Tag Archives: Tyrant

Chapter-a-Day

“Go to Hell!”

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I will throw you on the land
    and hurl you on the open field.
I will let all the birds of the sky settle on you
    and all the animals of the wild gorge themselves on you.
Ezekiel 32:4 (NIV)

A number of years ago I read a fascinating book that has become one of my favorite all-time reads. The book is called Holy Sh*t by Melissa Mohr, and it’s subtitled “A Brief History of Swearing.” I have always been fascinated by words and phrases and their histories along with culture’s mores and taboos regarding what is acceptable and unacceptable to say.

In her book, Mohr explains that there are basically two categories of swear words in the history of English. There are swear words that have to do with that which is sacred (e.g. “Holy”) and then there are swear words that have to do with body parts, bodily acts (especially sex), and excrements (e.g. “Shit”). Mohr goes on to explain that through history these two categories waxed and waned with regard to which was more prominent and fashionable.

I thought of Mohr’s book this morning as I read today’s chapter which contains the final two of Ezekiel’s seven prophetic messages regarding ancient Israel’s former enslaver and millennial nemesis, Pharaoh and his Egyptian empire.

In the first of the final two, Ezekiel writes another song of lament, a funeral dirge, in which God tells Pharaoh that He:

will throw [Pharaoh] on the land
    and hurl you on the open field.
I will let all the birds of the sky settle on you
    and all the animals of the wild gorge themselves on you.

What is easily lost on casual modern readers is the fact that the Egyptians, especially the Pharaohs, had an entire religious belief system around death and the afterlife. All those Egyptian mummies we see in museums come from a highly orchestrated process that was rooted in Egyptian religion. The Egyptians preserved the bodies, the organs, and then buried the Pharaoh with all of his treasures, worldly goods, and sometimes even with dead and mummified servants because they believed that Pharaoh would need all of those things in the ancient Egyptian version of the heavenly afterlife.

When God through Ezekiel proclaims that Pharaoh’s dead body will be thrown into an open field where all of the carrion fowl and wild beasts can feast on his flesh, it means there is nothing to preserve and mummify. God is going to rob Pharaoh of the heavenly afterlife he believes he’s going to have according to his own faith system.

The second and final message to Pharaoh is addressed to both Pharaoh and “his hoards.” God through Ezekiel tells the Egyptian king that he will be drug down to “the pit, the realm of the dead.” When he gets there, he’ll find out that he is joining the leaders and military hoards of a bunch of regional nations like Assyria, Elam, Meshek, Tubal, Edom, and the Sidonians. All of these kingdoms were devastated and destroyed. Pharaoh would have known this.

Instead of ascending to a cushy afterlife with all of his servants and treasures, Zeke’s prophetic messages are telling Pharaoh that just the opposite is going to happen. He will find himself in a very different afterlife with all of the other fallen kings and their empires who had gone before. He’s headed down to the pit. The realm of the dead.

In short, Zeke’s prophetic message is really an ancient form of the same colloquialism that we still use interpersonally today with enemies or individuals with whom we’re angry. . He’s telling Pharaoh “Go to hell” in a much more creative way. I would argue, however, that it would have been just as blunt in Pharaoh’s mind when he received the message.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded that history teaches us lessons about evil and about tyrants and dictators and emperors bent on conquest and power. They don’t respond to polite requests to be nicer. Any offer of a joint counseling session to work out the issues and find reconciliation will be rejected, mocked, and laughed at. Those who try the appeasement approach quickly find themselves the next victim. Evil only responds to direct force, and God through Zeke is delivering a direct, forceful message. One of the things that I have learned through the study of both theatre and mass communication is that in certain human situations the use of a well-timed, well-turned expletive is a powerful tool in getting through thick heads and hard hearts.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Difference

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The Difference (CaD Gal 3) – Wayfarer

I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?
Galatians 3:2 (NIV)

I was a dormitory Resident Assistant (RA) through most of my college years. Being an RA came with the responsibility of checking on residents, making sure everyone was out for fire drills or fire alarms, doing room inspections, and making sure everyone was in by curfew. For these few responsibilities, I got my own room.

During my first year as an RA, I remember some stark differences in how other members of the team handled the rules. There was this one guy, in particular, who was rabid in enforcing the “letter of the law.” If a person was one second past curfew they were in trouble. He demanded that rooms be immaculate to pass inspection. He seemed to enjoy finding ways to catch rule breakers and punish them. As you can imagine, he quickly gained the reputation of being the worst RA in the dorm. No one wanted to live on his floor.

I have always generally been a rule follower, but I was a “spirit of the law” kind of guy as an RA. I figured that room inspections were intended to make sure nothing nasty was growing and no health hazards were being incubated. Likewise, when a guy came sprinting into the dorm a few minutes past curfew, I figured he was at least conscious enough of the rule to actually run back to the dorm. I let it slide.

In today’s chapter, Paul addresses the crux of a conflict that plagued the early years of the Jesus Movement. It’s about the rules God gave Moses and the Hebrew people after delivering them from Egypt. Known simply as “the Law,” there were those within the Jesus Movement who insisted that a person could not be a follower of Jesus without first being obedient to all the rules of the Law. God had already made clear to Peter, to Paul, and to the rest of the Apostles that non-Jewish Gentiles did not have to adhere to the Law to believe in Jesus and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, rabid rule-keepers like my RA friend had visited the local gatherings of Jesus’ followers in Galatia and started insisting otherwise.

Paul does not mince words. He calls his Galatian friends fools for being influenced by the rule-keeping tyrants. Salvation, Paul points out, is about simply believing. This isn’t a new concept. Paul goes all the way back to the “father” of the Jewish people, Abraham. Abraham “believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Rule-keeping doesn’t produce righteousness. In fact, rule-keeping only results in proving that I’m imperfect. When religion becomes about rule-keeping it always results in powerful hypocrites tyrannizing weak followers in keeping up appearances of rule-keeping perfection.

Father Abraham, Paul argues, was the prototype that superseded the law. Abraham simply believed God and did what God told him. Abe was credited with righteousness, not by keeping rules but by believing and responding out of that belief. Because Jesus’ died for sin and rose from the dead, the tyranny of rule-keeping and the Law is over. The Abraham paradigm has been firmly established once and for all. As Paul would write to the believers in Rome: “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

In the quiet this morning, I find myself reflecting on some of the more fundamentalist experiences I’ve had along my spiritual journey. The tyranny of rule-keeping continues to be a pillar of fundamentalist groups and cults. You can find several documentaries about such groups streaming on your favorite platform. A form of the core issue Paul is addressing in today’s chapter is still with us. The “letter of the law” paradigm seems so simple, It’s so black-and-white, and it provides an easy-to-understand framework of behavior. And, it is typically accompanied by rabid letter-of-the-law tyrants to police the behaviors and punish the rule-breakers.

The “spirit of the law” paradigm of Abraham and Jesus gets rather messy at times. It requires me to believe. Not just a mental acknowledgment, but believing in such a way that I am motivated to think, speak, and act out of that belief. I am compelled to do so by the love of Jesus, who sacrificed Himself for my sin. It’s not about guilt but about gratitude. It’s not rule-keeping but responding to Jesus’ kindness. Righteousness isn’t earned, it’s credited.

That makes all the difference.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

A Particularly Liberating Thought

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Then I looked up—and there before me were two women, with the wind in their wings! They had wings like those of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between heaven and earth.
Zechariah 5:9 (NIV)

In my casual reading this week I came across a historical figure I’d not remembered learning about in history. Girolamo Savonarola was a Dominican friar who led his own version of puritanical reign for a brief period on time in the city of Florence during the Renaissance. The fire-and-brimstone friar led a coup against the Medici family then set up his own regime designed to purge Florence of wickedness and turn it into the “New Jerusalem.” Of course, with himself acting as God’s ordained judge, jury, and executioner.

Savonarola went about bringing his version of moral righteousness by force, as religious tyrants of all faiths throughout history have done. Bands of young men dubbed “little angels” wandered the streets harassing women who wore clothing that was too bright. They broke into homes looking for evidence of “wickedness” such as playing cards, cosmetics, or pornography which was then brought into the streets and burned in a “bonfire of vanities.”

I was reminded of Savonarola’s version of religious fascism as I read today’s chapter in Zechariah. The ancient prophet’s vision addresses one of the major obstacles the rebuilders of Jerusalem were facing in his day. Thieves and false accusations drained precious time and resources from the monumental job at hand, as well as the everyday illicit behaviors that disrupted unity and diminished the rebuilding project. In one vision, God curses the thieves, false accusers, and their households. In another vision God sends two messengers on the Spirit wind to remove wickedness from the land.

What struck me about Zac’s visions is that God was the one responsible for judging and dealing with sin, not Zechariah or the high priest Joshua or the governor Zerubbabel. Unlike friar Savonarola and his ilk, Zechariah’s visions were not self-centric visions bestowing divine responsibility for purging the people and the land of evil. Dealing with iniquity and wickedness were God’s  to deal with. Zechariah and the boys had a more important task at hand.

This morning I’m reminded that history is full of individuals who use religion to justify their own self-centered agendas and ego-driven power grabs. God, on the other hand, repeatedly reminds us throughout the Great Story that judgement is not in our job description, just as His visions to Zechariah indicate. Jesus put it quite bluntly: “Don’t judge, or you will be judged.”

In the quiet I’m mulling over the fact that I’ve got enough on my plate trying to keep focus, energy, and love applied to the relationships and productive projects to which God has led me. If I believe what I really profess to believe, then God is perfectly capable and sufficient to manage the judgement end of things. And, this morning that feels like a particularly liberating thought.