Rahab: Doing What She Could

Read Joshua 2:1–21

One of the mistakes people make in reading the Bible is expecting the people they find there to be upstanding religious folks. But that makes for a two-dimensional depiction of the characters in the Bible, while they are in fact fully developed persons with motives as complex and mixed as our own. Not all of them are good people, and precious few measure up to our Sunday School depictions of what “Bible people” are supposed to represent.

Take the two spies Joshua sends into Jericho and its environs to case the joint before the proposed invasion. In Joshua 2:1, the general commissions the two men, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” Well, they go and do some viewing, but it’s uncertain how much of the land they scope out. Verse 2 tells us, “So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and spent the night there.”

Now, the Sunday School version of the story says that the men are in danger and take cover at the first place of refuge they can find, but a more realistic understanding says, “They’re out of town, they have some shekels burning a hole in their pockets, and they pay a visit to a prostitute. Duh.” I’ll let you decide which interpretation is more likely.

Regardless of their motivations, their visit introduces us to Rahab, who turns out to be an enterprising person in more ways than one. She has heard the rumors about the Israelites, that their god has given Jericho and the rest of Canaan into their hands, and she works a deal with the two spies. She hides them from the soldiers sent by the king, who has heard the same rumors and somehow knows the spies have come to his city. (It’s interesting that his men should go first to a prostitute to ask for the men’s whereabouts; that ought to tell us how the king understands the spies’ motives and choices.)

So the king’s men come to Rahab, but she tells them the spies have already come and gone, while in fact she has hidden them among the flax she is drying on her roof. She goes to them and extracts a promise that her family will be spared when the troops attack the city. She undoubtedly reminds them that she has just saved their hides and can just as easily turn them in. Whether out of gratitude for her protection or because they know she can and will flip on them in a heartbeat, they comply with her request. Their one condition is that she hang a scarlet cord from her window on the day of the invasion as a sign that her house and family are not to be caught up in the general destruction. If we don’t see the cord, the spies say, all bets are off.

The most interesting thing about Rahab is what we find out many years later. As we read Jesus’s genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew’s gospel, we find among the descendants of Abraham, “Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of…” (Matt. 1:4–5). Did you catch that? Rahab, the prostitute, the “fallen woman,” the hooker with or without a heart of gold, is woven into the genealogy of Jesus.

In fact, the names of no fewer than four women find their way into Jesus’s lineage, and each of them are problematic in one way or another. Tamar pretends to be a temple prostitute and conceives a child by her father-in-law Judah. Ruth seduces Boaz. Bathsheba (Matthew just calls her “the wife of Uriah”) is a married woman whom David takes and impregnates before having her husband killed. And then there’s Rahab.

My attitude toward women who practice prostitution in the ancient world is similar to what Augustus McCrae says when asked what Lorena Wood was doing in Lonesome Dove in the novel of that name: “She was doing what she could, but don’t hold it against her.” We cannot know the dire choices that lead women into prostitution in our times, let alone three or more thousand years ago. I don’t hold it against Rahab. She did what she could, and she used her crafty, quick-thinking mind to provide security for her loved ones. In the process she elbowed her way into the genealogy of the Messiah. If Jesus knew about her role as his ancestor, I doubt that he disapproved.

The Pledge

The top two officers of the national setting of the United Church of Christ recently released a statement on the ongoing violence in Israel/Palestine and the campus protests that have rocked our nation in the past few weeks. Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson, General Minister, and Rev. Shari Prestemon, Acting Associate General Minister, say a lot of things in their statement that I agree with and believe to be true. Here’s a sampling:

We pray to God that this war will cease and the people in Gaza [will] be relieved of their suffering. We press for a permanent ceasefire, the delivery of abundant medical and humanitarian aid, the immediate release of all hostages and prisoners, and resolution to the core issues so that a lasting and just peace may prevail.

Unfortunately, the discourse and coverage of the campus protests have been particularly reductive. Frequently characterized as hate speech or antisemitism, this framing ignores the fact that a vocal portion of the protesters are Jewish. Among them are students with Jewish Voice for Peace, who have joined with Students for Justice in Palestine and others to call for peace.

We recognize the necessity to keep our focus on the most vulnerable—the Palestinian people of Gaza, including its women and men, its children and its students, who seek justice and a dignified life.

I encourage you to read the full statement here.

All these are legitimate observations or complaints. What I don’t see in the statement, however, is any acknowledgement of Israel’s right to protect itself or the impetus for the current war: Hamas’s deadly and brutal attacks on October 7 that left 1,200 Israelis dead and hundreds more taken hostage. Neither do they mention that Hamas is sworn and determined to completely eliminate the state of Israel. I am afraid that by ignoring these complicating factors Thompson and Prestemon have opened themselves (and the UCC as a whole) to criticism for their (and our) one-sided liberalism. It’s right to demand freedom of speech and protest, but it is unfair and disingenuous to leave out such essential elements from the conversation.

I firmly agree that it is possible to be critical of the state of Israel without being antisemitic. Accusations of antisemitism have proven an effective way to blunt criticism and make reasonable people think twice before stating a reasonable opinion. By no means do I think Thompson and Prestemon are antisemitic. Nor are most of the campus protestors. But this controversy is a symptom of the dysfunction that pervades our national life. We can’t talk to each other honestly and directly without being accused of one thing or another or inviting abuse and calumny from those who disagree.

We have to find ways to disagree with respect and civility, and what better place to learn and model those skills than in the church? That’s why it saddens me so much when I see Christians who hold opposing views on a subject descend from civil discourse to name-calling and mud-slinging with practically no intermediate stages. It’s like a car commercial: we go from zero to character assassination in 6.4 seconds.

I am especially troubled when I catch myself sliding down that slippery slope, so I pledge again to model a better way of disagreeing—one that honors Jesus and doesn’t bring his name into disrepute. I pledge to stay calm, remain on topic, forgo personal attacks and slander, argue face-to-face rather than sniping behind someone’s back, and maintain my identity as a friend and sibling in Christ even when I can’t convince the other person of the perfect rightness of my position. (Oh, and I pledge to stop considering my position perfectly right, but rather acknowledge the flawed and self-serving nature of every human argument and opinion.) And I pledge to seek forgiveness and reconciliation when I forget any of these other pledges.

Who will join me in taking this pledge? In a two-for-one offer from the cliché department, I say, Let us agree to disagree without being disagreeable.

The Other Side of the Bedside

I had a learning experience this week. But before I get into that, let me first thank everyone who visited me in the hospital (or tried to), everyone who prayed, and everyone who left sympathetic or concerned comments on my Facebook page. I appreciate your love and concern. I’m starting to feel a little better, but I’m still waiting to find out what has caused this terrible rash and how to make it go away for good.

Anyway, back to my learning experience. As far as I can remember, this is the first time I have spent an extended time in the hospital since I was in third grade, and it was enlightening to see the experience from the bed instead of the bedside. I learned, among other things, that when you’re in the hospital, you don’t always want visitors. Sometimes you just want to be left alone. Mind you, I was happy to see everyone who dropped by, but there were times when I was glad to have my (relative) solitude. Following the example of my pastor friend Mark Johnson, who came to see me on Wednesday morning, in the future I will try to call ahead to see if a patient is up for a visit from me instead of just popping in.

I also learned what a pain, both figurative and literal, it is to find yourself at the mercy of doctors and nurses and other medical professionals at all hours of the day and night. I lost count of how many rounds of IV antibiotics I received, how many times they came to draw blood, and how many times I had my vital signs checked (and had to give my name and birthdate) during my three days there. I remember precisely, however, the number of shots I received in my abdomen—three, and always very early in the morning—which I adamantly do not recommend, and the number of tries it took to find a suitable vein for my IV port—also three, and they finally had to bring in the ultrasound machine to find one. I have had enough of needles for a while.

I learned that it’s a trial to be tethered to an IV or otherwise unable to get up and move around when I wanted. I was lucky enough to be pretty mobile, so unless the IV was hooked up I could get up and go to the bathroom or whatever I needed to do without too much trouble. But there is something humiliating about having to ask permission to relieve yourself. I learned that one of the things you surrender when you go into the hospital is a healthy chunk of your dignity.

More learning: I can’t speak for any other hospitals in the area, but the staff—especially the nurses—at Reading Hospital are top-notch. They were invariably friendly and compassionate, and they usually laughed at my jokes, which anyone can tell you is a great way to get on my good side. I was grateful again for the life and work of Dixie Warmkessel and others like her who dedicated their lives to train generations of nurses. I was the beneficiary of their good work. It can’t be easy to provide quality care to a group of people who would really rather be anywhere else, and, as hard as it is to receive a shot in the belly, I can see that it might also be difficult to administer one.

I am grateful for the care I received at Reading Hospital this week, and I hope that the things I experienced and learned during my stay will make me a better pastor, now that I have seen the experience from the other side of the bedside.

Prove Jesus Wrong

Read John 12:1–11

There are certain things I wish Jesus had never said. Sometimes I object to them because they place a demand on me that makes me uncomfortable—the command to repeatedly forgive offenders falls into this category. Other sayings of his bother me because they don’t fit neatly into my personal theology, such as certain parables that seem to depict God as vindictive or even violent. But what Jesus says in John 12:8 I object to because of the use it has been put to by subsequent interpreters. He says, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

The context of this statement is the scene in which Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus with an expensive perfume, an act which Jesus interprets as preparing his body for burial. Judas Iscariot, as the epitome of evil in John’s gospel, objects to what he considers a waste of valuable resources that could have been shared with the poor, prompting Jesus’s response about always having the poor around but not always having him.

This in turn has prompted centuries of self-interested Bible readers to take a fatalistic attitude toward poverty that saps any energy they might have employed to eliminate it. After all, if no less an authority than Jesus says there will always be poor people, who are we to presume that we can eradicate poverty? And it’s a short step from thinking it’s an intractable problem to concluding, “Why bother?”

Too many upper-class or first-world Christians spend lavish amounts on luxuries while leaving only scraps for their poorer neighbors, justifying this neglect by saying, “After all, Jesus said the poor are never going away.” Helen Todd, an American suffragist in the early twentieth century, emphasized the need for not only bread but also roses for poor people, acknowledging the need for both sustenance for the body and beauty for the soul. But it’s one thing to offer both bread and roses to poor people; it’s quite another to feast and grow a rose garden for yourself and give only crumbs and wilted petals to the poor ones in our midst. And it’s illegitimate, even blasphemous, to justify such activity by appealing to the words of Jesus.

A better way to understand what Jesus is saying here is to hear it in its proper context. He seems to be referring to a verse from Deuteronomy in which Moses says, “There will never cease to be some in need on the earth.” But that’s only the first part of the quotation. Moses goes on to say, speaking for God, “I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land’” (Deut 15:11). Far from using the ubiquitous presence of poor people as an excuse to ignore them, God wants us to work conscientiously to meet their needs.

It’s interesting to note that a few verses earlier in Deuteronomy 15 Moses says this: “There will … be no one in need among you, because the Lord is sure to bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession to occupy, if only you will obey the Lord your God by diligently observing this entire commandment that I command you today” (Deut 15:4–5, emphasis added). In other words, if we do what we’re supposed to do, we will learn to share and sacrifice and act justly until we can send Jesus’s saying about the poor always being with us onto the scrap heap of history.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but let’s prove Jesus wrong.

Partners Not Puppets

Read Psalm 138

I recently read a book by Michael Schur called How to Be Perfect. Schur was the principal writer of The Good Place, a TV show that, if you’ve seen it, you know it combines hilarious comedy with speculative moral philosophy in a remarkably creative way, and if you haven’t seen it, stop reading this reflection immediately, go to Netflix (subscribe if you have to!), and start watching it from the beginning. When you come up for air after helplessly bingeing several episodes, you’ll thank me.

Schur’s book is a more in-depth version of the themes he explores on The Good Place. He discusses the “big three”: Aristotle’s virtue ethics, the deontology of Immanuel Kant, and utilitarianism as championed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. He employs these three schools of ethical thought to decide the correct course of action when it comes to things like whether to tell your friend her new shirt is ugly or not, or whether to take your shopping cart back to the rack or leave it on the parking lot. Along the way he brings in other approaches, such as consequentialism and contractualism, to explore these and more serious moral quandaries.

As I read Schur’s section on existentialism, I thought of a line from Psalm 138, and something clicked in my head. In verse 8 the psalmist writes, “The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.” Kind of a run-of-the-mill observation by biblical standards, but utterly preposterous to a hard-core existentialist like Jean-Paul Sartre. He was a strict materialist and believed human beings have no “props”—no God, no religion, not even any conventional moral standards. We are all alone in the universe, which sounds pretty bleak, but Sartre says that very aloneness makes for ultimate freedom. The free-agent human, liberated from all illusions and delusions of outside powers at work in her life, is utterly free to create her own reality in the existential moment of choice. This aloneness also forces us to take responsibility for the consequences of the choices we make.

I’m no hard-core existentialist by any means, but there is an uncompromising, “no excuses” element to it that appeals to me. Some people read a verse like “[God] will fulfill [God’s] purpose for me” and conclude that everything is in God’s hands, and all we have to do is to go along for the ride. It’s this attitude that results in the unconscionable slogan, “Everything happens for a reason,” which gets dragged out at the most inopportune times, such as moments of deep grief or the aftermath of a tragedy. My response to this claptrap is, “If everything happens for a reason, somebody’s got some serious explaining to do.” To say that God will fulfill God’s purpose for me does not relieve me from my responsibility in that existential moment of choice. Nobody is pulling my strings, no matter how much I might desire such a cop-out from time to time.

I believe God does have a purpose for me, but I view that purpose in a cooperative way. God and I are in a kind of partnership (at God’s invitation, mind you) in which my choices are essential. I can facilitate God’s purposes, or I can thwart them, depending on my decisions. Other people’s choices also come into play. I may feel strongly that such-and-such is God’s will for me, but if somebody else has some say in the matter, that will can still be thwarted. In my theological and philosophical understanding, God does not force God’s will upon any of us. God is in the business of persuasion, not coercion, leaving us the freedom to cooperate or disrupt.

Such freedom can be scary. It’s more comforting to think that everything is in God’s hands and everything happens for a(n ultimately good) reason. But God respects us enough to treat us as partners, not puppets. It makes life into an adventure, and it gives our choices an added “oomph” that they would not have were we mere marionettes. So I say give God the glory—by making genuine choices in partnership with God—and together weave a tapestry that portrays God’s purpose for your life.

The Miracle of Epiphany

Read Isaiah 60:1–6

In times like these it is easy to sympathize with the sentiment expressed in Isaiah 60:2, which says, “For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples.” It often feels as though we were swaddled in darkness, doesn’t it? As though we were groping about in a thick fog, waiting impatiently for the sun to rise and melt away the mist so we can see clearly again. At times it can be difficult to remember what the world even looks like when we can see clearly. Despair and cynicism begin to look like viable options.

This is true for individuals as much as it is for nations. As one who suffers from clinical depression, I can attest to the temptation to give up hope that the darkness will ever break. It always does, but when you’re in the midst of it that is easy to forget. Churches are susceptible to this kind of anguish as well. Look at how our membership has dwindled over the last few decades! Look at the state of our Sunday School! Why aren’t young families joining our fellowship the way they used to? Will we ever see a turnaround?

The people to whom the writer first addressed Isaiah 60 were in a similar boat, only more so. They had been devastated by war, conquest, and exile, and their return home had been an underwhelming venture at best. For them, the “thick darkness” had lasted for a couple of generations and longer. They probably resonated strongly with the morose picture the prophet offers in the first part of verse 2.

And they probably read the rest of his poem with a jaundiced eye. “Arise, shine; for your light has come,” they read sardonically, “and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you” (v. 1). Yeah, right. Pfft. It’s the same way many of us feel when some Pollyanna tells us that the glory days of our nation or church or sports team are ahead of, not behind them. Considering the polarization in our country, considering the decades of decline in attendance and positive energy, considering the last ten losing seasons in a row, what can we reasonably expect besides more of the same: deeper national divisions, dwindling church numbers, continuing debacles on the field and in the front office? It would take a miracle to turn these things around.

On Sunday we will observe Epiphany, and Epiphany is a sort of miracle. It’s the wholly unexpected coming of light into the heretofore impervious dark. In a time of division a leader arises who can bring healing and wholeness. A new family comes into the church and sparks something fresh and hopeful. A kid from the later rounds of the draft turns out to be a franchise-saver and one of the best players of all time. A nondescript child born into poverty in a time of oppression and military occupation turns out to be the Light of the World.

On Epiphany we remember the magi from Eastern lands who saw signs in the sky and traveled hundreds of miles to “bring gold and frankincense [and myrrh], and [to] proclaim the praise of the Lord” (v. 6). What did they see that so many others did not? Why did they choose hope instead of despair and perceive light when all seemed to lie in darkness? And more to the point, where are the wise men and women (and youth and children) in our time who can see the breaking of dawn that will end the dark night of our collective soul? Who are those who will bind up the nation’s wounds, bridge the chasms, offer tangible help to the poor, the marginalized, the addicted, the hopeless?

What will Epiphany bring? May we have the eyes to see the light of Christ and add our own guttering flames to his until a blaze shatters the dark and discloses the path to God.

Not to Worry

Read Matthew 6:25–33

Conventional wisdom holds that sins are things we try to hide. We feel shame about our sinfulness, so we try to conceal it from the prying eyes of other people and, if we could manage it, from God. But there is one sin that pervades the church—it runs rampant among the most devout and the least—and not only do we not try to hide it, but we even wear it as a badge of honor. The sin I’m talking about is worry.

Listen to the way we talk about worry. “I’m worried about the effects of climate change.” “I worry when my kids are out on the road—from the time they leave until I hear them pull into the driveway, I can’t stop worrying.” “We bought this $20,000 security system because we’re worried about crime in the neighborhood.” “I’m worried about the results of my husband’s biopsy.”

We have equated worry with concern and even love; when you worry, it means you care. That’s why we take such pride in our worries, and it’s why we look askance at anyone who claims not to worry about their loved ones or the state of the world or any other matter of importance. “You’re not worried about your children’s welfare?” we ask incredulously. “Don’t you love them?”

We even use the language of “oughtness” when it comes to worry. Newscasters and advertisers are experts at this. “Should you be worried about lead in your drinking water? Stay tuned for our special report.” “We know you worry about being able to provide for your family’s future. That’s why we created Mammon Investment Strategies LLC.” The message comes across that if you are not worried, you haven’t been paying attention. You should be worried, so we can fix it with our product (“Our newest model administers an electric shock the moment you drift out of your lane on the highway”) or our investigative team (“Keeping you safe—Channel 9 is on your side!”).

Now listen to the way Jesus talks about worry, and see if you can discern a difference: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matt 6:25). “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” (Matt 6:27). “If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will [God] not much more clothe you—you of little faith?” (Matt 6:30).

When it comes to worry, you would almost get the impression that Jesus was against it. You might even think he considers worry the antithesis of faith. Chew on that for a minute.

It’s no accident that the Revised Common Lectionary assigns this passage from the Sermon on the Mount as the daily reading for Thanksgiving Day. Because the best way to defeat worry is to practice gratitude. When we turn our eyes and hearts toward the good things we have received from the Divine, we are less likely to dwell on the things we don’t have, or the things that may come about in the future. When we cultivate a spirit of gratitude, we can begin to recognize the abundance God has lavished on us. When we are grateful for life, we need not fear death. When we are grateful for the earth, we are more likely to act to protect the environment. Worry discourages meaningful action; gratitude sparks it. When we are grateful for our loved ones and recognize that their Creator loves them even more profoundly than we do, we can release them into God’s providential care. Worry, it turns out, is the opposite of care.

This Thanksgiving, may we all work at cultivating that spirit of gratitude that bears the fruit of generosity, freedom, and trust. As we put our trust in God, we will be empowered to become God’s partners in realizing the commonwealth of God. We will have the bone-deep conviction that we are held in the loving hand of our Creator, and we will be able to “strive first for the kingdom of God and [God’s] righteousness,” trusting that “all these things will be given to [us] as well” (Matt 6:33).

He Stood Still

Read Matthew 20:29–34

Jesus is passing through the city of Jericho, and he has other things on his mind. He is on his way to Jerusalem, and his plan to confront the religious and political powers there could possibly (quite probably, really) end in disaster. It has been weighing on his mind for months, this likelihood that his mission and journey will find its completion on a Roman cross. He has been ramping up his instruction of his disciples, suspecting that they will soon have to carry on the mission without him, and it’s not going well. Despite his pounding away at the themes of sacrifice and servanthood, just the other night they got into another of their silly arguments about who was to be considered the greatest among them. As if status or power or any other distinction meant anything when that first nail pierced one’s skin. Sometimes Jesus despaired of the prospect of anyone ever getting him and his message.

With all these distracting thoughts roiling around in his brain, it’s understandable that he would miss the shouts. On the verge of his consciousness he heard some men calling out for the Son of David and some others telling them none too gently to shut their traps, but at first it didn’t register that it had anything to do with him. When the shouts persisted, however, rising up shrilly over the near-constant buzz of the crowd that followed him everywhere these days—rubberneckers, mostly, not disciples, he thought ruefully—he finally took notice.

“Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David!” called two men who he could tell once they came into view were blind. They had been sitting by the roadside begging, but when they heard that Jesus was passing through, they abandoned their cloaks and their other meager possessions and came running and stumbling after the sound of the crowd, shouting at the top of their lungs for mercy.

Maybe that’s what caught Jesus’s attention—the way they left their belongings behind to pursue him—especially their cloaks. For a beggar a cloak was a prized possession. It served as protection from the weather, it was a life-saver when you had to sleep outdoors, and in the daytime it served the same purpose as a busker’s guitar case: it was the receptacle where they received the pennies and occasional shekels passersby tossed to them. For the men to walk away and leave their scant but crucial capital behind may have indicated to Jesus that they were ready for discipleship. It was just like in the early days when four different people who made their living fishing up and left their nets to follow him. These two blind boys of Jericho showed promise.

So he stopped. Matthew says, “Jesus stood still and called them, saying, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’” (v. 32).

He stood still. With all the chaos of the crowd surrounding him, with all the chaos of his own thoughts and misgivings filling his mind, with the weight of the world trying to drag him down to the ground, Jesus stood still. For that moment, all of creation stopped and leaned forward, its breath held, waiting for what would happen next. For that moment, those two men were the most important thing in the cosmos to the one who would soon be hailed as the very Son of God.

Did you know that Jesus still comes to a stop and directs his attention to you when you offer a heartfelt prayer? Your longing, your cry of pain or need or bewilderment or joy cuts through the static of the world’s noise like a hot knife through butter, and the Son of God stands still to listen.

The men’s heartfelt cry was to have their eyes opened, so, “moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes” (v. 34). When they immediately received their sight, they proved to be genuine disciples by following Jesus on the last perilous stage of his journey to the cross.

Let us also, when Jesus hears our prayer and meets us with compassion in our time of need, abandon our cloaks, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus wherever that road may lead.

The Ocean

Read Ephesians 2:1–10

“By grace you have been saved” (v. 5). This short sentence helped to start a revolution. Among other passages of Scripture, especially from the epistle to the Romans, this statement prompted Martin Luther to launch the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago.

It’s still a revolutionary thought, for the simple reason that we don’t act as if we believe it. How would our lives look different if we truly believed that God’s grace has saved us and we don’t need to do anything to earn God’s favor? Would that kind of freedom change us and our behavior? Would it free us up to love more and worry less, to give of ourselves more generously and trust God more truly? I think it would.

The idea that we are saved by grace was touted heavily in the Southern Baptist church of my youth, but the message got cloudy when it was accompanied by a long list of rules and regulations, dos and don’ts, thou shalts and thou shalt nots. It was as though we professed to believe in the sufficiency of grace, but deep down we were sure it wasn’t enough. Grace and right living. Grace and evangelism. Grace and service. There always seemed to be an “and” after grace. That strikes me now as fear-based religion, not a love-based orientation to the divine. Instead of resting in the ocean of God’s love we too often keep toiling away, struggling against the breakers that crash relentlessly on the beach.

I don’t mean to pick on my home church, or even on the Southern Baptists, for that matter; many different people from many different denominational backgrounds could say the same thing. It’s a human foible, I guess, this penchant for anxiety, this distrust of love. That’s what it boils down to, I’m afraid: a fundamental lack of trust that the love of God will be enough to summit the mountain of our sins or a fear that God will change God’s mind about saving us. So we keep on striving, seeking to add more tallies to the plus side of the ledger and hoping the total will be greater than the minus side.

But that’s precisely what the writer of the letter to the Ephesians is arguing against. He says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (vv. 8–9). God’s love is enough. God’s grace is bigger and mightier than our sin. We can’t add or subtract anything from the unconditional favor God has already shown us.

So what about good works? Does grace-based salvation mean that we don’t have to do anything, that we can be libertines and hedonists, trusting that God will not count our trespasses against us? No, it doesn’t, as the writer points out in the next verse: “For we are what [God] has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (v. 10). We are created for good works. They are to be our way of life. Not a hobby or an occasional pastime, but the way we live each day of our lives.

The difference is that the works we are created for come as a result of grace, not as a means to earn it. Good works are the natural overflow of a life full of love. When we truly experience grace, we can’t help but respond in loving ways in an effort to spread that grace to the world.

Have you experienced that kind of grace, or are you living a fear-based life of striving? Let yourself fall into that ocean of God’s love. Trust me, you’ll float.

These People

Last week a White man walked into a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, and opened fire, killing three Black people in a racially-motivated attack. He left behind a rambling, nearly incoherent “manifesto,” in which he propounded his racist ideology and declared his intention to kill Black people.

The shooter was armed with a handgun and an AR-15, both of which he appears to have purchased legally, even after having been taken into custody a few years ago under a law that allows officials to intervene when someone is having a mental health emergency. The law stipulates that such persons are no longer allowed to buy guns, but we all know the gaps in enforcement of such laws are big enough to drive a Mack truck through.

My position on guns is well-known (if you aren’t aware of what that is, just ask me), so I’m not going to go into that today. What I want to talk about today is the broader context of this attack. Not only did it take place on the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, but it also happened in Florida. And that’s an important detail.

Governor Ron DeSantis has loudly declared that Florida is “where woke goes to die,”and has taken measures to prove it. For instance, his so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill prohibits public school teachers’ discussing LGBTQ+ issues with students at certain grade levels. But more germane to the subject of last Saturday’s shooting are his and his cronies’ efforts to whitewash the teaching of history in their state.

Florida is not the only place where this offensive initiative has taken root, but it one of the places where its architects have crowed about it most proudly. With the misguided goal of preventing White students’ feeling bad about themselves and their heritage, Florida lawmakers have placed strict limits on what teachers can talk about when it comes to slavery, Jim Crow, and the pervasive, systemic racism that still plagues our nation. To protect our little darlings from having their fragile sense of self-esteem threatened, DeSantis and friends are willing to teach lies, or, at best, to refuse to teach the whole truth. I for one think that kids are tougher than the Governor gives them credit for, and it does them a disservice to teach them “history” based on the principle of “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.”

Before driving to the nearby Dollar General, the shooter first tried to take out his racist wrath at Edward Waters University, a historically Black institution, but he was rebuffed by campus security. Gov. DeSantis this week announced that Florida would give the university $1 million to beef up their campus safety protocols. “We are not gonna allow our HBCUs to be targeted by these people,” he said. I guess it didn’t occur to him that to some observers he himself is one of “these people.”

It is not my place to tell anybody how to think or feel or vote, but it is most assuredly my job to tell you what I believe God, as revealed in Jesus, thinks about these issues. And I cannot imagine that Jesus approves of leaders who foment racial strife for political gain and then disavow any responsibility when unstable, hateful people take their ideas to their logical conclusion. I cannot imagine Jesus telling marginalized people that not only do they have to live in food deserts with crumbling infrastructure, poor public transportation options, and job opportunities running the narrow range from call center operator to fry cook, but they also have to submit to the indignity of having lies told about how they got there. Racism and “anti-wokeism” (which I contend are synonymous) are not victimless crimes, and Jacksonville is just the latest proof of that sad truth.

We can do better. For God’s sake, let us do better.

Treasure in Heaven

Read Psalm 49:1–12

It’s no secret that the Bible speaks with many voices and that those voices do not always agree. Many parts of the Bible, for instance, depict prosperity as a sign of God’s favor. That’s the main argument of Job’s three “friends,” who harangue him for thirty-plus chapters about his unacknowledged sins that must explain the sudden downward turn of his fortunes. Many of the sayings in the book of Proverbs either imply or flat-out state a blithe equivalency between trust in God and the amassing of riches. But in Psalm 49 it’s a different story. Here “those who trust in their wealth / and boast of the abundance of their riches” (v. 6) are depicted as foolish, not wise. 

The psalmist goes on to say, “When we look at the wise, they die; / fool and dolt perish together / and leave their wealth to others” (v. 10), and he concludes, “Mortals cannot abide in their pomp; / they are like the animals that perish” (v. 12). It’s not a blanket condemnation of wealth, but it is a warning to those who trust in their wealth as a sign of God’s favor and some sort of guarantee of a long and happy life. “For the ransom of life is costly / and can never suffice, / that one should live on forever / and never see the Pit,” the psalmist intones in verses 8–9.

I have to admit to some ambivalence when it comes to such things as life insurance, 401(k) plans, and so forth. I recognize that prudence dictates that we “lay up some treasure” for the rainy days of retirement, but I also know that Jesus counseled us instead to lay up our treasures in heaven and instructed his followers to “strive first for the kingdom of God and [God’s] righteousness [or justice], and all these things [the necessities of life] will be given to you as well” (Matt 6:33). Are my (admittedly modest) retirement savings some kind of betrayal of the trust that Jesus demands? Should I not rather throw caution to the wind and live a radically trusting life until I meet my end? Shouldn’t I give away more than I hoard, invest more in God’s commonwealth than in myself? If I have enough resources after retirement to travel around the world or buy a tricked-out RV in which to roam the continent, would that signify a failure of faith on my part?

We all tend to hedge our bets when it comes to these issues. The Saint Francises of our day are few and far between, and we tend to look askance at the few of them we do encounter, as though they were dangerous radicals of some kind. Well, maybe they are. What’s more, maybe we too are called to a greater degree of radicalness—of stretching the boundaries of our faith more than we find comfortable. What would happen if the world looked at the church and saw not a mirror image of itself—solitary individuals grasping for financial “security”—but rather a covenant community where people have bound their lives together in a profound way, operating on the basis of sharing instead of hoarding, of trust instead of suspicion? I personally think it would rock the world and provide an attractive alternative for people who are longing for authenticity, welcome, and money-where-our-mouths-are love.

That’s what it means, after all, to lay up our treasures in heaven: it is to invest in one another. In doing so, we invest in and build up the commonwealth of God, a beacon of pure, generous light in a dark, untrusting, greedy world.

Kool-Aid® Man

Read Ephesians 2:11–22

Here we stand, trowels in hand,
spreading mortar and replacing bricks
in the wall Christ broke down.
Like Kool-Aid® Man, with a mighty “Oh, yeah!”
he crashed through, scattering
debris in all directions. It was
a wall of hostility, a dividing wall
(as are all walls, when you think about it),
but this one was especially hostile.

Frost said good fences make good neighbors,

but while that sort of cynicism has the ring of truth,
it does not ring true. High walls heighten suspicion
and keep neighbors from becoming friends.
Walls on the border, walls in our hearts,
walls you can’t see but you know are there,
keep separate blacks and whites,
women and men,
gays and straights,
native-born and foreign-born,
right-wingers and leftists,
poor and rich.

Pick your division; have we got a wall for you!

The walls du jour once divided
Gentile from Jew, slaver from enslaved,
and those are the walls
Jesus took his cruciform battering ram to,
clearing the ground for “one new humanity
in place of the two, thus making peace.”

It was a good idea, but

life without walls unsettles us,
awakens our latent agoraphobia,
kindles our anxieties, makes us long for
the security of prison. We’ve all become
institutionalized; we can’t make it on the outside.
So we offer our hands again for the manacles,
we beg for readmission to the penitentiary,
we take up our trowels and start stacking bricks.

Do you feel that sense of comfort, of relief that comes
as the divider grows waist-high,
then up to our shoulders, 
then above our heads so we
can no longer see those on the other side,
nor can we easily hear them? In time
it will be hard even to imagine their lives.

It will become harder to relate and far easier to hate.

We will patrol our walls with armed sentinels;
we will protect ourselves with electricity
and rifles and concertina wire.
We will have our own TV and radio stations
pumping us full of comforting (if not nourishing) pabulum;
we will have churches and preachers
and politicians and pundits who will tell us
we are stronger, more virtuous, better looking,
more righteous, and entitled to a better heaven
than anybody on the other side.

But we are never safe,

so shore up the walls, buy more guns,
go nuclear, dig shelters,
be afraid,
be afraid,
be afraid.
Keep your trowels at the ready
and above all else,
most important of all,
keep an eye out for that Kool-Aid® Man
with the nail-scarred hands
whose whole mission is to knock down walls
and thrust us into searing light
and hated freedom
in a world (and a heaven)
without walls.