Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Review of Diane Kalen-Sukra's "Save Your City" by Ron Dart

Diane Kalen-Sukra, Save Your City: How toxic culture kills community & what to do about it (5^th Anniversary Edition: 2024).

Review by Ron Dart

Cultural, religious, educational, and political wars are not new to our all-too-human journey. Sadly, with the rise of instant media, “cancel culture,” “wokeism,” and simplistic ideological posturing, a rather crude notion of polarization has come to define trendy progressivism and reactionary conservatism. In the process, healthy civic virtues and civility in the midst of the fray have been mostly banished.

The evocative and compelling beauty of the 5^th edition of Save Your City is the way Diane Kalen-Sukra, drawing from the best and wisest of political thought and activism, overcomes the toxic culture that kills community and shows us what can be done about it. In short, this bounty of a missive reflects on our contemporary crises and what, practically, can be done to bring health and healing to local communities again. Needless to say, such insights can also be applied to higher levels of cultural and political life.

Save Your City is both a short yet large book, short in length but a library of information packed into it. The missive is divided into three parts with an “Appendix” worth sitting with for many a lingering moment:

Part 1: “Welcome to Bullyville,” rightly so, walks the curious and attentive reader through the “City Gates” and “Surviving Uncivil Society.”

Part 2: “Journey to Sustainable” points the way out of the malaise in a positive direction to “Sanctuary,” “Join the Renaissance,” and “One Ship, One Destiny.”

Part III: Sustainable Culture” ups the challenge to yet higher and more significant levels, “Global Call for Values Education” and “Love is the Greatest Civic Virtue.”

The timely and timeless Appendix holds the reader and offers a mature path to a “Roadmap To Renewing Civic Culture.”

Is Save Your City a naively optimist manifesto, as some hard realists and cynics might argue (the position of such skeptics leading to impotence and paralysis), or does this book provide a pathway and opening forward to engage the tough issues in a demanding yet thoughtful manner? Diane has been in the thick of the fray for many a decade; hence, Save Your City is acutely aware of the low culture that often dominates much public discourse—she is realistic enough to know if such toxicity continues, communities, in time, will be no more.

So, such a book is realism at its most focused and engaged. Save Your City, for those with a background in Classical education, draws from the lessons learned from such a heritage and the lessons learned both for good and ill of the wisest women and men of the past. History, in short, is replete with many tragic and sad tales, for those who ignore both Cassandra and Tiresias, and Diane knows of what she speaks because of where she sees from. We do well to heed her seeing and speaking, vision, and committed activism.

I would not hesitate, for a moment, to warmly and highly encourage one and all to purchase, inwardly digest, and be shaped and massaged in mind and imagination, soul and body by Save Your City—the future of meaningful civic virtues and public civility hinges on understanding what needs to be understood at a deeper level to overcome toxic culture at many insidious and acrid levels.

Ron Dart
Professor Emeritus
Department of Political Science
University of the Fraser Valley
Abbotsford BC                                                       

Guest Post on "The Age of Sayida Aisha (r.a.)" - Safi Kaskas

Age of Sayida Aisha (r.a)

logical and critical analysis of the age of Sayida Aisha r.a

Abstract

The article presents a critical analysis of the age of Sayida Ayesha (r.a) at the time of her marriage to the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.W). It challenges the commonly held belief that she was six or nine years old by offering mathematical and historical evidence to suggest she was actually 19-21 years old.

**Key Points:**

- **Asma's Age:** Asma, Ayesha's sister, was 10 years older than Ayesha and died at 100 years old in 73 A.H. This places Ayesha's birth in 605 C.E.

- **Marriage Age:** Ayesha married the Prophet after the Battle of Badr in 2 A.H., which corresponds to 624 C.E., making her 19 years old at the time.

- **Surah Al-Qamar:** Ayesha recalled being a young girl when Surah Al-Qamar was revealed in 614 C.E., which would make her an adult at the time of her marriage.

- **Hisham ibn `Urwah's Narratives:** The reliability of Hisham ibn `Urwah's reports, which claim Ayesha was six or nine at marriage, is questioned due to his old age and memory issues, as well as contradictions from other scholars.

- **Arabic Language:** The term 'bikr' used for Ayesha refers to an unmarried lady, not a child, further supporting the claim that she was an adult.

The article concludes that Ayesha was not a child at the time of her marriage, and this assertion is supported by historical records and linguistic analysis. It emphasizes that the Quran rejects the marriage of immature individuals, aligning with the evidence presented that Ayesha was a young adult.

Trusting God with Everyone’s Eternity - Kenneth Tanner

A good God would never leave humans with a message of non-universal salvation because humans simply cannot be trusted with one.

If God is malevolence and not benevolence none of this matters, of course, but some argue that a good God forever withholds salvation from a lot of us.

The all-too-familiar power plays of Christian history are a collective cautionary tale about what happens when we are certain of an eternal hell for most of us.

We burn heretics and exile anyone our judgments consign to damnation. We divide, we separate, we sort humans, as if we were God because humans behave like the gods we worship.

We dehumanize, demonize, and erase anyone we consider an infidel. Hiroshima and Auschwitz were, after all, the work of ostensibly-baptized nations.

We contemporary American Christian don’t execute heretics but we seem adept at torturing souls and wounding hearts, of banishing and shaming so many, separating persons from our communities under the cloak of some political or cultural notion that is not at the center of gospel trust.

Instead of certainty about the destiny of each human, the tradition gives us something better: radical trust in the God Jesus reveals.

In exchange for the fear that drives so many of the punishments we exact on ourselves and others, we are taught to welcome the judgment of God, who alone can without harm remove the tares from our virtues and harvest the wheat from our vices, who will with sanctifying fire make us the humans he intends us to be.

We are left after all the dust settles—after we listen to and sit with the tradition’s wisest hearts, especially the first Christians, who read the Scriptures as though Jesus Christ is what it means to be God in eternity and in all the times eternity contains—with a God who wants to gift us with permanence.

When perfect love casts out fear, when we trust the God who will judge us when we die, we live lives of radical solidarity with, courageous forgiveness for, all of us. We embody the reconciliation of the world with God.

I see this redeemed and peacemaking disposition in Elder Porphyrios:

“I am not afraid of hell, and I don’t think about paradise. I just ask God to be merciful to the entire world and to myself.”

Trusting God with Everyone’s Eternity - Kenneth Tanner

A good God would never leave humans with a message of non-universal salvation because humans simply cannot be trusted with one.

If God is malevolence and not benevolence none of this matters, of course, but some argue that a good God forever withholds salvation from a lot of us.

The all-too-familiar power plays of Christian history are a collective cautionary tale about what happens when we are certain of an eternal hell for most of us.

We burn heretics and exile anyone our judgments consign to damnation. We divide, we separate, we sort humans, as if we were God because humans behave like the gods we worship.

We dehumanize, demonize, and erase anyone we consider an infidel. Hiroshima and Auschwitz were, after all, the work of ostensibly-baptized nations.

We contemporary American Christian don’t execute heretics but we seem adept at torturing souls and wounding hearts, of banishing and shaming so many, separating persons from our communities under the cloak of some political or cultural notion that is not at the center of gospel trust.

Instead of certainty about the destiny of each human, the tradition gives us something better: radical trust in the God Jesus reveals.

In exchange for the fear that drives so many of the punishments we exact on ourselves and others, we are taught to welcome the judgment of God, who alone can without harm remove the tares from our virtues and harvest the wheat from our vices, who will with sanctifying fire make us the humans he intends us to be.

We are left after all the dust settles—after we listen to and sit with the tradition’s wisest hearts, especially the first Christians, who read the Scriptures as though Jesus Christ is what it means to be God in eternity and in all the times eternity contains—with a God who wants to gift us with permanence.

When perfect love casts out fear, when we trust the God who will judge us when we die, we live lives of radical solidarity with, courageous forgiveness for, all of us. We embody the reconciliation of the world with God.

I see this redeemed and peacemaking disposition in Elder Porphyrios:

“I am not afraid of hell, and I don’t think about paradise. I just ask God to be merciful to the entire world and to myself.”

Ron Dart: The Anamnesis Podcast

Whom Would Jesus Burn? Florian Berndt

Addressing the increasing number of recent posts arguing for a god that can’t make up his (its?) mind if he (it?) should love or destroy us, I’ve been arguing that a god that doesn’t look like His Son is not the Abba of Jesus. This obviously implies that one deals with the real Jesus, rather than a projection of our anger, guilt and fears, an idol of which there are plenty of versions “out there” (2. Corinthians 11:4).

The more disturbing was a recent post of someone claiming to proclaim the “real Jesus” as a rebuke against moral laxity, posting, “Jesus will burn evil, unrepentant people with unquenchable fire … (so repent),” based on Matthew 3:12: “His (Jesus') winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12).

Sadly, I am seeing this kind of rhetoric emerge with concerning rapidity, even from people who should know better, who without doubt have at some point encountered the real Jesus, but who for some reason are reintroducing the idea of a retributive deity back into their theology and spirituality.

This should not surprise us too much, since we all can fall prone to this error – the most famous example probably being the Apostle Peter, who in one moment received revelation about the identity of Jesus from Abba, and in the next breath attempted to oppose His mission – just after Jesus warned them about the influence of the Pharisees and Sadducees (in Matthew), as well as Herod (in Mark), all holding retributive views about God (Matthew 16:23).

In Luke’s Gospel the phrase spoken to Peter in this narrative, “get behind me satan (adversary)” (Luke 4:8), is in the context of Jesus being tempted to fashion His ministry according to the retributive ways of what John and his community call the “world” with all its conflict creating cravings (1. John 2:17-16). Would He try and prove His identity by turning stones into bread, show of His power by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple, or exercise it by bowing down to the ways of the empires of this world, rather than pouring out His life in love, as His Abba does? That was His temptation, and it still is ours.

 

But when John the Baptist proclaimed that He that baptizes in the Holy Spirit, would “burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” he was speaking in the tradition of the Jewish prophets (Matthew 11:10-12), as the messenger that was sent beforehand (a reference to Malachi 3:1-2), to a people under foreign occupation, waiting for their deliverance.

 

Interestingly, the Lord, for Whom the messenger prepares the way, is described as “a refiner’s fire, like a launderer’s soap” – two different images that have nothing to do with the destruction of people, but the cleansing of the temple in which He suddenly appears - Malachi 3:3 – an event that is described in all four Gospel accounts: Matthew 21:12–17; Mark 11:15–19; Luke 19:45–48; and John 2:13–16.

 

While I’ve heard people use this incident to claim that Jesus will employ violence in the future, thereby going against His own teachings in the Sermon on the Mount and other places, we don’t read of anyone getting hurt, no bleeding people lying on the ground begging for mercy, no wounded animals. Instead we read of him driving out the animals and overthrowing tables (John 2:15-16). He was prophetically enacting (like the prophet in Jeremiah 19) the overthrow of the temple, that would occur years later, because Jerusalem was continuing its program of violent insurrection against the occupying Romans.

 

It was the same warning that Jeremiah before Him announced against those who attempted to violently overthrow their Babylonian oppressors. And while John the Baptist might have anticipated - like most people at the time – the Messiah destroying Israel’s enemies, Jesus’ message was different, as shown in His first message in the synagogue, after having rejected the retributive ways of the systems of this world (Luke 4:1-29). As He later explained in a message to his disillusioned cousin John, the reign of His Abba was not established in violence, but manifests in healing, deliverance, and restoration (Matthew 11:4-6).

 

Now, why was John the Baptist offended (verse 6)? Because Jesus did not fulfill his expectations of violently overthrowing the Romans and establishing Jerusalem as the capitol of the world under the rule of retributive justice, while he suffered in prison for confronting Herod. Instead it was Jerusalem that got burned to the ground years later (Matthew 24; Mark 13 etc.), meaning that those who rose up in violence to fight for retributive justice, suffered the fate they wanted to inflict upon their enemies (Matthew 26:52)

 

Rather than retributive justice we see a God Who turns His enemies into friends when Jesus baptized His disciples in Holy Spirit, with the manifestation of flames of fire, and 3000 people, who formerly shouted for the crucifixion of the Messiah get added to His body of followers, after being confronted with what they had done (Acts 2:1-41).

 

For the same God Who is an All-Consuming Fire (Hebrews 12:29), is Love (1. John 4:16) and Light - which is fire – in Whom there is no darkness (there is no two-faced god) – the very message Jesus proclaimed (1. John 1:5), the Father of lights in Whom there is no shadow of turning (James 1:17), which means He has no dark side, and hence, we His children cannot live double-minded either (James 1:8).

 

Here I have heard it said that, “Jesus came as a Lamb (in gentleness), but He will return as a Lion (violently),” as if He lived like a doormat during His earthly life (e. g. Luke 4:30 etc.), or as if He was crucified because He couldn’t stand up for Himself (e. g. Matthew 26:53; John 10:18 etc.) – not to mention that the letter to the Hebrews speaks about Him being the same, “yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

 

Further, in reference to the Lion of Judah, that is supposed to support the aforementioned claim of Him returning in violence, there is no lion in the book of John’s Revelation. Instead, we see the prophet turning around when the voice declares to him, “Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Who has triumphed,” and we see a slaughtered Lamb instead (Revelation 5:5-6). Because, this is how Jesus overcomes the forces of evil (Colossians 2:15).

No, Jesus doesn’t burn evil and “unrepentant” people with “unquenchable fire” (in ancient texts, including the Jewish and Christian scriptures, describing a fire that will not go out until it establishes its purpose). In fact, He said, “Everyone will be seasoned with fire” (Mark 9:49) – the unquenchable fire of His love. This is the same love that the two sons in Jesus’ parable of the loving father were confronted with (Luke 15:11-32), melting the younger son’s shame in the father’s embrace, and calling the older one to give up his ideas of performance and retributive justice. That is the Abba of the real Jesus, the only true God that ever existed ( John 17:3).

Triune Belovedness & Belonging - Cherith Fee Nordling

Triune Belovedness & Belonging

(Ex 3:1-6, Ps 93; Rom 8:9-17; John 3:1-16)

Trinity Sunday. Christ Church Anglican 5/26/24

When I finished sixth grade, my dad put up a basketball hoop in our driveway. My three brothers spent lots of lazy afternoons shooting baskets and talking nonsense. But some of our conversations I won’t forget, like the day we got talking about heaven.

What would it be like? How would we see God if he lives in unapproachable light? How would we recognize each other without our bodies? Would we fly? Sit on clouds? How would we handle the boredom if, after 10,000 years, “we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun”? We could barely make it through a Sunday morning service!

We knew that God ‘so loved the world’ but we weren’t sure he liked it, at least not as much as we did. We wondered why so many cool things – like glaciers, and whales, and basketball – were going to disappear when Jesus took us all to that place reserved for only angels, souls, and God.  

We looked forward to meeting Jesus, but not in a body. Sure, he temporarily needed one to teach and do miracles, die and resurrect, but he dumped it at his ascension, right? And though we prayed for his return, we hoped he would take his time. Not least because we wanted to stay up late, drive, get married, have kids, stop sinning. We still wanted to live so much human life.  

Clearly, we didn’t know the first thing about the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We didn’t know that he became like us so that we would become like him in our humanity—and his!

Or that he’d lived and died and been raised not with a divine power pack but in the power of the Holy Spirit, precisely so that we too could live by the Spirit.

We didn’t know that resurrection was about getting our creaturely human lives back, made new, fitted for life in a renewed heaven on earth.

Or that in Jesus’ ascension our human lives were joined to the very life of God, perfect human life enfolded into the Trinity forever, united to the shared love of the Father, Son and Spirit.

Even though we’d been baptized into the One Triune Name, we didn’t know that we would find our Belonging, our Belovedness, and our most human being, at a Trinitarian table, in God’s Triune life.

They say that what you don’t know can’t hurt you. I beg to differ.

We all carry preset notions of God and ourselves and others. Unexamined beliefs shaped by our experience that we simply assume to be true, even if we can’t really say what they are or why they matter.

Nicodemus had the same problem. Like us, he was raised in a religious system of deeply held beliefs and rules. As an expert in Jewish law, an interpreter of Israel’s Scriptures, he tested things and people by what he knew. His curiosity about Jesus was because Jesus’ miracles sounded so much like what Yahweh had done and promised in Scripture, in Israel’s history. Hence his acknowledgment of Jesus as one sent from God.

Clearly, Jesus’ response about the extraordinary means necessary to see God’s Kingdom didn’t fit the categories for this man, who had little imagination for metaphor,let alone what God might be doing in Jesus.

“Born Again?

Through a mother’s womb?

Nonsense.

Can’t be done.”

Well, says, Jesus, it’s already been done, and it’s the only Kingdom life there is on offer. Reborn life. Something must happen to Nicodemus that he cannot do for himself or understand in advance. Jesus’ invitation assumes that Nicodemus has already been placed in the birth canal of God’s new covenant by the Spirit. The invitation is to come on out and live, as a child of Yahweh, who loves the whole world so much that he won’t give a Messiah to crush it but his Son to save it. As a gift.

But transactional religious ideas always get in the way of gift. They’re too busy telling God what he can and can’t do, what people deserve, or don’t, who gets a seat at the table and who doesn’t, all the while attempting to secure their place by doing things for God, for which  God owes them—hiding failure, fear, and shame.

It’s so hard to receive a gift we can’t earn, so hard to be set free from defending religious ideas in order to be freefor, saved for, eternal life with the Triune God of self-giving love.

Jesus’ own disciples had a hard time receiving what they’d been given. As we heard last week, Philip was done with talk and mystery and waiting. He just wanted to see the Father—a Father he couldn’t seem to recognize in Jesus. Jesus, in turn, told Philip, and us, as plainly as possible, that when we’ve seen Jesus, we’ve seen our Father. They look like each other, act just like each other. Only he can show us our Father, our Abba who art in heaven—which is exactly what he has done.

To see what God is like, we look to Jesus, Son of God and Mary.

Which means we must also look to Jesus to see what it means to be truly human, wearing the DNA of his mother and the stardust of the cosmos. Fully human like us, tempted in every way that we are. He gets what it means to be born into a weird family, to be deeply loved yet also suspect and unloved. To be poor, oppressed, betrayed, delighted, disappointed, tired, aroused, cranky, tempted to misuse love and power for his own gain.

Yet he’s unlike us at the most critical point; when tempted to break, he is without sin. Instead, he trusted and delighted in the love of our Father and obeyed him out of love for the world. That obedience, minute by minute, attentive, prophetic, wise, parabolically just and merciful, loving those considered most, and least, human, more than his own life. Healing, delivering, and obeying, all the way to a final Passover that would be the death of him for the resurrection of the world.

Trinity Sunday reminds us that the ascended, still-human Jesus is God’s faithful embodiment of grace and truth, standing at the center of God’s Kingdom, entering the depths of our depravity to reorder it toward life.

Crowned with glory and honor and Yahweh’s own name, not simply in his divinity but his humanity, Jesus has faithfully brought our life into the very life of God and kept it there, as God’s way of being Triune, forever!

Taking what is ours and giving us what is his, our brother and Lord still serves us on his knees, washing not only our feet but our whole lives.

As our High Priest, he remains united to our suffering, priesting our joy and sorrow, our hope and despair, in his intercessory life, speaking on our behalf to his Abba and ours using the most intimate, infant, of names. He embodies the prayers we have no words for or awareness of and invites us to join him in what he’s still doing in the world.

By the Spirit, he mediates our brokenness and our perfection until our final homecoming.

In Jesus, the Father always sees us finished, so the Trinity isn’t stressed about how we turn out. Their love for us is complete.

Yet, they love us without measure, in the moments of our daily lives. Because it’s here that we let the Triune God shape us as beloveds as we learn to trust that love and discover its faithfulness and forgiveness.

 We discover that our life in the Spirit is a gift of love, killing off what is killing us, empowering us to be free enough to die to ourselves, just like him.

Conformed to Jesus’ image, the spitting image of the Father, we too take on the family likeness. As Hebrews reminds us, “both the one who makes people holy, and those who are made holy are of the same family. So, Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.

Thus, our Father seats us with Jesus to enact his justice and mercy, giving us authority as firstborns that is always shaped by the intimacy of life with our Abba who named himself to Moses in the bush of fire and later called himself a “Father” to Israel, protecting and nurturing her. This Father, says Paul, who raised Jesus from the dead by the Spirit, will also give life to our mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in us, seating us human children at the Triune table forever.

This means life in the Spirit is nonnegotiable. It’s the only human life there is, now and forever. And only Jesus can show us the Spirit—“the Lord and giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,” fully, equally God among us.

This is not some invisible, shy, God who assures us of salvation, not a force who convicts us of sin or illuminates the Scriptures between whose pages we’ve trapped him. This is God, with us, hovering over the waters of first creation with life-giving breath; hovering like a dove over a flood, bringing a branch from a new tree of life as a promise of new creation; hovering over the waters of the Red Sea like a pillar of fire and cloud; and later over the Jordan. A millennia later, the Spirit is hovering in that same river once more in the form of a dove, resting on the Father’s beloved Son, who is being baptized in the waters of our repentance so that we too might hear our Abba’s voice speaking his love over us, as children are reborn.

About six hundred years ago, a monk named Andrei Rublev painted an icon of the Trinity based on the story of God coming to Abraham in Gen 18 in a three-personed, angelic visitation,

Rublev’s icon is a two-dimensional picture window of God’s reality, through which WE are gazed upon, into which we step, opening a reality waiting to greet us and gather us in.

This is what “Trinity” is shorthand for: the Father loving the Son loving the Spirit loving Father loving the Son, and so on; Mutually indwelling, self-giving, other-fulfilling love.

God’s Love is not a commodity. The Trinity does “have” an allotment of “love.” No, the Trinity is endless, eternal love that loves you and me and all creation in the same way the Father Son, and Spirit reciprocally love one other as one God. A creation made not because God needs to love, or be loved, but simply for the joy of including what is not God in God’s perfect love.

As we look at this icon for a moment, Rublev wants to remind us of all of this. [Size, colors, faces, poses/gazes, imagery, open table, emphasis on divine identity/character, relationality, personhood]

By the Spirit we feast at the Table of the Son of God, the only truly human person there has ever yet been. As we set our minds on “things above” right here where Christ is, where our life “is now hidden with Christ in God,” we come together in the Eucharist and offer his “one-anothering” life to each other, laying down our privilege and divisions, our conflicts and brokenness, to receive individual and communal healing and wholeness, forgiveness and human holiness. Yet, also to be empowered to share in the sufferings that Jesus still suffers with and for us all and also to minister healing as a sign of resurrection.

This meal is a lifeline to his own person and cruciform power to the world. As one theologian has put it, “He takes us, as those who have died, risen and ascended with him, into his own movement from the world toward the Father and empowers us to join with him in transforming the old world into a new, divine world, a world of the Spirit.” [Hans Urs von Balthasar]

So come. You were made for love by Father, Son, and Spirit, whose love makes the world new, new like a reborn baby.  Find your place at the Triune table of belovedness and belonging. That place has your name on it. It was set for you, with you in God’s heart and eyes on you, before the creation of the world. The bread is abundant, and the wine is flowing freely.

Look around the table at one another. Until the day you see Jesus face to face, you get to see him in every human brother and sister.

Come ready to laugh, because the joke’s on us all, thinking we could ever earn a place at a table for which we were made.

Laugh with the relief of it. And when you’ve eaten, run and tell the world that God so loved them that he gave his only Son to bring them home as well. Then pass the wine again. There’s always more than enough. There always has been. In the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

ABEL COME FORTH: SHEPHERD OF BEING - Ron Dart

ABEL COME FORTH: SHEPHERD OF BEING

The Jewish tale of Cain and Abel often pits the aggressive and ambitious Cain against the more reflective and contemplative Abel, Abel the Shepherd, Cain, the ever-driven entrepreneur. The tragic myth ends with Cain killing his brother Abel.

If I may fast forward for a paragraph, the more benign Christian comparison-contrast of Mary and Martha highlights the contemplative Mary and the activist Martha. Jesus makes it clear who has chosen the better part.

The Western Tradition has perennially parsed the vita contemplativa / vita activa tension, the West since the Reformation giving, increasingly so, the nod to the vita

activa. Our late modern Western ethos is merely the secularized version of the protestant vita activa. Most think they are truly free but, in fact, they are victims of their often unanalyzed drivenness, completely

addicted to doing, doing, doing, incapable of deeper dives into the waiting silence of their being.

The Medieval Victorines (Hugh and Ricard), drawing typologically from the Jewish Tradition, legitimately so, suggested that Leah and Rachel represent the active and contemplative way. Jacob thought by serving Laban for seven years, Rachel would be his wife, but Laban made it clear that it was not right for the younger sister to be wed before the older sister. The seven years embody the active life that culminates in the contemplative life, Jacob working for Rachel but needing to receive Leah as part of the journey.

It is significant in Dante’s Purgatorio (XXVII) that all who will continue their ascent up Mount Purgatory must pass through the wall of fire, the fire that purges the dross from the gold of the self, the fire that burns away an unhealthy active life (Leah) from the fuller and more meaningful contemplative life (Rachel). Dante is making it abundantly clear in Canto XXVII that the earthly paradise can only be reached by the driven active life being purged so the contemplative life can be internalized—such is Dante’s 3^rd dream in Canto XXVII.

Leah gave birth to 10 sons for Jacob, but it was Rachel who gave birth to Joseph and Benjamin (more beloved). It is not, of course, a case in which the vita activa is condemned and the vita contemplative idealized---it’s more a matter of how these two ways of being are to be ordered and prioritized on the journey.  What, in short, must pass through the fire so the gold will be revealed?

The contemplative vision of Richard of St. Victor is elevated and placed in the Paradisio in the heaven of the sun (Canto X).

Let me now return to Cain and Abel. Evelyn Underhill has rightly suggested that the West unduly and immaturely so diverts and wastes too much energy conjugating three verbs: to want, to have, and to do. The more substantive verb is “to be”—such is the contemplative way. Such is the way of Abel and such a way, in the West, dominated by aggressive Cains, again and again, kills the Abel within.  It is, though, Abel who is the shepherd and guardian of being, the shepherd who protects the depths from the wolves that would devour being.  Cain did not only kill Abel in the past—he does so relentlessly in the present and has been doing so for centuries.

If sin, at the deepest level, means missing the mark of being (“to be or not to be that is the question”, the tragedy of Hamlet and those immersed in the tragedy not knowing how to live from their deeper being), then to turn, to repent, is to turn from shallow notions of the self and identity to greater and often unmined depths. It is, in short, to heed the call of Abel, Rachel, and Mary. 

How is the inner Abel to oppose the aggressive and drivenness of the culture of Cain and the Cain within?

Such is the challenge of the Cain-Abel myth, the Leah-Rachel myth, and the Martha-Mary myth in their varied and various readings and interpretations. Of course, myth is a perennial truth we ignore to our peril wrapped in the garments of a story.

It is significantly counter-cultural in an ethos dominated by Cain (at crude and subtle levels) to heed and hear the still small voice of Abel—It takes much-disciplined courage and attentiveness to speak the life and light-giving word, ABEL COME FORTH—Cain, like Gollum, must be opposed—much hinges on this being done and done wisely and well. 

Amor Vincit Omnia

RSD                     

A LIBER FOR RON DART: THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY

THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY:

Thrownness, Memoricide & the Great Tradition

Liber Amicorum for RON S. DART

Volume 1&2 

 

Edited by

Matthew Steem & Wayne Northey

Upon Dr. Ron Dart's retirement in 2023 from a long teaching career at the University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford BC, Canada, friends suggested doing a Festschrift in his honour — not uncommon for a retiring academic. Ron wanted something different, though: a "Liber Amicorum" — A Book of Friends. So, as if to a Banquet, we asked him to send out the invitations. But in this case, it was to be a potluck, with the guests providing all the main courses. Thus was this two-volume work born: a veritable smorgasbord of delectables for heart, mind, and soul.

In it readers will find, interwoven with the overarching grand theme of friendship — a lost art in our pathologically individualistic Western world — reflections on art, poetry, politics, Christianity, justice, peace, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hermann Hesse, The Beats, Simone Weil, George Grant, George Herbert, German Pietism, Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Evelyn Underhill, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Islam, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, Jonathan Swift, liberalism/conservativism, High/Red Tories of North America, The Great Tradition, mountaineering, Ancient Greek Wisdom, Israel-Palestine tragedy, environmentalism, pedagogy, mentoring, the apophatic and cataphatic ways of knowing God, contemplation, theology, philosophy, modernity/post-modernity, etc. — all themes in Dr. Dart's voluminous writings (over 40 books), academic courses, and more!

Ron explains further:

I have titled this reflection “The Scholar-Gipsy” for the simple reason that many a decade ago, when doing a class in Victorian Prose, I was held and addressed by Matthew Arnold’s longer poem of the same name. I have many an affinity with the “scholar-gipsy” and have never wavered in my attraction to this evocative poem — so a portal and doorway into my soul. Quietly and meditatively, I sit with “The Scholar-Gipsy.”

May we the readers follow Ron's example.

A hearty welcome to the Banquet!

 

Available Now on Amazon and Kindle

Asceticism of the Eye - Lazar Puhalo

The word asceticism means "training," a strengthening of our will. An athlete is an ascetic who is training in his or her specific field of athletics. For Orthodox Christians, it is spiritual training, exercising our willpower, self-control, self-discipline, and discernment. Apostle Paul directly links asceticism to athletic training (e.g., 1 Corinthians 9:24-26)

In initiating a discussion on the subject, my mind was drawn to a working paper by philosopher Ivan Illich, "Guarding the Eye in the Age of Show.” Illich examines the changes in the concept of the gaze and convincingly argues that even the concept of what we do with the eyes has often changed dramatically over the past few centuries. 

Consequently, when we use such terms familiar to Orthodox Christians as "guarding the eye" and "fasting with the eyes," we must realize that the concepts which initially traveled with these expressions have changed. In some cases, concepts and understandings of various aspects of vision, seeing, gazing, and looking have changed dramatically or vanished altogether. Indeed, more than one hundred words dealing with the quality and meaning of seeing have vanished from our vocabulary over the past four or five centuries.

This makes discussing the asceticism of the eye more difficult both to grasp and to practise. The task is even more complicated by our carelessness in rendering translations of Orthodox prayers and terminology, a problem we will discuss later.

CLICK HERE to continue reading "ASCETICISM OF THE EYE"

Parable of the Ten Virgins - What's the Oil? (Revised 2024) - Bradley Jersak

Parable of the Ten Virgins

Have you ever given time to ponder Jesus' parable of the ten virgins? It raises notoriously difficult questions about what Jesus meant, what the various symbols represent, and how the parable should be understood and applied. And we should take heed at the outset against trying to divine THE meaning... as if there's only one message for us to undergo. Parables are more subversive than that. They aren't meant to be dissected and mastered. They function more like alarm bells that are meant to wake us up. And speaking of waking up, let's begin by reading the parable: 

Matt. 25:1-13  

At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves. But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’ Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. 

Questions

I wonder: What does Jesus mean by 'keep watch'? We generally associate keeping watch with 'staying ready' spiritually for the coming of our Bridegroom (Christ), whether (1) he comes at a future parousia at the end of history or (2) when we die, since all ten virgins 'fall asleep' (Jesus' favorite phrase for passing away), or (3) as Jesus continually reveals himself in our lives as the ever-present, ever-arriving One. 

But why virgins? Aren't we the Bride of Christ? And what are these lamps the virgins carry? What is the oil? Who sells the oil? And how do you buy it? Why is having enough oil the criterion for entrance through the door? Do we somehow earn our way into the wedding banquet? 

The more I study this parable, the less I know for sure, but I'm 100% certain that Jesus thinks that having oil is critically important. I also believe Matthew has given us some solid clues in this chapter about what that oil in question might be.  

What is this oil that we're meant to keep in full supply? I'm discovering a number of layers to the parable, as I had with the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Let's take them in order. 

I. The mercy of almsgiving as a heavenly investment

Warning: this first layer will involve something that sounds like buying your way into the kingdom of God or earning your salvation with good works. Stay with me; it's essential territory to cover and a prerequisite to understanding the parable. We mustn't miss what Jesus says or dismiss what Jesus wants by prematurely filtering his words through what we know about the post-Easter gospel of grace (though we will get there). 

In Second Temple Judaism, the mercy of almsgiving had become nearly synonymous with righteousness (tzedakah, also translated justice or charity). Jesus makes that connection in Matthew 6:1-2. Showing mercy to the poor through almsgiving was like investing in your heavenly bank account.

The Rabbis were riffing off passages like Proverbs 19:17, which says, "He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed." Jewish teachers applied this to mean that when you give to the poor in this life, your investment is returned by blessedness in the next life. CLICK HERE for a good article on the details.

Some first century Rabbis also believed that those who suffered torment in the afterlife could escape hades or gehenna (depending on the Rabbi) after one year if (i) your family fulfilled the requirements of liturgical mourning through that year and (ii) if you had a good track record of almsgiving. For more details, see Her Gates Will Never Be Shut, 49.

Jesus was playing with the same idea of spiritual capital investments when he says, "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (Matt. 6:19-20) by practicing the righteousness of giving alms to the needy (Matt. 6:1-4). And surely one layer of the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus identifies treatment of the poor with one's postmortem destiny. So also, the parable of the sheep and goats at the end of Matthew 25.

The idea that acts of mercy are a heavenly deposit may also be what the angel meant when he said to Cornelius, "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God." And it is certainly what St John Chrysostom meant when he said, "If you want more storehouses, you have them: in the bellies of the poor." 

What Jesus adds to the rabbinical discussion is his rebuke of those who practice almsgiving and fasting as an outward show of their religious pride. Here he stands in the tradition of the Major and Minor Prophets of Jewish Scripture. Isaiah, Amos and Micah spring quickly to mind. Jesus assures those who 'blow their own horns' that the kudos they receive comprise their full payment (Matt. 6:2) ... no future reward awaits. He also addresses the possibility that one could give their outward tithes and yet still completely miss the deeper matters of righteousness, mercy and faithfulness (Matt. 26:26). 

II. The Oil of Mercy

This background connecting almsgiving, righteousness and entering the kingdom leads us back to the parable. I would propose that in the first layer or immediate intent of Jesus' parable to his Jewish listeners and Matthew's readers, the oil he mentions (and the gold coins in the next parable) signifies 'mercy' -- and in that context, mercy was specifically merciful (practical, compassionate) treatment of the poor. I see this for textual and contextual reasons:

A. Textual clues: the linguistic connection between 'mercy' and 'oil.'

Hebrew and Greek scholars help us translate the Bible (because of complex grammatical rules and special idioms), but any curious layperson can now easily do a basic word study. Teachable moment: just type "NT Greek lexicon" + the word you want into your web browser. In this case, I've done a search for the Greek words that we translate "oil" and "mercy." The following details pop up on sites such as: 

http://classic.studylight.org/lex/grk or http://biblehub.com/greek

1. MERCY (noun): eleos 

1656	Original Word	Transliterated Word
	eáleov	eleos
	Translated Word
	mercy

2. Have / obtain /receive / show MERCY (verb): eleeo

1653	Original Word	Transliterated Word
	eÍlea/w	eleeo
	Translated Words
	have mercy, have mercy on, have mercy upon, obtain mercy, receive mercy, show mercy, found mercy, had mercy, has mercy, mercy, received mercy, shown mercy, shows mercy

3. OLIVE - olive berries, olive tree,  olives (noun): elaion

1636	Original Word	Transliterated Word
	eÍlaiða	elaia
	Translated Words
	olive berries, olive tree, olives, olive trees
1637	Original Word	Transliterated Word
	eálaion	elaion
	Translated Word
	olive oil

4. OIL - lamp oil, healing oil, anointing oil, olive oil (noun): elaion

Strong's Number:  1637

eálaion

Original Word		Word Origin
	eálaion		from the same as (1636)
Transliterated Word		Phonetic Spelling
	Elaion		el'-ah-yon
Parts of Speech		TDNT
	Noun Neuter		2:470,221
Definition
	olive oil for fuel for lamps for healing the sick for anointing the head and body at feasts mentioned among articles of commerce
Translated Words
	KJV (11) - oil, 11;NAS (11) - oil, 10; olive oil

Do you see the obvious similarity? Eleos, eleeo, elaion: mercy, show mercy, olive (oil), oil.

Similarities between words don't always mean anything; some words are just soundalikes with no connection. Other words have an original connection that is no longer relevant. Sometimes similar words are connected only by wordplay. But in this case, the ongoing symbolism of oil as mercy is both direct and very relevant. 

According to Lazar Puhalo, olive trees were actually named after mercy because the trees gave oil so abundantly and for so many goods that oil actually became an item of currency. The olive groves of the Palestinian region were and are glorious sources of provision, reflecting and symbolizing the generosity of God's enduring and abundant mercy. 

One of the great tragedies of the conflict between Israeli settlers and the Palestinian people is the punitive destruction of centuries-old olive orchards that provide delicious meals, oils and soaps. Torching or uprooting olive orchards is a horridly unmerciful and wasteful weapon of spite in middle eastern culture.  Whether provoked or unprovoked, destruction of an olive grove is meant to demoralize a community and destroy an inheritance passed from generation to generation. CLICK HERE for an article on the importance of olive harvest production.

5. Polyeleos 

Back to the oil / mercy connection in Judeo-Christian tradition. The superabundant mercy of God is identified by another word: "polyeleos" -- literally, 'much oil' or 'much mercy.' 

Polyeleos also refers to part of the prayer services on Orthodox Christian feast days when all of the oil lamps in the sanctuary are lit (including a large chandelier) and the readers chant Psalm 134-135 (LXX; it's Psalm 135-136 in most Bibles). 

So, why 'many mercies'? Because after every line, Psalm 135(136) repeats, "His mercy endures forever." For how long? Forever! That line is sung over and over (twenty-six times), many mercies, under the many lights of many oil lamps. This is the high point of the service of the major Christian feasts because all of this mercy, all of this oil, all of those lamps, all of that light point together toward Jesus Christ and his gospel (present also in an Easter Gospel reading), Christ, the Light of the worlds and ultimate fulfillment of the Psalm's many mercies. 

For armchair detectives who want to dig a bit deeper, you might investigate what interesting paths might lead from the Jewish Feast of Lights (Chanukah) to the Christian polyelios ... rumor has it ...

B. Contextual clues: The contextual connection of the Matthew 25 parables

In addition to the textual clues connecting the virgins' lamp oil to the righteousness of mercy, we also have contextual clues in the two other parables in Matthew 25: the parable of the bags of gold (or 'talents' - Matt. 25:14-30) and the parable of the sheep and goats (Matt. 25:31-46). The three parables were grouped together by design, if not by Jesus then at least by Matthew. As different as they seem, they are strung together by the 'return' theme: the bridegroom returns, the master returns and the Son of Man returns. Various preterist interpreters (e.g. N.T. Wright) may be correct in assigning an initial fulfillment of Christ's return (his vindication, exultation and judgment) to Jesus' ascent and entry into Jerusalem, or to his resurrection, or to the fall of Jerusalem. But traditionally, preachers and commentators concentrate on applying the parables to Christ's final return, when he "comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead." 

If the latter interpretation is valid, then we can reverse engineer the passage for insight into the criterion of judgment. On what basis are those in the parables included or excluded from God's kingdom? In order, (i) having sufficient oil, (ii) having invested one's gold and (iii) having shown mercy to the least of these.

What if these three criteria are really one? If oil can represent mercy, if investing (laying up treasures) looks like almsgiving, and if giving ourselves to the least of these is really ministering to Christ, then all three parables establish the same criterion for entry through the door, for sharing in the Master's happiness and for entering the joy of the Lord: mercy, specifically compassionate care for the poor (whether the hungry, the naked, the sick, the refugee or the prisoner). Those who have acquired sufficient oil, made sufficient investments or offered sufficient service will be welcomed. Those who have not will be barred, excluded and expelled. And that raises a problem, doesn't it? Are we saved by our compassion or are we saved by God's grace?

Whatever interpretive gymnastics we do to make this fit our doctrine of salvation or our commitment to grace (don't go there yet!), I don't think there can be any doubt about what Jesus wants: he is passionate about whether or not we 'do mercy,' so much so that he frames it as an immediate life and death, in or out, right or left crisis (lit. judgment). And as much as we're about salvation by faith in Christ, we mustn't negate Jesus' own teaching about what he desires. 

Moreover, it's not as though Christ said those who receive God's mercy are empowered by God's mercy to then do merciful things. That's what I would have said. That's good theology! Grace initiates and then empowers. And Jesus did say things like that ("Those who have been forgiven much, love much" - Luke 7:47). But he also says, "Blessed are those who are merciful, for they shall be shown (or obtain) mercy" (Matt. 5:7), as if God's mercy were contingent on ours. As if we "obtain mercy" by first being merciful. In this chapter, "obtaining mercy" is like "buying" the oil of mercy or "investing" the gold of mercy or "feeding, clothing, visiting, welcoming" those in need of mercy. And the result of "obtaining mercy" by "doing mercy" is that God responds with his affirmation, welcome and rewards. All of this obtaining-buying-investing-doing language seems loaded with trouble for those sensitive to the religion of works righteousness. How shall we navigate those treacherous waters?

III. Salvation by Works of Mercy?

In a religious culture that already understood earthly mercies as a ticket into the gates of paradise, isn't it odd that Jesus didn't just correct them? All he had to say was, "Not by works of righteousness which you have done, but by God's mercies you have been saved" (Titus 3:5). Sometimes I get the feeling we wish Jesus had been more Pauline! 

In fact, Jesus had already used other parables that proclaimed God's mercy as scandalous and indiscriminate, decidedly not based on righteous deeds but by grace alone. Remember the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-22)? Or the workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1-16)? It's all about grace. Even the wasteful son and the last-minute converts get in. So, too, in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus: the poor man didn't arrive in paradise because he was more generous than the rich man. His poverty and his open sores--not his oil or his investments or his merciful deeds--were his only credentials into the bosom of consolation.

But in the three Matthew 25 parables, isn't Jesus teaching salvation by works of mercy? At this first layer of interpreting the parable, if we're honest, it seems so. Along with the prophets who came ahead of him, it is the righteous (i.e. the merciful!) who inherit the heavenly kingdom. Jesus wants the people of God to know, "Yes, God requires mercy, not sacrifice. God wants genuine compassion, not external shows of piety" (cf. Isa. 58; Jer. 7; Micah 6, etc.). Like those prophets, Jesus affirms and fulfills the heart meaning or deeper intent of the Law (loving God by loving each other) and rejects the hypocrisy of religious performance that whitewashes the surface of inwardly filthy vessels. 

Another detail arises here: notice that what they need is not found in the Bridegroom's house, or the Master's estate, or in the Judge's chambers. The virgins and the stewards alike need to head to the market ... the venues of opportunity where oil is bought and investments made. The third parable identifies these locales in their literal sense as hospitals, refugee camps, skid rows and death rows. These are the actual markets where mercy is given and received ... traded and obtained. Somehow, we not only prepare for Christ there (in the first two parables); we also meet him there in the guise of the least and lowest.

IV. The second layer: Christ the Bridegroom

But Jesus also takes another step, far beyond the Jewish prophets; a step we might overlook because we read as those who already believe in Jesus Christ. This move, however, would have jarred his original listeners. In the parables, Jesus increasingly identifies himself personally as the very Bridegroom they are waiting for, the very Master who they serve, and the prophesied "Son of Man" who will come with the clouds as Judge of the nations. The claim carried implications that alarmed the temple establishment.

Not only that, remember that the oil is also anointing oil--anointing the "king when he comes in his glory" or chrismating the Christos... the Messiah. And isn't this exactly what is happening next? His ascent and enthronement upon the Cross, already anointed for his burial.   

His opponents wonder, "Is Jesus claiming to be who we think he's claiming to be?" They're beginning to understand. His triumphal entry into the city and dramatic occupation of the temple site only raise the stakes, because now the crowds are seeing it too. And finally, Jesus is compelled to confirm it under oath at his trial before Caiaphas ... the final 'blasphemy' that seals his fate (Matt. 26:64-65). Are you the One? I AM.    

So yes, in these parables, the call for the oil and gold and acts of mercy are Jewish prophetic exhortations at their finest. We are to feel the pointed indictment of Christ wherever we are loveless, merciless or indifferent. But that is not what shocked Jesus' listeners. They were faced with the existential challenge of his claims. Will they or won't they believe the Bridegroom and anointed King who was to come is standing before them? How will they respond? Thus, the parables that make mercy a matter of eternal consequence bears this second, greater demand: belief in Jesus as the Messiah of God!

How odd, then, for Christendom to accept the latter as a theological matter of course, while puzzling over and even resisting former--often acknowledging the Judge while balking at his judgments! And fair enough, for we're wary of slipping into salvation by good works, no? Mercy is a great virtue, but as spiritual capital for access to the kingdom of heaven? That begins to sound like the old "social gospel" of liberal Christianity doesn't it?  

V. A third way, perchance?  

If classic liberalism lapses into a noble works focus for entry in the kingdom, and classic Evangelicalism embraces salvation by grace through faith alone (at the expense of Jesus' teachings), might there be a third way? Perhaps.

St Seraphim of Sarov (1754-1833) raised an important fact in the parable that addresses this works/grace dichotomy. He points out that all ten of the women are called 'virgins.' That is, they didn't lack 'virtue' ... all ten represent people who have lived pure and pious lives in their thoughts and actions. That's not what's lacking. That's not the oil that ran out. What then? 

St Seraphim thought the parable was about "the acquisition of the grace of the Holy Spirit." What does that mean? He said,

"In the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, when the foolish ones lacked oil, it was said: 'Go and buy in the market.' But when they had bought, the door to the bride chamber was already shut and they could not get in. Some say the lack of oil in the lamps of the foolish virgins means a lack of good deeds in their lifetime. Such an interpretation is not quite correct. Why should they be lacking in good deeds if they are called virgins, even though foolish ones? Virginity is the supreme virtue, an angelic state, and it could take the place of all other good works.  

"I think that what they were lacking was the grace of the All-Holy Spirit of God. These virgins practiced the virtues, but in their spiritual ignorance they supposed the Christian life consisted merely in doing good works. By doing a good deed they thought they were doing the work of God, but they little cared whether they acquired thereby the grace of God's Spirit." 

(Lazarus Moore, St. Seraphim of Sarov: A Spiritual Biography, 172-174).

Thus, on one hand, it's not that we ought to ignore mercy. Christ certainly didn't. In Matt. 25, he brought it front and center. On the other hand, even a virginal life of outward righteousness and charitable works can be bankrupt of the grace of the Holy Spirit ... even a performance-driven replacement for it. How then can we ensure that our mercy is not devoid of divine grace—that our lamps do not run out? 

First, negatively, I would suggest that we avoid five errors of the Pharisees (the public pietists of Jesus' day): 

• They erred whenever they failed to do mercy.
• They erred whenever they did mercy for the benefit of the self-righteous ego (to prove they were 'radical' believers 'on fire' for God).
• They erred whenever their acts of mercy were not accompanied by the Spirit of grace to those whom they served (e.g., begrudging 'entitlement' and thereby actually feeding it).
• They erred whenever they forgot that they too were in need of God's mercy and failed to be grateful for it. 
• Most of all, they erred by dissociating their works of mercy from belief in Christ, the all-merciful Source of our mercy. 

One can see from this list how religion can 'get you coming or going.' That is, there is the religion of self-righteous deeds done for God (the so-called 'hard-core Christian') and there is the religion of self-righteous deeds done sans God (under the rubric of humanist activism). Without a doubt, good deeds done are often good. Compassion is a human virtue and Christians don't have a monopoly on loving-kindness. But not all good works or merciful deeds are necessarily spiritual investments in heavenly treasures. Christ alone knows what is or isn't. The parables of Matthew 25 contain a lot of mysteries and remind us that some will be surprised at the outcome when Jesus' renders his verdict. So what can we know? 

Positively, we can return to the parable and simply marry within our own lives the two things Jesus obviously wants: 

• Jesus obviously wants us to acquire the oil of mercy. That is, be merciful as he is merciful. Forgive as we have been forgiven. Show the kindness that the Father has shown us. 
• Jesus obviously wants us to recognize him as the Bridegroom we've been waiting for. The whole parable calls us to focus our attention on him. Our waiting is for him; our lives are for him; our acts of love, done  in faith, empowered by the Spirit ... all for Christ, or rather, Christ does them through us, as he is the actual source of mercy.

Closing: The death and resurrection as the punchline of every parable.

Elsewhere I've cited Benedict XVI, who has said that the punchline (and final layer) to every parable is the death and resurrection of Christ. In the spirit of early Christian interpretation, if I were to preach this passage, I would point to the Cross (i.e. Christ crucified) as the polyeleos, the abundant Olive Tree of many-mercies.  

How do I acquire the oil of the Spirit that gains me entry to the Kingdom banquet? At the Cross. How do I receive God's mercy? At the Cross. How do I become merciful, in my deeds but more so in my character? At the Cross. 

Just as the True Vine pours out the wine of the blood of Christ, so the True Olive Tree produces the oil of many mercies and the grace of the Holy Spirit. These parallel pictures--the wine-bearing vine and the oil-bearing olive tree--are images of the one Tree of Life, the Cross of Christ. While we await the some-day return of the Bridegroom-Master-Judge, we also encounter him in the now-day markets, dispensing the oil mercy and grace to and through those on the margins, behind the hedges and on the street corners. They are invited in, no matter how battered and broken ... and so are those graced by the Spirit to serve them. May we be virgins found faithfully filling our lamps with Jesus' oil and becoming familiar with his face now so that he's no stranger then.  

 

ARCHIPELAGO OF THE MIND - Lee Puhalo, 1963

ARCHIPELAGO OF THE MIND [Lee Puhalo, 1963]

the mind is
an archipelago
in the sea
of the brain.

islands of reason
and uncontrolled emotions;
of understanding
and hopeless confusion

of faith
and skepticism

shoals
of loyalty
and infidelity

Isles of logic
and passions
of love
and hate

of kindness
and malice
vengefulness
and forgiveness

Atolls of hope
and despair
of joy
and hopelessness

Shipwrecked
plans
litter
the beaches

the wreckage
of dreams
strewn along
the reef
of reality.

Some dreamed
some
did not know
that they could dream

The real
tragedies are those
whose dreams
were crushed
by the ignorance
of others

The Death of John the Baptist... and the Rest of the Story - Lazar Puhalo

Mark 6:14-29

¹⁴ King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”

¹⁵ Others said, “He is Elijah.”

And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.”

¹⁶ But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”

¹⁷ For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married. ¹⁸ For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” ¹⁹ So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, ²⁰ because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him.

²¹ Finally, the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. ²² When the daughter of^[c] Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests.

The king said to the girl, “Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you.” ²³ And he promised her with an oath, “Whatever you ask, I will give you, up to half my kingdom.”

²⁴ She went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?”

“The head of John the Baptist,” she answered.

²⁵ At once, the girl hurried in to the king with the request: “I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”

²⁶ The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. ²⁷ So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, ²⁸ and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother.²⁹ On hearing of this, John’s disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

The Rest of the Story

In this Scripture passage, we get an incomplete story about the conflict between John the Baptist and Herod of Galilee i. We hear only about John the Baptist proclaiming that a marriage between Herod and his brother's wife, Herodias, would be wrong and contrary to the law.

This, however, is only a part of the story.  In the first place, Herodias was his half-sister. Indeed, it was highly improper for Philip to be married to her, also.

 

Perhaps more serious was the fact that Herod was in a treaty marriage with the daughter of King Aretas of Nabatea, who was quite powerful at that time. For Herod to marry Herodias, he would have to find some way to dispose of his current wife, the daughter of King Aretas. This would cause a major conflict between Galilee and Nabatea. Herod's wife realized this and realized that Herod could not marry Herodias while she was Herod's lawful wife. She suspected that Herod would arrange some fatal accident for her in order to remove her from the equation. She, therefore, fled from Galilee and returned to her father's house.

 

As John the Baptist feared, this was going to cause a war and a large amount of bloodshed. These other two factors, and particularly the possibility of a bloody war, all served as motivations for the protests of John the Baptist about the marriage of Herod and Herodias.

 

It turns out that only the intervention of the Roman governor of Syria prevented this war from taking place.

 

This is the rest of the story, and it is much more complex than the mention of it in the Gospels.

Beyond Fight-Mode Entrenchment with St Teresa — Chuck DeGroat

There was another one of those predictable dustups this week, I heard, where someone from a particular tribe of Christianity was grumpy that women had become too empowered and that Christianity had become too empathic. You know, the kind of piece that only further entrenches one group and alienates another. Someone wrote to me and said “this is the kind of essay you should respond to.” I replied “I’ve gone down that road before and I don’t like what it does to me, so not this time.”

While I am quite comfortable saying “don’t waste your time with that nonsense,” I’m not going to argue. You can’t try to reason with someone whose nervous system is stuck in a sympathetically activated fight mode. It’s impossible to connect or even to be curious in that mode. This kind of entrenched tribalism is, at its core, a traumatized state. And sadly, unhealed wounds only serve to wound others.

With compassion, the extraordinary 16th century reformer St. Teresa of Avila diagnosed this state way back then. And, goodness, do we need her wisdom today. She said that when we grow in knowledge, we ought to grow in awe, wonder, and humility. But her lament was that the more knowledgeable we become, the more entrenched we become, which can lead to a kind of hypervigilance, where we “fear everything and everything offends us.” Where, as she says, we are like soldiers always preparing for a fight. Yes, she was diagnosing fight mode. And absent a calmed and grounded nervous system, and absent humility and curiosity, there’s no reason to think engagement will lead to anything but more traumatizing battle in these circumstances.

Now, the convicting part is that her words are for any of us, no matter our theology, who get stuck in the certainty and self righteousness of fight mode. And while I can’t control what others say and do, I can come back around to the one who I am responsible for - me. And do whatever work I need to do to remain “rooted and grounded in love” - St. Paul’s prayer for each and every one of us.

From here, we can name what needs to be named as harmful (see Geoff Holsclaw’s responses), but we can seek to live in truth, goodness, and beauty. Remember: rooted and grounded people foster rooted and grounded communities. And, I believe, this is where you will find the Life-Giving Spirit.

PS: As I’ve said before, from a nervous system perspective, engaging some *fight* within isn’t bad at all. It can be the necessary pathway out of a chronic state of powerlessness and toward freedom and justice. St. Teresa herself had some beautiful and well marshalled fight energy! I am talking about an entrenched and chronic fight mode here.

A Pseudo-Psalm, by a Pseudo-Jonah: Jessica Boudreaux

A Pseudo-Psalm, by a Pseudo-Jonah:
Jessica Boudreaux

Destroy them Lord -
And then destroy me, too
For i have also done evil
Before Your ever-searching eyes
And am no longer worthy
To be called Your child
But unlike Nineveh that Great City,
I kick and fight and scream
Even now sheltered and safe
Inside this giant whale,
(For me an Ark In The Sea)
And still refuse to receive
The Word that of Your kindness
That was also meant for me-
Always resisting submitting to
This vast Ocean of Love and Peace
That is always flowing from You-
So how is it that with their blind
Ninevite-eyes they can see
That they are seen,
And so effortlessly receive
The Words that I still
Refuse (despite myself) to believe-
That You are merciful,
And Good, and Loving
And ever will be?

(i wonder in this moment-
That is perhaps my last-
Was your message of Mercy
Really meant for Nineveh
Or was it truly intended for me?)

Spirit, would you
Expose the Nineveh
That is inside me
(That You love so dearly)
With these Living Waters
soften my fearful heart of stone
Create in me a willing spirit
Because I desperately want
to want to repent of this pride
And in sackcloth and ashes
Return to You and receive
The Gift of mercy and compassion
Promised and extended
Always even to me

Storms of death-and-resurrection
Surround You- and swallow me-
Long before any creature of the sea
And from the drowning darkness of the deep
Like You did in Eden
Once again You are
Separating from the waters
This parched, dry land
With loving Wounded Hands
And holding me tenderly
Filling me with life's breath again

And out of the deep
i still raise my cry
Even though i now am lying
On sand warm and dry
Will You come to set me free?
Will You hear my voice
After i fled from Yours
Jealous You are for me-
Even now, is the scent of the sea
And of the fragrance of a whale's belly
Still a pleasing offering of incense to Thee?

I Hear the sound of Your Voice
Calling to me in my shame
Like Adam after feasting
From Eden’s deceiving tree-
And somehow i even see You
Walking on the shores of distant Galilee
Offering fish and peace, wanting to eat
With sinners, runners, deniers like me-
Reconciled around campfires so sweet
And i when i see You still come near
i fall to my face as though dead
But You Are Here *with me*
In the eternal-ness of every “now”
You lay Your hand upon me
And kneeling beside me
You whisper-

“Arise Jonah-
Doves are meant to fly
Not run and hide
Arise Jonah-
My Goodness
Is ever pursuing you
So, my child
My beloved one
Arise-
And Walk
With Me
Into Life”

i am
sinking
i am
drowning
i am
overwhelmed
By waves
By darkness
So if Your Spirit is
Truly hovering over
These chaos-waters
Then Oh Lord
To Your Spirit
I commend
My spirit
And so now
i surrender
i will let myself
Be cast upon
The waters
The floods
The storms
The waves
And if You
Are Good
And Compassionate
And Merciful
And Kind
May these
Raging seas
Wash my soul clean
And may Your Love
Sweep me away

Lament is Not Enough: Evangelicals offer “Thoughts and Prayers” for Gaza - Bruce Fisk

“I've seen the flame of hope among the hopeless
And that was truly the biggest heartbreak of all.”

Bruce Cockburn, Last Night of the World (1999)

Permission: Omar Esstar

October 7, 2023: a dark day that changed everything. Ever since, a nation of traumatized, enraged Israeli Jews have been grieving over loved ones slaughtered when Hamas militants entered Israel. The massacre of more than 1,100 in a single day conjured specters of the Holocaust, robbed Israelis of their secure refuge, and fomented resentment of their government’s complacency and incompetence.

Overnight, a politically fractured nation was united in what they felt was a battle for survival. Voices calling for negotiations or ceasefire were notably absent. Thousands of Israeli reservists found themselves preparing for urban warfare in the streets of Gaza.

Almost as traumatic in Israel was the number of hostages Hamas smuggled into Gaza—originally 240, including children, the elderly, and foreign workers, of which about 105 have been released. Hostage family members, camped out near Israel’s Defense Ministry, are demanding political engagement with Hamas instead of endless war.

Also, since October 7, millions of traumatized, desperate Gazans have lost homes, hospitals, schools, and families. Israel has intentionally deprived them of medical care, electricity, clean water, shelter, sanitation, and adequate food. Those not yet killed by bombs or bullets are now succumbing to disease, thirst, and starvation. As winter sets in, desperation deepens.

The toll of death and displacement in Gaza has surpassed what Palestinians suffered in 1948, during the saga they remember as The Catastrophe. Israeli forces have killed an average of 300 Gazans per week (not counting a week-long ceasefire). According to U.S. intelligence, Israel dropped more than 29,000 bombs on Gaza between the beginning of the assault and mid-December. More than twice as many Gazan civilians have been killed in three months than over the two years of Russian-Ukrainian warfare. These numbers, covering October 7 to January 24, need daily updating.

In Israel	Killed: about 1,139 (including 29 children) Injured: at least 8,730, along with destroyed homes and property
In the   West     Bank	Killed: at least 370 (including more than 99 children) Injured: more than 4,250
In Gaza	Killed: at least 25,700 (more than 10,000 children, 7,000 women, 94 journalists) Injured: more than 63,740 (at least 8,663 children and 6,327 women) Missing: more than 8,000  Destroyed or damaged: more than half of Gaza’s homes, plus schools, hospitals, ambulances, places of worship Displaced from their homes: 85% of Gazans

With the Gaza Strip increasingly unlivable, Israeli officials across the political spectrum are openly pushing to “voluntarily” resettle Gazans in countries like Egypt, Congo and Saudi Arabia. When we recall that Zionist forces expelled ¾ million Palestinians in 1948 (many of whom ended up in Gaza), and destroyed their homes to prevent mass return, we understand why Gazans are experiencing this nightmare as déjà vu.

Steve Bell - Refugee (on the Slaughter of Innocents)

Lyrics (from the Keening for the Bell album)

We think of him as safe beneath the steeple
Or cozy in a crib beside the font
But he is with a million displaced people
On the long road of weariness and want
For even as we sing our final carol
The hounded child is up and on that road
Fleeing from the wrath of someone else's quarrel
Glancing behind
And shouldering their load
And shouldering their load

While Herod rages still from his dark tower
Christ clings to Mary, fingers tightly curled
The lambs are slaughtered by the men of power
And death squads spread their curse across the world
How terrible, how just and how ironic
That every Herod dies and comes alone
Defenseless as the naked embryonic
To stand before
The Lamb upon the throne
The Lamb upon the throne

I can't resist the burning urge for turning
This song into a cautionary tale
The Savior whom this song has been discerning
Once occupied, the belly of a whale
To reach as deep as love could ever fathom
To rescue from the tentacles of hell
The wretched, the beleaguered and forgotten
Surprisingly
Their enemies as well
Their enemies as well

 

 

The Slaughter of the Innocents: Then and Now – Ron Dart

The Slaughter of the Innocents: Then and Now – Ron Dart

We reflect at this season of the liturgical year on both the birth of Jesus but also the immediate political implications of it: the slaughter of innocent children under two years of age by the Roman military. How many children were killed, and what type of soldier would do such a thing? Obviously, most Roman soldiers would not kill innocent children to appease Herod’s insecure ambitions – mercenaries or killers with no conscience. But, many were the innocent children killed in such a slaughter, and many a family lamenting the carnage.

The slaughter of the innocents has been well depicted and graphically illustrated in the history of art – anyone with a minimal conscience cannot but be appalled by the savagery of it. But, many are the innocents being killed in Gaza and the West Bank these days – much, much more than the Roman killing of innocent Jewish children. Now, it is the Jewish state-military killing multiple Palestinian children – a few facts, and there are many more I could highlight:

There are, at the present time, a combination of 28,000 deaths/missing Palestinian persons.

• 54,000 injured
• 65,000 housing units have been destroyed
• 92 schools and universities destroyed
• 115 mosques completely destroyed.

I could go on, in detail, describing the destruction of hospitals and health units, malnutrition increasing, familial ties shattered, and American military and diplomatic support ever pro-Israeli. The irony is this: the goal is to destroy Hamas, but the very barbaric and savage atrocities by Israel will midwife an even more committed Hamas and Muslim world in its animosity toward the Judeo-Christian West.

We should, rightly so, meditate on the slaughter of the innocents at the birth of Christ. But, we are living through a much greater and more brutal slaughter of the innocents at the present time – such crude and vindictive brutality makes the Roman killing of innocent children pale in comparison – then was tragic, now raises the meaning of barbarism to a new level.

What would a Jewish prophet speak to the Jewish people at such a time as this? Who are the Jewish and Christian prophets speaking such words of moral truth? What are the short and long-term implications of ignoring such words of pure truth, justice, and shalom?

La Lotta Continua
[continuous struggle]

Ron Dart

Christmas Homily: Jesus’ Birth in Extra-Biblical Sources — Sarah Pickering

This Christmas, I am not going to retell the same old story we tell every year. I am not going to tell the whole Mary and Joseph, donkey ride to Bethlehem, inn keeper, shepherds, sheep etc. It is a good story, but this year, we are telling another.

The stories of Jesus are not isolated to our protestant scriptures. There are apocryphal books that tell different stories and other faiths that tell stories about him too. We don’t have the corner of the market on Jesus. He’s much bigger than that - “for God so loved the WORLD,” right?!

This story first appeared in a gospel called pseudo-Matthew which has a fascinating origin which you can look up later, I must get on with the story. This story happens following the birth of Jesus and on the flight to Egypt.

And it came to pass on the third day of their journey, while they were walking, that the blessed Mary was fatigued by the excessive heat of the sun in the desert; and seeing a palm tree, she said to Joseph: Let me rest a little under the shade of this tree. Joseph therefore made haste, and led her to the palm, and made her come down from her beast.

As an aside... this is where the idea of a donkey came from in the other story we tell.

Mary looked up into the palm tree and saw the fruit, which in that part of the world would be dates, not bananas, and she told Joseph she wished they could eat some of the fruit but it was high up in the tree. Joseph told her his biggest concern wasn’t food but water because they were out of it and they needed water for themselves and the animals with them.

While they are discussing among themselves, something crazy happens -- Jesus speaks:

Then the child Jesus, with a joyful countenance, reposing in the bosom of His mother, said to the palm: O tree, bend your branches, and refresh my mother with your fruit. And immediately at these words the palm bent its top down to the very feet of the blessed Mary; and they gathered from it fruit, with which they were all refreshed.

The tree stayed bent over, waiting for Jesus to tell it to rise again and then Jesus said to it:

Raise yourself, O palm tree, and be strong, and be the companion of my trees, which are in the paradise of my Father; and open from your roots a vein of water which has been hid in the earth, and let the waters flow, so that we may be satisfied from you. And it rose up immediately, and at its root there began to come forth a spring of water exceedingly clear and cool and sparkling. And when they saw the spring of water, they rejoiced with great joy, and were satisfied, themselves and all their cattle and their beasts. And they all gave thanks to God.”

In this story, Jesus is pretty verbose for a newborn or even a two year old, right?!

Is it true? Yes, there are beautiful things we can pull from this story.

Did it happen? I mean, decide for yourself, but I would suggest maybe not.

No myth is literally true. It is the nature of myth to point to a truth that limited words cannot embrace. That is what the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth do and this is why we love them passionately and respect them so deeply. (John Shelby Spong)

While we are out here on a theological limb lets venture out a little further and read this same story from the Qur’an.

You may not know this but I spent some of my teenage years in the Middle East and am quite familiar with the stickiness of date palms. One year my dad’s boss, a Muslim who had recently returned from the Hajj, sent me a Christmas card, via my dad but not to my dad. Dad questioned Mr Iqbal as to why he was sending me a card and he wasn’t getting one and Mr Iqbal’s response was -- She believes it.” And I love that. He had respect for me as a believer in Jesus and honoured what he saw in me in that season. The pilgrimage of the Hajj had changed him, he had met Allah on the path. Many Muslims follow the teachings of Jesus. “For God so loved the whole world,” right?!

So, out here on our theological limb, let’s tell a very similar story from the Qur’an. This version of the story sets it as Mary is in the throws of childbirth. The timing is different but the elements are the same:

Then she conceived him; and withdrew with him to a remote place. And the throes of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree. She said: Oh, would that I had died before this, and had been a thing quite forgotten! So a voice came to her from beneath her: Grieve not, surely thy Lord has provided a stream beneath thee. And shake towards thee the trunk of the palm-tree, it will drop on thee fresh ripe dates. So eat and drink and cool the eye. Then if thou seest any mortal, say: Surely I have vowed a fast to the Beneficent - He who wills goodness and mercy for all His creatures - , so I will not speak to any man to-day. Qur’an 19:22-26

Jesus speaks to her from the womb, he tells her to shake the trunk of the tree and eat and drink. He provides for her in her need. He gives her what she needs to labour. It’s quite amazing as a story. And then fast forward through the birth and let’s dip back into the story we are more familiar with...

The angels left and the shepherds took off, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the shepherds were impressed.

Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The shepherds returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told!

Let me tell you what I love about these stories.

Mary and the palm tree either happens as Mary is labouring before giving birth, or as they are fleeing as refugees to Egypt. Either way, this is not a good moment. Here was a world, much like our world today, filled with violence and hatred, cruelty and in their part of the world, with no safe and sanitary place to bring a baby safely into it.

But, God is right there. If Christmas isn’t about God with us, then it isn’t about anything.

God is the provider and boss of all creation. Jesus speaks to Mary to tell her how to get sustenance from the dates and water to drink. Or Jesus speaks to the tree to do the same. God cares for God’s children with grace as sweet as sticky dates and refreshing as water from the base of a tree.

Mary is not meek and mild, but strong and tenacious and brave. She carries Jesus on the journey to Bethlehem late into her pregnancy and in the Qur’an’s version she labours with him leaning on the palm tree. In the Pseudo-Matthew version she protects the child as they flee together as a family and her obedience to the voice of God saves their lives with the provision of food and water.

May we learn strength from Mary, and have the faith to cry out for help when we need it.

May we listen to the quiet voice of love and grace that provides.

May we love in fierce and tender ways, even in the middle of a world full of violence.

And just like this story which is set before and after Your birth, may we find You before, during and after all of our celebrating and may You go with us on the path wherever it may lead in the coming year.

Amen

How Still We See Thee Lie? Bethlehem Then and Now - Bradley Jersak

In 2012, I visited Bethlehem, where I attended the Christ at the Checkpoint conference. He would not remember, but it was there and then that I met Dr. Munther Isaac. Little did I know that one day, we would become colleagues, as he is the Academic Dean of Bethlehem Bible College, a partner school of St. Stephen's University, where I now serve as Principal. Munther is a beloved pastor and peacemaker, who is a leading voice for Palestinean Christians and nonviolent resistance to the oppressive policies his people experience in his homeland. He works tirelessly to advance the message, "Love your neighbor as yourself." 

For those who are confused about what is happening in Israel/Palestine right now, and especially those who feel, misinformed, powerless and despairing, please get a copy of his book, The Other Side of the Wall: A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope.

First, I wrote a series of reflective reports about my experiences and interviews. HERE is one that survived. Then, months later, my first Christmas after Bethlehem, I composed a Christmas article. As I read it now, I see everything I saw then amplified exponentially, and all the Advent feelings of hope, grief, and despair are magnified.

I don't have the heart to update that article with current news items that would be even more poignant, urgent, and extreme. But I repost it now to illustrate that which is timeless. A backstory to today's headlines, a history leading toward October 7th and the destruction of Gaza.       

Dateline Bethlehem – Circa 6 BC
Royal Birth in Bethlehem

Eyewitness accounts of a royal proclamation are trickling in from Bethlehem tonight. Details are being pieced together around what initially seemed like bogus reports of alien lights over a shepherd’s pasture. One bystander captured this audio of a ‘flash mob’ recording a choral announcement of the birth of Israel’s Messiah:

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in clothes and lying in a manger… Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:8-14)

King Herod denies any involvement in the spectacle, but inquiries are under way. What was the source of this pyrotechnic broadcast? Can rumors of an unexpected royal birth be true? Israel’s chief priests and scribes, combing the national archives, have issued a press release about the location of the Messiah’s expected birthplace:

“In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is what has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah; for out of you shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” (Matt. 2:4-6)

Dateline Bethlehem – Circa 4 BC
Weeping in Ramah

In a shocking turn of events, the King launched Special Forces into Bethlehem last night. The house-to-house raids were part of an operation to detain suspects purportedly plotting a coup d’etat to depose the king. Herod’s increasingly erratic policies have led to violence again. Every male under two years old in the Bethlehem vicinity was slaughtered by dawn. Funeral processions fill the streets, with family members parading tiny shrouded bodies while chanting the lyrics of Jeremiah:

“A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning,
 Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted,
 because they were no more.” (Matt. 2:16-18)

Peace on Earth?
Bethlehem then and now

The advent angels’ song of joy and peace notwithstanding, the major news items immediately after the birth of Jesus were grievous – bloody reports of infanticide in Bethlehem at the hands of a paranoid ruler. Joseph’s family flees into Egypt as refugees with no right of return. The stubborn fact is that the birth of Christ did not end hostility the David’s birthplace or across our world to this day. Even the traditional site of Christ’s birth has seen waves of repeated violence since Herod’s famous crime against humanity. If Jesus was indeed the promised Prince of Peace, where is the peace?