And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)
The followers of Jesus in Corinth were a classic dysfunctional human system. There were not only differences of opinion, pride and arrogance had escalated to the point there were factions in conflict with one another and people suing one another. There were not only humans making honest human mistakes, there were individuals flaunting and taking pride in their immorality. Conflict, anger, hatred, favoritism, envy, greed, and selfishness were in the driver’s seat. It’s the very reason for Paul writing his letter.
Which I think is important to remember when reading today’s chapter which is one of the greatest and most familiar passages ever penned. “The love chapter” is regularly read at weddings because of its beautiful and thorough description of love. I’ve actually always found this a bit ironic because the Corinthians believers were definitely not feeling the giddy love of newlyweds towards one another. They were in divorce court with one another, and that’s the context which inspires Paul’s famous words about love.
As a disciple of Jesus, I have learned two critically important lessons along my life journey.
The first lesson is that I don’t get to pick and choose who I love. Enemies, critics, people of other nations and cultures, people on the other side of the political aisle, sinners, and people who have wronged me, cheated me, persecuted me, judged me, spoken evil about me behind my back, and even injured me are all at the top of the priority list of people Jesus commands and expects me to love. It’s more important than going to church. It’s more important than my morality and purity. It’s more important than my spiritual disciplines. It’s more important than anything else. Jesus asks me to love Him so much that I’m compelled to love my enemies, haters, and those who’ve injured me the same way He did. This is my ultimate spiritual calling and priority.
\The second lesson is that there are no exemptions to lesson number one.
In the quiet this morning, I find that I’m not thinking about love in grand and glorious poetic ways. It’s too easy to do that when you read today’s chapter outside the context of the situation it was originally addressing. I’m meditating on love in the down-and-dirty realities of those people I don’t want to love, those I feel I shouldn’t have to love, and those my soul tends to justify hating, condemning, cursing, and generally wishing ill-will. As a disciple of Jesus, if I am unwilling to do that, then talking about love in grand and glorious poetic ways is both empty and meaningless.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 1 Corinthians 11:13 (NIV)
I spent one semester at a fundamentalist Bible college. The legalistic culture and its effects were a surreal experience in so many ways. I have so many stories from those few months. The saving grace was that I had a friend who shared the experience and we didn’t live on campus, so we got to escape the crazy after class each day and return to the normality of our own homes.
One of the things I learned in my fundamentalist sojourn was that legalistic systems pick their hills to die on when it comes to rule following. At the school we were attending, one of those hills was the length of hair that men were required to maintain. It had to be short. This was defined as a man’s hair couldn’t touch the collar of your dress shirt. A coat and tie were required attire in class for men. Women had to wear skirts or dresses with a hem that was below the knee. These rules had to be perpetually justified and reinforced, so it was always interesting when a lecture would randomly stray into a defense of one of the schools rules.
We were in a class called Biblical Hermeneutics (e.g. How to interpret the Biblical text) one day when the professor launched into a defense of the short hair rule. One of the defenses for the rule comes from today’s chapter: “Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair it is to her glory?”
Today’s chapter is filled with instructions that Paul gave to the church regarding head coverings and hair. The passage fuels life practices in different believer groups to this day. When you see a group of Amish or Mennonite women with their hair pulled up under a bonnet, the practice comes directly from following Paul’s instructions in today’s chapter.
Of course, one of the other lessons I learned from my months in a fundamentalist and legalistic system is that they also pick and choose which rules to be legalistic about and which to ignore. Our school was rabid about men having short hair, but they completely ignored Paul’s instructions in today’s chapter about women wearing head coverings. Likewise, I find it fascinating that Paul ends this same letter to the Corinthians by telling them directly to “greet one another with a holy kiss.” In fact, Paul gives this same instruction in four different letters! Not once did my professor kiss me!!
As I was meditating on this passage this morning and all of the layers of cultural and religious context, I could help but notice that Paul clearly tells the Corinthian believers, “Judge for yourselves.”
Thanks, Paul. I think I will.
There was recently an article in the Wall Street Journal about the resurgence of young women in the Catholic church choosing to wear traditional veils when they attend mass. It was interesting to hear their reasoning and I think it’s awesome that they are finding spiritual lessons in the practice as they judge for themselves. At the same time, I once knew a follower of Jesus who had hair that was so long it went all the way down to his butt. He had a friend who went to prison and he promised his friend he would pray for him every day and would not cut his hair until his friend was released. Now that’s a cool expression of love for a friend and I’m glad he judged for himself to do it.
In both of these instances, sincere followers of Jesus have made different choices for different reasons. Each of them are making their choice from a place of spiritual growth and increasing maturity. Neither of them is doing it because a legalistic religious system is demanding it from them and threatening them with negative consequences if they disobey.
In the quiet this morning, I’m actually thankful for my experiences at that Bible College. It taught me so many valuable lessons about what being a follower of Jesus is and isn’t. It exposed me to fundamentalist legalism and allowed me to see it and personally examine it from the inside. And it continues to remind me of St. Augustine’s wisdom:
In the essentials, unity. In the non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity.
I sometimes fantasize about being able to go back into those classes with all the knowledge and life experience I now have. When my professor was waxing eloquent about how Paul directly says that long hair is a disgrace on a man. I’d ask him to flip to the end and read 1 Corinthians 16:20 where it says just as directly to greet one another with a holy kiss.
“Pucker-up, Professor!”
Or perhaps we should all, with spiritual maturity, learn to judge for ourselves about these things.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest [Jesus] because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away. Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. Mark 12:12-13 (NIV)
Many years ago I stumbled upon a business blogger who went by the pseudonym Anonymous Cog. “AC” was one of those front-line minions in the institutional labyrinth known as corporate America. His vocation was fodder for the comic strip Dilbert and he blogged about the daily travails of being an “anonymous” cog in the giant corporate machine. AC and I began a back channel correspondence. I almost instantly recognized a kindred spirit in his words. Now, whenever I see people working inside of any human institution, I think to myself: “Anonymous cogs.”
Enneagram Type Fours are often known as the Individualists, and that’s me. Along my life journey, one of the things that I’ve learned about myself is that I’m typically (not always) better off when I am able to operate independently. Whenever I’ve found myself operating inside a large bureaucratic system it brings out a rebellious streak in me because they are typically full of silliness, foolishness, inefficiency, and injustice. They become insularly focused on power, internal politics, and of course money.
The Great Story is, at the heart of it, about an eternal conflict between the Kingdom of God and human empire. I’ve observed that human empire can be embodied in an individual human being, but it’s easiest to see it at work in the large institutions of this world. This includes, but is not limited to, the worldly kingdoms of government, commerce, finance, labor, academia, and even religion.
In today’s chapter, Mark is careful to name all of the institutional cogs that had set themselves up against Jesus. He names chief priests, teachers of the law, elders, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians. Jerusalem was a regional seat of power, not only for religion, but also for government and commerce. The Roman Empire, the regional government of Herod, and the Chief Priests of the temple were all separate institutional powers who fought for wealth, clung to power, and controlled the lives of the anonymous cogs living in the region. These institutions held a constant and uneasy tension in the flow of power and wealth.
Jesus was a wrench in the works for all of them.
The clearing of the money-changers out of the Temple courts was Jesus’ way of shining a holy light on the corruption of the religious institutional human empire that the Hebrew leaders had assembled at the Temple. The crowds Jesus was drawing and Jesus’ sharp criticism was a potential powder keg. If riots broke out it would bring down the wrath of Rome, and that threatened both the power and money that flowed out of the Temple and into the hands of Herod and the Chief Priests.
The Son of God, an upstart outsider from rural Galilean backwaters, stands alone against the human institutional empires of government, commerce, and religion. That’s the picture that Mark is painting for us in today’s chapter. One of the things I’ve observed along my life journey is that human empires will always attempt to crush or eliminate any anonymous cog who threatens their system or the power and wealth of its leaders. I refer you to any daily news outlet for evidence.
In the quiet this morning, my individualist heart is stirred by this David vs. Goliath scenario that emerges from Mark’s stylus and the events he reports. At the same time, I have to return to what I wrote just a few paragraphs back. Human empire can exist in me. My individualism can be transformed into a personal empire with me on the throne of my own life, rigging everything I control to consolidate the flow of power, wealth, status, influence, and appearances so that it benefits me above all else. If I allow this to happen, I become a microcosm of the very institutional worldly empires that stand in opposition to God’s Kingdom. The anonymous cog becomes emperor of his own world.
Jesus calls me to live a Kingdom of God life amidst a world of human empires. He calls me as His disciple to seek after eternal things rather than temporal things. He calls me to serve rather than expect to be served. He tells me to be extravagant in my generosity rather than hoard things and money for myself. He calls me to humbly surrender my personal desires rather than demand my own way.
Kingdom of God or personal human empire? That’s the daily conflict. Every day I choose a side.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
“The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus…” Mark 7:1 (NIV)
When I began my career over 30 years ago, I had zero experience in the fields of market research or quality assessment, which are the two primary services our company provides. This was intimidating, to be honest. I was a young man entering a world I knew virtually nothing about. Our company’s founder and CEO explained to me that he was not hiring me for my acumen in research and assessment, which I would learn, but rather for my gifts in communication.
What I learned in those early years is that the research and quality assessment our company provides are complimentary. Our customer research tells a client’s executive team what drives their customers’ expectations and what the company needs to do operationally to improve their customers’ satisfaction, retention, and loyalty. Quality Assessment (e.g. “Your call may be recorded for quality and training purposes…”) helps uncover how the front-line Customer Support and Sales representatives can actually improve and deliver on those customer expectations in their daily conversations and interactions with the client’s customers.
These are two very different audiences.
The executive team members handling operations, sales, and marketing are educated, experienced, and influential individuals. They think about data in strategic and tactical ways on an organizational and operational scale. There’s a certain language they speak and a way that they think.
The front-line representatives who are actually interacting with customers and handling the countless daily “moments of truth” in which customer satisfaction is built or broken, are a very different group. They tend to be among the least paid and least powerful individuals in the company. They have a very different lingo and way they think. They also have the monumental, typically overlooked, task of communicating directly with the customer while applying the policies and procedures that have been dictated down the chain of command from the C-Suite.
And, as Shakespeare famously wrote, “There’s the rub.”
My real job, my boss told me, was the ability to take objective data and effectively communicate the same results to these two very different audiences. These audiences, by the way, typically have little appreciation or understanding of one another. I had to help the executive team understand what the data said and what they needed to do operationally to deliver on those expectations through the company’s policies and procedures. To the front-line sales and support representatives, I had the responsibility to communicate the same data in a way that would help them craft their conversations and communication with customers. Often, that means managing the broken policies and procedures that we had yet to convince the executive team to change.
This came to mind today as I read the chapter, in which Jesus is likewise communicating with two very different audiences who have very different perspectives about everything.
The chapter begins by telling us that an entourage of “teachers of the Law” had come from Jerusalem to hear and inspect Jesus. These are the “big dogs” of Jesus’ religion and culture. These are the execs making a visit to the plant in rural nowhere from the Jewish C-Suite at corporate headquarters. “Everyone be on your best behavior. Look sharp, and busy!”
The big dogs call out Jesus for not following their corporate religious HR policies and procedures. Everyone was expected to wash their hands a certain way, as well as the cups, plates, and utensils they use per corporate policy 4A, sub-section B, paragraph three in the employee handbook. Jesus told his team they could ignore these silly rules. The Big Dogs have come to put Jesus on a corporate Performance Improvement Plan and press Him to get in line with corporate policy.
Instead, Jesus gives the Big Dogs an ear-full about how hypocritical and out-of-touch they are with the day-to-day realities of life for the front-line workers in the sweat shops far from the C-Suite. The policies and procedures are not only silly, but they’re rigged to benefit the corporation and its executives, not the customers or the front-line team members.
This does not go over well.
Not surprisingly, Jesus decides to take some PTO from His base of operations in Galilee. He hits the road and gets out of Dodge for a while. Mark tells us that Jesus first goes to the region of Tyre and Sidon then makes His way to an area known as the Decapolis. These are not places where the Big Dogs hold sway. In fact, these are primarily non-Jewish regions where non-Jewish “Gentiles” live and operate. The Jewish Big Dogs considered non-Jewish Gentiles and their lives to be dirty, base, and unacceptable. They literally called Gentiles “dogs” as an insult. The “Big Dogs” looked down with derision and condescension on the Gentiles. Gentiles were the “Bad Dogs.”
So Jesus, having infuriated the Big Dogs, goes to hang out with the Bad Dogs. While He’s there, a Gentile woman comes to Him begging for Jesus to heal her demon possessed daughter. Jesus trots out the corporate employee HR handbook stating that policy 8C, sub-section A, paragraph two forbids him from talking to or healing a Gentile, especially a female Gentile and deal only with the good Jewish children of Abraham (preferably the men). Why? Because Gentiles, especially women are “dogs.” So says corporate policy.
“But Jesus,” the woman replies. “Even dogs get scraps dropped from the children’s table.”
I can picture the smile on Jesus’ face. This lowly “bad dog” gets what all the corporate “big dogs” can’t see or understand from their corner offices at corporate headquarters. What was intended by the Founder to provide an exceptional customer experience of Life and Love had been lost in a culture of profit and power seeking, bureaucracy, and top-down authoritarianism. Jesus makes the demons leave her daughter.
In the quiet this morning, I’m so thankful for the “real world” experience my career has given me to observe how systems operate and to interact with individuals on every different level of those systems. It’s been fascinating to try and use data and truth to change the thinking and behaviors of individuals at different levels of an organization in order to facilitate change that will benefit the client’s customers and culture. I’ve learned a lot, not only about business, but also about life and human beings. Jesus was dealing with a very similar system because they are human systems. As a disciple of Jesus I’ve learned that systems typically don’t successfully change without human beings changing. If you change the motives and outcomes of enough human beings, there’s a chance to change the systems they’re in.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
“On the contrary, [James, Peter, and John] recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.” Galatians 2:7 (NIV)
It’s Mother’s Day on Sunday so I’ve been thinking about my mother a lot this week. This will be the second Mother’s Day since her earthly journey ended back in March of 2023. Mom was old school in many ways. I think she really enjoyed it when I began my career as a pastor. When my path led to my career in business, she would regularly ask me, “Are you ever going to go back into ‘the ministry?'” It didn’t matter how many times I explained to her the concept of the priesthood of all believers, that ministry is not confined to being a pastor, and that my job is ministry. She would politely listen and end with, “I know, but are you ever going to back into the ministry?”
In the early years of the Jesus Movement, the focus of the disciples primarily remained preaching Jesus’ message to their fellow Jews in Judea. It was what they had done when Jesus was still with them. It’s what they knew. They were comfortable with it. When God opened the door for Peter and the rest of Jesus’ followers to let go of Jewish customs, like adhering to strict dietary restrictions and men having to be circumcised, it was a tectonic shift in thought and life.
In today’s chapter, Paul continues to explain to the believers in Galatia that he was recognized as an Apostle by Jesus’ inner circle. I find it fascinating that Peter, James, and John were happy to let Paul take Jesus’ message to the non-Jewish Gentiles while they stuck with taking the message to their fellow Jews. At the heart of the conflict that Paul is having with the Galatian believers and the “teachers” from Judea telling them they had to become Jews and be circumcised is the fact that the leading Apostles were still hanging around Jerusalem contentedly living and ministering within the Jewish people and culture. It placed Paul in a position in which he appeared to be an outsider doing things differently than the “real” Apostles back in Jerusalem.
As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, there were two main themes that my heart chewed on.
First, I am reminded that the concept of “ministry” is not narrowly defined in Jesus’ paradigm but expansively defined. Ministry is what every disciple is called to do every day with every person we interact with. Apologies to my mother, but one of the core mistakes made by the institutional churches and denominations was that they promoted the notion that “ministry” was confined to an institutionally defined, approved, and professional class within the institution. The result was that the vast majority of institutional church members came to view “ministry” as a narrowly defined, professional vocation rather than the calling and mission of every believer.
The second theme is the unfortunate reality that we as humans have a hard time with change, and this can be especially true when it comes to transforming our belief systems. Peter and the Twelve said that they affirmed Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles. They even affirmed Paul’s teaching that Gentiles were free from the Jewish law and ritualistic rules. However, when Peter himself visited Paul and Barnabas in Antioch he shied away from the Gentile believers once his posse of Jewish believers joined them from Jerusalem. Old habits (and beliefs) die hard. Just like my mother having a hard time wrapping her heart and mind around the truth that “ministry” is not confined to vocationally being the pastor of a church.
And so, I exit my quiet time and enter another day of ministry in the marketplace.
Have a great weekend, my friend.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Acts 5:41 (NIV)
I was only six years old the first time I was bullied. It was in the school bathroom. An older kid in a really mean voice and threatening posture told me to give him whatever money was in my pockets. When I responded that I didn’t have any, he got mad and said he didn’t believe me. When I insisted, he told me he was going to find me after school and beat me up.
Power is the modus operandi of the Kingdoms of this World. Even children on the playground learn how to leverage power (I’m older and much larger than you) and threats (give me your lunch money or I’ll beat you up) for personal gain at the expense of the weak.
Bullying doesn’t end as we grow older. It just gets more insidious and protected by larger systems both legal and illegal. The power changes (power to fire, the power to harass, the power to ostracize, the power to cancel) as do the threats (do what you’re told, don’t question those in power or make waves, prove your loyalty to those in power and/or their dogma, keep your mouth shut). Along my life journey, I have experienced forms of bullying in business, in churches, and in academia.
I just read a fascinating investigative journalism piece the other day about one of the largest and most powerful tech companies in the world. Former employees spoke on record about the toxic corporate culture they experienced. At its root, the culture was just a systemic adult form of bullying.
In today’s chapter, Jesus’ disciples and the fledgling Jesus Movement continue to face off with the same institutional religious system at the Temple. In yesterday’s chapter, Peter and John were jailed and threatened by the bullies in charge to keep their mouths shut, or else. It didn’t work. The believers continued to meet each day at the Temple and proclaim that Jesus rose from the dead and was the Messiah.
It doesn’t take a genius to predict what a bully is going to do when the victim refuses to comply. The playbook is pretty simple. Use force to increase the pain and pressure. Non-compliance is always a threat to a bully because other victims under their thumb might get the idea that they can rebel, too. Ultimately, the bully must also decide if it’s easier to simply get rid of the non-compliant threat.
The bullies in charge of the Temple try to ostracize Jesus’ disciples by making it known that anyone who associates with them will find things becoming very uncomfortable for them. The bullies then bring the Apostles in for questioning. Many of them wanted to put all of them to death and snuff out the threat. Cooler heads prevail and it is decided to increase the pain and pressure. They have the Apostles flogged with 39 lashes. This was known as “40 minus one” because tradition held that 40 lashes would kill a man, so 39 lashes would bring a man just to the point of death without doing him in.
The Apostles left their lashing “rejoicing.” Jesus had prophesied that they would suffer as He had suffered. They celebrated the event as an honor to have walked in their Master’s sandals and to have suffered the wrath of the same bullies.
In the quiet this morning, I am reminded that bullies eventually lose their power when those under their domination no longer fear their power nor the painful consequences of standing up to them. I think of a brave man standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square. I think of young black people facing fire hoses and police dogs on the streets of Birmingham. I think of a lone, unbowed Russian dissident dying in an arctic gulag.
In both of their “trials” in front of the Temple bullies, Peter says the same thing. “We must obey God rather than you.” And, that is what God tells me time and time again throughout the Great Story. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” This means that if/when push comes to shove the real question for me is, “Do I really believe what I say I believe?”
Peter and the early disciples certainly did.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the good news, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him. “Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,” they said. “Who gave you this authority?” Luke 20:1-2 (NIV)
I’ve been fascinated of late reading about the intrigue at the Vatican. The Pope recently defrocked one of the powerful Vatican Cardinals of the Roman Catholic church and accused him of embezzlement. He also met with an American Cardinal and stripped him of his apartment and privileges. Just weeks ago, the Pope fired the entire leadership team of the church’s worldwide charity arm because of a toxic work environment. Sounds like the Pope has his hands full.
I’m not Roman Catholic, but as an amateur historian, I’ve always been fascinated with it. Think about it. The Roman Church is a nation. In fact, it is technically still an empire. The 177 million acres of land it owns around the globe is second only to the British Empire. The Vatican Bank has over 8 billion dollars in assets.
Today’s chapter got me thinking about the Roman Church. Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem was not unlike the Vatican for Roman Catholics. The Hebrew religious system was vast, politically powerful, and rich. Millions visited the temple each year from all over the known world to offer sacrifices and offerings. The temple had its own currency which drove the need for the money changers Jesus famously drove out. The sacrificial system was big business. And, just like the Pope and Cardinals, the temple system had a High Priest and Sanhedrin.
Throughout Jesus’ ministry, He has operated outside of this system. Other than making a few dutiful pilgrimages to Jerusalem in His three years of ministry, His operations were far north of Jerusalem in the region of Galilee. Jesus has no earthly authority. He has no standing. He doesn’t hold a title, sit on any committees, or wear a funny hat. And while His ministry certainly gained popularity for performing miracles no one had ever seen, He was also popular for not being what the corporate religious system of His day had become.
There are three main characters at this point in the story of Jesus’ final week. There’s Jesus, the leadership of the Hebrew political and religious system, and the crowds. Twice in today’s chapter, Luke states that the power brokers of the temple and Hebrew religious system were afraid of the crowds. Their public approval ratings weren’t high, and Jesus’ constant criticism of them was a threat to them. If Jesus incited a riot it would unleash the wrath of Rome to quell the mob and keep the peace. That would cramp both their political power and their flow of revenue. When religion becomes big business, it becomes just another kingdom of this world with all the corruption and intrigue that comes with it. Just ask the Pope.
In the quiet this morning, I find myself attracted to the way Jesus’ model of living, teaching, and loving stands in such stark contrast to the corporate religious system that killed Him to protect itself. It was small, personal, and reflected the very things He taught. That’s what attracts me just as it attracted the crowds of everyday people who followed him. As a disciple of Jesus, I have this increasing desire to mold my own faith, life, and ministry in the same model. I want to carry out His mission in small and personal ways. The further I have progressed in my spiritual journey, the more comfortable I’ve become working outside of corporate religious systems.
I enter today with a heart’s desire to love the people I will interact with today well, and a heart full of gratitude that I’m not the Pope.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
A Selective Backward Glance (CaD Job 8) –
Wayfarer
“Surely God does not reject one who is blameless or strengthen the hands of evildoers.” Job 8:20 (NIV)
I mentioned a previous post some of the different ways people communicate, and I hinted at time orientation. I hadn’t given a ton of thought to this until earlier this year when Wendy and I began to really explore how it affects our relationship and communication.
I have a very strong past orientation. I love history. When I was young adult and really began digging into understand myself, I began to dig into my family history. I am a product of the family system into which I was born and raised. My parents were products of the family systems into which they were born and raised. Human systems have certain ways they function and operate which can be generational in nature. In digging into the past I discovered a lot about my family and myself. Often look back in time to gain clarity on my present circumstances.
Wendy has a very strong future orientation. She appreciates my love of history, but also she rolls her eyes when I geek out on it. Unlike me, she is always thinking ten steps ahead with her internal radar because she knows that future circumstances will go much smoother for everyone involved if things are planned well, prepped for, and executed properly.
We have come to realize that some of our marital strife comes from the different time orientations with which we navigate life, but that’s another blog post.
In today’s chapter, we find Job continuing to sit on the refuse ash heap in his off-the-charts agony joined by three friends. Eli insinuated that Job’s suffering must point to some secret sin that caused the Almighty to punish Job. Job’s response was that he was innocent and did nothing to warrant his suffering, and challenged his friends to prove him wrong. So, his friend Bill steps into the batter’s box to take his swing.
Bill is a straight-shooter. He is direct and gets right to the point. He takes issue with Job’s claim of innocence and anguished cries to the Almighty. To Bill and his theological world-view, this is a black-and-white issue: “Your children sinned. God took them out. Period. End of sentence.”
What follows is fascinating because Bill clearly has a past time orientation. He tells Job to look to the past, the wisdom of the ancients and ancestors. in order to gain clarity on his present circumstances. Bill then shares a Hebrew wisdom poem (vss 11-19) about how the godless suffer the consequences of their godlessness. He then concludes in his black-and-white worldview that suffering is a spiritually natural consequence of godlessness and if Job was really blameless then God would restore Job’s fortunes and blessings.
I pondered Bill’s words in the quiet this morning. As someone with a strong past orientation, I quickly found Bill’s argument ludicrous. Human history is a long string of stories about human suffering, punctuated by certain events in which suffering happened on a massive scale. Within those events are nameless, faceless human beings who did not deserve their fate. My mind immediately reminded me of my trip to the U.S. Holocaust museum and the sight of all those shoes piled up just as they were piled up when their nameless, faceless owners were stripped and sent to the gas chambers.
My brain then provided me with a name, and a face from the past: Corrie Ten Boom and her family. Every other member of her family took of their shoes and placed them in that pile. Their only crime was that their love of Jesus and their desire to do the right thing led them to hide Jews in their home in an effort to save their lives. Her story of suffering in the concentration camp echoes Job’s anguished cries, and rightly so.
So, all due respect Bill, but in telling Job to take a backward glance to the past, to the ancients and their wisdom, you have chosen to be carefully selective in your stated evidence, so as to justify your simplistic conclusion. History is filled with nameless, faceless individuals who echo Job’s anguished cries in the suffering and death they blamelessly endured. Bill, you told Job that his words were “a blustering wind,” but it is your simplistic, theological world-view that I find as hollow as that pile of old, footless shoes.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full and the vats overflow— so great is their wickedness!” Joel 3:13 (NIV)
I have been fascinated of late by the headlines. Corruption is everywhere. That is not news, of course. Corruption is always there, on both sides of the aisle, and around the world. History has taught me this. Corruption is woven into the fabric of the kingdoms of this world. Netflix is rife with documentaries uncovering the breadth of it. Corruption is part of the human condition since the Snake slithered in the Garden of Eden. The kingdoms of this world create systems to keep their corruption from public view and most of the time those systems work to protect corrupt elites from both exposure and consequences. Of late, the reality of corruption has been seeping out the cracks of the closed doors and smoke-filled rooms across the political spectrum. I’m not convinced that it will amount to anything. Along my life journey, I’ve observed that the systems meant to protect the corrupt will occasionally crack but rarely do they break.
Once again, I’m talking about both sides of the aisle and across the gobal political spectrum. Corruption has always been an equal opportunity racket for powerbrokers of all persuasions, even religious ones. The Godfather taught me this, not to mention the events of Jesus’ arrest and execution.
The result of corruption is always suffering and injustice. You’ll see it everywhere is you have the stomach to honestly look, and let’s face it, most of the time I don’t. I hold endless mental distractions in the palm of my hand most of the day, every day.
The Great Story, however, never ceases to remind me of what I often would choose to ignore. The overarching storyline from Genesis to Revelation is the human condition and the havoc it wreaks on everything from my individual willingness to make wrong choices to the corrupt systems you’ll find lurking in every human institution, especially those of global politics and finance.
The prophetic message of the ancient prophet Joel stands out among the ancient prophets because his metaphorical message points to a Day of Judgement at the end of the Story. It goes by different names like Judgement Day, the Day of the Lord, a Day of Reckoning, and sometimes just The Day. It is described as the day when the “books are opened” and everything, both good and evil, is accounted for. Justice is meted out on the grand scale of God’s Kingdom once, and for all.
As I read today’s final chapter of Joel, it echoed everywhere. In fact, the verse I quoted at the top of the post is clearly present in John’s Revelations:
I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.
Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, “Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.” The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. Revelation 14:14-19 (NIV)
As a disciple of Jesus, I cannot escape the fact that He mentions this Day of Judgement again, and again, and again.
In the quiet this morning, I feel myself holding a certain tension. It is both the cynical weight of human corruption and the seemingly foolish hope that The Day will, indeed, one day arrive.
“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” -Jesus (Matthew 12:35-37)
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Ishmael son of Nethaniah and the ten men who were with him got up and struck down Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, with the sword, killing the one whom the king of Babylon had appointed as governor over the land. Jeremiah 41:2 (NIV)
The period of time immediately following a major conflict is usually a time of chaos. In the wake of our own Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the period known as the Reconstruction was a time of conflict and corruption. Spotty conflict continued for a time. Corrupt people took advantage of the power vacuums that occur with the transfer of power. Hatred for the north did not lessen in defeat across the south. Ulysses S. Grant, who was perhaps the only Union general with the leadership qualities to defeat the Confederate army, found himself lacking the leadership qualities necessary to navigate the political swamp of Washington D.C. in the period of Reconstruction, despite the fact that he had the purest of desires to get the job done.
I had to remind myself of this period of history as I read today’s chapter. The final chapters of Jeremiah are an amazingly detailed historical record of events that occurred in the wake of the destruction of Jerusalem. The Babylonian army had left the region with all of the exiles in tow. They left newly appointed Governor Gedeliah with a small Babylonian guard for protection. In the later portion of yesterday’s chapter, Gedeliah was warned that one of deposed King Zedekiah’s military commanders, a man named Ishmael, had allied himself with the nearby King of Ammon.
Ammon and Judah were allies in their rebellion against Babylon. Ammon was spared Babylonian revenge, but it didn’t quell the Ammonites hatred for Nebuchadnezzar. Ishmael and some of his men were equally enraged by the defeat and viewed their fellow Jews trying to carve out a peaceful life under Babylonian power to be traitors to the cause. Ishmael and his rogue squadron take out their rage by slaughtering Nebuchadnezzar’s men, the Governor and his administration, and they even slaughter some poor people bringing their offerings toward Jerusalem to try and re-establish some form of religious normalcy during what would have been a time of feasting and offering at the rubble that would have been Solomon’s Temple.
Having just suffered Nebuchadnezzar’s vengeance, another contingent of former soldiers who had given themselves to a new life under Babylonian control, realize that if they don’t kill Ishmael and his men Nebuchadnezzar might return and kill everybody. They take out Ismael and his men, but accept that Nebuchadnezzar might just kill them to simply squelch any unrest.
They flee to Egypt.
I couldn’t help but think of Gedeliah who, like Grant, had all of the desire to do the right thing for his people and help reconstruct their lives. Like Grant, he seemed to lack the wily shrewdness required in politics. The higher you climb on the political food chain the larger target you have on your back. Instead of brushing off the warnings about Ishmael, he should have at the very least taken precautions. The rebel appears to have taken Gedeliah and his Babylonian protectors completely off-guard.
And that’s the reminder I’m taking with me from my time in the quiet this morning. Having the right people with the right gifts in the right positions is perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned along my life journey as it pertains to effectively leading human systems whether I am running a business, directing a theatre production, leading a church, or head of a committee for a civic organization. This only gets more critical in the wake of upheaval or massive transition.
When you have the wrong people in critical positions of any human system, things will only get messier.
Note: I will not be posting tomorrow. Back on Monday!
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
