Overlooking the Plain of Sodom—Advocates of Righteousness and Justice

The Bible's story hinges on what God wants to do and what God can do with Abraham's descendants—and neither is particularly clear in the early chapters of the saga. God and Abraham seem to both be feeling their way through the new relationship, and I'm beginning to take more seriously the language of Abraham as God's friend—it's kind of easy to read the story almost like Abram and God are pals, traveling around together just for the sake of it.There are of course moments when something else shines through all of the odd episodes of Abraham's story. The narrative reaches outside of itself and shows itself to be more than a story about one man's weird relationship with God. In these moments, the Abraham saga becomes a critical piece in the story of God and Creation. One such moment takes place in Genesis 18.Here is a well-worn story of Abraham bargaining with God, negotiating on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah, or at least on behalf of his kin who live there. I won't retrace the story here, because I want to focus in on one particular facet of the episode—the terms of the negotiation. We'll pick up with God's internal monologue (dialogue?) regarding whether or not he'll let Abraham in on what's about to happen:

 The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, ¹⁸ seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? ¹⁹ No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

Here God opens up, just a smidge, about the long-term plan for Abraham and his descendants. They are to become a great nation which will bless the world, (just as God promised Abram in Genesis 12. But also, catch the important added note here:  What kind of nation will they be? What does God want to become the characteristic mark of Abraham's children?  They are to be a people who keep the way of the Lord by "doing righteousness and justice".This is a pair of Hebrew words, Tsedakah and Mishpat, (צְדָקָה וּמִשְׁפָּט ), which become particularly important for the prophets and which are loaded with meaning, most of which I'll leave you to unpack on your own (big hint: as a pair, they almost always connote social justice concerns for the poor). This little aside by God is the first time we really meet them in the Bible, and that would be remarkable enough in its own right, except note further how the words actually function in the story that follows. While God intends for Abraham to teach his children about Righteousness and Justice, they actually become the critical words that Abraham leverages to bargain with God:

²³ Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴ Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? ²⁵ Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

Abraham is even more shrewd than we give him credit for: he effectively uses God's own words and intentions against God, holding God to a standard.  Abraham takes his vocation as an advocate of righteousness and justice so seriously that even God has to own up. In this story, Abraham becomes a force for Righteousness and Justice, even with God. The implications of this are tremendous, even if the story won't do all the work to unpack it for us. What might it mean for us to enter into such advocacy? What might it mean as people who act and pray, people who have become children of Abraham?The end result of the story is the sad destruction of the two cities, and while the narrative certainly paints this as justified, even within Abraham's bargain, there is a final haunting image in the Genesis 19 I'd like to point towards:

²⁴ Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven; ²⁵ and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.²⁶ But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. ²⁷ Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord; ²⁸ and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the Plain and saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace. ²⁹ So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had settled.

That image of Abraham, alone, looking down on the burning wasteland is a poignant image, one that stands in my mind as both mourning the brokenness and wickedness of creation, as well as pointing towards the unfinished business that God and Abraham have with each other. If God's intent is to bless the world through Abraham's descendants, and we are willing to accept that mantle ourselves, then the end of this story calls us to look around us, smell the sulfur, and dive into the work left to do. 

Kingdom Come: A Sermon about Matthew's Genealogy

He was the "Son of God", the "bringer of Good News", the Lord, the Savior, the one who would restore order and justice to the earth—at least that was Rome's official story about Caesar.  History also seems to look favorably on the Pax Romana, and in many ways, that version of reality isn't that far off. The Roman Empire brought relative peace, wealth, and stability to many in the mediterranean world.However, there was another side to life in Caesar's world. Beneath the heel of the empire were whole peoples, exploited for the empire's sake, hopeless to fight back against the efficient military machine of Rome's storied army. In Palestine, a particularly dark cloud hung over the recipients of Caesar's "good news". The Jewish people living in Judea and Galilee lived in a world in which power was king—and they had none of it. They had always been a proud people, and once a powerful nation, but now lived under another flag. Over and over again they rose up to resist the Empire, trying to beat the empire at its own game by asserting their own power—and they failed miserably. Rome brutally asserted its power over what was, to them, a strategic territory filled with a stubborn, irritating, and irrational people. Religious leaders based in the temple used divine distinction to stoke the fires of resentment that justified bouts of armed revolution. Many a would-be leader rose to fame by resisting the Romans, claiming divine consent for their revolutionary attempts to throw the pagans out. Certainly not everyone joined in the violence, but everyone felt the force of Rome's response to it. To some it was an empire of peace, but to others, it was an empire of violence.Also, while it was an empire of wealth, it was also an empire of poverty, built on the backs of slaves and enslaved nations. Wealth drifted upward, and the few who controlled land or other means increased their assets while the poor became poorer with each generation. Some of the most recent historical work is trying to move beyond simple binary descriptions as elite/nonelite or haves/have-nots, but even still, the best estimate show that between 75-97 percent of the population in the roman world lived in poverty, if that is defined by living at or near subsistence level.Beyond that violence and turbulence, the economic conditions were tough as well. Under  the empire and its elite accomplices, a small minority controlled land, food, and wealth. Although historians are working to get beyond simple distinctions like elite/poor, the best estimates now are that somewhere between 75% to 97% of the population across the empire lived in poverty—meaning at or below subsistence levels, with very few resources. Palestine, having been rocked by violence and dependent on agriculture, was worse off than most areas.  For many of the Jews of Palestine, life under the Roman empire was anything but a life of wealth—it was a life of poverty.As far as stability goes, Rome knew that it needed local leaders who sought to keep the people in check, and found more than enough who were willing to become accomplices to the empire's power in exchange for a few of the empire's coins. These imperial elite played a dangerous game, negotiating the terms of the relationship between the people and the empire. When the people were pushed too far, revolution erupted. When the empire's power was too openly challenged, the military convincingly crushed the opposition. The imperial elites danced between these two, trying to keep both parties reasonably content in the effort to maintain their own power, and often failing. Thus the people of Judea and Galilee faced a cycle of would-be revolution, followed by crackdowns, growing dissatisfaction, and new uprisings.Caesar promised a world of peace, wealth, and stability. For many of the people living in Jerusalem, Judea, and Galilee in the first century, the reality was a life of violence, poverty, and turbulence. Is it any wonder that many of the people were anxious for a change? Caesar's world was a world where power stood in the place of justice, where influence held more sway than righteousness, and where rich and the poor were nearly destined to become richer and poorer. Depending on who you were, you either hoped it would go on forever, or hoped and prayed that God would intervene, and remake the world into something else.The book of Matthew grows out of the latter perspective, and is thoroughly subversive to the empire. It begins with the assumption that this is not Caesar's world. It is God's world, and God has been active in it a lot longer than Caesar could imagine. The book's opening line, "The book of the generations of Jesus Christ" calls us back to Genesis, to the story of God creating the world and of God's relationships and promises to the patriarchs. It points toward the language Genesis uses to introduce its own narrative ("The book of the generations of the heavens and the earth" Gen 2:4), and to move to new phases of the story. (5:1, 10:1, etc.). Matthew uses it here to let the reader know that he is about to tell about a new phase in that same story. He does all this because he wants us to know, from the very beginning, that this is not a narrative set in Caesar's world—it is God's world, and Caesar is just living in it. Beyond that, the genealogy is a substitute for a formula such as "in the days of Caesar Augustus...", and gives the story of Jesus it's primary context, which is not in the history of the Roman empire, but in the narrative of God's covenant people. He is the son of Abraham and the son of David, being born in this moment of the story of God's people.Matthew marks the significance of the moment by structuring his genealogical list into three periods. There is the period from Abraham to David, one from David to the Exile, and from the exile to the moment of Jesus. Abraham, David, the Exile, represent critical moments in the story, and by noting the time, Matthew is underlining the importance of Jesus. Matthew 1:17 points out the symmetry of this for the reader, "Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ." The only problem is, Matthew's math is wrong. Most of the time, we don't notice stuff like this because we read the Bible too quickly, but if you count up the named generations Matthew lists, the numbers should be fourteen, fourteen, and thirteen. Now, to be clear, I don't think that's a mistake—ancient authors loved to play with numbers in settings like this, and I feel certain that Matthew is doing this on purpose, somewhat playfully. I think he is setting us up to look at the story and ask, "Who comes after Jesus?" It's a great way to open his book, because the rest of the gospel really teases out this question, as Jesus recruits disciples, teaches them about a new way of life, and then eventually charges them to do the exact same thing, replicating their experience of discipleship throughout the world. The genealogy is therefore connected with the rest of Matthew's story, right up to the end, where Jesus gives the great commission, "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Matthew's gospel, from the genealogy to the commission, points to the question, "Who comes after Jesus?" and, I think, to an answer.The answer is "us." We are the descendants of Jesus. Ultimately, Jesus's work is producing a sustained community that lives consciously under the reign of God—a community of which we are now a part. In our living as disciples of Jesus we find ourselves in Jesus's story, and the mission of his life become our mission. We continue his story. We are the fourteenth generation.Abraham Lincoln once said, "Some folks worry about who their ancestors were. I am more concerned with who my descendants will be." Matthew's story shares that concern, and even the genealogy, which seems to look back, looks forward to the fulfillment of Jesus's mission. As we take our part in that mission, may we look forward to its fulfillment as well, and trust that to that end  we will be used by God, for God's own glory.  Amen.

Naming the Elephant: Worldview as Concept by James Sire

Lately I've been writing and thinking about how reading the Bible works as a formative practice, and it's led me to think about the concept of worldview.  I found James Sire's Naming the Elephant helpful in thinking about the concept, both as an abstraction and in terms of the worldviews I see at work in our community. Personally, Sire's book helped me come towards a better articulation of my own worldview.Sire has been interested in worldview studies for a while. I know his book The Universe Next Door was used at Harding while I was there, and having gone through several editions, it's probably been as influential in the way evangelicals think about worldview as anything else, particularly in how we see the differences between ourselves and other faith traditions.  As you would imagine, that has some intense missiological implications, and thus Sire has probably been read mostly in that context.This shorter book is particularly interested in teasing out the worldview concept itself, and Sire is candid about places where he felt his earlier definitions and examples have perhaps fallen short. Here, he surveys of perspectives on the worldview concept from philosophical, theological, and sociological sources to give a better articulation to what he means by this root concept. Ultimately, he comes the following well-thought definition:

A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.

Most of the book, which is a quick read at 160 short pages, is the work of setting up this definition and giving it substantial nuance. He teases it out against the backdrop of worldview thinkers over the past two centuries—this is not a casual definition. Sire's work on critically thinking through the implications of his definition is evident throughout the book, and the little book is quite worthwhile for that reason. The descriptions of Sire's wrangling with the philosophical decision between the priority of ontology over epistemology is interesting, as is his writing about his growing recognition of the importance of story as a vehicle for worldview.Less satisfactory are the questions Sire offers as a mechanism for teasing out particular worldviews. He sticks to his guns with the following seven questions, although through the text he expands the questions as including more than they seem to on the surface.

1. What is the prime reality—the really real.2. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?3. What is a human being?4. What happens to a person at death?5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?6. How do we know what is right and wrong?7. What is the meaning of human history?

Sire has used these same questions for years, and in Naming the Elephant he interacts with questions posed by different authors and compares them to his own. There are a couple of places where I still think better questions exist.For instance, Sire discusses a set of questions posed by Walsh and Middleton,"Who are we? Where are we? What's wrong?" and "What's the solution?". Sire wishes to subsume the first (Who are we?) within question 3 above, which seems fair, as does his inclusion of "Where are we"? within number 2 above. However, he also wishes to include the last two (What's wrong? and What's the solution?) within questions 6 and 7 above, and it really seems to me that as a set they function importantly enough to merit their own place in worldview analysis.Another criticism of the book might be that Sire's assumptions about the Christian worldview seem to me to bypass critical theological issues. Of course, that's not a fair criticism, since Sire isn't really doing formal theology here, but implicitly doing practical theology, and his assumptions probably do reflect a good bit of ground level theological thinking in the sort of folk Christianity that exists in America. Beyond that, Sire recognizes that when he talks about a "Christian worldview" he is really thinking about his own worldview, which he perceives to be Christian. By and large I think he's correct, and articulates the main parts of what might be fairly called Christian worldviews accurately.This is a fantastic little book. Sire is, for the most part, fair and measured in his analysis, and recognizes his own commitments as they come up within his argument.  Ultimately I think Sire moves the concept of worldview forward in helpful ways, and provides a good resource for anyone wanting to understand themselves, or the world around them, with greater clarity.

Shepherds and the Story—A Sermon about Elders

I've been thinking about how our understanding of elders and their roles as shepherds relates to the big picture, the story the church has been brought into by Jesus. With elders, as with many other parts of church life, it's too easy to think about them in isolation, as though we can simply turn to the proper chapters of scripture that address them and retrieve the list of rules that will tell us what to do. A much healthier approach is to start with the larger story in which we live, and let our understanding of the church's shepherds grow out of that context, out of that story.That larger story announces the reality of God's reign in the world and his willingness to love and redeem the world. It is the story of how the creator God remains concerned with his creation, and is active within it. It is the story of how that God made for himself a people, by making covenant with Abraham, and with his rescued descendants at Sinai. It tells of God's pursuit of Israel even when the covenant was broken. It tells how, in Jesus, God has made a new covenant with his people and opened the door for men and women of all nations to join Israel in becoming the covenant people of God. That story offers a way for humans to live within God's reign, and warns of judgment for those who continue to live in rebellion against God's reign. That story brings humans into participation in God's plan to fight the darkness that has corrupted the world, and announces that his victory is certain, and what is wrong will be made right.The church exists because of that story. It exists in that story. And it exists as an expression of that story.When we talk about shepherds and elders, we can't jump out of that story and imagine that we're just dealing with a simple fact of ordering religious life. The shepherds actually function, like the rest of the church, within the context of that larger story.As God's announcement of his reign became known in the world through the ministry and resurrection of Jesus, it was made known concretely to a group of disciples who became apostles, carrying the word into new territories, establishing colonies of disciples who took on the story of God and began to live it out in community together, and in relation to their neighbors in the cities and towns where they lived. Those apostles and their coworkers were charged with delivering the story to the world around them, and were highly mobile. Because of that, as they founded new communities, it became clear early on that within each new community of disciples there would need to be people who could function as "stewards" of the story, who could take responsibility to oversee how the community of faith lived out that story as "church". Those overseers (elders, bishops, pastors) became shepherds of the church, and bore several responsibilities in regard to the story that was driving the church. They still bear those responsibilities.Shepherds tell the story. That means they should be able to share the gospel, be able to articulate the gospel story, and teach others what it means to live that story.  Both 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 refer to the need that those who become elders should be able to teach. That doesn't mean they're required to have great class management skills, but that they understand the gospel and are capable of sharing that story. Shepherds are storytellers, because the story of God's work isn't something we hear once and are done with, but we hear it over and over again, the church has to be immersed in the story, understanding the big picture and learning over time the finer points of what it means to live with God.One of the reasons the shepherds have to be continually telling the story is because the story is always vulnerable to distortion. People subvert the christian story for a lot of different reasons, replacing it with stories of gods who are legalistic, absent, only interested with the spiritual, spiteful, or apathetic to sin. Therefore, beyond being tellers of the story, shepherds guard the story. When scripture uses the language of guarding the flock, and defending the truth, it says the church needs people who can make sure that the alternative stories that threaten to draw people away from the one true gospel story are challenged and defeated.  There is a definitive story that defines the church.  That story can't be changed at whim.The relationship between the shepherds and the story goes much further than the types of things they might say about the story, though. Perhaps one of their most important roles as stewards of the story is being an example to the flock of what it means to live out the story—shepherds display the story. They extend the story by showing what it means to live in God's kingdom in work and play, within family and within a neighborhood. To say they are stewards of the story doesn't mean they hold an abstracted truth within their minds, but rather it means that the story has become enfleshed in them. they are committed to living faithfully in family life, to restraining themselves in terms of greed or argumentation, and living fully aware—refusing to drunkenly numb themselves or lose control of their lives to anything but the will of God. In all of this and more they put on display what it means to submit to the reign of God, and what it means to walk in God's presence and grace.Good shepherds understand as well that it's not all about them. they play a part in the story, but they are also mindful of what it means for the rest of their community to find its place in God's story. They are aware of doing the work God places in their hands, but also of helping the other disciples discern what it means for them to play a part in the story. Shepherds draw their flock into God's story. They can do that in some surprising ways.When shepherds encourage someone among us to find their ministry, equip them to do the ministry, and entrust them to do the work God has prepared for them, they help draw us into the story, into participation with God's work.When shepherds stand with us in crisis, they are a reminder that God is with us and active in our lives, they draw us out into the story, helping us interpret the crises and their places in our lives as part of God's story.When shepherds mourn with those who mourn, they help that mourning be placed in context and draw people into God's story—in which death loses its power.When shepherds celebrate with those who celebrate, they help interpret the moment as having holy significance, like all moments do. In so reminding us, they draw us into the story which is not yet finished, but ongoing.Shepherds are storytellers. they guard and defend the story, and display the story by living in such a way that the story is enfleshed in them. But they also draw us out with them into the story, so that it might be enfleshed in us as well.  May it ever be so, for the sake of God's glory.  Amen.