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Chapter-a-Day

Polarized Parties, Powder Keg Issues, and Paul

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Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee,descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.”
Acts 23:6 (NIV)

One of the things I’ve observed along my journey is our human penchant for thinking our current events and circumstances are somehow unique in human history. The Teacher of Ecclesiastes wisely said, “there’s nothing new under the sun.” As a student of history I can usually find times and events in recorded history which were much worse than whatever it is that’s happening in the headlines today.

There is no doubt that we are living in a time of polarization in political thought and the results have been tumultuous. The time of Jesus and the following decades of Paul’s ministry that we’re reading about in Acts were also tumultuous times in which there was polarization of both political and religious thought. Conflict, terrorism, and riots were a part of their landscape just as they are in ours today.

In today’s chapter, Paul uses this polarization of thought and the rabid, inherent conflict as part of his chess game with the religious Jewish leaders and their local Roman occupiers. Paul is standing before the same religious council that condemned Jesus to death and he knows they’re just as thirsty for his blood to be spilled. Paul, however, holds a trump card with his Roman citizenship (see my previous post). Standing next to him is a Roman military commander, known as a Tribune. Paul needs the Romans to take over his case.

It’s important to remember that Paul was raised and trained in Jerusalem as a lawyer. He would have known some of the men on this council. He knew their polarized religious beliefs as well as their corresponding hot button issues. Once again I find that Paul is not a random victim of circumstance. Paul is on a mission. He is driving the action.

Paul knows that the two rival parties within the council were the Pharisees and Sadducees. These two parties were just as opposed to one another as the far-right Republicans and far-left Democrats are in the U.S. today. The watershed issue that divided these two religious, political parties was the concept of resurrection, or life after death. The Pharisees believed that there was a resurrection as well as an unseen spirit realm where Angels and spirits dwelt. The Sadducees believed the exact opposite. There was no resurrection, no life after death, this physical life and reality is all there is. When you die there is nothing else. Paul uses this hot-button, polarizing issue for his own purposes.

Paul loudly proclaims to the entire council his pedigree as a life-long, card-carrying Pharisee, and accuses the Sadducees of the council of putting him on trial because of his belief in the resurrection. Resurrection is the powder-keg issue (think Roe v. Wade today). Paul just lit a match and threw it into the middle of the room.

Watch what happens next. A bunch of Pharisees, who moments ago were critical of Paul, now jump up to defend him. As I’ve been watching current events it’s easy to notice that in polarized systems anyone on your team is good and must be defended at all costs, while anyone on the other team is all bad and must be destroyed at all costs. There is no middle ground. Paul successfully diverts the council’s attention from himself to the hot-button issue. In the riot that followed, the Roman Tribune responsible for Paul had no choice but to evacuate him from the situation because he was responsible for Paul’s safety as a Roman citizen and he would be held personally liable (and perhaps executed) if he allowed the Jews to kill Paul, a Roman citizen.

By pushing the council’s political buttons Paul ensured that the Roman Tribune would witness for himself what a volatile group the Jewish council was and the threat they posed to both of them. Not only this, but Paul knows these Jewish leaders. He could easily anticipate that their next move will be a conspiracy to assassinate him. It’s what they did with Jesus. It’s what Paul himself did with Stephen, and Paul himself has been on the run from Jewish assassination attempts on all of his journeys. If there is a plot to kill him Paul knows that the Roman Tribune will have no choice but to place Paul in protective custody and get him out of town. And, that is exactly what happens.

In a few minutes I will join Wendy in our dining room for breakfast and we will read the paper together. It will be filled with news and opinions of current events in our polarized, politicized times. This morning I am reminded that nothing is new under the sun and that I can only control my own motives, thoughts, words, and actions. Reading about Paul’s motives, Paul’s words, and Paul’s actions, I’m reminded of one of Jesus’ more obscure and oft-forgotten commands to His followers:

“Be shrewd as serpents; gentle as doves.”

Chapter-a-Day

Of Mobs and Motives

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The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another.Most of the people did not even know why they were there.
Acts 19:32 (NIV)

While I was in high school there was a large education bill making its way through the state legislature. The teachers in my school began wearing “Save Our Schools” buttons. Some teachers spoke to us over a series of weeks about how important this bill was and predicted doom, gloom, and the end of education as we knew it were the law not to pass. Extra-curriclar programs would go away, athletics programs wouldn’t have the funding they needed, and students would suffer, we were told.

A short while later it was announced that on a certain afternoon any student who desired could take the afternoon off of school, ride a bus to the state capitol, and participate in a rally of teachers and students to march on the statehouse.

Afternoon off of school? Are you kidding me?! I’d go on a tour of a sewage treatment facility if it meant getting to skip English, Algebra II and American History.

And so it was I found myself in a mob of students and teachers from all over the area chanting “Save our schools!” as we marched up Capitol hill. We filed into the Statehouse and up into the gallery of the legislature where debate was taking place on the floor regarding the school bill. There I listened to the debate between legislators regarding the bill and found out that the bill was put forth by the teachers’ union and was primarily about teacher compensation. Now, I’m all for teachers being paid well and funding public education, but the more I listened to the debate and the particulars of the bill were revealed, the more I realized that the legislation itself wasn’t really about the things I had been told.

I will never forget sitting in that gallery and the sudden realization that I’d allowed myself to be a pawn in a political rally simply to get out of school for an afternoon. I even remembering watching the evening news and how the rally and the issues were described. The truth is, I hadn’t truly known what the issues really were, or why I was there. I vowed that day never to participate in anything like that again without being fully versed in the issues at stake and fully believing in the cause for which I marched.

In today’s chapter a riot breaks out in the city of Ephesus because Paul and the Jesus movement became a threat to the local trade union who made idols. Suddenly the Jews and the Tradesman, who would normally be antagonists (for what good Jew would support idolatry?) had a common political foe in Paul and the Jesus movement. A mob breaks out and  everyone in Ephesus runs to the local amphitheater to find out what’s going on.

Then Luke makes an astute observation: Most of the people did not even know why they were there.

Along my life journey I’ve observed just what lemmings human beings can be. My experience at the school rally and my studies of mass media have made me discerning regarding what I’m told and shown in the news as it relates to political rallies. Even as I worship among my local gathering of believers, I sometimes wonder how many truly come because they believe and how many are there because it’s what they were taught they should do by the family or societal systems that raised them.

Of course, I can’t control or even really know the motives of others, but I know and am responsible for myself. This morning in the quiet I find myself thinking about the things I do each day, each week, and the events to which I give my time.

Do I even know why I am there?

 

Chapter-a-Day

Living for the Dot, or Living for the Line?

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the dot on the lineSo we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. 2 Corinthians 4:18 (NLT)

Many years ago I used an illustration while sharing the morning message in my home church. I stretched a piece of plain masking tape from the front of the church to the back of the church using a few chairs in the aisle to prop up the 75 feet or so of tape. I then spread out some pens on the floor and asked everyone to get up from their chairs, make a small dot on the tape with a pen, and write their name next to it.

I asked everyone that morning to imagine that the tape was a time line that continued on through the floor at the front of the stage as far as our eyes could see and out the back of the room to as far as our eyes could see. The tape was eternity, and our little dot on that time line was the 70, 80, or even 100 years that we will spend on this earth. The question I asked that morning was very simple: Are you living for the dot? Or, are you living for the line?

It is so easy to get wrapped up in momentary desires, circumstances, situations, troubles, and issues. But, those things are typically just insignificant blips on the radar when you consider them in light of eternity. We all need a little perspective adjustment from time to time, allowing our heart and mind to consider our immediate troubles in light of God’s Grand Scheme.

Today I’m reminding myself that my immediate troubles are a minute speck on a fleck of ink on a small dot on the masking tape timeline of eternity.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Ezra 9

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The Rebuilding of the Temple Is Begun (Ezr. 1:...
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“My dear God, I’m so totally ashamed, I can’t bear to face you. O my God—our iniquities are piled up so high that we can’t see out; our guilt touches the skies.” Ezra 9:6 (MSG)

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about shame, lately. My friend and I are preparing a weekend workshop for men that explores the impact that shame has on our lives and relationships (more about that in a subsequent post today). Because of that, Ezra’s prayer leaped off of the page as I read it this morning.

In the Garden of Eden, Shame was the first result of Adam and Eve’s sin. Having disobediently violated the one and only prohibition God gave them, they immediately saw their nakedness and were ashamed. In response to the shame, they covered their nakedness and hid themselves from God. Some scholars believe that shame, that nagging sense that deep down there’s something horribly wrong with me, is the root issue from which all of our other troubling issues blossom. I feel shame, so I seek to hide it in a false self. I feel shame, so I try to escape from it in any number of unhealthy distractions. I feel shame, so I try to tear down those around me so that they will be at my level. I feel shame, so I attack myself constantly. I feel shame, so I obsessively strive for perfection.

There is, however, a healthy side to shame when we choose to face it honestly and courageously. Shame can make me more aware of who I truly am. Shame can alert me to something wrong in life that I can address and change to the betterment of my self and my relationships. Shame can foster humility, humanity, autonomy, and competence in my life.

When Ezra felt the shame of his people’s iniquity, his response was not to brush it aside and pretend it didn’t exist. He didn’t act out in rage against them. He didn’t give his followers a million new rules intended to create some legalistic goodness in them. He didn’t withraw into solitary depression. He didn’t become hyper-critical of himself and his people. Ezra hit his knees.

In his gut-level, honest prayer, Ezra acknowledged that improper actions from previous generations to his own day had resulted in the disastrous consequences which led to the fix they found themselves in at that moment. He took the first step toward seeking a positive change of heart, a positive change of life, and a restoration of relationship with God.

Today, I’m thinking about my own nagging feelings of inadequacy and failure. I’m identifying the unhealthy ways I try to escape my own shame. I’m seeking to be more like Ezra, and humbly respond by taking healthy steps forward.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Exodus 6

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Superhero not. God addressed Moses, saying, "I am God. Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt everything I say to you." And Moses answered, "Look at me. I stutter. Why would Pharaoh listen to me?" Exodus 6:29-30 (MSG)

If find it interesting that Moses has been unpacking his whole "I stutter" excuse for three chapters running (who knows how many months or years these chapters cover). It's a great picture of how doggedly we like to cling to our hang ups, insecurities, issues and excuses. 

Growth doesn't always happen overnight. Despite our fantasies to the contrary, God does not typically transform people instantaneously in to spiritual superheroes. We don't get bit by a supernatural spider and suddenly become Godly-man. Even the "superheroes" wie think of in the Bible were transformed over time (and the maturity process never stopped). We see Moses "in process" through these early chapters of Exodus, but there are others.

David killed Goliath in an instant, but how many years did he spend alone in the desert with his sheep, learning to use his sling against predators? Saul had a "Damascus Road" experience, but we forget about the years he spent studying and growing before his ministry started. The apostles stood boldly in the face of persecution, but before that they spent three years scratching their heads, fighting amonst themselves, and even denying that they even knew Jesus.

Like any journey, there are times we'd much rather just "arrive" at the destination. However, even those we consider spiritual giants had to grow into their sandals.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and ortizmj12