying of thirst (15:18–19) and once at the end of his life, when he desires revenge on the Philistines (16:28–30). In both cases, God responds to Samson’s cry just as God had responded to the Israelites’ cry of distress in the previous stories.
(5) The early judge Ehud approached the fat king Eglon with a sword hidden at his side, and he said, “I have a secret message for you, O king” (3:19). Similarly, secrets figure prominently throughout the Samson story: the angel’s secret identity (13:17–18), the secret that Samson’s marriage to a Philistine woman is from the Lord (14:4), the riddle and its secret solution (14:18), the secret of Samson’s strength in his uncut hair (16:4–17), the secret that the Lord had left Samson when his head was shaved (16:20), and the secret of Samson’s hair growing back, which allowed him one last opportunity to bring revenge on the Philistines (16:22–30).
(6) One of the early minor judges, Shamgar, killed six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad (3:31). Samson killed one thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass (15:14–17).
(7) Jael the Kenite killed the Canaanite general Sisera by putting him to sleep in her tent and then secretly “driving” a tent peg into his head (4:21). Similarly, Delilah tries to capture Samson by putting him to sleep and “driving” (תקע tāqaʿ; the same verbs as in 4:21) a tent peg or pin into the long braid of hair on his head (16:14). In the end, Jael succeeds in killing Israel’s enemy, Sisera, and Delilah succeeds in the plot to kill Israel’s judge, Samson (16:18–31).
(8) The judge Gideon began his career by pulling down the altar of the Canaanite god Baal (6:25–27). Samson ends his career by pushing down the pillars of the temple of the Philistine god Dagon (16:23–31).
(9) Gideon’s main mission to fight the Midianites was momentarily diverted by a personal vendetta against the inhabitants of the towns of Succoth and Penuel who had taunted him (8:4–9, 13–17). Similarly, Jephthah’s primary fight with the Ammonites was interrupted when as an act of personal revenge he killed thousands of Ephraimites who had taunted him (12:1–6). Samson’s career as a judge was devoted entirely to personal vendettas and individual acts of revenge against the Philistines (14:19; 15:7, 14–17; 16:28–30). What was occasional with Gideon and Jephthah became Samson’s whole mission: a self-centered desire for personal revenge with no awareness of serving God or leading all Israel.
(10) Several elements in God’s call of Gideon to be a judge in 6:11–24 reappear in the story of Samson’s birth and call to be a deliverer of Israel in 13:1–25. Shared motifs include the dramatic appearance of an angel of the Lord (6:11–12; 13:3); the request for confirmation and repetition of signs (6:17–18; 13:8); the fear of death due to seeing the Lord (6:22; 13:22); the reassurance that the people involved will not die (6:23; 13:23); the offering of a kid and a grain offering to the Lord on a rock (6:19–20; 13:19); a divine fire that springs up from the altar, accompanied by the disappearance of the angel (6:21; 13:20–21); and the divine commissioning of Gideon and Samson to deliver Israel (6:14; 13:5).
(11) Gideon employed three hundred men with torches in the attack against the Midianites (7:16, 20–23). Samson employed three hundred foxes with torches tied between their tails in the attack against the Philistines (15:1–8).
(12) It is only with Samson that the Philistine threat, first mentioned in the Jephthah story, is addressed (13:5; 16:30).
(13) A centerpiece of the Jephthah story is that he keeps his vow to sacrifice his daughter, despite the tragic consequences (11:29–40). One of the central elements of the Samson story is that he does not keep his vows. He breaks all three nazirite vows by eating unclean food, drinking alcohol, and cutting his hair (13:4–5; see Num 6:1–8). He ate unclean food in the form of honey from a lion’s corpse (14:8–9). He drank alcohol or wine at a seven-day drinking festival in honor of his wedding to the Philistine woman (14:10–12). He allowed his hair to be cut after Delilah’s incessant pleas (16:17–20).
(14) Jephthah’s victory against the Ammonites led unintentionally to the death and burning of the daughter whom he loved (11:30–31, 34–40). Samson’s victory against the Philistines led unintentionally to the death and burning of the wife whom he loved (15:1–6).
(15) In 14:3 and 7, Samson desired the woman from Timnah as a wife because “she pleased Samson.” The phrase in Hebrew literally reads, “she was right in the eyes of Samson.” The phrase is unusual when applied to humans as an object, but it appears to be an intentional echo of a key phrase that frames the last section of Judges (chaps. 17–21). The same phrase is used for all Israelites in 17:6 and 21:25: “All the people did what was right in their own eyes.” Samson’s roving eyes, illicit sexual liaisons, and vengeful murder of Philistines resemble the Israelites’ doing whatever was right in their own eyes in Judges 17–21. They worshiped idols (17:1–6). They committed sexual immorality and murder (19:22–30). And Israelites killed each other, nearly exterminating the tribe of Benjamin (20:35–48).
(16) Samson’s shaved head portends his imminent capture and death at the hands of the Philistines (16:17–21; see 13:3–5). However, a note of hope emerges when “the hair of his head began to grow again” (16:22). Similarly, the Israelites’ attack and near extinction of their own fellow tribe of Benjamin portends the end of Israel’s twelve-tribe union (19:22–20:46). However, a note of hope emerges when six hundred Benjaminite soldiers manage to escape the battle and live on to repopulate the tribe (20:47).
How are we to interpret these many allusions to other parts of the book of Judges in the Samson story? These literary echoes suggest that the present form of the story was shaped and edited at a late stage of the book’s composition, when much of the other material in Judges had already been written and set in place. Also, Samson is an embodiment of all that was wrong with the judges who preceded him. On one hand, Samson is the opposite of what the good judges were in the early part of the judges era. He is the reverse image of the first model judge, Othniel. Samson also embodies the worst of the negative characteristics that began to appear in the last two phases of the judges era with Gideon and Jephthah: personal vendettas, selfish rage, reluctance to lead, inability to rally the tribes of Israel into a united community, covenants with foreigners, and breaking of covenant vows. In short, Samson represents the implosion of the whole judge system. The judges have gradually deteriorated in effectiveness as religious and military leaders over the course of three distinct phases in the book of Judges. Samson is the end of the line in that deterioration. He is the judge who no longer leads Israel or obeys God. Moreover, he only begins to deliver Israel from the Philistines (13:5), and he does not gain any years of rest for his people.
Samson is the embodiment not only of the judges but also of the whole nation of Israel. He breaks all of his covenant vows as a Nazirite in the same way that Israel repeatedly broke its covenant obligations in worshiping idols. Samson’s entanglements with foreign women are a metaphor for Israel’s “lusting” after foreign gods. Samson spurned all the obligations of the nazirite covenant to which his parents had been faithful (13:1–24). In the same manner, the new generation of Israelites after the death of Joshua spurned the covenant of their faithful parents (2:6–23). Just as God responded repeatedly to Israel’s cry of distress in spite of its disobedience, so also God responded each time to Samson’s cry of distress (15:18–19; 16:28–30).
Just as Samson embodies the judges and Israel, so also he embodies one other important feature of the book of Judges: the kind of divine love that simply cannot let go. Samson loves even when the loved one repeatedly betrays that love and loyalty. Samson’s wife betrayed the answer to his riddle (14:17), and yet he continued to love her (15:1). One scholar has argued that the answer to the riddle in 14:18 (“What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?”) implies an additional and unspoken answer—namely, love. Delilah betrayed Samson four different times, and yet he continued to return to her and love her (16:1–21). Samson was betrayed not only by the women he loved but even by his fellow Israelites. The tribe of Judah betrayed their own judge, Samson, to the Philistines, and yet he did not take revenge on Judah (15:9–17). The special intensity of Samson’s connection with God—the special birth involving the angelic visitor and the frequent infusion of the divine Spirit (13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14)—suggests that Samson’s character may reveal something deeper and more direct about God’s character than did previous judges. Samson’s tenacious and often irrational love provides a metaphor for God’s unfailing love in spite of Israel’s repeated betrayals. Samson was a pushover whenever his beloved cried, begged, and pleaded with him. If we shake our heads in puzzlement over Samson’s relentless love for those who betrayed him, then we must do the same for God’s amazingly patient and relentless love for Israel throughout the book of Judges. Ironically, the most disobedient and ineffective of all Israel’s judges becomes the best window into the heart and character of Israel’s God. With Samson, we come to the core of the meaning of the book of Judges for our understanding of the judges, of Israel, and of God.
Judges 13:1–25, The Birth of Samson
Commentary
The Samson narrative opens with the usual introductory formula, announcing that Israel again has done evil and the Lord has allowed the Philistines to oppress them for forty years. If this were the typical judges cycle, we would expect the Israelites to cry in distress, prompting God to send a deliverer. In this case, the Israelites do not know enough even to cry out. Instead, God must take the initiative in sending an angel to announce the birth of a son “who shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines” (v. 5). The deliverance will be partial, suggesting that the judge paradigm is increasingly losing effectiveness. The Philistines will return as Israel’s oppressors later in 1 Samuel under the kingships of Saul and David (see 1 Sam 4:1–11).
The birth of this deliverer is announced to the barren, or childless, wife of a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan. The angel instructs the mother-to-be not to drink wine or alcohol and not to eat unclean food. These same prohibitions presumably apply to the son about to be born, along with one additional prohibition: “no razor is to come on his head” (vv. 4–5). The reason for the prohibitions is that this son will be a “Nazirite” to God from birth. The word “nazirite” (נזיר nāzîr) means “separated one” or “consecrated one,” signifying someone specially dedicated for service to God. The law for the Nazirite is found in Num 6:1–21 and specifies three obligations: no wine, no cutting of hair, and no touching of a corpse. The laws in Numbers 6 assume that the nazirite vow is taken on voluntarily by an adult for a limited period rather than given at birth for a lifetime. However, the special dedication of a Nazirite from the womb suggests an extraordinary act of consecration by God. The special character of this son who is about to be born is underscored by the fact that the mother is barren. The motif of the barren wife to whom God gives a child is associated with several famous female ancestors of Israel’s history: Sarah and her son, Isaac (Gen 11:30; 21:1–7); Rebekah and her sons, Jacob and Esau (Gen 25:21–26); Rachel and her sons, Joseph and Benjamin (Gen 29:31; 30:22–24; 35:16–20); and Hannah and her son Samuel (1 Sam 1:1–28). The nazirite vow and the barren woman who gives birth raise enormous expectations in the reader to look for something extraordinary from this son who is about to be born.
The wife of Manoah reports the encounter to her husband. She tells him that “a man of God” whose appearance was like that of “an angel of God” came to her with the news of the imminent birth of a son. She simply accepts his words as true, not pressing to know from where he came or what his name is (vv. 6–7). Manoah’s wife explains that the boy will be a Nazirite to God from birth, as the man of God had said. Then she adds her own ominous words: His nazirite mission will extend from birth “to the day of his death” (v. 7). Her words allude in a tragic way to the final scene of the Samson story (16:23–31).
The husband, Manoah, is not satisfied with this secondhand report from his wife. He prays to God to send the man of God again to confirm the news and to teach them what they are to do with the boy who will be born. God grants Manoah’s request. The man of God comes to Manoah’s wife in the field, and she runs and brings her husband to meet him. After the man of God, who is indeed an angel of God, repeats the nazirite instructions, Manoah invites him to stay and eat. Manoah wants to prepare a kid or young goat as a meal. The hospitality is reminiscent of Abraham’s invitation to the three men of God in Gen 18:1–15. The angel of God demurs, saying he will not eat the food, but Manoah can offer the kid as a burnt offering to the Lord. Still unaware that this is an angel, Manoah asks, “What is your name?” The angel replies, “Why do you ask my name? It is too wonderful” (vv. 17–18). This exchange is a direct allusion to the famous wrestling match between the ancestor Jacob and the angel of God (Gen 32:29).
After Manoah offers up a burnt offering, the angel ascends in the flame up to heaven. Now Manoah knows this was an angel of the Lord. He is fearful that he and his wife will die because “we have seen God” (v. 22). This concern reflects a common OT notion that any human who sees God face to face will die (Exod 33:20). But Manoah’s wife assures him that they will not die. God has come, not to destroy them, but to give them life in the form of a son soon to be born (v. 23). In due time, Manoah’s wife gives birth to a son, whom she names Samson. The Lord blesses the boy as he grows, and “the spirit of the Lord began to stir him” (v. 24).
This opening episode of the Samson story is saturated with allusions to the wider biblical tradition. The famous barren mothers, the nazirite vow, the angels’ visit to Abraham and Sarah, the wrestling match with Jacob, and seeing God face to face all point to the birth of this son as an extraordinarily momentous event. These allusions all suggest that God has pulled out all the stops and is investing enormous divine power and hope in this one son about to be born. After the debacle of the Jephthah story and the brief respite of the minor judges in 12:8–15, God is now intervening in a dramatic and unprecedented way to save Israel. Even so, God realizes that even this child will only “begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines” (v. 5).
Reflections
1. When it comes to believing and trusting in what God promises, the Bible affirms that a variety of responses is available and legitimate. The first scene of the story presents us with two quite different approaches in the wife of Manoah and Manoah himself. The wife of Manoah simply trusts what the man of God tells her. She does not require or ask for his source of authority or his name (13:6). In spite of the obstacle of her barrenness, she is willing to trust that God will somehow find a way to make the promise come true. Her strong faith finds a New Testament counterpart in the angel’s promise to Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus. Mary accepted the angel’s words, saying, “Let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38 NRSV). Likewise, the women at Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning believed without question the angels’ words that Jesus had risen from the dead (Luke 24:1–9).
However, not all of God’s people find it easy to trust God’s promises without some sort of sign or confirmation. In Judges 13, the husband, Manoah, needs some assurance that his wife’s report is truly a word from God. His request echoes the experience of Abraham and his struggle to believe God’s promise of a son and of a land in Genesis 15. On one hand, Abraham trusted God’s promise of a son (Gen 15:6). On the other hand, a part of Abraham needed an additional sign and confirmation of God’s promise of the land (Gen 15:8–19). In the New Testament retelling of the first Easter story, the women came from Jesus’ tomb and relayed to the disciples what the angel had said about Jesus’ resurrection. But the text reports that “these words seemed to them an idle tale” (Luke 24:11 NRSV). The confirmation came in Jesus’ resurrection appearances to the disciples. Examples include the scene on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35) and the confrontation of the risen Jesus with doubting Thomas, the disciple who wanted proof that Jesus was alive (John 20:19–29). In each of these cases, God took seriously and accepted those who expressed their doubts and struggles to believe. To those who doubt, God often offers signs and assurances that are visible to the eyes of faith.
2. The parents of Samson emerge as faithful and obedient models of faith who desire that God “teach us what we are to do concerning the boy” (13:8). We have seen this motif of a faithful generation of parents once before in the book of Judges. In chapter 2, the previous generation of Israelites under the leadership of Joshua had “worshiped the Lord all the days of Joshua” (2:7). However, after the death of that generation, “another generation grew up after them, who did not know the Lord” (2:10). The parents of Samson display a strong faith similar to that of the generation of Joshua. As readers at this early point in the Samson story, we wonder whether the son Samson and the generation of Israelites he represents will continue to be faithful. Or will Samson and his generation fail to maintain their covenant loyalty to the Lord? By the end of the Samson saga, we will see that the paradigm of an old faithful generation of parents, followed by a disobedient and rebellious generation will, indeed, be repeated in the story of Manoah and his wife and their son, Samson. The paradigm raises the ever-present challenges of an older generation’s passing on its faith tradition to a new generation.
3. The many allusions to important biblical traditions of consecration and special service in Judges 13 demonstrate that the divine investment in this son named Samson as a deliverer of Israel is enormous. At the same time, the continuing decline in the effectiveness of the whole judges system of leadership and the degradation of Israel’s social and religious life pose massive obstacles to God’s will to deliver Israel yet again. This combination of intense divine energy and a resistant people and system of leadership will result only in Israel’s partial deliverance: Samson “shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines” (v. 5). This observation may lead us to reflect on the role of humans and human systems and institutions both to advance and to thwart the efficiency and effectiveness of God’s will’s being done in a given situation. Ultimately, God’s final will and loving purpose for the people of God and for the whole creation will be done. As the apostle Paul affirms, nothing “in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:39 NRSV). However, God’s specific will in particular circumstances may be helped or hindered by what humans and other forces in the world may do.
Judges 14:1–20, Samson the Riddler
Commentary
Judges 13 had prepared the reader to have great expectations for Samson as a deliverer of Israel. However, his first recorded action as an adult seems quickly to dash those expectations. He falls in love with a Philistine woman and orders his mother and father, “Get her for me as my wife” (v. 2). Samson’s parents know that their covenant with God condemns intermarriage with foreigners (3:6) and making covenants with non-Israelites (2:2). Thus they try to dissuade Samson from marrying the Philistine woman, but he will not take no for an answer. He insists that “she pleases me” (היא ישׁרה בעיני hîʾ yāšĕrâ bĕʿênāy; lit., “she is right in my eyes”). The phrase is an echo of the important refrain that characterizes all Israel in the final and most tragic section of Judges: “all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (17:6; 21:25).
14:4. Just when we are ready to condemn Samson for his roving eye, however, the narrator interrupts with a word to the reader. Samson’s parents did not know that “this was from the Lord”! The Lord wanted Samson to marry the Philistine woman in order to create “a pretext to act against the Philistines.” Remarkably, God steers Samson to disobey God’s own covenant prohibitions against intermarriage in order to help Israel and act against the Philistine oppressors. This is one of many ironies and inverted expectations that we will encounter in the chaotic and unsettled situation in which Samson lives and through which God works at the end of the judges era. The parents’ lack of knowledge about the unexpected ways in which God was working in Samson will also be a recurring theme in the narrative.
14:5–9. Samson convinces his parents to join him in “going down” to the town of Timnah to marry the Philistine woman. Their journey into Philistine territory will lead to Samson’s breaking two of his three nazirite vows: drinking wine or anything produced from the grapevine (13:4; Num 6:4) and eating anything that is unclean, especially anything associated with the corpse of an animal or a human (13:4; Num 6:6–8). They come to the “vineyards of Timnah.” The mention of a vineyard immediately raises warning flags, since the Nazirite is to avoid anything produced from grapes. Suddenly a young lion roars at Samson, the Spirit of the Lord rushes upon him, and he tears apart the lion barehanded. The nazirite instructions in chap. 13 had said nothing about a prohibition against Samson’s touching a corpse; that prohibition is mentioned only in the general nazirite law in Numbers 6. Thus the reader may wonder whether Samson’s touching the corpse of a lion (itself an unclean animal, Lev 11:27) may technically not be a violation of his nazirite covenant. Samson’s parents again do not know about the incident with the lion. In any case, Samson and his parents visit the Philistine woman and then return home. Sometime later, Samson is on his way to the wedding and travels the same road as before. He sees the carcass of the lion he had killed with a swarm of bees and their honey in the carcass. He eats the honey, which is ritually contaminated by the unclean corpse of an unclean animal. The reader now knows that Samson has broken his first nazirite vow, but again his parents are unaware (vv. 8–9).
14:10–11. Samson’s father goes down to arrange for the marriage, and Samson “made a feast” as was the custom for weddings (v. 10). The word for “feast” here (משׁתה mišteh) suggests a drinking feast, and so Samson seems to have broken now the second of his nazirite vows: “be careful not to drink wine or strong drink” (13:4; Num 6:3–4). However, the reader may wonder still whether these are serious infractions, since the angel had applied these two prohibitions to the parents but not explicitly (perhaps implicitly?) to Samson. At least Samson’s hair remains uncut, and it will be that third and last vow of his nazirite covenant that will remain fulfilled until the last episode with Delilah.
14:12–18a. As part of the seven-day feast, Samson proposes a riddle to his wedding guests and places a wager of sixty garments that the guests cannot solve it. The riddle is this: “Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet.” The answer to the riddle, on the surface, is Samson’s dead lion with its sweet honey, about which the guests know nothing. After three days of guessing, the guests demand that Samson’s new wife beg him for the answer to the riddle “or we will burn you and your father’s house with fire” (v. 15). She begs Samson for the answer until the seventh day of the feast. He finally relents and tells her the answer to the riddle, and then she passes it on to the Philistine guests: “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” (v. 18). There may be more than this surface-level meaning to the riddle, however, in the context of the larger Samson story. The solution is given in the form of two questions. The interrogatives invite further searching on the reader’s part to consider another level of meaning as to what might be stronger than a lion and sweeter than honey. One scholar has argued that a more subtle answer to the two questions and an implied solution to the larger riddle of the Samson story itself is the answer “love.” Love is both incredibly strong and incredibly sweet for both Samson and his women, but more significantly for God and the people of Israel. God’s powerful and sweet love cannot let Israel go, no matter how disobedient they are.
14:18b–20. Samson gives a sexually crude and angry response to the wedding guests: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle” (v. 18). The Spirit of God rushes on Samson yet again. He then angrily goes to the neighboring Philistine city of Ashkelon, kills thirty men, steals their garments, and gives the stolen clothing to the wedding guests in payment for the wager they had made and Samson had lost. Hot-headed Samson heads back home, leaving his wife with the Philistines. In Samson’s absence, his wife is married off again to the best man at Samson’s wedding (vv. 19–20).
Reflections
In the topsy-turvy world of a disintegrating Israelite society, the Lord works in mysterious and seemingly contradictory ways. The Lord is behind Samson’s desire for a Philistine wife, a desire that contradicts earlier covenant prohibitions for intermarriage in Judg 2:2 and 3:6. The Spirit of the Lord rushed on Samson two times in this episode, and each time Samson disobeyed clear prohibitions of the covenant. The divine Spirit gave Samson the strength to kill the young lion (14:6). Yet that eventually led to his breaking the nazirite prohibition of touching a corpse or eating anything unclean. The Spirit of the Lord also rushed upon Samson when he murdered the thirty men of Ashkelon, stole their clothing, and then used his ill-gotten gains to pay off his wager. Samson kills and steals out of personal revenge and hot-headed anger, violations of the commandments against killing and stealing without community sanction (Deut 5:17, 19).
God seems constrained to work through such devious and sinful means in the disordered context of a splintered and rebellious Israelite nation. God is free to contravene the very laws God has given to Israel for the sake of God’s mercy and love for the people and for the sake of the punishment of the oppressive Philistines. Although laws and ordered structures are important and helpful, the priority remains on God’s will and God’s compassion, which may at times override institutional policy, governmental regulation, and even divine law.
Judges 15:1–20, Samson the Avenger
Commentary
15:1–8. Samson’s hot-headed exploits of personal revenge against the Philistines continue. Samson discovers that his Philistine wife has been given to another man and vows to “do mischief to the Philistines” in retaliation. He implies that his earlier killing and stealing (14:19) had been reckless and sinful when he says that this time his revenge “will be without blame” (v. 4). Samson’s “mischief” involves attaching torches to the tails of three hundred foxes and letting them loose to burn up the grain fields, vineyards, and olive groves of the Philistines. When the Philistines learn that Samson was behind the “mischief,” they up the ante in a spiral of retaliatory violence by burning Samson’s Philistine wife and her father (v. 6; see 14:15). Samson then vows revenge, and “he struck them down hip and thigh with great slaughter” (v. 8).
15:9–13. The spiral of revenge keeps growing as the Philistines in turn attack the tribe of Judah in the hope of capturing Samson. The tribe of Judah had been an exemplary leader among the Israelites in chap. 1. They had been the first and most successful tribe to lead an attack against the Canaanites (1:1–15). However, in this period of the disintegration of Israel under the judges, even the tribe of Judah cannot or will not resist Israel’s oppressors. Instead, they betray God’s designated deliverer, Samson, by binding him and surrendering him to the Philistines (vv. 12–13).
15:14–17. The Spirit of the Lord once again rushes upon Samson, and he breaks the ropes that bind him. He finds a jawbone of a donkey. As with the lion carcass (14:5–9), Samson again touches a part of an animal corpse, which defiles him and breaks his nazirite vow (Num 6:6). Samson uses the jawbone to kill a thousand Philistines and then utters a proud boast about the “heaps upon heaps” he has killed (v. 16). The boast is reminiscent of the primeval figure Lamech, who boasted of the revenge he took upon those who hurt him (Gen 4:23–24). Samson’s exploits also find a parallel in the earlier minor judge Shamgar, who killed six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad (3:31). The hill on which Samson threw away the donkey’s jawbone is remembered by its name, “Ramath-lehi,” “The Hill of the Jawbone” (v. 17).
15:18–20. The next scene introduces the first of two times when Samson calls upon God for help. Although God’s Spirit has repeatedly rushed upon Samson, it is not clear whether Samson is aware that God has been working through him. Samson seems, in his own mind, to be driven by the desire for personal revenge and nothing else. However, now he acknowledges that it is the Lord who has “granted this great victory by the hand of your servant” (v. 18). In spite of Samson’s disobedience and breach of his nazirite covenant, Samson stays connected to God. He prays to God, asking, “Am I now to die of thirst?” In previous judge stories, it was always Israel who cried out in distress, and not the judges. Samson, who is both judge and a metaphor for Israel itself, cries out to the Lord. And as in previous judge stories, the Lord responds to Samson’s cry. God splits open a rock, and water flows from it. The place was named “En-hakkore,” “The Spring of the One Who Called” (vv. 18–19). This scene of thirst and the provision of water recalls Israel’s experience in the wilderness as the people traveled from Egypt to the promised land and God miraculously provided water from a rock (Exod 17:1–7). The parallel with Israel’s experience further cements the identification of Samson not only as a judge but also as a metaphor for all Israel.
Reflections
The central theme of this section of the Samson story is best summarized by Samson himself, “As they did to me, so I have done to them” (15:11). Samson’s relationship to the Philistines dances between two poles, either legalistic vengeance as expressed in Samson’s statement or a passionate and reckless love as expressed for his Philistine wife (14:3) and later for Delilah (16:4). Samson loves his women, even though he is repeatedly betrayed by them. This dance between vengeful legalism and unrelenting and generous love first appeared in the book of Judges in the juxtaposition of the story of the Canaanite king Adoni-bezek (1:5–7) and the story of Achsah, daughter of the Israelite Othniel (1:11–15). After his capture and punishment, the Canaanite king conceded, “As I have done, so God has paid me back” (1:7). He sees the world through the lens of legalistic retribution. On the other hand, Achsah received from her father an inheritance of land as a gift. Then she boldly asked for an additional area that contains springs of water, and her father graciously and generously gave her two such areas with springs of life-giving water (1:14–15). Achsah saw the world through the lens of a parent’s unconditional and generous love. Both of these themes have been weaving in and out of the stories of the judges throughout the book. Israel has done evil, and God has sent an enemy in punishment. Israel has cried out in distress, and God has sent a deliverer to save them. As Israel’s sin and disloyalty have increased over the course of the judges era, however, God’s love and generosity have been strained to a near breaking point. God’s work in and through Samson is one more attempt by God to embody in a leader both responsible accountability and retribution and an unconditional divine love that cannot let Israel go.
God strains to reconcile these two poles in the relationship with Israel throughout Judges. On one hand, God proclaims to Israel, “I will never break my covenant with you” (2:1). On the other hand, God threatens to end the relationship and let Israel receive its just punishment: “You have abandoned me and worshiped other gods; therefore I will deliver you no more” (10:13). Samson embodies these two poles—vengeful retribution and unrelenting love—in his life and relationships. Ultimately, like the two pillars of Dagon’s temple (16:30–31), these two opposing poles of vengeance and love will crush Samson and lead to his death. The reader may wonder how God is faring under the strain of holding this rebellious Israel accountable for its actions even as God loves Israel with an unfailing love.
Judges 16:1–3, Samson and the Prostitute
Commentary
Samson’s love life continues with a brief nocturnal liaison with a Philistine prostitute in Gaza (v. 1). If Samson can point, however imperfectly, to the vastness of God’s love, Samson can also symbolize the fickle love and loyalty of Israel. His night with the “prostitute” (זנה zōnâ) recalls God’s charge against the Israelites for “prostituting” (זנה zānâ) themselves with all manner of foreign gods (2:17; 8:33).
The Philistines in Gaza discover that Samson is in town. Seeking further revenge, they decide to wait until dawn to capture Samson as he leaves the prostitute and departs through the city gate. But Samson leaves at midnight and eludes capture. With his enormous strength, Samson also picks up the city gate and its two posts and carries them for miles to the Israelite town of Hebron, where he sets them up on a hill as an act of humiliation and defiance aimed at Israel’s Philistine oppressors (vv. 2–3).
Reflections
Samson’s illicit sexual relationship with the Philistine prostitute reminds the reader in some ways of the two Israelite spies who visited Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute, in the city of Jericho (Josh 2:1–24). One key difference between the two stories is that Samson is there for his own personal gratification. The two Israelite spies were in Jericho not for their own pleasure but on a spy mission on behalf of all Israel. Samson’s liaison with the prostitute signifies Israel’s lusting after other gods for the sake of personal gratification and self-centered desires. The Jericho spies were doing the opposite. They risked their lives and well-being for the sake of the larger community.
However, there are also significant similarities between the two stories. Both stories proclaim the ultimate power and authority of Israel’s God over all other gods and powers. Jericho’s walls came tumbling down. Samson’s theft of Gaza’s city gates makes a similar statement about God’s authority even over the Philistines. The city gate is the place of political decision making and the rendering of justice. Samson’s feat of pulling up the city gate and planting it on a hill in Israel portends the eventual political and military defeat of the Philistines by the Israelites. It also prefigures Samson’s final act of defiance when he will push down another entrance and two pillars in the Philistine temple of Dagon. That final act in the Samson saga will entail not only Israel’s partial triumph over the Philistine oppressors but also the Lord’s ultimate victory over the Philistine god Dagon (16:23–31).
Samson’s act of political defiance stands in a long series of biblical people of God who have defied the powers of human authority and government when they have acted oppressively and contrary to God’s will. Moses defied Pharaoh and the Egyptian empire, saying, “Let my people go” (Exodus 5–15). Amos boldly condemned King Jeroboam for the nation’s ill treatment of the poor (Amos 7:10–17). Daniel remained faithful in the face of persecution for his faith because he knew God’s authority supersedes all worldly authorities (Daniel 1–12). When the authorities tried to prevent Peter and the other apostles from proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, they replied, “We must obey God rather than any human authority” (Acts 5:29 NRSV). Samson’s placing the Gaza gates on the hill outside Hebron is one more affirmation that “thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Judges 16:4–31, Delilah and the Death of Samson
Commentary
16:4–5. After the one-night liaison in Gaza, Samson “falls in love” with a woman named Delilah (v. 4). She is from the valley of Sorek, which lies within the Israelite land of Canaan, not far from Jerusalem. Scholars disagree about whether Delilah is an Israelite, a Canaanite, or a Philistine. The text remains intentionally ambivalent about her ethnicity so that the reader may wonder whether Samson has at last “come home” to Israel in obedience to his parents’ wishes to find a woman to love from among “our people” (14:3). The name “Delilah” (דלילה dĕlîlâ) means “flirtatious,” which fits her role in the story. The Philistines had earlier coaxed Samson’s wife to betray him in the matter of the riddle (14:15–20). Similarly, the Philistines coax Delilah to find out the secret to the riddle of Samson’s superhuman strength. Whereas earlier the Philistines had threatened Samson’s wife with death (14:15), this time they offer Delilah an enormous bribe of “eleven hundred pieces of silver” (v. 5).
16:6–14. Delilah then tries to coax the secret of Samson’s strength from him. On three different occasions he lies to Delilah about the secret of his power. First, Samson tells her that his strength will vanish if he is bound by seven fresh bow-strings. Then he suggests that he will lose his power if he is bound by new ropes. Finally, he tells Delilah that he will become a normal man if his hair is plaited into seven braids, which are then woven into a web and made tight with a pin. All of these are lies. It is this third false reason that begins to build suspense. Samson’s admission that his strength has something to do with his hair is getting dangerously close to the truth about the one nazirite vow he has not yet broken (13:5). Moreover, the scene with Samson sleeping and Delilah weaving the hair of his head and “making it tight with the pin” (lit., “she thrust the pin/tent peg”) reminds the reader of an earlier story in Judges 4. Jael, the Kenite woman, like Delilah, was not clearly allied with either Israel or Israel’s enemy Sisera. As he slept, she “thrust” (תקע tāqaʿ; the same verb as in 16:14) a tent peg into his temple and killed him (4:17–21). The parallel is a foreboding sign that Samson is moving closer to his own downfall and death.
16:15–22. Delilah pleads one more time with Samson to reveal his secret, appealing to his love for her. After days of nagging, Samson is “tired to death” (v. 16), a figurative image that will soon become a literal fact. Samson gives in and tells her the secret of his nazirite vow and that his hair cannot be cut: “If my head were shaved … I would become weak, and be like anyone else” (v. 17). Delilah senses that this time Samson is telling the truth. She again lets him fall asleep in her lap and then has a man cut Samson’s hair. Samson’s strength begins to leave him, but he appears unaware of his loss: “he did not know that the Lord had left him” (v. 20). Samson’s figurative blindness to his real condition of weakness and divine abandonment is made literal and physical as the Philistines capture him and “gouged out his eyes” (v. 21).
Samson is bound and forced to do what is traditionally the work of women and slaves: “he ground at the mill in the prison” (v. 21; see Exod 11:5; Job 31:10). Samson has been totally transformed and humiliated. He was once a paragon of male bravado, a man of extraordinary physical strength and the knower of deep secrets unknown to others. Now Samson takes the role of a blind female servant, a captive of war, an exile in a foreign land. Indeed, his fate is a mirror image of the later experience of Israel in exile. Lamentations 5:13 laments that in exile “young men are compelled to grind.” Samson’s shaved head is not only a violation of his nazirite vow but also the mark of a person who is taken into exile. Isaiah 7:20 predicts the exile of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians with this image: “On that day the Lord will shave with a razor hired beyond the River—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will take off the beard as well.” Deuteronomy 21:12 speaks of the treatment of female captives of war: “suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry … she shall shave her head.” Samson is a feminized captive and exile, a paradigm of Israel in exile, seemingly abandoned by God.
However, the scene does not end in total despair but with what James Crenshaw has described as “one of those pregnant sentences that is the mark of genius.” Verse 22 concludes, “But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.” The new growth of Samson’s hair may yet provide hope for some kind of vindication and purpose in the midst of Samson’s captivity and exile among the Philistines.
16:23–27. The setting for the final scene of the Samson story is the grand temple of the Philistine god Dagon, which is filled with “the lords of the Philistines.” The Philistines are celebrating a grand festival of sacrifice and thanksgiving to their god, who “has given Samson our enemy into our hand” (v. 23). Samson had entertained the Philistines once before at the wedding feast of his Philistine wife. Then he had offered a secret riddle to which they found a solution. The Philistines again command Samson to entertain them; he performs to a full house with standing room only for an additional 3,000 Philistines who are on the roof of the temple (v. 27).
16:28–30. Once before Samson had called upon God in prayer when he was weakened by thirst (15:18). One more time he calls on God in prayer. “Strengthen me,” he prays, “so that with this one act of revenge I may pay back the Philistines for my eyes” (v. 28). Samson continues to define his actions in terms of personal vendetta and revenge. He remains blind, however, to the larger significance of his mission as an agent of God’s deliverance for the sake of the future of the whole people of Israel. Nevertheless, God will use Samson for one last defeat of the Philistines.
In a story filled with secrets and riddles, Samson accomplishes his final act of defeating the Philistines through one final secret. Samson pretends that he is so weak that he must lean on the “pillars on which the house rests” (v. 26). Then, calling on the Lord, Samson leans his full weight aganst the middle pillars of the temple. Dramatically, he prays, “Let me die with the Philistines” (v. 30). Samson strains “with all his might,” which has returned along with his growing hair. The pillars buckle, the roof collapses, and the victory party for Dagon becomes a Philistine disaster of death and destruction. Samson dies along with thousands of Philistines. Ironically, Samson has killed more Philistines in his death than all those he killed during his life (v. 30). In the midst of this final triumph, Samson remains a tragic figure, forever blind to the larger purposes for which God had used him. Samson saw only personal revenge in this event; the Lord sees deliverance for God’s people and the Lord’s victory in the cosmic battle against Dagon, the god of the Philistines.
16:31. Samson’s family takes his body and buries him in the tomb of his father, a sign of a life that has ended and come full circle. In the end, Samson “judged Israel twenty years,” as compared to the much longer forty years of Philistine oppression (13:1). God had invested enormous divine energy in this last of the judges. Even so, Samson was only able to “begin to deliver Israel” from the Philistines (13:5). The Philistines would return as a major threat to Israel, beginning with the events in 1 Samuel 4. In Samson, the line of Israel’s military deliverers called judges comes to an end within the book of Judges. The system of leadership under the judges has finally self-destructed and collapsed under its own weight along with the Philistine temple of Dagon.
Reflections
1. Samson’s many relationships with women invite critical reflection on the role and portraits of women in the Samson saga. His mother is a positive model of faithfulness and trust. However, the other women in his life are not so positively portrayed. They are objects of desire, nagging and tempting Samson into economic ruin, sexual immorality, and ultimately death. Moreover, each of these women is in some way caught in the web of the pressures, economics, and powers of a male-dominated society. Samson’s wife is threatened and forced to betray him. She is ultimately killed and burned along with her father (14:14; 15:16). Samson uses the prostitute at Gaza for a night of self-gratification (16:1–3). Delilah is pressured by an enormous bribe from the Philistines to betray her lover. Both the prostitute and Delilah are used by men in exchange for money.
It was noted in the reflections on Jephthah’s daughter in Judges 11 that the decline in the well-being of women as we move through the book of Judges parallels the gradual disintegration and decline of Israel as a society and a religious community. The women in the Samson story continue to reflect this downward trend in social and religious degradation. Their portraits will find parallels in our own time and communities.
2. One of the most dramatic points in Judges 16 is Samson’s request for God to let him “die with the Philistines” (v. 30). This expression to God of a death wish is not unique to Samson. Other great figures of the Bible reached such points of despair that they also asked God to let them die. Moses was overcome with the burdens of leading the rebellious Israelites through the wilderness and requested that God put him to death (Num 11:10–15). The prophet Elijah sat under a tree in despair because he alone had been faithful to God and yet had been no more effective than his predecessors in leading Israel to faith in God. So he asked God, “take away my life” (1 Kgs 19:4). Jeremiah was so severely persecuted for prophesying God’s word that he wished he had been killed in his mother’s womb (Jer 20:17). The prophet Jonah sulked under a bush because God had shown mercy to the Assyrian city of Nineveh. Jonah was so upset by God’s generosity to this pagan city that he asked God to “please take my life from me” (Jonah 4:3). In each of these cases, however, God always refused the request to put the person to death and instead sent the person on to continue his mission. Samson’s request for God to let him die is the only time such a request is granted in the Old Testament.
Samson’s uniqueness in this regard may stem from two reasons. One reason is that Samson represents the end of the line of the judges. He is more than just another judge. He embodies the office of the judge, which comes to an end with him. Thus, God’s allowing Samson to die is God’s allowing the office or system of judge as a means of leading and saving Israel to die. Another reason for Samson’s uniqueness is that he embodies Israel as a nation. The shaved head, the forced grinding at the mill, and the binding and captivity of Samson are all images of exile and captivity. They prefigure the exile Israel will later experience under kingship. The northern kingdom of Israel will be conquered by the Assyrians and be sent into exile (2 Kings 17:1). Later, the southern kingdom of Judah will succumb to the power of the Babylonian empires, and its population will be exiled (2 Kings 24–25). The exile will be a kind of death for Israel. The Temple in Jerusalem will be destroyed as was the Philistine temple of Dagon. The system of kingship will end, just as the era of the judges also came to an end. Israel and Judah will lose their strength as Samson had done. The prophets will castigate Israel for its blindness to its sin before the exile (Isa 6:9–13) and its blindness to the deliverance God is working out for the sake of the exiles (Isa 43:19). The prophet Ezekiel spoke of Israel’s exile as the death of a nation in his image of Israel as a valley filled with dry bones (Ezek 37:1–14). Thus Samson’s request to die and God’s acquiescence to that request reflect Samson’s larger role as a symbol of the system of judges as an institution and a metaphor for Israel as a nation and its eventual fate of exile.
3. The Samson story holds on to a thread (or hair) of hope as it notes that Samson’s hair begins to grow back after it has been shaved (16:22). If his shaved head represents exile and captivity, then the new growth of hair represents hope in the midst of exile. The Deuteronomistic History of Joshua–2 Kings ends with Israel in exile. But it also ends with a brief note of hope that parallels Samson’s growing hair. In 2 Kgs 25:27–30, the king of Judah, who is in exile, is released from prison and allowed to dine with the king of Babylon. This hint of hope and opening to some kind of possible future functions in a way similar to the growing hair of Samson. As we emerge from the tragedies and downfalls that beset us, we may yet discover such glimpses of hope, such openings to the future, such hints that God is working in hidden ways to redeem and save and heal, of which we may not be fully aware.
4. One of the overriding themes of the Samson story is Israel’s learning that its future depends entirely on God’s guidance and strength, not its own. Samson represents the prideful and boastful Israel who goes it alone, thinking for the most part that he does not need anyone else to help him. Yet there are glimpses of Samson’s recognition of his limits, once when he was dying of thirst and a final time when he was dying at the hand of the Philistines. It is only when Samson reaches the end of his rope and slams up against his dependence on God that he comes to some realization of his need for God. This was God’s experience with Israel as well. That experience is definitively summarized in the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32:
Indeed the Lord will vindicate his people,
have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone. (Deut 32:36 NRSV)
Israel will then begin to come to the realization that its future and hope lie not in a particular institution of leadership (whether judges or kings) or in its own strength or virtue. The future of God’s people lies in trusting and worshiping the one God who is worthy of such trust:
See now that I, even I, am he:
there is no god besides me.
I kill and I make alive:
I wound and I heal;
and no one can deliver from my hand. (Deut 32:39 NRSV)
5. In the history of Christian biblical interpretation, one of the dominant ways in which Samson has been interpreted is as a prefigurement, or type, of Christ. In spite of his dubious moral character, Samson has functioned over the centuries in sermons, art, and interpretation as a precursor to Jesus’ life and death. The parallels are many. Samson’s special birth and the angel’s announcement to his mother in Judges 13 functioned as a model for the writer of Jesus’ birth story and announcement in Luke 1–2. The title of “Nazorean” is applied to Jesus, a possible allusion to the special status of a “Nazirite,” similar to Samson, in Matt 2:23. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson just as it came upon Jesus as he did battle with Satan in the wilderness (Luke 3:21–22; 4:1–13). However, the most important parallels involve Samson’s suffering and death as a type of Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross. Samson was betrayed by his own people, by Judah and by the women he loved. He was beaten and tortured. Samson’s outstretched arms on the two pillars of the Philistine temple were read by Christian interpreters as a prefigurement of Jesus’ outstretched arms on the cross. In his death, Samson destroyed the enemy and its god. Similarly, interpreters saw Jesus’ death as destroying sin and death and defeating the powers and principalities of this world who resisted God’s will for creation.
Perhaps at a deeper level, the Samson story affirms God’s willingness to enter into the full sinfulness and rebellion of humankind in order to accomplish the purposes of God in the world. At some level, the figure of Samson embodies not only the institution of judgeship or the nation of Israel, but also God’s amazing and relentless love. God keeps coming back to God’s sinful people, responding to their cries of distress and promising to stay with them in and through their failures, their captivities, their exiles, and even their deaths. Whether it is the human nation of Israel or the individual person of Jesus, God is present and at work in an incarnational way in the blood and mess and chaos of human life. In that promise is a word of hope even when we come to the end and death of the era of the judges in the man Samson.