by Bowie Snodgrass

Like the kids in Glee, being part of a musical theater group in middle and high school helped me find a place where I fit in.  And growing up a priest’s daughter, being in Godspell at age 14 made me feel like Jesus could be fun and cool.

Godspell shaped my teenage theology.  There are still passages of Matthew that I hear and think of the corresponding Godspell scene, joke, or song; lyrics I see in the Episcopal hymnal and my mind clicks over to the Stephen Schwarz melody.

Godspell is an ensemble piece about Jesus’ love for his people, their love for him, and how Jesus teaches them to love each other (above money, hypocrisy, grievances, etc). “Come sing about Love! That made us first to be. Come sing about Love! That made the stone and tree. Come sing about Love! That draws us lovingly.” “So thank the Lord, Oh thank the Lord for all his love.” “Day by day, Three things I pray: To see thee more clearly, Love thee more dearly, Follow thee more nearly, Day by day.” It’s sincere and simple (very little modern-day irony or Broadway glitz).

I really did love the rest of my troupe in the Olean Theater Workshop when I was 14 and twenty years later, we’re still friends, many now parents, some in ministry, spread-out and in touch via Facebook.

The show was already twenty years old when I was in it in the 90s.  I used to listen to my parent’s copy of the original Broadway soundtrack on vinyl.

I knew the new production would need to improve upon the thousands of high school, college, and community theater productions out there for it to be worthy of a Broadway revival.  And it was.  Amazing.  It kept most of the beloved original material, yet felt completely fresh with up-to-date cultural references and dance moves.

In last night’s production, lines struck me with new power.  Lyrics resonated deeper.  I cried, laughed, and clapped (in that order).

A few people I went with commented that Jesus was blond and John the Baptist/Judas was black, but I was struck by the diversity of the rest of the young cast: Latino, Asian, African American, Jewish, gay, straight, thick and thin.  They looked like NYC and America.  And it felt like they really loved each other.

In a Playbill interview about Godspell, composer and lyricist Stephen Schwarz says, “there’s a joy that comes from the story and also from the theatrical experience… actors and energy and words and music and the exhilaration that the theatre provides.”

I pray this production runs a long, long time, so that a new generation can be exhilarated by a fun, cool Jesus musical.  And I want to go back once or twice more!

A couple of years ago, I was talking to some friends at a seminary, and they started discussing an ancient Christology that eventually was declared heresy. According to the understanding of the nature of Jesus that was developed in Adoptionism, he was born as an ordinary human and then “adopted” by God at his baptism as God’s spirit, shaped like a dove, descended on him; God’s nature and God’s power did not enter into Jesus until this moment. Two of my friends argued that they believed this to be true, that God’s nature and God’s power could not possibly have rested in an infant’s body.

There was something very disturbing about this idea to me. I want to believe that incarnation means that God understands what it is like to live with the fragility and limitation that being human entails. I want to believe that God knows what it is like to be poor, hungry, tired, unable to communicate clearly, and dependent on people for life itself. When I need God and can’t even put words to my prayer, I want to believe that God “remembers” what it was like.

The scripture in the lectionary for today, the second Sunday of Advent, is Isaiah 11:1-10. It begins, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” This image speaks to me of fragility, of the seedling that needs protection, of the green life that needs care to thrive. This Advent, I am keeping watch for fragile things, the green shoot bursting into my life from some dark corner, the infant idea that needs my help to hold up its head, the emergence of God in delicate and breakable moments. Oh come, oh come Emanuel.

This has gotten me thinking about the nature of the texts contained in the Bible. The question of whether the Bible is the “inerrant Word of God” is such a hangup issue for so many churches – it’s used as a litmus test to determine whether a believer is a “true Christian” or whether a teacher is a “false Prophet.” When the final version of the Torah was put together (probably shortly after the Babylonian Exile), did the redactors suspect it’d be used as scripture? Well, yeah, they probably did. When Paul wrote his letter to Philemon, did he suspect that it’d be read in churches thousands of years later and declared “the Word of the Lord, thanks be to God?” No, he probably didn’t.

In Jewish copies of the Bible, the books are clearly separated between Scripture (Torah), Prophecy (Nevi’im), and Writings (Ketuvim). In Christianity, the lines between the three are much, much more ambiguous, whether we’re talking about the Psalms or the writings of Paul. Since I’m much more familiar with the Psalms, I’ll focus on them.

1) Prayer. The Psalms were written by people, and are a representative of the ways humanity prays. The Psalms were written over a period of centuries, and some of them were written by poets, others by liturgists, others by members of the royal court, and others adopted from the hymns of other cultures. The cover the gamut of human emotion, including joy, hope, despair, anger, loneliness, indignation, thanksgiving, love, and patriotism, and in so doing they provide models for our own prayers.

In Jewish practice, Psalms are not chanted with the same trope as scripture; rather, they are changed like prayers. Similarly, monastic practice constructs round-the-clock services of psalm reading and psalm singing in order to follow Paul’s exhortation to “pray without ceasing.”

2) Scripture. Many people, of course, believe that the 150 canonical Psalms were divinely inspired, and therefor are not only a record of humanity speaking of God but also of God speaking to humanity. Personally, I do believe that the Psalms are divinely inspired, but I don’t give God credit for the word-for-word version of the Psalms we have in our Bibles today. Is God responsible for splitting Psalm 9/10 in half? How about Psalm 42/43? And why did God choose to omit Psalm “151,” a Davidic psalm which is contained in the Septuagint but not in the Masoretic text, while including Psalm 104, which is suspiciously similar to the Great Hymn to Aten, an Egyptian prayer?

Then there’s the fact that the Psalms contain so much brokenness, pain, and violent imagery. Although I can fully support the idea that people have these feelings and deal with them by bringing them to God, it’s harder for me to imagine that God endorses smashing the heads of our enemy’s children on rocks (Psalm 137). I do believe that the Psalms are scripture, but they were inspired by God, not written by God.

3) Prophecy. And, finally, lots of people treat the Psalms as prophetic books, interpreting many of the royal Psalms to be about Jesus rather than the Davidic monarchy. (People who subscribe to this idea use the word “prophecy” to mean “predicting the future” rather than “speaking God’s justice to those in power,” i.e. Malachi rather than Nathan.)¬† Although I do believe that the Hebrew Bible points towards the messianic truth revealed in Jesus, I don’t think it’s reasonable to ignore what the Biblical writers were actually writing about him, i.e. I think Isaiah really was talking about Cyrus the Great of Persia, that Psalm 45 really is about a royal wedding, and that Ezekiel really is talking about the end of the the Babylonian Exile.

Now it’s worth noting that the canonical Book of Psalms does have a strong apocalyptic bent to it, promising a messianic era when all will be made right in the world. This isn’t directly contained in the texts, however, but rather in the order in which the Psalms are arranged:

• Psalm 1: The Righteous flourish and the Wicked are punished. Good deeds are rewarded by God. This Psalm expresses how the world ought to be in the eyes of the person who compiled the Book of Psalms.

• Psalm 2: The King is anointed by God and is told to be wise and to serve God. This admonishment can be extended to everyone who reads the Psalms.

• Psalm 3: The Psalmist laments about persecution and general troubles. The person who compiled the Book of Psalms uses this to show us that the vision of the world presented in Psalm 1 is not the situation in the actual world – in the real world, the Wicked are often victorious and the Righteous are often sick, broken, and persecuted.

• Psalms 4-144: These Psalms detail the range of human experience, as well as a history of God’s covenant with humanity.

• Psalms 145-150: The are joyous psalms of exuberant praise, claiming that the entire world, all humanity and all creation, is of one mind in the worship of God. The compiler of the Psalms put them at the end to demonstrate that this is how the world will be in the future, so we should have hope in our coming deliverance.

So whether or not the individual Psalms were meant to be prophetic, the canonical Psalter has a prophetic and apocalyptic message superimposed on them. The fact that this message is not original to the texts doesn’t, however, mean that it’s not a message worth paying attention to, just as the superscriptions to the psalms are worth reading even though they are later additions to the texts.

Which is these is the “correct” way to read the Psalms?¬† Or, for that matter, the Bible in general?¬† I don’t think that question has an answer, for abandoning any of these three modes or reading makes the Bible less rich.

In any case, this week we’re featuring Stephanie Spellers, author of Radical Welcome and pastor of the The Crossing, a very cool emergent community in Boston.  We talk about Psalm 24, the idea of welcome, and the difficulties of trying to have an open table.

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[audio:epp024.mp3]

The Characters:

• Siddhartha
• Jesus

The Setting :

There is a large projected image in the background ‚Äì on one side, a very round golden Buddha statue.¬† On the other side, an emaciated, bloody, crucified Christ.¬† As the play begins, SIDDHARTHA sits up, meditating.¬† JESUS is curled on the ground asleep.¬† Then he awakens…

JESUS : …Where am I?¬† Ow…¬† My head…¬† I was praying…in a garden…¬† I must have fallen asleep.

SIDDHARTHA : I also fell asleep, beneath a tree.  I saw you here sleeping.  I recognized you.

JESUS : Yeah, I do a lot of public speaking.  That bit about the sower of seeds, who just scatters them, willy-nilly?  I came up with that.  The crowds love it.

SIDDHARTHA : …Ah, yes.¬† A joke.¬† For in truth there is no sower.¬† There are no seeds.

JESUS : …Well, not literally, no.¬† It’s just a story.

SIDDHARTHA : But your…stand-up comedy is not how I know you.¬† I’ve seen you in visions, worshiped¬† as the Christ, the only son of God, who was with God before all things came into being.

JESUS : (Pause.¬† Then he laughs) Oh!¬† So you’re the comedian.¬† Only son of God!¬† That’s rich!¬† Just wait till I tell the guys I hang out with!¬† I couldn’t use it my routine, though, because it’s…you know…blasphemy.

SIDDHARTHA : Ah, yes.  You people fear your God.  But perhaps God does not exist.

JESUS : …Don’t say things like that when I’ve got a…headache like this…¬† Ah, well.¬† At least I don’t feel like that guy…¬† (Indicates the image of the crucified Christ)

SIDDHARTHA : …Not yet apparently.¬† But give it a couple days.¬† For that suffering figure on the cross is you.

JESUS : …WHAT!?¬† A cross!?

SIDDHARTHA : You were praying in a garden.¬† So this very night you shall be betrayed, handed over to the Romans.¬† They will put you to death…and then in the third century they will raise you up as their God.¬† Emperors will use your name to keep the impoverished masses from rising up against them.

JESUS : …Now I think I’m gonna be sick!¬† You mean to tell me I’m about to get hung up naked, die on a cross, and then turned into a God?¬† Why can’t I turn into a God now so I can avoid all that?

SIDDHARTHA : It is your karma.  And the cross shall become a symbol of your power.

JESUS : After I’ve died on one?¬† Slowly?¬† Painfully?¬† Naked?¬† And then I’ll become a tool in the hands of the oppressors?

SIDDHARTHA : Yes.

JESUS : Then I’d almost be inclined to agree that there’s no God.¬† Except…who else could have such a sick, twisted sense of humor?¬† But hold on a minute now…¬† As my head clears I think I recognize you too.¬† Puff your stomach out.

SIDDHARTHA : Like…this?

JESUS : Yes.¬† And now your cheeks.¬† Like you’re holding your breath.¬† Ah!¬† I see it now!¬† I’ve also had a vision of you, all fat and jolly.

SIDDHARTHA : …Perhaps you mistake me for your good friend Santa Claus?

JESUS : No, no, you were plated in gold, like…¬† Like that guy!¬† In the picture!¬† There you are!

SIDDHARTHA : I…beg your pardon…

JESUS : Can’t you see the resemblance?

SIDDHARTHA : Absolutely not.¬† Look at me!¬† I’ve spent the last six years starving myself beneath a tree!¬† I’m skin and bone!

JESUS : You shall be called the Buddha, the Enlightened One.¬† Although ‘the heavy one’ would be more appropriate.¬† Monks will observe strict doctrine based on your teachings, temples will be built.¬† King Ashoka will use your teachings to pacify and rule his vast Indian empire.

SIDDHARTHA: But this is not what I desired!¬† I don’t even have any desires!

JESUS : Of course not.¬† What’s left to desire when you’ve eaten that much food?

SIDDHARTHA : Look who’s talking!¬† I’ve heard rumors about you ‚Äì a glutton and a drunk, friend of tax-collectors and prostitutes.

JESUS : …Says the guy who abandoned his wife and child to go sit under a tree and pretend he didn’t exist.

SIDDHARTHA : I don’t exist.¬† My physical body, my historical identity ‚Äì none of this matters.¬† Only my teachings of the Dharma are real.

JESUS : There will be great struggles and divisions over a correct doctrine of your teaching that can be applied to all Buddhists.

SIDDHARTHA : An no less division ‚Äì not to mention bloodshed ‚Äì over a ‘correct’ dogma for Christianity.

JESUS : What, you mean there won’t be enough blood, from me being crucified?¬† People will need to go spill more?

SIDDHARTHA : I’ll do you one better, grasshopper.¬† Your followers will be so hot for blood, they’re gonna pretend to drink it.¬† Every week.

JESUS : This is insane!  I wanted to put an end to sacrifices!

SIDDHARTHA : And you will.  But the sacrifice of you will be ritually repeated every week for two thousand years.

JESUS : I can’t believe it.¬† I’ve spent my life fighting rigid religious structures and empty piety…

SIDDHARTHA : I sought to free people from the control of corrupt Vedic priests.

JESUS : …Have we failed?

SIDDHARTHA : Eh.¬† If you can’t beat ‘em…they’ll wait till after you’re dead, and say you joined ‘em.

This novel was probably written to caution people entering the industrial age ‚Äì be careful what you design to aid in human life, there will be consequences. But when I think of this story, I see another parallel, that I do not believe the author intended. Some of us may be aware of a book…called The Bible. Written over the course of more than a thousand years, assembled in its final form some seventeen hundred years ago. Built from scraps of the past, to represent all that’s best about humanity. Designed to bring a message of hope and compassion for the future. And it keeps on asking us, ‚Äúwhen are you going to fulfill the promises made on these pages?‚Äù And in fear and dread we run from it. And it follows us. And sometimes it hurts us, and the ones we love.

Part of the way the Bible hurts us is with ancient laws from distant times and places. For example, three rules from the book of Deuteronomy…

Deuteronomy 22:5 A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does such things is [hateful] to the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 25:9 [If a man refuses to marry his dead brother's widow then she] shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and…Throughout Israel his family shall be known as “the house of him whose sandal was pulled off.”

Deuteronomy 25:11-12 If [two] men get into a fight…and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband…by reaching out and seizing his [opponent's] genitals, you shall cut off her hand; show no pity.

These are issues that some of us deal with every day. Even in this very room, I see women wearing pants. And I see men who would not be alive right now, if their wives hadn’t helped out in a fight. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of these laws, each one established in the hope of helping people. Yet still, the Bible follows us, in the form of people who will call us evil, tell us we will burn, and they’ve got the Biblical passage to prove it.

Jesus was something of a rebel ‚Äì one way to look at his ministry in the Gospels would be to say that he tried to lighten the load of rules, pare it down, simplify things. The book of Deuteronomy gives us ten commandments, Jesus pares it down to two. Love the Lord your God, and Love your neighbor as yourself. But no sooner was Jesus gone than the early Christians went right back to the old drawing board, coming up with more rules. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he says…

1 Corinthians 5:11-13 …I am writing to you not to associate with anyone…who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one…”Drive out the wicked person from among you.”

Whoa! What about Jesus, dining with prostitutes?

1 Corinthians 11:1-6 [Paul says] Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ…Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife… Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head– it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair.

1 Peter 2:17-20 …Fear God. Honor the emperor. Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all [respect], not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you if…you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.

For this article I was given the title ‚ÄúMy love/hate relationship with the Bible.‚Äù And at first I thought ‚Äì I don’t hate the Bible! My father, an episcopal priest, once heard me say I hated someone and he said ‘Johnny, you don’t hate that person. To hate someone means you would be happy if they died.’ And so I guess it’s true, yeah, I do hate that first letter of Peter. I would be happy if it was never heard again. Maybe everybody here can think of some passage from the Bible that told them to shut up, or told them to stay in an abusive relationship with a person or an institution or a government. Maybe some people here have been told that the Bible hates them, that the Bible itself would be happy if they died.

I remember someone once asking me how it felt to know that my soul would burn for all eternity. Then, she made the mistake of saying every member of the Pink Floyd would be there too, which made the situation seem less dire.

And I ask these people…have you read the Bible?

The Hebrew Bible says thirteen times, five in the book of Deuteronomy, to help the widow and the orphan. And sure, you hear all kinds of things about people using the Bible as an excuse to turn wives into widows, to turn children into orphans…that’s the monster, following us again…but it says to help them.

Leviticus twenty-five says that just as people are meant to rest on the seventh day, the Earth is meant to rest on the seventh year. No reaping, no plowing, no farming. But wouldn’t we all starve? Ye of little faith. But just imagine how different our environmental situation would be if people took THIS part of the book literally, if the land we farm to death, had a chance to heal itself.

Later, Leviticus twenty-five says that people should conduct their business for seven times seven years – forty-nine years. And every fiftieth year, there should be a year of Jubilee. The trumpets will sound, and liberty shall be proclaimed throughout the land, everyone would go back to their homes and families.

LEV 25:11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. 12 For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy… you shall eat only what the field itself produces… 19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live on it securely.

In that fiftieth year, people will not cheat each-other, and anyone who has overcharged for land will pay back the difference. Can you imagine that, in your lease contracts? People who have lost their homes will have a chance to buy them back without inflation ‚Äì or, if you can’t afford it, it’ll be given back. Imagine the debts that the poorest countries in the world owe to our government ‚Äì and our government, founded on this Bible, is foreclosing, no mention of the Jubilee in our constitution. Some scholars have said that Jesus in the Gospel of Luke was asking for this forgiveness of debts, and restoration of humanity. But people who couldn’t think past written laws killed him for it. You could say that the monster killed Jesus ‚Äì I’m not talking about the Judeans, I mean the will to use sacred text as a weapon.

I don’t want to go on and on, I don’t need to. This monster chases us and attacks us, but it can only hurt us as long as we run away, and dread it. If you sit down with this monster, as Doctor Frankenstein should have done with his monster, if you really listen to it… You’ll find that all the best in humanity, the love and compassion and hope, is still there. Yeah, the Bible can be ugly. But if that novel Frankenstein teaches us nothing else, it’s not to judge a book by its cover.

Presentation given by J.Snodgrass for the Marble Collegiate Church Young Adults 20s/30s

Every year, the gap between rich and poor gets wider. The title I was given for this presentation – “Rich and poor, two worlds…” reminded me that in economic terms we actually have three worlds on this Earth ‚Äì the first world, capitalism, the second world, communism, and the third world, “other,” which has become synonymous with whole nations of people living in abject poverty. The recent disaster in New Orleans was yet another reminder that, although America is a first-world country, there’s a third world in here, too, a small nation’s worth of people that our own government left behind and forgot once the first-class citizens had been rescued.

Every year the chasm gets wider, and every year I’m reminded of a story Jesus told in the Gospel according to Luke chapter sixteen, about an un-breach-able chasm.

Luke 16:19-26

“There was a rich man…dressed in purple and fine linen who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.

In Hell, where he was being tormented, [the rich man] looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’

But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus [got nothing]; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’

So here we’ve got this rich man, dead, suffering, and what does he say to Abraham? ‘Send that boy down here, that poor boy that used to lie outside my gates, tell him to fetch me some water.’ Even dead, burning in Hell, this rich man has not learned his lesson. But the chasm cannot be traveled, even if Lazarus had wanted to. This rich man could have spared himself all that suffering, if he had bridged the chasm in life, but never had he reached out to invite this poor man to his table. The story continues…

Luke 16:27-31

[The rich man] said, ‘Then…I beg you to send [Lazarus] to my father’s house– for I have five brothers– that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ [Abraham answered], ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

How correct Abraham’s words proved to be. Because later in Luke chapter twenty-four, someone does rise from the dead. And from that time to this, two thousand years, every Easter Sunday Jesus rises from the dead again to tell the rich man and his five brothers how sorry they will someday be…for not bridging that chasm, for not inviting that poor man to their table. And every year on Easter Monday the stock-exchanges open again, tracts of land are bought and sold out from under peoples’ feet. The price of fruit goes up and someone goes to bed hungry. The price of fruit goes down and someone wakes up without a job. And the dogs just keep on licking that poor man’s open, running sores.

It’s a good thing dog-saliva contains natural antibiotics, because that’s the only kind of health-care a lot of people can afford. I know that’s nasty. When I was a migrant construction-worker, we’d come in all bloody at the end of the day, and the dog was our medic ‚Äì we didn’t even have band-aids.

“Rich and Poor: Two Worlds, One Family.” The family aspect of this reminds me of something else Jesus used to say… “A father had two sons…” Jesus begins a couple of his parables this way, the most famous being the Prodigal Son. Two brothers born equal, each entitled to half of their father’s estate, but one of them is, well, prodigal, which means ‘wasteful, recklessly extravagant.’ And he blows his share of the wealth and ends up feeding pigs in a foreign land, then returns to ask for work as a day-laborer, and the father welcomes him home with open arms.

But Jesus was not by far the first in the Bible to use ‘two sons’ to represent the different worlds in our human family. Going all the way back to Genesis, when Adam and Eve had two sons. One of them, Cain, was a farmer, he settled on some land and grew crops, and stored up his goods. Their other son, Abel, was a wandering shepherd, he never had more than the animals in his flock, and the shirt on his back. But when they each made sacrifices to the Lord ‚Äì Cain from the surplus of his wealth, Abel from the bits of his sustenance, the Lord preferred what Abel offered. Then Cain smashed his brother’s head and stashed the body.

Abraham had two sons. One was Ishmael, born of an affair with an Egyptian servant-girl, Hagar. The other was Isaac, born later with his wife Sarah. And when Isaac was born, Sarah demanded that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away. As we read in Genesis twenty-one…

Gen 21:14-21

So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness… When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes…and sat down opposite him a good way off, [saying] “Do not let me look upon the death of my child.” And…she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the [cries of mother and child and] called to Hagar from heaven… “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for [I have] heard the voice of [Ishmael] where he is. Come, lift up the boy…for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well… She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. God was with [Ishmael], and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow.

One of Abraham’s sons inherited his father’s lands and fortune, while the other received nothing but a loaf of bread and a bag of water. And yet from the Lord, both sons received the promise, and Ishmael who had nothing, became the father of a mighty nation.

Abraham and Sarah’s son Isaac…had two sons. Twins, but definitely not identical. The first-born was Esau, and as we read in Genesis twenty-five, he was born covered in red fur, like wool. Reading further in Genesis twenty-five…

Genesis 25:26-34

Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob [which means "ankle-grabber"]… When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents… Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from [working in] the field, and…said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!” …Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.”

Esau’s birthright was his share in the promise of his grandfather Abraham, to inherit lands and become a founding father of a great nation. But unlike his brother Jacob, who lingered in the tents with the servant-girls, Esau knew how to fend for himself, how to farm the fields and hunt for food. Esau didn’t need the promise to survive, he traded his share of it for a bowl of stew. Later, Jacob tricks Esau again, and this time he steals something that does matter to his brother ‚Äì the dying blessing of their father. Esau was enraged, and Jacob fled to spend years hiding from him. And while Jacob became known as Israel, stumbling through misadventures, fathering twelve sons who became the twelve tribes, Esau kept right on working, and became a wealthy and powerful man of the land.

Years later, the two sons of Isaac and Rebekah met again ‚Äì Jacob was wandering around with his wives, servant-girls and twelve rag-tag kids, and sent gifts of livestock ahead, for fear of his brother’s anger…

Genesis 33:1-15

Now Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids. He put the maids with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all. He himself went on ahead of them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near his brother. But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him…and kissed him, and they wept.

When Esau looked up and saw the women and children, he said, “Who are these with you?” Jacob said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.” [The maids, Leah, Rachel, and their children bowed down before Esau, who asked,] “What do you mean by all [the livestock you sent me?]” Jacob answered, “To find favor with you, my lord.”

But Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.” Jacob said, “No, please; if I find favor with you, then accept my gift…for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God– since you have received me with such favor.”

Jesus probably knew this story well, of the wandering son, crawling back to grovel at the feet of his wealthy brother. In this case, their father is dead, but Esau welcomes Jacob with open arms. And seeing the forgiveness in Esau’s face, Jacob compares it with the face of God. As was the case in the Prodigal Son, the chasm is bridged between rich and poor, between the two worlds in this one family, so that another chasm will not have to divide them in the life to come.

Sadly, war in the East is nothing new ‚Äì some of us may remember Operation Desert-Storm. Some of the older ones among us may remember…the Crusades… There might even be a person or two in the room who remember the Hebrews invading Israel some thirty-three hundred years ago, and how they were in turn attacked by the Philestines, the Persians, the Babylonians and the Romans… And those who remember all that ‚Äì what are you still doing in the 20′s/30′s group? You know who you are…

With all this history of conflict, the question is…How do we bring peace to a warring world? And to answer the question, I’ve opened the lines for some Biblical figures to give us their unput. Hello?

GOLIATH : Urrrrrr…

NARRATOR : Ur to you too. Who may I ask is calling?

GOLIATH : I am Goliath.

NARRATOR : And where are you calling from?

GOLIATH : Gath.

NARRATOR : And how is Gath this time of year?

GOLIATH : Urrrrrr…

NARRATOR : Same here in New York, I hear ya. So we’re wondering. How would you bring peace to a warring world?

GOLIATH : I would stand against the enemy forces, wave my spear at them and shout out ‚ÄúChoose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. If he is able to kill me, then we will be your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us… Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and [your bones] to the wild animals of the field.” (1 Samuel 17:8-9, 17:44)

NARRATOR : …Well yes, that’s one way of bringing peace, but…

GOLIATH : Also I would call them cowards. And fools. Foolish cowards.

NARRATOR : Alright, thanks. And I see we’ve got another caller. This is..?

SAMSON : This is Samson. You can tell that fool Goliath I killed a thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey, so I bet I could take him down with the beak of a sparrow. (Judges 13:15)

NARRATOR : Um… We’re talking about peace here. How would we bring peace to a warring world?

SAMSON : Oh yeah, um… Well, you let me know how that works out. But if it doesn’t, all I ask is a fresh supply of jawbones and I’ll take on any army.

NARRATOR : Thanks. Okay. Alright. Um. So. Are there any callers who’d like to tell us something about bringing peace to a warring world? Hello?

JAEL : (Pronounced ‚ÄúYah-El‚Äù) Hi, this is Jael. I think, with these men always so hot to clash against each-other on the battle-field, it’s no wonder we never have peace. If you want war, ask men. But if you want peace, you should be asking the women.

NARRATOR : And how would you bring peace about?

JAEL : Well, I remember when there was a terrible battle near my tent, the Canaanites attacked, our men fought bravely, and the Canaanites went into retreat. Their commander, Sisera, snuck into my tent to hide. And even though he was the enemy of my people, I let him in, gave him some water and a place to sleep. (Judges 4:17-20)

NARRATOR : And did your kindness change his disposition?

JAEL : I don’t know if my kindness changed him…because while he was sleeping I took a hammer and drove a tent-peg through his head till it sunk into the ground. (Judges 4:21, 5:24-27)

NARRATOR : Ow…

JAEL : But things definitely got more peaceful after that.

NARRATOR : Um, you know? While we’re on the phone, I think maybe I should…cancel my reservation at your Bed-n-Breakfast, I, um… Something…came up. Urgent.

JAEL : I understand.

NARRATOR : What about prophets? Any prophets out there with a word about peace? Jeremiah, is that you?

JEREMIAH : “The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes true, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.” (Jeremiah 28:8-9)

NARRATOR : And how likely does that seem?

JEREMIAH : Not very.

NARRATOR : Is there no-one who will speak for peace?

ZECHARIAH : Hello? Hello?

NARRATOR : Hello?

ZECHARIAH : Got my voice back just in time! You see, I’d lost it for a while. This is Zechariah, husband of Elizabeth, father of John the Baptizer.

NARRATOR : Quite a resume. And do you have some words of comfort for us?

ZECHARIAH : ‚ÄúBlessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us…that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant…that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days… By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.‚Äù (Luke 1:68-79 Abbreviated)

NARRATOR : Thank you, Zechariah. And our other callers, you were…helpful too. And now, rather than a word from our sponsors, I’d like to share a passage from Isaiah, chapter fifty-seven.

‚ÄúIt shall be said, ‘Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstruction from my people’s [path].’ For thus says the [Lord]: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not continually accuse, nor will I always be angry; for then the spirits would grow faint before me, even the souls that I have made. Because of their wicked covetousness I was angry; I struck them, I hid… I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will lead them and repay them with comfort, creating for mourners the fruit of [song on their] lips. Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the Lord; and I will heal them. (Isaiah 57:14-19, Abbreviated)

Come to The Bridge! Experience God through monthly worship gatherings that touch the soul and offer practical ways to do justice in our city. This month’s talk is on Shalom and the Fall by executive director Lisa Sharon Harper.

How has our world come so far from God’s original intent? How were the relationships God established at creation corrupted and the Fall? And what is God’s plan for restoring and redeeming His world? Come consider these questions and more throughout the Spring as NY Faith & Justice launches The Shalom Series

12-2pm, Third Christian Church, 46 Hamilton Place, Manhattan

-or-

Meeting the Devil’s Advocate in the Desert

By j. Snodgrass

Presented 3 February, 2008

READERS :

Narrator (Bible Student)

“Luke” (Author of the Gospel According to Luke)

Jesus (Live Free or Die)

Devil (Advocate of Alternate Strategies)

Moses (Supposed Giver-of-the-Law in Deuteronomy)

NARRATOR : Today, in honor of the Lenten Lectionary, we’re going to take a look at my all-time favorite Biblical passage – The temptation of Jesus in the desert, in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter four, verses one to thirteen. As a matter of fact, I love this passage so much, we’re going to hear it twice!

‚ÄúLUKE‚Äù : Jesus…was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him,

DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

JESUS : “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”

“LUKE” : The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

DEVIL : “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”

JESUS : “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’”

“LUKE” : The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.

DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
‘He will command his angels…to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

JESUS : “It [is written]: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

“LUKE” : When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left [Jesus] until an opportune time.

NARRATOR : Great. Man, there’s a lot in there. What we’re going to do now, is hear this scene again. But this time, we’ll have a running commentary track, from a Bible Student, and also from Moses. Now what’s Moses got to do with this? Well, throughout this scene, it seems like every line Jesus says begins with ‘it is written’ – these are all references to the book of Law РDeuteronomy, which is said to be the transcript of Moses’s farewell speech. So, if we’re all ready, let’s press play again, this time with commentary…

‚ÄúLUKE‚Äù : Jesus…was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil [came] to him,

NARRATOR : When the author says ‚Äúthe devil‚Äù here, it’s probable he was talking about…Satan… And it’s worth taking a quick look at this character of‚ĶSatan‚Ķ Or, Ha-Satan (Pronounced Hah-Sah-Tahn) as the case may be. If you were an Ancient Near-Eastern King, your word was law ‚Äì you were considered a God to your people. And you had a council of advisors, but basically it was their job to say…

ALL READERS : ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

NARRATOR : And if they said no, you chopped off their thumbs and big toes. But there‚Äôs only so many times the King can decree that ‘Friday shall be Hawaiian shirt day’ or ‘From henceforth we shall all speak in Jamaican accents, man’ or whatever, before the populace gets antsy. So there was one person in the King‚Äôs court whose job it was to say ‚ÄúMmmmm…No.‚Äù And no matter what the king decreed, this person had to come up with an argument against it ‚Äì let‚Äôs call it ‚ÄòPlaying Devil‚Äôs Advocate.‚Äô

This person‚Äôs job-title was a word meaning ‚ÄúAdversary‚Äù or ‚ÄúAccuser‚Äù ‚Äì ‚ÄúSatan.‚Äù This name or title only appears in three books of the Old Testament ‚Äì brief cameos in Chronicles and Psalm 109, and then a scene in the book of Job. In first Chronicles, 21:1: ‚ÄúSatan…incited David to take a census of Israel. So David said… “Go and count the Israelites…Then report back to me.”

Sounds innocent enough. But why would King David take a census of Israel? The same reason as now – taxation and the draft. So in a way, it makes perfect sense to say the Devil tempted him to do this, and of course the result was a disaster. The Lord was so furious with David that he sent a plague to kill seventy thousand men. (1 Chronicles 21:14)

[The Lord was so furious with David, that he offered the king three options: 1 Chronicles 21:12 “three years of famine, three months of being swept away before your enemies…or three days of the sword of the LORD - days of plague in the land, with the angel of the LORD ravaging every part of Israel.' (David chose three days of attack at the hands of the merciful God, who killed only seventy thousand men – 1 Chronicles 21:14). This is what King David got for listening to his Satan.]

But even the King of Kings, Lord of Lords – even the Most High God, was thought to have such an advisor. As we read in the book of Job…

Job 1:6-12

One day the Heavenly Beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered… “From roaming through the earth…”

Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

Some of Job’s eleven thousand animals were stolen, the rest were destroyed by fire from the sky. His servants were slaughtered, a house collapsed on his seven sons and three daughters, and his skin was stricken with boils. Even his wife said ‚ÄúJust curse the Lord and die ‚Äì get it over with!‚Äù (Job 2:9) But Job‚Äôs response was not what the Satan expected. In Job 1:21, Job looked out over the devastation of all he once had and said ‚ÄúNaked was I born and naked will I die. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, his name be praised.‚Äù (Job 1:21) And at the end of the book, Job’s fortunes are restored, with new children and more animals than he had before.

So now we jump forward again to Jesus in the wilderness, full of the spirit. He’s got a plan ‚Äì speak out against authority, and get himself killed in the most agonizing, humiliating, excruciating way possible ‚Äì and when I say ‚ÄúEx-Cruc-iating,‚Äù I mean EX-ecution on the Cruce/Crux/CROSS, in more pain than it would take to give birth to septuplets EIGHT times in a row. And in comes Satan, or the Sah-Tahn, to tell Jesus he has another option…

DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

JESUS : “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”

NARATOR : Moses?

MOSES : Deuteronomy eight, two to five – Remember how the LORD your God led you…in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know…whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you…to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

“LUKE” : The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

DEVIL : “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”

JESUS : “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

NARRATOR : Aaaand let’s pass the mic to Moe…again…

MOSES : Deuteronomy six, thirteen to fifteen – Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods…for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.

“LUKE” : The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.

DEVIL : “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

NARRATOR : Here the devil quotes from Psalm 91, a battle-hymn of courage for those who believe in the Lord.

Psalm 91 [Wildly Abbreviated]

5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day,

6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys [in the afternoon].

7 A thousand may fall at your side…but…

9 If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge-

10 then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.

11 For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;

12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra…trample the great [beast] and the serpent.

JESUS : “It [is written]: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

NARAROR : One…Moe…time…

MOSES : Deuteronomy six sixteen – Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah.

NARRATOR : “Massah” was where the Israelites, weary and thirsty from being led through the desert, cried out against Moses. The Lord caused water to flow from a stone for them, and they named the place “Massah,” which means “Testing” because there they had put the Lord to the test. (Exodus 17:3-7)

“LUKE” : When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left [Jesus] until an opportune time.

Now we’ve heard two very different versions of this story. First, we heard a story in which God’s ultimate messenger for Good, Jesus, faced off against God’s ultimate messenger for Evil, the Devil. A classic struggle, a clash of titans, an ideological battle with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Righteousness prevails.

But it’s the second story we heard that interests me more. A young person, guided by faith, has chosen to speak out against authority, to do what he or she believes in, even at the cost of his or her own life. And someone else ‚Äì maybe someone evil…or maybe a friend or lover, an trusted advisor, even a caring parent…says ‚ÄúWhat about food? Security? What about climbing the corporate ladder? Why don’t you run for president? If you’re so righteous, so faithful ‚Äì why not let God take care of you? Don’t you want to live?‚Äù

My father is an Episcopal priest. His great goal in life is to die for what he believes in ‚Äì to stand against unjust authority, and be executed for it. But that’s not his goal for me. He’s always telling me to take the safer path, get a middle-class job with insurance and whatnot. That doesn’t make him evil, it makes him a responsible parent. My goal is also to fight the system, and if need be, to die for what I believe in. But now I’m a father too, and the minute my son shows any sign of rebellion I’ll be saying ‚ÄúMy son ‚Äì go with the flow. Get a job, settle down, take it easy, and live.‚Äù Don’t get me wrong ‚Äì I’m not condoning sympathy for the devil, or saying we’re all Luke Skywalker today and Darth Vader tomorrow. The point is that even for Jesus, light of the world, no choice was ever truly black and white.

I have never been propositioned by a crimson-red man with horns and a tail, offering me the world on a plate (if choices were so clear ‚Äì why would we even need this cryptic Bible for enigmatic guidance?). But I have been propositioned, offered things, position, power, whatever, by people. Sometimes people I know and trust, sometimes people I don’t ‚Äì sometimes by people who hold worldly authority over me. When I’m faced with temptation, I ask myself the obvious question ‚Äì What would Jesus say? But of course, Jesus couldn’t ask himself this question… ‚ÄúWhat would I say?‚Äù Jesus looked to HIS heroes, often Moses and Isaiah. In this case, he found in the words of Moses the guidance he needed to fend off the Satan’s temptation. But the story does not end there, as we see, the Devil only departs from Jesus ‚Äúuntil the opportune time.‚Äù Worldly temptation will last as long as the world endures, but now as we face it, with the words of prophets in our hearts, we have another hero to consult as well. Jesus, who could not be swayed by temptation, even when it meant his own death.