Satan and Empire

When asked to identify the origin of Satan we are commonly directed to Isaiah 14. This is the passage where the King of Babylon is called Lucifer (Day Star) and described as “fallen from heaven” after coveting the throne of God. But what should be readily apparent is that Isaiah is giving us a prophetic critique of empire by using the king of Babylon as a personification for the whole imperial project. This is quite clear from a simple reading of the text. Throughout Scripture (and especially in the book of Revelation) Babylon remains a prophetic symbol of empire and the kingdom of Satan.

Here are a few thoughts from Isaiah 14…

In prophetic Scripture the satanic is closely associated with empire. Empires are rich and powerful nations which believe they have a right to rule other nations and a manifest destiny to shape the world according to their agenda. God regards this as a transgression upon his sovereignty. What empires claim for themselves, God promises to his Son. The throne of God and political empire will always be in opposition to one another. God and Satan will always be in opposition to one another.

God loves nations. God has appointed the diversity of nations. But God hates empires. Empires seek a hegemony producing an unholy homogeny. This is a satanic corruption of the peace of God. The kingdom of God produces peace in the midst of rich and diverse cultures and nations. Satanic empire seeks to enforce “peace” through hegemonic “sameness.” This eventually results in resentment, retaliation, and war. The imperial/satanic project is always destined to fall. Thus the prophets continually cry, Babylon is fallen, is fallen! Through the animosity they engender among other nations, empires always sow the seed of their own eventual destruction. The prophets identify this as the judgment of God.

Isaiah understood that Israel would be deported to Babylon. This was seen as a “prison sentence” to be served for Israel’s sins. But when the sentenced was served, Isaiah said Israel would take up a taunt against their oppressor, Babylon (personified in the king of Babylon).

This is what we find in Isaiah 14:1-23. I encourage you to read it carefully.

Some observations…

Babylon is judged by God for ruling nations in anger. Ruling and oppressing other nations is the basic definition of empire. (vs. 1-6)

The fall of the empire results in the whole earth being at rest and quiet. (vs. 7)

The environment itself rejoices at Babylon’s fall because the empire no longer exploits natural resources. Empires are always arrogant in their environmental degradation; empires view the earth as theirs and not the Lord’s. (vs. 8)

Babylon will now join other nations that have already fallen. In Sheol the kings of these fallen nations taunt the king of Babylon saying, “You too have become as weak as we! You have become like us!” Of course, this is the inevitable fate of empires, despite their arrogant claim of being “exceptional.” Both Scripture and history bear witness to this. (vs. 9-11)

The real problem with empire is the hubris that impels them to impinge upon the sovereignty of God by seeking to rule other nations. This is condemned by the prophet as seeking to be like God. Empires seek to raise their throne (national sovereignty) to a level reserved for God. This is the essence and a primary origin of the satanic. (vs. 12-14)

But in reaching for the heavens (the throne of God), Babylon is fallen, is fallen. This is the constant prophetic cry against empire. (vs. 15-16)

Empires practice the propaganda of calling destruction “peace.” Isaiah says Babylon made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities. Many centuries later the Roman historian Tacitus would record the British chieftain, Calgacus, as saying, “Rome makes a desert and calls it peace.” I’m quite sure Calgacus never read Isaiah, but they were saying the same thing about the propaganda of empire. (vs. 17)

Isaiah criticizes Babylon for holding foreign prisoners indefinitely; for not letting the foreign prisoners return home. (vs. 17b)

All empires have an expiration date. God degrees their demise, lest they “rise and possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with cities.” Babylon and New Jerusalem seek the same thing, but they go about it in completely different ways—one is beastly, the other is lamb-like. (vs. 18-21)

God himself rises up against empires because what they claim as their manifest destiny, God has promised to his Christ. (vs. 22-23)

The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. —Revelation 11:15

These are just quick observations with much being left unsaid; to say it well would require book-length treatment. But I think the connection between the origin of Satan and the rise of empire is a very significant revelation in Scripture.

Selah.

BZ

(The artwork is Babylon by Nicholas Peart.)

Leaving Country and Kin

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred…”
And Abram went. (Genesis 12:1, 4)

In the story the Bible tells it’s Abraham who sends the narrative in a new direction—from a steady migration away from God, to a journey into the Unknown and toward God. Prior to Abraham what do we find in the story? Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise, Cain killing Abel and founding human civilization with bloody hands, a violent world under a flood of judgment, and finally Babylon rising in rebellion to God. It’s a world moving away from God.

Enter Abraham.
Faith man.
Walking man.
Friend of God.
Patriarch of a new humanity.

Rabbinic tradition tells us Abraham’s father was an idol maker. Well, there’s no doubt that Abraham grew up in a nation and family populated by a pantheon of utilitarian gods—useful gods who could be called upon and cajoled, controlled and manipulated; little gods who could be courted and counted upon for the maintenance of the status quo.

It was none of these gods that called Abraham to leave country and kin. The gods of Babylon would never do that! They were, in fact, the creation of country of kin, or if you prefer, the deification of country and kin.

But this God, this speaking God, this El Shaddai, this Yahweh, this “I AM” calls Abraham to leave country and kin…and Abraham does.

This is what makes Abraham both great and the pattern for every believer thereafter.

We are all products of country and kin. We become the self that our national culture and family identity forms us to be. This is unavoidable. It’s not necessarily bad, it’s part and parcel with becoming a human being. To become a self we require a language, a culture, a set of values, a community, a certain identity—all of this comes from our country and kin. But this is also necessarily inadequate for those who want to become the people of God.

To become the people of God always involves a call away from country and kin.

Always.

And it always takes faith to heed the call to leave country and kin. It’s probably the hardest thing we’ll ever do.

If we lack the faith of Abraham we will try to hustle God into allowing us to stay with country and kin and still receive the promised blessing. God will not do this.

(Though we try convince ourselves otherwise, and may even begin to believe that one of the god’s crafted in our family idol shop is God.)

No, Abraham must leave country and kin.

When Abraham does this, he makes two crucial discoveries:

1. God is present everywhere.

2. Abraham is alien everywhere.

This God who called Abraham differed from his father’s gods in his invisibility. Invisibility is part of God’s omnipresence. Because God is not precisely there, he can be always here, which is, to say,  everywhere. In leaving his country and kin, Abraham discovered that God was not confined to nationality or ethnicity—he is everywhere. The sins of nationalism and racism are partly rooted in the unwillingness to recognize that God is everywhere.

But this newly discovered phenomenon of God being everywhere made Abraham an alien everywhere. To leave country and kin to become a follower of the living God means that national and family identity have experienced a profound subordination to an infinitely higher reality—the reality of being a child of God. To see yourself as truly a child of God makes national and family identity mere accidentals. “Home” takes on a new and transcendent meaning. Being at home everywhere is closely related to being an alien everywhere. This has something to do with God’s insistence that his people pay special attention to caring for aliens, because there is a sense in which we are all aliens.

Of course how we live out our own experience of Abraham’s call will likely vary significantly from Abraham’s actual experience. Most will not be called to physically relocate to another nation (though some will). But we are all called to move beyond the cultural and familial assumptions about God we have inherited from country and kin. To put it more bluntly and in a specific context: To continue the journey of faith, the American Christian will eventually be called to leave the “American Jesus” who is little more than a hired spokesperson used to endorse the cultural assumptions of Americanism. Thinking that God can be nationalized so as to prioritize the economic interests of your own particular country is a practice characteristic of Babylon, but discarded in the faith of Abraham. (Eventually the requisite political mantra of, “God bless America,” will begin to sound a little weird in your ears, a bit too much like God can be conscripted for the service of our national interests. The Abrahamic covenant fulfilled in Christ is that all nations are blessed.)

This is why Abraham lives the rest of his life as both an alien and the friend of God.

So…

Leave your country and kin.

Find God everywhere.

Be at home everywhere.

Become an alien everywhere.

Become the friend of God.

Of course this is not easy. That’s why it’s called faith. If it’s easy, it may be many things—including a personal religion cobbled together in the family idol shop—but it’s not faith! Richard Rohr puts it well when he says…

“If change and growth are not programmed into your spirituality, if
there are not serious warnings about the blinding nature of fear and
fanaticism, your religion will always end up worshiping the status
quo and protecting your present ego position and personal
advantage—as if it were God!” —Richard Rohr, “Falling Upward”

The faith of Abraham is the faith that leaves country and kin in order to find God in greater truth.

The faith of Abraham is the faith that subordinates all loyalties to the living God including the most demanding loyalties of country and kin.

The faith of Abraham is willing to live as an alien everywhere if this is what it takes to distinguish God from the idols of country and kin.

The faith of Abraham is what expands the blessing of God from my country and my kin, to all the families of the earth being blessed.

The faith of Abraham subordinates the family of Terah to the family of God.

The faith of Abraham forsakes the city of Babylon to find the New Jerusalem.

The faith of Abraham is the faith that finds its fulfillment in a life of following Christ.

Amen.

BZ

(The artwork is Abraham and the Three Angels by Marc Chagall)

___________________________________________________________

The Advent of Imagination
by Brian Zahnd

Are we lacking in imagination, we children of Cain
We of the ancient, worn-out myopic Idea
(Long since unworthy of that noble name)
The horrid idea born a bastard east of Eden—
Kill Abel and pretend we don’t know he’s our brother
Kill Abel and pretend we don’t know better?

Are we so appallingly lacking in imagination
That we have no freedom because we have no choices?
That which has been is what will be
That which is done is what will be done
There is nothing new under the sun
Thus spake the Preacher who lost his imagination
Thus chanted the Preacher in his mantra of despair.
(What we need is a greater than Solomon to arrive on the scene!)

ARE WE SO LACKING IN IMAGINATION?!
That no sooner do we unlock the secrets of the atom
(The building blocks of our universe we call home)
Than we use our (forbidden?) knowledge to build hellish bombs
Big enough to kill Abel a million at a time…and call it “progress”?

The zeitgeist is against us
That spirit of the age
That vile specter of feigned inevitability
Brazenly telling us, “Aye, but you have no choice.”

If we dare to dream an Isaiah-dream
(Swords morphing to plowshares, spears made pruning hooks)
If we dare to sing the song of angels
(Peace on earth, goodwill toward men)
If we dare to bless those whom Jesus blesses
(Calling peacemakers the children of God)
We’re derided and dismissed as “impractical”
(By the worshipers at the pragmatic altar)
Called foolish, even dangerous, dreamers
(By those whose dreams are censored by empire)
Called bleeding hearts
(By those whose hearts of stone cannot shed a tear, much less bleed)

But what’s a bit of ridicule if it comes with the liberation of imagination?
I for one am ready to be called an impractical, dreamy bleeding heart (or worse)
If it means we stop justifying the sacrifice of Abel on the altar of pragmatism…
(Or any other Ism.)

And so I ask you—
Test your imagination
Does the status quo (the existing state of affairs)
Have to remain an idol pledged allegiance to?
Has the way we’ve run the world since the (bloodstained) dawn of civilization
Worked out so very well we must remain wedded to it till death do us part?
What if the god Status Quo is guilty of spousal abuse?
Cannot we not sue for divorce
And marry another?
Behold, the bridegroom cometh! Go forth to meet him!

BZ

(The painting is Boundless Imagination by Hessam Abrishami)

Journey of the Magi
by T.S. Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

_______________________

An old Magi remembers his hard journey from long ago.
A hard time we had of it
He doesn’t regret it. He says—
I would do it again
But…
Finding the King of the Jews came with a price.
To be a witness of this Birth was to also experience a particular Death.
(The Magi had thought birth and death were different, but came find out otherwise.)
Once you get even an inkling of what it really means that Jesus is King—
Nothing is ever quite the same. Some things will die. For sure.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensations,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
Ain’t it the truth!
I know that when I really began to see the Kingdom of God for what it is—
Cherished assumptions about the nation and life I call mine had to die.
I was no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation.
Well, consider this:
When the Magi made their way home, we’re told they went by “another way.”
Of course they did.
Once you see the King, once you have the Epiphany—
You have to travel through this life by “another way.”
(Or betray all you have been granted to see.)
And to an “alien people clutching their gods”—
You will seem at best odd, and at worse…well, something quite bad.
Truth doesn’t come cheap.
The hard journey to a real Epiphany will cost you more than some…
Gold, frankincense and myrrh.
It will cost you the way you look at the world.
Something will have to die. And you may well mourn it.
To really see the birth of Christ for what it is,
Will bring you face to face with death—
Death to what you were once so comfortable with.
Eliot’s Magi concludes his memoir with this enigmatic line—
I should be glad of another death.
What does Eliot mean by that?
I’m not entirely sure, but I think he means his Magi to say something like this:
I’m ready even for more,
More Epiphanies,
More Births,
More Stars in the East…
Which will of course lead to more Deaths.
That’s the way it works.
The birth of truth is death to the lie—
And there are a lot of lies we’ve leaned to love and cherish.
The price of truth may be the willingness to endure a certain sorrow—
The sorrow that comes from the death of a loved and cherished lie.
But now I fear I’ve made the poet say too much.
Because as another poet warned:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

BZ

(The second poem is by Emily Dickinson.)
(The artwork is Journey of the Magi by James Jacques Joseph Tissot)

To help you observe Advent in a richer, more meaningful way, I have put together an Advent Scripture Reading Guide. It comes (mostly) from the second half of Isaiah and the synoptic gospels up to the Transfiguration. It consists of one chapter from Isaiah and one chapter from the Gospels each day (with two chapters from the Gospels on Sundays). So re-enter and re-live the mystery of the Gospel story through this Advent Scripture Reading Guide. (Pass it on to others!)

Happy Holy Days,

BZ

November

27 — Isaiah 40 & Matthew 1-2

28 — Isaiah 41 & Matthew 3

29 — Isaiah 42 & Matthew 4

30 — Isaiah 43 & Matthew 5

December

1 — Isaiah 44 & Matthew 6

2 — Isaiah 45 & Matthew 7

3 — Isaiah 46 & Matthew 8

4 — Isaiah 47 & Matthew 9-10

5 — Isaiah 48 & Matthew 11

6 — Isaiah 49 & Matthew 12

7 — Isaiah 50 & Matthew 13

8 — Isaiah 51 & Matthew 14

9 — Isaiah 52 & Matthew 15

10 — Isaiah 53 & Matthew 16

11 — Isaiah 54 & Mark 1-2

12 — Isaiah 55 & Mark 3

13 — Isaiah 56 & Mark 4

14 — Isaiah 57 & Mark 5

15 — Isaiah 58 & Mark 6

16 — Isaiah 59 & Mark 7

17 — Isaiah 60 & Mark 8

18 — Isaiah 61 & Luke 1-2

19 — Isaiah 62 & Luke 3-4

20 — Isaiah 63 & Luke 5

21 — Isaiah 64 & Luke 6

22 — Isaiah 65 & Luke 7

23 — Isaiah 66 & Luke 8

Christmas Eve — Isaiah 9:1-7 & Luke 2:1-20

Christmas Day — Isaiah 11:1-9 & Matthew 2:1-12

I’ve been thinking about Advent today. It starts Sunday, you know. (For those of us at Word of Life it really starts Friday night with our Thanksgiving Communion Service and Christmas Tree Lighting.) Anyway, alert reader Gerald Lewis reminded me of this four and half year old post and it seems apropos. So with a few alterations, here is Rhythm (Redo).

RHYTHM

Life is full of rhythm.

The daily rhythm of sunrise and sunset.
The seasonal rhythm of winter, spring, summer, fall.
The lunar rhythm seen in the cycles of the moon.

When we consider the human body we can say life is rhythm.
The steady rhythm of breathing.
The syncopated rhythm of the heart.
The many rhythms of a healthy body.
When your body is out of rhythm you are sick.
If the rhythm is not restored you are dead.

Art is rhythm.
Dance is rhythm
Poetry is rhythm.
Music is rhythm.
(Pitch is the varying rhythms of frequency.)
Is symmetry (the essence of beauty) a kind of rhythm?

Strength is rhythm.
The engine in your car is a machine for maintaining rhythm.
When your car is out of rhythm you take it to the mechanic.
One of the secrets to climbing a mountain is rhythm.
It’s easier to climb a mountain with rhythm than in fits and starts.

If String Theory is right…
(The quantum world consists of single-dimensional oscillating strings.)
…the entire physical universe is rhythm.

But we have lost our rhythm.

Modern life is designed to wreck rhythm.
No longer do we rise and set with the sun.
Our frenzied lives seem to lack a sense of rhythm.
Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast.

I’m just back from India and still feeling the effects of moving too fast. Jet lag is the general malaise that comes from moving so fast that you are no longer in time with the rhythms of the sun and your own body. Jet lag isn’t just fatigue — it’s the sensation that you are out of sync. Could it be that the entire modern world suffers from a kind of cultural jet lag?

Many of the laws given to Israel were designed to establish a holy rhythm.
The daily sacrifices, seasonal feasts and most of all the weekly Sabbath.
Rabbinic scholars will tell you the cornerstone of Jewish life is the Sabbath.

Sabbath controversy more than any other thing set Jesus and the Pharisees at odds. Jesus was not liberalizing the sabbath laws, but doing something far more radical: Claiming to be Lord of the Sabbath! And that the holy day of weekly worship immediately moved from the seventh day to the first day for the first Jewish followers of Jesus is one of the most compelling evidences for the resurrection. Yes, there is a perpetual Sabbath rest of grace entered into by faith, but there is also a rhythmic holy day called the Lord’s Day. We call it Sunday.

This Sunday is a special Sunday. On this Sunday we will leave ordinary time behind and enter into the holy days (holidays) of Advent — the sacred countdown to Christmas where we re-live and re-tell the story of the coming of Messiah.

Observing the Christian calendar given to us by the church is not only a way to subvert secularism, it is also a means of adding sacred rhythm to our annual migration around the sun: Advent, Christmas (with its twelve day celebration), Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost. Then it’s Ordinary Time until we return to Advent to begin a new sacred calendar with the anticipation of Messiah. As Christians called to be a peculiar people we have a peculiar calendar that is based on the story of Jesus’ life. Our observance of this calendar beckons us to enter into the Jesus story and find ever-deeper nuances of salvation. It also give us rhythm — sacred rhythm.

Remember, health is rhythm.

You need holy rhythms in your life.
A rhythm of prayer.
A rhythm of scripture.
A rhythm of worship.
A rhythm of communion.
A rhythm of calendar.

Weekly communion is an ancient rhythm of the church.
I wasn’t raised in the ancient tradition of the weekly rhythm of communion.
But beginning with Advent this year we will embrace the weekly sacred meal.
I’m now convinced the sacred meal is an essential part of spiritual health.

The Lord’s day is central to maintaining holy rhythm.
The Son of Man altered the holy day, but he didn’t eliminate it.
Communal worship on the Lord’s day is the central rhythm of the saints.

During the French Revolution the atheistic revolutionaries implemented the French Republican Calendar — a calendar with a ten day week. It was observed for twelve years (1793-1805). It was adopted in large part to cause people to forget Sunday and thereby forget Christianity. The French revolutionary atheists knew how important Sunday is to the Christian faith.

Do you?

May GOD keep us centered and devoted to Him,
Following the life path He has cleared,
Watching the signposts, walking at the pace and rhythms
He laid down for our ancestors.
(1 Kings 8:58 NLT)

In the madness of modern life which has little or no sense of natural and divine rhythm, the Sunday gathering of the saints is a kind of spiritual defibrillator to re-establish holy rhythm.

Rhythm.
It’s all about rhythm.
Life, health, physics, strength, art, beauty, devotion, worship…
They all require rhythm.

Disrhythm is disease.
Disease of the body, the soul, the mind, the spirit, the culture.
Jesus restores rhythm.

The etymology of rhythm is from the Greek rhein: to flow
Rhythm makes life flow.
Jesus flows with rhythm.

In the Hebrew rhythm is related to tambourine.
Then Miriam the prophetess took a tambourine
And led all the women in rhythm and dance.
(In this verse tambourine and rhythm are same word.)
Jesus is the Tambourine Man who leads us in the dance.

In the Message Bible Eugene Peterson gives us a rather loose, but spiritually accurate and deeply profound paraphrase of Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:28-29…

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion?
Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life.
I’ll show you how to take a real rest.
Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

The unforced rhythms of grace.
To live light and free…
We must learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

Jesus, teach us!
Jesus, teach us to dance.
Jesus, cast your dancing spell our way,
We promise to go under it.

Think of life as rhythm.
Think of faith as a dance.
Think of Jesus as the Tambourine Man.

Find the rhythm of grace…
And dance!

BZ

PS

Jesus really is the Tambourine Man.
Even if the poet didn’t understand the prophecy at first.
Poetry is close enough to prophecy
That poets don’t always know when they are prophetic.
G.K. Chesterton said something about this…
About poetry being the loftiest form of knowledge.
(I think it was in The Everlasting Man.)

Mr. Tambourine Man
Bob Dylan

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you.

Though I know that evenin’s empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin’.
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.

Though you might hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun,
It’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin’.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin’ reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it’s just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn’t pay it any mind, it’s just a shadow you’re
Seein’ that he’s chasing.

Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you.

(The artwork is Dance-Painting by Alain Briot)

A Parable
by Lee C. Camp
From his book Who Is My Enemy?

A king went out to conquer, amassing great wealth and power. There came to him a people who asserted that some other was king, whom they called “Lord of Lords.” The king replied: you may freely worship this one you call “lord,” you may freely build your buildings and write your books and seek your converts to this one you call “lord.” But I shall rule the marketplace, and the army, and the public square. He shall be your personal “lord,” while I am your public king. I shall make the laws, and you shall obey them. I shall tell you what enemies to kill, and you shall kill them. I shall give you a marketplace, and you shall seek to maximize your profits and keep all your profits, even at the expense of the poor, or the widow, or the stranger, and thence you shall pay taxes with which we shall wage war against all who threaten your freedom to worship your personal “lord.”

And the people replied: We shall gladly do as you say, O king. Indeed, we shall obey your laws. And we shall seek great profit and keep all for ourselves. And we will kill your enemies, for you, O king, have allowed us to pray to our personal lord in our houses of worship, in the privacy of our closets. Even more, O king, because you have allowed us to worship thus, we will denounce all those who do not exalt you, and we will proclaim that you have granted us the right to worship, and we shall profess that any who do not obey your laws or maximize profit or kill your enemies are no servants of the private Lord of Lords. We will hang your standard in our halls of worship, we will honor those who fight your wars, and we will celebrate those who heedlessly maximize profit. Oh, grant us such liberty as this, O king!

The king was pleased, and his new subjects served him well and were happy and satisfied.

(The artwork is a 13th century fresco of Pope Sylvester I and Emperor Constantine.)

Tonight I watched part two of the Ken Burn’ film “Prohibition” on PBS—a brilliant documentary on America’s fourteen year ill-fated war on alcohol. It’s a classic study in good intentions gone wrong. It’s a penetrating look at the fallacy of thinking, “If we can just pass this or that legislation, we can produce a righteous society.” Anyway, it’s a well-done documentary about a strange time in American history.

After the documentary I decided to read a random chapter from Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation. I chose a chapter entitled “The Moral Theology of the Devil.” It turned out to be entirely apropos for my state of mind. Here are some selections from the chapter.

The Moral Theology of the Devil
by Thomas Merton

The devil has a whole system of theology and philosophy, which will explain, to anyone who will listen, that created things are evil, that men are evil, that God created evil and that He directly wills that men should suffer evil. God has willed and planned it that way.

As a matter of fact, in creating the world God had clearly in mind that man would inevitably sin and it was almost as if the world was created in order that man might sin, so that God would have an opportunity to manifest His justice.

So, according to the devil, the first thing created was really hell—as if everything else were, in some sense, for the sake of hell. Therefore the devotional life of those who are “faithful” to this kind of theology consists above all in an obsession with evil. As if there were not already enough evils in the world, they multiply prohibitions [get it!] and make new rules so that man may not escape evil and punishment.

The Cross, then is no longer a sign of mercy (for mercy has no place in such theology), it is the sign that Law and Justice have utterly triumphed. Not love but punishment is the fulfillment of the Law. The Law must devour everything, even God. Such is this theology of punishment, hatred and revenge. He who would live by such a dogma must rejoice in punishment. He may, indeed, successfully evade punishment himself by “playing ball” with the Law and Lawgiver. But he must take good care that others do not avoid suffering. He must occupy his mind with their present and future punishment. The Law must triumph. There must be no mercy.

The theology of the devil is for those who, for one reason or another, whether because they are perfect, or because they have come to agreement with the Law, no longer need any mercy.

The people who listen to this sort of thing, and absorb it, and enjoy it, develop a notion of the spiritual life which is a kind of hypnosis of evil. The concepts of sin suffering, damnation, punishment, the justice of God, retribution, the end of the world and so on, are things over which they smack their lips with unspeakable pleasure. Perhaps this is because they derive a deep, subconscious comfort from the thought that many other people will fall into the hell which they themselves are going to escape.

It sometimes happens that men who preach the most vehemently about evil and the punishment of evil, so that they seem to have practically nothing else on their minds except sin, are really unconscious haters of other men. They think the world does not appreciate them, and this is their way of getting even.

Another characteristic of the devil’s moral theology is the exaggeration of all distinctions between this and that, good and evil, right and wrong. These distinctions become irreducible divisions. No longer is there any sense that we might perhaps all be more or less at fault, and that we might be expected to take upon our own shoulders the wrongs of others by forgiveness, acceptance, patient understanding and love, and thus help one another to find the truth. On the contrary, in the devil’s theology, the important thing is to be absolutely right and to prove that everybody else is absolutely wrong. This does not exactly make for peace and unity among men.

Finally, as might be expected, the moral theology of the devil grants an altogether unusual amount of importance to…the devil. Indeed one soon comes to find out that he is the very center of the whole system. That he is behind everything. That he is moving everybody in the world except ourselves. In one word, the theology of the devil is purely and simply that the devil is god.

(The artwork is “Lovejoy and the Devil of Delight” by Brenda York.)

Hints and Guesses

My favorite thought is the Incarnation.

My favorite poet (after Dylan) is T.S. Eliot.

Here is a snippet of T.S. Eliot poetry that touches on Incarnation.

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Men’s curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint—
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime’s death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.

—T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, The Dry Salvages (from stanza V)

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A little analysis:

Most of us live in the past and future (memory and imagination); it’s the great saints who have the capacity to live, really live, in the present moment and recognize it for what it is: a slice of infinity. It takes a true contemplative to perceive that mere being brushes against Being (I AM). Heidegger’s Dasein. Moses’ burning bush. But only mystics are fit for that kind of contemplation. Most of us stumble upon this (if at all) through experiences of unanticipated grandeur; a shaft of sunlight, wild thyme, transcendent music. Senses—sight, smell, sound—evoking something deep within. These are but hints and guesses, yet if followed they can lead to the more spiritually formative observances of prayer, thought, discipline, etc. And who knows, maybe it will generate a half-guessed, half-understood encounter with the greatest wonder of all: Incarnation.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

BZ

P.S. Analysis turns poetry into prose; it strips it of its magic and makes it, well, prosaic. Analysis reduces a poem to how it spoke in a limited way to the analyst. But it can be helpful for learning how poetry “works.” Oh, and by the way, a lot of the Bible is poetry!

The artwork is “Blue (Moby Dick)” by Jason Pollock.
Suggested soundtrack is “Perth” by Bon Iver.

That Preacher of Peace
by Brian Zahnd

In his bizarre and surrealistic novel, The Master and Margarita, the critically acclaimed 20th century Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov creates a fascinating conversation between the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and the Galilean preacher Yeshua. When asked about his views on government, Bulgakov’s Yeshua says, “All power is a form of violence over people.” Yeshua goes on to contrast the governments of power and violence with the peaceable kingdom of truth and justice. In response Pontius Pilate rages, “There never has been, nor yet shall be a greater or more perfect government in this world than the rule of the emperor Tiberius!” When Pilate asks Yeshua if he believes this kingdom of truth will come, Yeshua answers with conviction, “It will.” Of course, Pilate cannot and will not stand for this.

“It will never come!” Pilate suddenly shouted in a voice so terrible that Yeshua staggered back. Many years ago in the Valley of the Virgins Pilate had shouted in that same voice to his horsemen: “Cut them down! Cut them down!”…And again he raised his parade-ground voice, barking out the words so that they would be heard in the garden: “Criminal! Criminal! Criminal!”…“Do you imagine, you miserable creature, that a Roman Procurator could release a man who has said what you have said to me?…I don’t believe in your ideas!”

It wasn’t so much the man who upset the Roman governor, but his ideas. Ideas. Ideas are powerful. Ideas are dangerous. Ideas shape our world. Ideas can change our world. Change—what shall we say about that? Slight change is one thing. When slight change is perceived as positive we call it progress. But paradigmatic change, radical change is another thing altogether. We call that revolution. Revolutionary change is precisely what those in positions of privilege and power—people like Pilate—are most threatened by. And this is what makes Jesus and his ideas dangerous. In The Master and Margarita Pontius Pilate seems to have no personal animosity toward the wandering Galilean preacher, but he hates his ideas. In the end what forces the Procurator to condemn Yeshua to crucifixion is the preacher’s revolutionary ideas about power, truth, and violence. If Yeshua had been content to confine himself to the dreamy world of afterlife expectations and not harbored revolutionary ideas about human social structure, Pilate would have seen little reason to bother with Yeshua, much less crucify him. But Yeshua did have revolutionary ideas. And it was Yeshua’s ideas about an alternative arrangement of the world—an arrangement that might best be called “peace”—that resulted in his death by state sponsored execution.

Anyway that’s how the deal went down in Mikhail Bulgakov’s imaginative novel (which is very much in keeping with the narrative we find in John’s canonical gospel). A preacher of peace was executed for his revolutionary ideas. But have the ideas of Jesus become somehow less radical since a Roman governor sentenced the Galilean preacher to crucifixion in the spring of AD 30? No. Two thousand years have not made the ideas taught by Jesus of Nazareth any less radical than those that so threatened Pontius Pilate and the imperial ideology he was aligned with. What has happened over the ensuing two millennia is we have deftly (and perhaps unconsciously) crafted a religion that neatly separates the Jesus who died on the cross from the radical ideas he preached—ideas that Jesus foresaw would lead to his crucifixion. Jesus always understood that Rome (and the religious powers that colluded with the empire) would either be converted by his ideas or they would crucify him for his ideas—revolutionary ideas that he simply called “the kingdom of God.”

But we—and I mean Christians!—have historically had a terrible tendency to separate Jesus from his ideas. The separation of Jesus as Savior from his ideas of peace really began to happen when Christianity attained favored status in the Roman Empire. Beginning with the reign of the emperor Constantine and the enshrinement of Christianity as a state religion, Christianity has for seventeen centuries performed a slight of hand trick where we can “accept Jesus as our personal savior” while largely ignoring his ideas about peace, violence, and human society. We have embraced a shrunken, privatized, postmortem gospel that stresses Jesus dying for our sins, while at the same time ignoring his political ideas. This leaves us free to run the world the way its always been run: by the power of the sword, where freedom means domination of enemies and ultimate truth is the power to kill.

If Jesus of Nazareth had preached what passes for the “gospel” today—a shrunken, privatized, postmortem gospel reduced to a promise of “going to heaven when you die”—Pilate would have released the Nazarene, warning him not to get mixed up in the affairs of the real world. But that’s not what happened. Why? Because Pilate was smart enough to understand that what Jesus was preaching was a challenge to the philosophy of empire, or as we prefer to call it today, “superpower.” But in making Jesus the chaplain-in-chief of Constantinian Christianity what we have unwittingly done is invent a Manichean Jesus who saves our souls while leaving us free to run the affairs of the world as we see fit. Which is what we want. Because while we believe in Jesus as savior of the private soul, we remain largely unconvinced about his ideas for saving the world. Certainly seventeen centuries of church history strongly suggest this is the case. Commenting on how we separate Jesus from his ideas, Miroslav Volf says,

Pilate deserves our sympathies, not because he was a good though tragically mistaken man, but because we are not much better. We may believe in Jesus, but we do not believe in his ideas, at least not his ideas about violence, truth, and justice. (Exclusion and Embrace)

Once it was decided a Christian emperor wielding a “Christian sword” was a suitable way to run the world, the kingdom of God announced by Christ got relocated to a distant heaven or a far-off future, leaving Jesus out of a job as savior of the world. Of course Christianity couldn’t quite get away with simply dismissing Christ himself, so he was given the reduced role of saving souls and presiding over a religion of private piety. Which is not to suggest that Christ isn’t the source for the salvation of the human soul (understood as the whole human being); but I am suggesting that the mission of Christ extends far beyond the narrow spectrum of private spirituality and afterlife expectations. Jesus actually intends to save this world! And by world I mean God’s good creation and God’s original intent for human society. But the problem is this: far too few who believe in Jesus actually believe in his revolutionary ideas. There is a sense in which we create religion as a category to keep Jesus from meddling with our cherished ideas about nationalism, freedom, power, and war.

Near the end of the chapter entitled “Pontius Pilate” in The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov creates a brilliant and insightful conversation between the political governor Pilate and the religious high priest Caiaphas—both of whom hold thinly veiled contempt for one another. Pilate has two notable prisoners who are both condemned to die. Yeshua Ha-Notsri (Jesus of Nazareth) and Bar-Abba (Barabbas). Pilate asks Caiaphas which prisoner should be granted a Passover pardon and which prisoner should be executed. Caiaphas is presented with a stark choice. The prisoner Bar-Abba is a heroic freedom-fighter willing to lead the people in a war of national independence. He has already killed a Roman sentry and represents the national hope of political freedom through violent revolution. Yeshua, on the other hand, is a messiah preaching the revolutionary ideas of the peaceable kingdom of God founded upon co-suffering love and radical forgiveness. The governor warns the high priest to choose wisely. Caiaphas then gives Pilate his answer: “The Sanhedrin requests the release of Bar-Abba.” The Sanhedrin has made its choice: they want a violent Bar-Abba messiah, not a peaceful Yeshua messiah. With prophetic insight Pilate sees and foretells what will be the inevitable result of Jerusalem choosing the violent revolution of Bar-Abba over the peaceful revolution of Yeshua.

Remember my words, High Priest: you are going to see more than one cohort here in Jerusalem! Under the city walls you are going to see the Fulminata legion at full strength and Arab cavalry too. Then the weeping and lamentation will be bitter! Then you will remember that you saved Bar-Abba and you will regret that you sent that preacher of peace to his death!

Eventually Jerusalem got its war of independence…and ended up in Gehenna. Forty years after the crucifixion of Christ, Jerusalem was cast into the hell of Roman siege warfare, brutal bombardment from hundred pound “hailstones” launched from Roman catapults, and the final, fiery destruction of the city resulting in the violent death of most of its citizens and the enslavement of the rest. Jesus had foreseen this disaster and lamented over it on the day he entered Jerusalem during the week of Passover:

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God. (Luke 19:41–44)

And what about us? Do we fare any better? Do we recognize the things that make for peace? Do we recognize the visitation from God in the life and message of the Word made flesh, that Prince of Peace who longs to lead us into his peaceable kingdom? I fear we do not. It seems we too have these things hidden from our eyes. Here we are twenty centuries after Caiaphas, who for the sake of his nation, and Pilate, who for the sake of his empire, condemned “that preacher of peace” to death in favor of retaining the status quo of violent revolution and militaristic empire. Wars have continued to define us. Freedom has continued to be largely understood as the power to kill. Violence has continued to be viewed as a legitimate way of shaping our world. All in an outright betrayal of Jesus Christ and his revolutionary ideas. Ideas that were rejected by superpower ideology and colluding religion on Good Friday, but vindicated by the living God on Easter Sunday! Yes, Easter Sunday and the resurrection of Jesus changes everything! It’s the hope of the world, the dawn of a new age, the rising of the New Jerusalem on the horizon of humanity’s burned-out landscape. Easter is nothing less than God saying once again, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am will pleased, listen to him!”

So isn’t it time we abandoned our de facto allegiance with Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas and their worn out, death-dealing ideas, and starting listening to and embracing the revolutionary, life-giving ideas of “that preacher of peace” whom God has raised from the dead and declared to be Lord by the power of an indestructible life? Isn’t it time we were converted and become as children who have the capacity to imagine the radical otherness of the kingdom of God? Isn’t it time for the stranglehold of the status quo to give way to the possibilities of prophetic imagination? Isn’t it time for the peaceable kingdom of Christ to be considered a viable option in the here and now and not forever relocated to the “sweet bye and bye”? Isn’t it time? I pray it is! I believe it is!

BZ

(The artwork is Jesus is condemned to death by Pilate by Michael D O’Brien)