The Other Side of Childhood

In using the Wizard of Oz story as an analogy, Richard Rohr in his book Falling Upward, suggests that after the experience of his education, he “was surely not in Kansas anymore.”  He goes on to say, “I had passed, like Dorothy, ‘over the rainbow.’”

He also notes, perhaps as a bit of warning to those engaging in becoming educated, “life was much easier on the childhood side of the rainbow.”

David Brooks, a national columnist for the New York Times, in a similar vein of thought, encourages his readers in The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, to think about the great value of a life of significance as compared to a life of mere achievement, even when the achievement is great. For Brooks, the primary distinctive between those “two mountains” upon which we may live is “selfish” versus “selfless.”

This semester we continue our “reboot journey.” Where are those moments when we may need to turn the machine off and restart? And sometimes, where are those moments when we need to do the “factory reset” kind of reboot?

College – especially in the context of a school like Point where we care about faith, we care about learning who we are and how we got here, we care about where we are headed – must be a reboot time in our lives. If you graduate from Point and “are still in Kansas,” then you missed the opportunity God placed right on your front door step. 

This really has little if anything to do with whether you are a better business person, counselor, teacher, criminal justice person, musician, ministry person, or any other skill. Life is about far more than “achievement” in the world of STEM. Life is about who you are and who, through Christ, you can become! Don’t misunderstand that to mean those other areas are unimportant, just that if that’s all that happens in college, you may end up back in Kansas! (No offense to Kansas.)

What if as we begin this new semester together at Point – either in classrooms in West Point or virtually for on-line students or in some combination of both options – we committed ourselves to focus on what we can do this semester that will help us “pass over whatever rainbow” we need to pass over in order to become the person of significance God has called us to be?

After all, Jesus said “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) Through our faith in Him and commitment to follow Him, we can “pass over the rainbows” that hold us back and discover a life of “significance, not mere achievement.”

IF we do, we will discover “life on the other side of childhood.”

Choking to Death on Camel Stew

If you’ve read Matthew 23, you may remember that Jesus is described as confronting the Pharisees of His day in ways that no other gospel can match. He isn’t in the best of moods and sounds a bit like a Hebrew prophet bringing a law suit against Israel for their unfaithfulness.  The series of sayings that begin with “woe to you,” or “Woe betide you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” as N.T. Wright translates it in his Kingdom New Testament, is a powerful reminder of the need for a serious course correction.

The woe that I personally keep coming back to – perhaps out of some need to make sure it couldn’t be said of me – is the saying found in verses 23, 24. Here it is from Wright’s translation:

               "Woe betide you, scribes and Pharisees, yhou hypocrites!" Jesus went on. "You tithe mint and dill and cumin, and you omit the serious matters of the law like justice, mercy, and loyalty. You should have done these, without neglecting the others. You're blind guides! You filter out a gnat, but you gulp down a camel.

 

We first meet the idea of tithing when Abram gave Melchizedek a tithe of the spoils of war gained from victory. (Genesis 14) In the Law – Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy all insist that a tithe should be given to the Lord. Most would assume that means a tenth of all of one’s income. From the comments Jesus makes to the Pharisees – it sounds as though they took the principle of tithing in an extraordinarily serious manner. They tithed their herb gardens – mint, dill, and cumin included. With scrupulous detail, they made sure “they paid their tithes” as I’ve heard some believers describe the process.

Jesus is not opposed to such a detailed and determined approach to tithing. “You should have done these” is how He responds to it. 

Yet, that isn’t all that Jesus said.

“You omit the serious matters of the law like justice, mercy, and loyalty.” They are “blind guides” because the rigid legalism with which they tithe is not matched with a commitment to issues more important than making sure you gave a teaspoon of mint, dill, and cumin to the Levites. 

The Law had much to say about justice, mercy, and faithfulness (covenant loyalty). The prophet Micah  would have shouted a fervent “Amen!” to this criticism Jesus offers. Do you remember what he said, summarizing much of what the Law pointed toward, in Micah 6:8? “He has told you, O man, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (ESV)

For Jesus, focusing on minutia at the expense of the weightier matters is as though we strain out a tiny little gnat (unclean for sure, Lev. 11:41) while gulping down a camel, also unclean (Lev. 11:4) and the largest of the beasts common to Palestine.

It doesn’t take an advanced degree in theology to figure out that Jesus wants us to pay attention to all that God has asked of us, even in areas where we might think “no big deal, it’s such a small matter.” So this isn’t an invitation to become a libertine about such matters.

But neither doesn’t it take that advanced degree to realize that when my focus on such relatively minor issues convinces me that justice, kindness, and walking humbly with our God don’t matter, I’m little more than a blind guide who fastidiously strains out a tiny gnat from my soup but ends up choking to death on camel stew.

Pick up a daily newspaper or spend thirty minutes watching your favorite media news source and you will see issues related to justice, mercy, and faithfulness all over the place. Walk or drive around the town or city you live in – and it won’t be hard to find issues related to justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

Unfortunately – it isn’t unusual to hear self-proclaimed Christian leaders straining gnats while choking on camel stew when it comes to how we address these important issues. 

The Pharisees seem to be more focused on maintaining a preferred way of life than on taking the good news of the kingdom of God seriously. Perhaps it was some political theory that they adopted over and above the gospel.

May we not follow their steps and one day hear Jesus say, “Woe betide you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!”

The Great Reversal

Several years ago a YouTube video of Bono and Eugene Peterson was downloaded and played thousands of times. It is about twenty minutes or so long and showed a great friendship and respect the famous singer and famous Bible scholar and translator had for one another. It is well worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l40S5e90KY  

One of the things I remember Bono saying was that he wished contemporary Christian artists were as “honest about life as the psalms are.” They talked about the proper role of lament in the lives of God’s people

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We don’t do well with lament.

A contemporary Christian song I hear often is I Called, You Answered. It is a Hillsong United song based on Psalm 138:3, which says, “On the day I called, You answered me; You emboldened me and strengthened my soul.” (ESV) The lyrics of the song are nice and the tune to which they are sung, at least to me, has a kind of haunting quality.

Obviously this isn’t a “song of lament!” Its recurring theme is “you came to my rescue and I wanna be where you are.” (I’m too old to be fond of “wanna be” as a replacement for “want to be,” but those are the lyrics!)

But recently, in my personal reading of Scripture, while reading from Isaiah, I came across two different texts that are a bit of a reversal from the hope, joy, and thanksgiving of Psalm 138. Isaiah 65:12 says, “I have destined you for the sword, and you all shall kneel to be slaughtered, since I called and you did not answer, I spoke and you did not hear, and you did what was evil in My eyes, and what I did not desire you choose.” And then, in Isaiah 66:4, “I, too, will choose their rank acts and what they fear I will bring upon them. Because I called and none answered, I spoke and they did not listen, and they did what was evil in My eyes, and in what I did not delight they chose.” (Translation from Robert Alter, A Translation with Commentary.)

That sounds like Lament!

Isaiah introduces a kind of great reversal at the beginning of Isaiah 65 – “I yielded oracles when they did not inquire, I was found when they did not seek Me. I said, ‘Here I am, ere I am’ to a nation not called by My name. I spread out My hands all day long to a wayward people that walked on a way not good after its own divisings.” (Alter) God speaks when we don’t ask, is found when we don’t seek, prays (spread out my hands) for wayward people who travel a path that isn’t good. God will have a people, but it may not be the people who think they are His people. 

What would a Hillsong United tune and lyrics on these texts look and sound like?

I’m certainly not suggesting we go around in “sack cloth and ashes” twenty-four hour a day, nor am I suggesting that somehow it is less than spiritually appropriate to celebrate the presence of God in our lives as Psalm 138 does. But . . . shouldn’t it break our heart that in these Isaiah texts, it is God who calls, but we don’t answer. It is God who speaks, but we don’t bother to hear.  Instead of “answering and listening” we choose “to do what is evil in His eyes.” 

Robert Goldingay (The First Testament, 648) suggests that the message of Isaiah 56-66 “relates to the situation of Judah when people have been free to return there after their exile but where things are not as wonderful as they might have expected.” It seems certain that Judah has experienced a kind of forgiveness out of the exile but has returned to its former way. 

In a great reversal – rather than Israel calling on God, He calls on them. They don’t answer.

Lament.

Rather than Israel praying, it is God whose hands are spread out all day long for a wayward people.

Lament.

I look forward to the next time I am with God’s people and we sing, I Called, You Answered.

But I’m wondering if our culture – church-going and non-church going – couldn’t use a song or two of lament and repentance.

Perhaps Bono was right. We need contemporary artists who are as honest as the psalms – and as Isaiah is!