In September of 1219, in the midst of the Fifth Crusade, Francis of
Assisi walked through the crusaders camp outside the city of Damietta,
Egypt, and requested permission to see the country's ruler. Sultan
Malik al-Kamil welcomed him into the city, and the two men talked, had
meals together, and got to know one another over the course of the next
several days. Although Francis' hopes of converting the sultan to
Christianity failed, the two came away from the encounter with mutual
respect, so much so that Francis was actually allowed to preach the
gospel within the city. Most importantly, Francis presented an
alternative vision of Christianity to Muslims and Christians alike, one
that took seriously the teaching of Christianity's founder that people
should love their enemies. Today's reading from Micah was originally a
fairly obscure passage from one of the prophets, but it came to
prominence in early Christianity when it was incorporated into Matthew's
gospel as a proof-text that identified Bethlehem as the city of the
messiah's birth. It is doubtful that the passage was originally
intended to identify the messiah's geographical origin. Instead, the
main intent seems to be to give the people of Israel hope that a
descendant of David would one day arise to lead them. And what kind of
messiah would he be? Not a fearsome warrior defeating enemy troops in
battle but a humble person of humble origins, a person whose rule would
benefit the oppressed people of the land, a person whose actions were
such that people would say of him, "He is the one of peace." Who is a
person of peace? Many winners of the Nobel Peace Prize fit the bill:
Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jimmy Carter, the
Dalai Lama, Doctors without Borders, the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines, Aung San Suu Kyi, Eli Wiesel, Mother Teresa, Amnesty
International, Albert Schweitzer ... the list is long and distinguished.
This year's winner, President Barack Obama, has big shoes to fill, and
all people who love peace hope he is able to do so. As he moves forward
in his efforts, and as all people of goodwill strive for a world where
peace reigns supreme, few better examples for emulation could be put
forward than Francis of Assisi, who walked through a battlefield to try
to bring peace.
Psalm 80:1-7 (first published 21 December 2003)
Is your faith strong enough to endure the unendurable? In 1492, the
"Christian" rulers of united Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, expelled the
Jews who wouldn't convert to Christianity from their territory. Many Jews
left their homeland, their possessions, and their friends, journeying
throughout Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East. Other Jews
abandoned their religious moorings and converted to Christianity. Still
others pretended to convert, adopting the external trappings of
Christianity while maintaining their core Jewish beliefs and customs in
secret. These Secret Jews, also called Marranos, continued to observe
those aspects of Judaism that they could, and they passed down their faith
for hundreds of years to succeeding generations. Psalm 80 describes a
time of crisis similar to Spain in 1492. References to Joseph, Ephraim,
Manasseh, and Benjamin in the first two verses of the psalm indicate that
the historical context centered in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The
reference to Yahweh enthroned on the cherubim alludes to the presence of
God that was thought to dwell over the ark of the covenant, which at one
time resided in the northern sanctuary of Shiloh. Israel was threatened
with annihilation by the Assyrian Empire; what would become of the people
and their religion? Would it endure? The psalm is punctuated with a
thrice-repeated refrain: "Restore us, O (Yahweh) God (of hosts); let your
face shine, that we may be saved." Did God answer the prayers of his
worshipers? After the Assyrians invaded, the leaders of the people were
deported to other Assyrian territories, and people from other lands were
resettled in Israel. Some Israelites fled south to Judah, and others
simply became assimilated into the Assyrian empire. A small group,
however, appears to have survived with their understanding of God intact,
and their descendants had a confrontation about 200 years later with the
descendants of Judah who had returned from Babylonian exile: "[The
inhabitants of Northern Israel] approached Zerubbabel and the heads of
families and said to them, 'Let us build with you, for we worship your God
as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of King
Esarhaddon of Assyria who brought us here.' But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and
the rest of the heads of families in Israel said to them, 'You shall have
no part with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to
the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus of Persia has commanded us'"
(Ezra 4:2-3). What a tragic state of affairs! A
community of faith had continued in existence for generations, remaining
as faithful as they could to their religious practices and their God, only
to be told that their faith wasn't good enough. Many of the Marranos have
experienced similar rejection in modern times, as have the Secret
Christians of Japan (the Kakure), and other religious minorities
throughout history. Interestingly, the remnant of the Israelite
community, rejected by their southern brothers and sisters, continued
through the ages, and today the Samaritans still number about 600 in and
around the city of Nablus in the West Bank. The examples of the Samaritan
community in Israel/Palestine, the Marranos in Spain (and their
descendants around the world), and the Kakure Christians in Japan show us
that God remains faithful to those who have the courage to worship him to
the best of their understanding. By relying on the powerful presence of
God, persecuted believers have the strength to endure the unendurable.
Hebrews 10:5-10 (first published 21 December 2003)
In the movie Life is Beautiful, Guido, played by Roberto
Benigni, and his wife and son are taken to a concentration camp in Italy.
Guido has to hide his son, Giosué so that the Nazis won't kill him,
so he tells him that they are playing a giant game of hide and seek, and
that the team that wins will get a tank. By taking a terrible situation
and transforming it into a game, he is able to protect his son, both
physically and emotionally, from the tragedy of the concentration camp.
Have you ever "made a virtue of necessity"? When confronted with a
situation in which you had no option but to do something unpalatable, or
something that under normal circumstances you'd rather not have done, have
you managed to make the best of it? If the book of Hebrews was written
after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, as many scholars believe,
then the author has transformed a difficult situation--the destruction of
the temple and the demise of the sacrificial system so central to Second
Temple Judaism--into a statement of hope. God has not brought an end to
an important religious rite without replacing it with something much more
profound. In the place of actual sacrifice, which was no longer possible,
God has substituted the sacrificial death of Jesus, and Jesus' followers
have a new relationship with God because of "the offering of the body of
Jesus Christ once for all." Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make us
reexamine our understanding of God, and sometimes believers gradually
realize, because of changed worldview, that they need to reevaluate their
understanding of God and religion. Almost 500 years ago Martin Luther
launched a Reformation of the church that brought about profound changes
throughout Christianity, and not only among Protestants. The printing
press was perhaps the most important invention of the second Christian
millennium, because it allowed new ideas to spread far and wide,
effectively bringing an end to the established church's control of
information. The European "discovery" of the New World and the fall of
Byzantium to the Muslims changed the way Europeans thought about
themselves and the world, so Luther was the right person in the right
place at the right time to proclaim new ideas. We find ourselves today in
a similar situation. A new medium of communication--the Internet, and
especially the Web--offers individuals unprecedented opportunities to
communicate with one another. The dangers of living in a nuclear age have
made the peace movement more vital than at any previous time in history,
if only because it is now a matter of life of death for the planet.
Advances in science have given us a greater understanding of our universe
and ourselves. The time is ripe for a new Reformation. Following the
example of the author of Hebrews, we need to recognize that the world has
changed. We no longer live in the nineteenth century, nor can we return
to the 1950s--and we shouldn't want to! We live in a brave new world of
opportunities and dangers, and Christians need to set positive examples
for people of other faiths and people of no faith. We need to offer our
generation and subsequent generations a picture of God that is compatible
with science while remaining connected to our historical faith. We need
to offer forms of worship that are meaningful to people living in a
postmodern world. We need to offer analyses of both the Bible and current
events that are consistent with our new understanding of how God works in
the world. The author of Hebrews boldly states that Christ abolished the
sacrificial system in order to do God's will in a new way. What aspects
of our current understanding of Christianity do we need to abolish in
order to do God's will in the third millennium?
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55) (first published 21 December 2003)
In the trailer to the movie American Beauty, the audience is shown what appears on the surface to be a normal, suburban, American family: husband, wife, daughter, neighbors, job. But everything is not right. There's conflict, betrayal, love, hate, obsession, rebellion, violence. Still that's not all there is. Look closer, the trailer urges, and find the beauty in all of it. Christianity is based on the teachings of a man executed as a common criminal, who was born to a woman who got pregnant out of wedlock. Who could find anything of beauty in a story like that? Elizabeth did. When Mary visited her relative in the final days of Elizabeth's pregnancy, Elizabeth greeted her with the strange words, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb." Despite the circumstances, Elizabeth saw the beauty of Mary's situation. Are we able to see beauty in difficult circumstances today? How does the church react to an unwed, pregnant teenager? Do we pile our reprobation on top of her already well-developed guilt? Or do we offer our support and love through a difficult time? Can we see the good that can come out of the situation? And how do we deal with those in our midst who have been convicted of crimes? Do we shun them and hope they'll go to another church, or just drop out? Do we condemn the criminal to a life of perpetual ostracism? Do we think of prison as a place of punishment or rehabilitation? I heard Jimmy Carter speak once about the prison system. He said that when he was governor of Georgia, he and his fellow southern governors would compete with one another to see who could develop the most enlightened, effective prisons, where convicts were rehabilitated and recidivism was minimized. Now, he said, governors compete with one another to see which state can have the harshest laws. Rehabilitation is hardly discussed, and recidivism is expected. Christians need to remember our roots and show love to those in difficult circumstances, even if the circumstances are of their own making. In Mary's beautiful song, the Magnificat, she speaks of God looking with favor on the lowly, not only herself, but others like her. If we truly believe in the God Mary spoke of, we would do well to consider the poor and lowly, the unwed mothers and convict fathers, the homeless and the illegal aliens, with the compassion that God has for them. Maybe then we'll see the beauty that's in all of them.