Baby Snatchers

There are those who snatch the orphan child from the breast, and take as a pledge the infant of the poor… From the city the dying groan, and the throat of the wounded cries for help; yet God pays no attention to their prayer. (Job 24.9,12)

Dedicated to the memory of hundreds of murdered children and those who loved them.

During Advent our pastor asked a question that has haunted me ever since. “Can we continue to idolize violence and still believe the Gospel’s message of love?” She paused to scan the congregation. With a catch in her throat that fueled the fire of her insistence, she said, “The answer just has to be, ‘No!’” By idolizing violence, she meant faith in hostility and death over love’s decisive power to sustain life. This violence runs much deeper than movie mayhem and gangsta rap. It drills down into the marrow of our social and spiritual beings.

We participate in a culture that places nearly all of its confidence in aggression and retaliation. It’s not enough to resolve our differences in a loving, peaceful manner—in part, because doing so requires tremendous effort and sacrifice on all sides. No, we opt for the inferior alternative: settling scores. This compulsion takes root long before we reach for physical weapons. It’s the product of low biology—what the New Testament calls “the flesh”—that obsesses about survival and perceives every life challenge as a potential threat. Darwin optimistically framed this instinct as “survival of the fittest.” But, at its core, it’s a kill-or-be-killed mentality that goads us to take preemptive strikes and meet violence with violence. Thus, violence is an attitudinal issue that, if unchecked, becomes a behavioral problem. Its primary weapons are hearts and minds; fists, guns, knives, and—most commonly—words are merely hardware.

Violence always carries hidden costs that ultimately discredit its effectiveness. Years may pass before the bill comes due. But the instant our hearts and minds turn to violence—whether physical, verbal, emotional, or spiritual—the invoice is in the mail and it will arrive bearing interest. And violence doesn’t care who pays the tab, as long as it’s paid. So when excess pride in our children causes us to instill in them a ferocious competitive streak, we shouldn’t be surprised when its attendant anxiety and selfishness erupt in rage. When paranoia about safety and loss of “what’s ours” compels us to attack others, we shouldn’t be perplexed when we become targets of hostility. When fear of losing respect breeds disrespect for others, we shouldn’t be shocked when what we’re determined to preserve evaporates. Faith in violence doesn’t just look ridiculous. It is ridiculous.

Because violence can’t coexist with love, it provides no brakes to stop our slide down the slippery slope. The gaps between “venting” and berating, “defending” and bullying, “winning” and humiliating are not as wide as we imagine. If we listened more closely to how we talk, we’d get this. We talk about “letting people have it” and “crushing the competition” and “butting heads.” Even when we’re on the losing side, we glorify the violence we suffer, saying we’re “floored” by what was said to us, or “blown away” by another’s actions. Kids and sports fans have a term for our use of violent speech—“talking smack,” which gets to the nub of the issue. Saying leads to doing, and with so much of our language devoted to violence how can we not admit to its prominence on the altars of our hearts?

Giving violence different names or redefining it to highlight its extremes won’t remove its place of idolatry. When violence becomes the thing we rely on for protection and the thing we most fear, it is our god. What else but a god could persuade us to wage war in the name of peace, to assert the sanctity of our land by invading and occupying another, to exhibit self-worth by diminishing the value and rights of others? These are not instinctive responses to fear and threat; they’re conscious acts that constitute wholehearted worship of violence. And don’t be deceived: this god is a filthy liar. Nothing it promises ever pans out.

In the 24^th chapter of Job—which some scholars believe is the Bible’s oldest volume—the hero’s complaint about the violence of his day reads like our daily news. Evildoers scam widows out of their property. Poor parents scavenge to feed their children, while thugs seize fields and vineyards. (Job’s loathing for this crowd is so vehement that he accuses them of not having enough sense to come in out of the rain.) Murderers kill the poor and defenseless. Women are routinely abused. And several times, Job’s focus turns to children born into a world consumed by violence. “There are those who snatch the orphan child from the breast, and take as a pledge the infant of the poor,” verse 9 says. These baby snatchers place no value in human life. Nor do they bow to the God of love. The violence they worship deadens their senses to the agonies they cause. “From the city the dying groan, and the throat of the wounded cries for help,” Job tells us. “Yet God pays no attention to their prayer.”

That last sentence troubles us, as it should. It certainly vexes Job. The entire chapter begs the question, “Why would God allow this?” It’s the same question we ask when reading reports of children gunned down in drive-by shootings and we’re gripped with grief by grade-school massacres. Where is God? The answer may be simpler, and closer to home, than we think. We’ve replaced the God of love with the god of violence. In Matthew 6.24, Jesus explains, “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.” A society—including its religious right—that looks to violence to solve its problems has cast God from its presence. Before God can intervene, idolatry of violence has to be torn down. Then the love of God will return and that, in and of itself, will be the answer to our prayers.

Holy Week starts early for me this year, as Walt and I and members of our church join thousands of Chicagoans for tonight’s CROSSwalk, a sacred processional honoring the memory of over 800 young humans sacrificed to violence since 2008. Although the demonstration will be peaceful, it is intended to confront the idolatry of violence that plagues our city with baby snatchers, abusers, murderers, and war-makers. It is a fitting start to Lent’s closing act, when God’s love will challenge violence’s power and rise from death in decisive triumph.

This evening, as we hear the names of our lost called out—as we ponder the horrors of homicide and baby-snatching—we’ll want to ask, “Where is God?” But the answer to that won’t satisfy, because it’s the wrong question. With repentant hearts, we need to ask, “Can we continue to idolize violence and still believe the Gospel’s message of love?”

The answer just has to be, “No!”

Never Alone

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1.14)

Among Us

We had a bit of a scare this weekend. One of Walt’s online buddies—who, like countless others during the holiday season, has been struggling with loneliness and despondence—messaged that he was giving up. He felt so isolated and unloved that he wrote, “They won’t find me for weeks after I do it, because no one calls or comes around.” Walt had only his friend’s screen name, first name, the town he lived in, and some sketchy information about his professional life to go on. But he also had two invaluable gifts: driving concern and years of journalism experience. He set out to find his friend, hoping he’d reach him in time. Late last night we heard from his town’s police department. They’d located him. He was alive and had come to grips with his depression. As much as all could be well, it was.

When the good news came, I was staring at Sunday’s Gospel (John 1.1-14), wondering what I could possibly say about this famous passage. This is John’s brilliantly mystical Incarnation account, unhindered by human involvement and incidentals. No Mary, Joseph, Baby, angels, shepherds, Magi, star, stable—nothing we can paint or put on a greeting card—just the Word, the eternal God, calling Light and Life into existence and then becoming Life to bring Light to our dark, dangerous, and deadly world. “They found him!” Walt told me with great relief, adding, “I’m wrung out. I’m going to bed.” He kissed me goodnight, we exchanged “Merry Christmases,” and when I returned to the text, two words from John 1.14 caught my eye: among us.

All That is God’s

The Good News of Christmas is we are not alone. We can never be alone. The Word, unceasingly present, unconditionally loving, and unhampered by our blindness, lives among us. With us. In us. The Word that called Light and Life into existence becomes Life to bring Light to our loneliness, depression, and hopelessness. “Like a father’s only son,” John says—meaning all that is God’s is Christ’s, and all that is Christ’s is ours—the Word that lives among us is “full of grace and truth.” When human graces like kindness, concern, and acceptance forget where we live, the Christ Who lives among, with, and in us presents us with uncompromised grace. When feelings of isolation and abandonment conjure lies to convince us we’re on our own, Christ’s everlasting truth breaks through our darkness.

We’ve worked the Nativity narratives from every angle. We’ve studied the prophets and rehearsed the fulfillment of their messages. We’ve sung the carols about the humble Infant, the shining star, the angel chorus, and the world-shaking implications of two young peasants’ courage to trust God’s promises. Now it’s time for us to contemplate the grace and truth that surround us: we’re never alone.

Emmanuel

“Call Him ‘Emmanuel,’” Isaiah says, “God with us.” Today we rejoice in the Word that became flesh to live among us, praying we won’t let this sacred season pass without renewing our faith that we are never alone.

May the Word bring Life and Light to us in vivid ways that fill us with grace and truth. Happiest of Christmases to you all. Love, Tim.

Postscript: “No One is Alone”

It’s not a carol, hymn, or Christian song of any kind. It’s not even about God. It’s from Into the Woods, a musical about giants and witches and magic beans. Yet, despite the lyrical anomalies, every time I hear Stephen Sondheim’s “No One is Alone,” I hear the Word speak assurance to me: "I became flesh for you. You're never alone."

Love Among the Ruins

Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” (John 11.35-37)

People of Substance

A lot has changed in the three years or so since Jesus found Peter and Andrew on the seashore and began assembling a core group of followers. For one thing, the need to recruit disciples has long passed. Jesus is an established Rabbi known for His provocative preaching and miracles. There’s always a show when He comes to town. People drop everything and flock to Him. Although it sounds crass, the comparison seems accurate: Jesus is a celebrity activist akin to Bono or Oprah—Someone Who wields His fame to change lives. That broadens His appeal significantly. By the second year, many people of substance actively court Jesus. They invite Him to banquets, prevail on Him to heal their sick, and ask to join His entourage. Since wealth and status don’t impress Him, He rebuffs those whose self-interest is obvious. Yet we’re given more than a few instances when Jesus befriends people who don’t fit the downtrodden mold. Besides, assuming Jesus confines His interest to the outcast and impoverished contradicts His message of radical inclusion in John 6.37: “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”

It should be noted, however, the better advantaged of Jesus’s followers are exceptions to their class. Unlike Bono, Oprah, and their ilk, Jesus never obtains the kind of superstar glamour that swings wide the gates to upper crust society. That’s why when we see Him dining in finer homes, clusters of unhappy neighbors gather in protest. It’s why Nicodemus, the highly regarded Pharisee, sneaks off in the night to visit Jesus. It’s also why the disciples balk when He decides to return to Bethany—the Jerusalem suburb where his dear friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus live—after He learns Lazarus is gravely ill. The last time they visited that part of the country, its residents tried to stone Him.

Completely Out of Character

Although John’s Gospel doesn’t explicitly say so, Jesus appears to share the disciples’ concern. Something’s amiss—that we know. News of Lazarus’s sickness reaches Him and He reacts completely out of character. He’s indecisive and hesitant. It takes two days to make up His mind to go see about His friend. In retrospect, we realize Lazarus couldn’t have got sick at a worse time. Jesus’s arrest and execution will occur in a matter of weeks. Returning to Bethany puts Him within two miles of enemies conspiring against Him. His sense of foreboding must be unbearable, as must knowing His friends need Him desperately. Lazarus, Mary, and Martha never hesitate to welcome Jesus to their home. The sisters lavish Him with care, feeding and housing Him in grand style. On one occasion, Mary empties an expensive box of perfume on Jesus to signify how dearly He’s loved. Yet Jesus waits. He waits so long by the time He tells the disciples they’re going to Bethany He’s confident Lazarus is already dead.

John, whose main purpose for writing his Gospel is deifying Jesus as “the Word made flesh” (1.14), gives the impression Jesus lingers on purpose to set the stage for a final, unprecedented miracle that foreshadows His own death and resurrection. He confides to the disciples, “For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” (11.14) But if we accept that, we also accept that Jesus delays coming to His friends’ aid for heartlessly selfish reasons. What could be crueler than ignoring their urgent request for help—to allow Lazarus to die, while his sisters cope with undue stress wondering why Jesus hasn’t shown up? Clearly, Mary and Martha are wounded when Jesus arrives. Mary stays at home and lets Martha go out to greet Him as He nears the town. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” she says. (v21) Jesus doesn’t acknowledge her grief, however. He promises Lazarus will be revived, saying, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” (v25) When he asks about Mary, Martha brings her to Him and she says exactly what Martha said: “If You had been here…” Again, Jesus overlooks her sorrow, asking, “Where have you laid him?” (v33) Mary leads Him to Lazarus’s grave, with a gaggle of neighbors trailing after them. At the tomb, the weight of the entire ordeal buries Jesus. His disconcerting detachment vanishes. In the presence of beloved friends and cynical onlookers, He weeps.

A Horrible Situation

What is Jesus feeling? The episode is so fraught with conflicted emotions and behaviors attributing His grief to any of them amounts to speculation. Mourning Lazarus doesn’t prompt His tears; in mere minutes, He will restore His friend’s life. We want to agree with neighbors who say, “See how He loved him!” (v36) Then again, the cynics have a point when they counter, “Could not He Who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” (v37) John’s reason for Jesus’s delay is moot when we observe how it affects Mary and Martha. The purest of intentions don’t change the fact Jesus walks into a horrible situation of His own making. Is that what we’re meant to see? Should we even question why Jesus falters? Perhaps the most obvious answer is the best one.

When Jesus reaches the graveside, regret, confusion, disappointment, and every other feeling we associate with human frailty engulf Him. He weeps because His hesitance incited His friends to doubt Him. His tearstained face conveys love among the ruins. He summons all of His power not only to speak life into Lazarus’s hollow shell, but also to revive the faith and trust of those He loves. What we’re looking at is precisely what Hebrews 4.15 describes: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”

We all have uncomfortable moments when hesitance, fear, and every other imaginable internal conflict threaten the ruin of relationships with people who dearly love us and we dearly love. We cause grief and confusion about where we are and why we don’t respond sooner. When we realize what we've done, we weep. But there is life in us, because there is love in us—life we can speak that brings lost friends out of their graves and heals the pain of disillusioned loved ones. Accounting for shambles we create is never pleasant. Walking into situations where we’ve let people down is nothing we want to do, even though we know we must. At Lazarus’s graveside Jesus demonstrates the power of love among the ruins.

The humanity we witness in Jesus’s tears expresses the regret, confusion, disappointment, and every other feeling we associate with frailty.

Weight of the World

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5.4)

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. (Galatians 6.2-3)

Helpless

We’ve witnessed an astonishing range of conflict and grief in our lifetimes: wars, famines, genocide, natural disasters, depressions—you name it, we’ve seen it. Yet I don’t recall anything like what we’ve felt this past week, when sorrow overtakes us before looking at the news. Helpless is the headline. In the wake of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami—devastation unlike any we’ve ever seen—we sit on pins and needles, dreading meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. With the death toll already expected to top 14,000, we’re grateful for time to guard against further loss of life. Yet, God forbid, should a Chernobyl-like event turn the region into a “Dead Zone,” the outcome will prove nonetheless tragic by keeping those who’ve lost relatives, friends, homes, and businesses from ever being fully restored. We agonize with parents who may never recover their children’s remains, or children who may never lay their parents to rest.

If there’s a bright side to Japan’s travails, it’s found in the global response effort. Though we feel helpless, we’re doing what we can. Meanwhile, holocaust looms in Libya and we don’t know what to do. For weeks, we’ve wrung our hands, trying to come up with something to derail its head-on collision with a madman. One would think unseating Gaddafi to be quick work. Yet history teaches defeating tyranny is an arduous, expensive process. This crisis finds defenders of freedom tapped out. So we talk about no-fly zones and sanctions, all the while dreading the moment when Gaddafi unleashes his wrath on entire cities and regions.

The Japanese tragedy and Libyan threat, complemented by ongoing violence in Bahrain, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, crush us with the world’s weight. For reasons we can’t explain, objectivity and distance intensify our grief. Remove from daily realities in these places causes us to feel helpless. Yet similar frustrations haunt us when the horrors are closer to home. Since September, our church has tracked Chicago youths felled to gun violence. The number reached 50 last Sunday. Fifty futures ruined. Fifty families shattered. Fifty communities robbed. Surely blossoms of grace spring up in these wildernesses. We know they do, as we’ve found them in our own tragedies and losses. Since they make lousy news copy, however, we’re shielded from them—whether across the oceans or down the street. Thus every setback and cruelty increases the weight of the world. Every day’s news compounds our grief. We mourn our helplessness as much as our losses.

The Disciple’s Burden

Grief on the scale we’re experiencing engenders emotions like those expressed in Psalm 6.2-3: “Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint; heal me, LORD, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in deep anguish. How long, LORD, how long?” We just want it to stop. Yet, in Matthew 24, Jesus tells us as long as the world survives, we will be plagued by disasters: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.” Though we resist admitting our finest efforts and smartest innovations can never eliminate tragedy, we must come to terms with the fact that human slaughter and natural disasters are permanent fixtures in earthly life. And because of this, we’re wise to outgrow questioning why these horrors occur, so we can ask a more pertinent question: what is our duty in the wake of tragedy—be it epic or intimate in size and nature?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer sets forth an illuminating take on this. In his quest to define discipleship’s traits, he locates many in The Beatitudes, each of which, he says, “deepens the breach between the disciples and the people. The disciples’ call becomes more and more visible. Those who mourn are those who are prepared to renounce and live without everything the world calls happiness and peace. They are those who cannot be brought into accord with the world, who cannot conform to the world. They mourn over the world, its guilt, its fate, and its happiness… They bear what is laid upon them and what happens to them in discipleship for the sake of Jesus Christ.” (40-Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p36)

This radically alters how we view The Beatitudes and many other texts we typically read with detached objectivity. When Jesus says, “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted,” He isn’t speaking of a vaguely identified group of mourners. He’s instructing us to grieve. The weight of the world—its sorrow, helplessness, and despair—is the disciple’s burden. We bear it for the sake of Jesus Christ, Who bore it in human form as our Surrogate and Sacrifice and bears it still as our Savior and Intercessor. When Bonhoeffer says we “cannot conform to the world,” we’re reminded we don’t cope with grief as others do. While they crave closure and strive to move on, we seek comfort because we don’t move on. As long as human suffering exists, we suffer by choice.

In This Way

Paul expands on this in Galatians 6.2: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Our grief is real because burdens we carry for others are real. What we feel surpasses empathy and sorrow. It’s the agony of undue weight we assume in obedience to Christ’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves. We care, not because it’s the “right thing” to do. (Though it is that.) We care because it’s what we do. And we do it without hope of praise for our moral character and strength. Nor do we carry others’ burdens only as long as “something can be done.” These are the sorts of attitudes Paul refers to by saying, “If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves.” (v3) We are disciples—more than friends, less than saviors. We don’t “feel sorry” for people; we bear their sorrow. We don’t “rescue” them; we help them. So we grieve today. We will grieve tomorrow and as long as we live. We seek no closure, only comfort that comes as we carry each other’s burdens. In this way, we fulfill Christ’s law.

We grieve not for our neighbors, but as one of them, fulfilling Christ’s command to love them as ourselves.

Postscript: “He Ain’t Heavy”

This recording has become so pervasive in pop culture it teeters on cliché—until we listen to it with fresh ears, as disciples who bear the world’s burdens because that’s what we do. Take four minutes to reacquaint yourself with The Hollies’ “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.”

Made Whole

They laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole. (Mark 6.56; KJV)

Severances

I’ve resisted writing about Haiti because it felt unnecessary. The stories and pictures of the past two weeks leave nothing to be said. They do call to mind a haunting visual that brings Mark 6 to a close, however. The chapter relates a series of disconnected events early in Jesus’s ministry. With His reputation secure abroad, He returns to Nazareth, where friends and neighbors take offense at His teaching, and He leaves because of their lack of faith. Next, He sends the disciples out to minister, telling them not to linger where they’re not wanted; wherever they’re received, they have great success. Word of Jesus’s exploits reaches Herod, who recently beheaded John the Baptist and worries there might be credibility in rumors Jesus is really John returned from the dead. Meanwhile, the crowds keep growing. Jesus feeds 5,000 with a child’s lunch and tells the disciples to sail ahead while He stays behind to pray. Then He walks across the lake to catch up with their boat. When they dock, people recognize Jesus and bring their sick to Him. Mark ends the chapter with this image: “They laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole.” (Mark 6.56; KJV)

Were this the last frame of a movie and we scanned back through the footage for clues why six unrelated episodes are linked together, we’d find Mark 6 is really about severances. Jesus severs ties with Nazareth after it rejects Him. He’s plainly shaken by the ordeal, because He takes a hiatus, sending the disciples to preach and heal in His stead. Herod deals with a different sort of severance—one not as clean and final as he presumed. Having decapitated John the Baptist, the preacher’s memory clings, clouding the king’s mind with fear. At the same time, the disciples and crowds cling to Jesus. He breaks away once again, yet finds it impossible to be apart from them very long. Though they’ve proven capable on their own, Jesus walks on water to return to them. Which leads to the closing shot of people severed from society by illness and injury clinging to Christ, grabbing at His clothes to be made whole.

No Minor Catastrophes

The humanity—and lack of it—coursing through these big scenes leaves one overwhelmed, affecting us exactly like the photos and video from Port-au-Prince. The scale is enormous, and yet our eyes repeatedly fix on one or two faces, where the emotional drama plays out in epic proportion. We see Jesus’s consternation as his hometown turns on Him. We peer into grateful eyes as the disciples bring healing to hopeless villagers—and we see dark hostility in faces that refuse them. We watch anxiety dance across Herod’s brow and marvel at the generous glow of a little boy holding a lunch basket. We sense the fatigue in Christ’s features, confirming His need for solitude, soon followed by the joy brimming in His smile while He walks out to the ship. Finally, we recognize the desperation in helpless people lining the streets, waiting for Jesus to pass by.

More than anything, what we see reflected in these faces thrust into various crises is there are no minor catastrophes. Unanticipated life-turns exact enormous tolls on us. Rejection, risk, guilt, exhaustion, and sickness change us irrevocably. They dash our hopes. They create new fears. They stretch us and sometimes leave us stranded, grasping for someone to ease our suffering. In the middle of our crises, we ask why God permits such tremendous hardship. Surely Jesus questioned why He found no honor in Nazareth. Yet it’s hard to imagine the experience didn’t color His compassion for countless sick, marginalized people around Him. Nor could He possibly ignore the love and concern of family and friends who placed their wounded and dying at His feet. Christ’s personal catastrophes forged His bond with others who struggled. Their situations differed, but they suffered all the same. Loss of any kind makes every kind of loss easily and deeply felt.

The Reason We Suffer

There is no end of causes for suffering, from foolish neglect to malignant hatred. Identifying the reason we suffer, however, is another thing. When we search for a reason, we inevitably start at one of two places: God or us. Either He wants us to endure pain, or we’ve done something to deserve it. But neither of these applies to Christ’s struggles in Mark 6. There’s no reason for His oldest friends and neighbors to revile Him. God isn’t pleased by it and Jesus hasn’t provoked it. Furthermore, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. John, His cousin and role model, has been executed on a whim. Herod’s paranoia mounts as the clamor around Jesus rises. Now He discovers He’s not welcome or safe in Nazareth.

The reason Jesus suffers is inextricably linked to His purpose. In Luke’s account, we’re told the Nazarenes take offense at the text Jesus uses to explain His ministry: “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” (Isaiah 61.1) To understand the suffering He describes, Jesus must suffer. What He loses in Nazareth gives Him power to make people who reach for Him whole. So it is with us. We suffer loss to heal loss. We face fear and sorrow so we can detect it in others’ faces. We endure severance to know the severity of its pain. Suffering feels like a curse when it’s truly a gift. Without it, we would never know the joy of being made whole. But most of all, since experience with suffering draws us to others who suffer, without it we’d never learn what joy there is in helping them be made whole.

We suffer so we can know and relate to suffering when we see it. We experience the joy of being made whole to know the joy of helping others be made whole.

(Next: Such a Little Thing)

Not Done Yet

In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which, when translated, is Dorcas), who was always doing good and helping the poor. (Acts 9.36)

The first in a series on Great Women in Scripture.

Pioneers
Years ago, I attended a lecture by the great Southern writer, Eudora Welty. In the Q&A segment someone asked what were her perennial favorites. “The Bible is the only book I read again and again. It never gets old for me,” she replied. When someone else questioned how she refreshed over-told stories like David and Goliath, Ms. Welty offered an ingenious method. Approach them imaginatively, she advised, like a director who tinkers with a classic play’s setting. It forces new perspectives on the reading, just as watching Hamlet in street clothes can reveal previously unnoticed nuances. Read David and Goliath as a modern war story, for example, and the villain’s weapons make him think he’s invulnerable. When David kills him with a pistol shot, the story becomes a warning about false hubris. Or set it in the Civil Rights era. While Southerners who know prejudice is evil tremble on the sidelines, a young Northerner confronts the Klan. Now the story is about irrational fear created by irrational hatred.

Following Ms. Welty’s suggestion, I’ve been reading The Acts of the Apostles as an Old West chronicle, envisioning first-century Christians as pioneers migrating across new territory, building new settlements, and dealing with new challenges. The transposed setting perfectly fits the book’s rough-and-tumble, episodic structure. It casts the Apostles’ bravado in a heroic aura reminiscent of stolidly principled, though often troubled good guys played by John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Gregory Peck. While believers cobble together makeshift churches, Peter, Paul, and a few others roam the land to help and defend the pioneers. They get arrested, pursued by angry mobs, tried in kangaroo courts, and run out of town. Basically, Acts is one showdown after another, with a few amazing incidents sandwiched in between. One of these, the story of Dorcas, is a personal favorite. Occupying all of eight verses in Acts 9, it’s little more than a quick recap of a miracle. Yet, when I recently reread it in my new “Western” context, it surged with fresh life.

Gentle, Energetic, and Graceful
Dorcas’s story is attached to another tale that puts Peter in Lydda, where he heals a bedridden man. The miracle inspires everyone in Lydda and an adjacent hamlet, Sharon, to follow Christ. The total conversion of two villages should merit extended coverage. But Luke, Acts’ author, scoots ahead to nearby Joppa, where details he reveals up-front about Dorcas immediately pique interest. His lead sentence reads, “In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which, when translated, is Dorcas), who was always doing good and helping the poor.” (Acts 9.36) He identifies her as a disciple, indicating she was a fervent, prominent figure in the Joppa church. Her notability for “doing good and helping the poor” confirms this. And Luke’s focus on her name—“Tabitha,” as she’s called in provincial Aramaic, as well as the Greek “Dorcas”—is very telling, as both mean “gazelle.” Thus, we picture Dorcas as a gentle, energetic, and graceful woman who’s sorely missed when she falls ill and dies.

Local disciples send two men to catch Peter before he leaves Lydda. Without specifying how they hope Peter can help, Luke uses their urgency to imply Peter’s heroic reputation precedes him and he’s often summoned to address situations beyond other disciples’ control. That he arrives without delay indicates Dorcas is a stabilizing, positive force her church and community can’t do without. Verse 39 says when Peter enters the room where her body rests, “All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.” For all the good she’s achieved, Peter surmises she’s not done yet. He dismisses the mourners and calls her: “Tabitha, get up.” (v40) She opens her eyes and takes Peter’s hand as he lifts her up. Her resuscitation persuades many to follow Christ. Before this, though, Peter calls the believers and widows, and presents Dorcas to them. (v41) He restores order much like a Western hero rides into town and ends its turmoil. And in the same way, he hangs around until things fully return to normal. Verse 43 reports, “Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.”

Open Ways
The Old West filter doesn’t enhance Luke’s portrait of Dorcas. Like all committed, caring women, she’s timeless. But recasting her story as a frontier tale heightens the sense of how tragically her loss is felt and why Peter rushes to reverse it. Joppa needs Dorcas. She’s irreplaceable. Proverbs 18.16 says, “A gift opens the way for the giver.” Dorcas’s gifts as a seamstress open ways for her to free impoverished people from shame and reawaken their pride. Her death spells the end of dignity for many who looked to her for inner healing and personal strength. Had Dorcas squelched her talent or lost touch with it, her loss wouldn’t even be worth mentioning. Because she uses her gifts, her death is simply unacceptable.

Her story isn’t extraordinary. It’s exemplary. We’re all irreplaceable. The good we do arises from sensibilities uniquely our own. Our talents open ways to help others as only we can. Yet when we minimize or drift from gifts God has given us, we essentially die. We’re numb to the loss, but our absence is a tragedy for those who need help. For all the good we’ve accomplished, we’re not done yet. There’s more—much, much more—we can do. Death is simply unacceptable. It’s time to get up, spring back to life, and fill the void we’d otherwise leave behind.

No talent is too trivial or small. When we minimize or drift from gifts God has given us, we create a void in lives that need help.

(Next: Hand-Me-Down Faith)

Anger Issues

A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again.

                        Proverbs 19.19 

Mad at the World

The comedian Katt Williams talks about people “who are hard all the time, from the time they wake up until they go to bed.” Paraphrasing slightly to tidy up his fondness for volatile euphemisms, he says, “They’re mad before they eat breakfast. [You want to say] ‘What’s wrong with you? It’s 7 o’clock in the morning and you’re bangin’ on bacon?’” The line gets big laughs of recognition at how ridiculous anger can get. Second to hate, anger is the most malignant emotion we know. It enters our hearts on the heels of injury (actual or perceived) and creeps through our system until it seizes our thoughts, feelings, and physiology. Angry responses are inevitable; they’re part of our emotional palette. Though this may surprise some, we get angry because our Creator gets angry. For example, 1 Kings 11.9 tells us, “The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD.” The difference between God and many of us, however, is we nurse anger while He quickly releases it to find a better way. In Exodus 32.14 we read: “Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.”

Flashes of anger are understandable. Sustained anger has no reason. It searches for new targets to justify its existence. Our neighbor does something that makes us mad. To stay mad, we’ve got to get mad at something else he/she does, and then something else. When that source runs dry, we start noticing other things to be angry about—maybe a spouse or third neighbor who knows why we’re mad but doesn’t take our side. Before long, we’re angry with everyone who doesn’t get mad with us. Eventually, we’re mad at the world--we're bangin' on bacon--which ends with us being angry with ourselves most of all.

Anger Is Costly

Strangely enough, Solomon—whose behavior enraged God—captures the price of sustained anger. “A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty.” Anger is costly. It creates enormous debts in relationships, many of which we can never fully satisfy with later regret and apologies. But it also exacts a tremendous toll on us. Constantly angry people wind up horribly lonely. No one wants to be subjected to endless flows of poisonous, erratic behavior. Anger makes people unhealthy, and unhealthy to be around. They’re unreasonable, selfish, and sad. It doesn’t take long to realize nothing will make them happy, because they’re hell-bent on being miserable. And even the most patient people remove themselves to invest their energy and optimism in others who’ll appreciate and benefit from them.

What’s most intriguing about Solomon’s counsel is his decision to pair wisdom about hotheads with sound advice for those around them. “If you rescue him once, you will have to do it again.” Anger’s greatest expense is the trouble it causes. Angry partners set fires of humiliation and despondency in those committed to love them for life. Angry parents etch scars of fear and hostility in their children’s hearts. Angry children crush parental confidence and fulfillment. Although specific outcomes vary, all who suffer uncontrolled wrath and struggle unsuccessfully to rescue the angry person share one common emotion—lost hope. The bitterness of failure never fades entirely, nor trepidation about trusting others. Only God can say how many deserving relationships are undone by the ripple effects of foolishly nursed rage.

Power Struggles

Anger issues are basically power struggles. They’re fed by subterranean wells of fear and perceived worthlessness. Think about what makes us angry: suspicions no one notices or cares what happens to us; feeling useless or rejected; disrespect, deceit, and disregard. We give way to anger to reassert our value. Behaviors and situations that don’t challenge our insecurities may annoy us, but they don’t make us mad. Only those tapping into hidden anxieties bring anger to the surface. Outbursts of rage are primitive attempts to regain control—to conquer fear by inflicting it on others, to increase our value by slicing into anyone unfortunately within range. But anger never delivers on its promise. Never in human history has it produced a desirable effect. And frankly, if we actually believe persistent anger can change things for the better, we’re mad fools.

Solomon offers the key to overcoming power struggles brought on by personal insults and injuries. In Proverbs 16.32, he writes, “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.”  (NKJV) Control of situations triggering rage comes by taking control of our anger. Meanness is not might, nor intimidation a show of power. Anger exposes weakness and impotence. It validates the very things it means to disprove. Cruel, vengeful people will do and say everything possible to enrage us, playing us like self-destructive puppets for their personal pleasure. We have two options. We can allow them to string us up and, in doing so, ruin our lives and dozens we touch. Or we can defeat their intentions by letting anger pass and, like our Father, find a better way to resolve our issues. Here’s Solomon’s suggestion in Proverbs 15.1: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” His wisdom cuts both ways; gentleness halts anger in others and in us.

Anger never delivers on its promise. Never in human history has it produced a desirable effect.

(Tomorrow: Homeward Bound)

Repost: Regretting and Rejoicing

A time to mourn and a time to dance…

Ecclesiastes 3.4

Lost Love

Separation and sadness are traveling companions. When people we love leave us, the void left by their absence fills with melancholy and regret. The joy, peace, and contentment they provided are replaced by sorrow, anxiety, and insecurity. The best memories—the ones we cherish—give rise to remorse for not making more of them or fully appreciating those we had. The starkest example, obviously, is the death of a beloved partner, relative, or friend. But separations come in all shapes and sizes—break-ups, relocations, temporary leaves, and even goodbyes after an hour spent with someone we love. “Parting is such sweet sorrow,” Juliet told Romeo following their first tryst. It’s the most compactly comprehensive description we have of what grieving lost love feels like.

Preventable Sorrow

The only feeling worse than mourning is sensing we could have prevented it. John 11 finds Jesus in this situation. Mary and Martha, sisters of His friend, Lazarus, send word he’s dying. Instead of rushing to Lazarus’s bedside, Jesus stays put for two days. He tells the disciples that Lazarus is dead, but He plans to restore His life. When He finally arrives, Mary says, “Lord, if you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” Her grief, and that of Lazarus’s friends, troubles Him. Verse 35 simply states, “Jesus wept.”

It’s a poignant, emotionally raw moment for Jesus, yet its personal intensity doesn’t spare Him from the scrutiny of Mary and Martha’s neighbors. Some are impressed by the love His tears convey. But others criticize Him, saying, “If He can heal the blind, why couldn’t He prevent Lazarus’s death?” It’s an unfortunate situation, making us wonder why Jesus weeps. It isn’t for Lazarus, because He knows His friend will live again. The best reason seems to be regret over not having come sooner, for not having prevented the sorrow of Lazarus’s loss.

Dancing Fools

Most everyone knows the work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the psychiatrist who defined the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Solomon goes beyond “acceptance” to remind us mourning gives way to dancing. Or, as his father, David, wrote: “Weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30.5) Regretting lost loves and preventable sorrow has its time and purpose. But as we experience grief, we remember it’s a process not meant to become a preoccupation. We’re created for rejoicing, to celebrate God’s love and acceptance. On the dance floor, we may epitomize left-footed oxen. But in our hearts, we’re dancing fools born to show the world we’re light on our feet, eager to move after times of sorrow pass.

Mourning times aren’t made to last. Dancing times are.

(Tomorrow: Giving and Gathering)

Repost: Lamenting and Laughing

A time to weep and a time to laugh…

            Ecclesiastes 3.4

Bridges

How is it that we can toss off some things like water under the bridge and others make us want to throw ourselves off the bridge? Do we know for certain which mistakes should be laughed at and which should cause us to weep sorrowfully? Are we confident we can discern trivial slips from serious sins? In fact, are we actually capable or qualified to evaluate the scale and consequences of any mistake we make, intentional or accidental? Here’s the reality of it: the gravity of our mistakes is measured in the eyes of their beholders. It’s not ours to say which are laughable and which are lamentable. Even when our intentions seem innocuous—a good-natured rib about someone’s taste, for example—he/she may view it as a searing personal attack, the latest in a lifelong series of battering insults. On the other hand, we may underestimate another’s self-assurance, and condemn ourselves for a slight that, from their perspective, holds no importance. Before we rashly decide on our own which bridge to take—the lamenting bridge or the laughing bridge—we should sensitize ourselves to the response and signals of others. They’ll tell us what time it is.

The Art of Listening

“My dear brothers, take note of this,” James 1.19 says, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,” adding in verse 26, “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.” The art of listening is the believer’s finest skill. It places others’ feelings and opinions first, thereby fulfilling Christ’s law to love our neighbors as ourselves. It validates their importance not only to us, but also to the world at large. When we gloss over how others react to things we do and say by rushing to explain ourselves, we minimize their sense of personal value. This is always lamentable, regardless of how laughable our original misstep was.

James insists, “The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.” (James 3.5) Miscalculating the impact of what we say from our perspective instead of those we speak to is one of the surest ways to turn laughing moments into weeping times, some of which can last for years. We’ve all experienced this phenomenon on both sides. We’ve all seen random sparks escalate into raging fires that leave wide gulfs of scorched earth between people. Knowing this potential exists keeps us alert to discipline our tongues from shooting off sparks.

Living Words

As children, we countered nasty insults with a smug little proverb: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” What a load that is! The wounding pain of words hangs on long after physical injuries mend. Here’s why: our words are eternal. They’re propelled and borne by our breath—the very same breath God used to inspire our beings and set us apart from all other creation. Once they’re released, they assume lives of their own. They can’t be taken back. They can’t be controlled. Where they travel and whom they reach can’t be managed. We speak living words that can’t die because they’re driven by God’s power.

We can never speak for God, but we must always be aware we speak like Him. Knowing this, we strive to see everyone we meet as He does—unique reflections of His love, power, and majesty. In other words, we address one another with profound awe and respect, considering another's' pleasure and wellbeing above our own. And when we discipline ourselves to communicate His principles and nature—in word and deed—we create times to laugh. Indulging selfishness and pride increases the frequency of times we weep.

The wisdom with which we control what we say determines if our words are lamentable or laughable.

(Tomorrow: Regretting and Rejoicing)

Be Happy

He who despises his neighbor sins; But he who has mercy on the poor, happy is he.

                        Proverbs 14.21 (NKJV)

Poor Things

Years back a young woman from South Carolina named Audrey spent the summer with relatives who attended a church where I served as minister of music. We hit it off immediately and hung out together nearly every day of her visit. We lost touch after she returned home, but Audrey’s memory today is as vividly delightful as ever. She was one of the happiest people I’ve known—always up for adventure, yet also content to while away an afternoon over coffee. A gifted talker, she peppered her conversation with a wealth of catch phrases. When I think of her, though, one especially comes to mind: “Poor thing.”

I first noticed it when I took her to Hollywood. As we looked for parking near Mann’s Chinese Theater, Audrey spotted a homeless man no more than 40, slouched unconscious against a wall, apparently unaware he’d relieved himself. “Poor thing,” she said, and before we looked at star footprints, she insisted we leave him some money. I soon learned “poor thing” was how Audrey conveyed empathy, not sympathy. The impatient driver honking angrily in a traffic jam was a “poor thing.” The sullen box-office attendant was a “poor thing.” Teenagers hassling their waitress were “poor things.” Behaviors others despised Audrey viewed as shortcomings, often adding, “They just don’t know any better.”

Submitting to Sadness

In contrast, when another, older Southerner I knew saw similar situations, she invariably said either, “Ain’t that a shame!” or, “There ought to be a law!” She also had terrific senses of humor and adventure, yet as she aged, it grew increasingly obvious deep down she was miserable. Proverbs 14.21 explains the difference between one’s joy and the other’s moroseness. Audrey related to the sorrow behind bad attitudes, and mercy she extended—often in passing, out of hearing—nourished her happiness. The other, however, never perfected the art of looking past her personal worldview to see the frailties and ignorance driving actions that affronted her. By not tolerating others’ failures, she inadvertently submitted to sadness. Yes, it was a shame. And, as it turns out, there was a law—not one lost in the fine print of Deuteronomy, either, but a basic rule Christ taught over and over.

Judgment is Blind

In Matthew 7.2, Jesus says, “In the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” He enlarges on this by defining eagerness to condemn as lack of self-knowledge. “You get all worked up about a speck of sawdust in your neighbor’s eye,” He says, “while paying no attention to the plank in your own eye.” It’s not a matter of denying our faults are more serious and debilitating than those we find in others. It boils down to ignoring them—or worse yet thinking we justify them by leveraging intolerance and shame on others. We say Justice is blind; it disregards surface differences to uphold universal principles. But judgment is blind also. It flails against problems it can’t see plainly or completely because bigger, darker blind spots impede its sight. “You hypocrite,” Jesus says. “First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

We can’t see, let alone address, sadness in others with untreated sadness in our own lives. This presents a dilemma only resolved by turning logic on its head. Not fully seeing sadness in offenses against us, we know—actually, assume—it’s there. We stop judging to practice justice, ignoring appearances to love our neighbors as ourselves. We empathize, showing mercy before fully perceiving its merits. By judging, we submit to sadness, further blurring our vision. Forgiveness dissolves sadness from our eyes. “He who despises his neighbor sins,” Proverbs 14.21 tells us. “But he who has mercy on the poor, happy is he.” To be happy is to be merciful, sight unseen.

Poor things. When we stop judging and show mercy, we see enormous sadness behind their hateful actions.

(Tomorrow: Watch What You Eat)