Deep sigh...

The light shade on the back porch was rather filthy.  Since the bulb burned out, I thought I would take it down and clean it when I changed the bulb.  What was I thinking?

I changed the bulb. I cleaned the shade.  I hung the glass shade back on the bulb.  I knocked the glass shade off the bulb.  The glass shade shattered on the porch floor, right next to Amos, who was attentively worrying about his puppy momma being up on a ladder.

I am very grateful that my puppy dog was not cut by the glass.
I am very frustrated to have added to the ever-growing list of things I have broken in the past few months.

SIGH.

The refund on the gift certificate that I had used to buy the bad solar light fence post caps finally came through, so I was all responsible and bought a grill cover, replacement watch batteries, and some small snack bowls that I cannot break.  My grill doesn't know what to do with being all properly covered and protected from the elements.

That GREEN bin is the replacement for the recycling bin.  Replacement recycling bins are expensive.  Storage bins that only need to you drill a few holes in the bottom of them to make them serviceable as a recycling bin are really rather economical.

Today, I was helping someone with a computer problem via the phone, when Amos gave his growling whine that indicates the need to conduct major business.  I carried the laptop out to the back porch, set it on the table, and set myself down in the rocking chair.  Amos happily watered every single living thing left in my yard (whilst avoiding doing his business on the grass until the last possible moment), and I sat and worked through the problem.  That table next to the rocking chair is far more useful than I thought!

Whilst I was out there, a stranger neighbor stopped by to admire the change to the back of the house and ask about the rocking chair.  Apparently, GREEN rocking chairs are rather wonderful and do engender a bit of envy.  I did not know the man, but he said he was inspired to tackle his own back porch because I looked so comfortable.

Then, a bit later, one of the men who worked on the kitchen last summer saw me outside and stopped by.  I was frightened, at first, to have someone just come through the side gate.  He actually didn't say anything about the back porch, because he didn't notice the change!  What he wanted me to know is that he and the other main worker quit after my job, because they could no longer live with what the contractor was doing to homeowners.  That the questions I asked whilst they were working and my puzzlement and distress over what the contractor was doing to me opened their eyes to what they, in turn, were doing to me and to other customers.  That sure gave me pause.

To this day, when people ask me if I am excited about the change in the kitchen, I simply don't know how to answer it.  There is the Myrtle who remains terrified by the contractor and fears his coming back one day to exact his pound of flesh (follow through on his threats to sue and place a lien on the house) even though I know he cannot.  There is the Myrtle who is still overwhelmed by what a battle the whole construction was and how hard I had to study and then fight for the work to be to code.  There is the Myrtle who adores her hummingbirds on the wall but cannot forget that every single seam of the wallpaper is mismatched.  There is the Myrtle who simply cannot remember what the kitchen was like before, other than knowing it was far less functional (and pretty).  And there is the Myrtle who earnestly desires to make the final payment that remains in a separate account, but has not been made because the terms of the contract have not yet been fulfilled ... the Myrtle who has no closure.

I think ... I think it was encouraging to know that my unwillingness to shut up, be still, and wait until it is over (the litany that has defined almost my entire life) meant that others might not have to go through what I did ... or at least that I made it harder for the contractor to do what he did having lost his entire crew (not counting his wife and pre-teen grandson who worked at my home).

Anyway, after Amos was finished, I remained on the back porch to watch the sunset, which you cannot see from the front porch.  Amos, by the way, believes that if I am in the rocking chair, then he needs to be in the rocking chair.  He also believes that he should be free to hop up even if my lap is otherwise occupied, such as with a laptop.  Being a most brilliant and skilled leaper-into-laps, Amos managed to gain enough height to go over the laptop and land against my body.  I was actually more impressed than I was annoyed at him.

I forgot, yesterday, that with my day of sunshine I wanted to seal that strip around the back of the porch where the walls of lattice were.  I am a tad worried I am running out of warm enough weather, even if we get dry enough weather.  What odd weather we've had.

When Electrician Man was here doing the fall maintenance on the HVAC system and replacing the HEPA filter, he mentioned that he is getting slammed with requests to install generators, because folk are concerned about the coming winter.  Now, last winter was HISTORIC for Fort Wayne.  So, clearly, we cannot have another winter like last winter, snowfall records and below zero records ... the winter that practically never ended.  But Electrician Man's customers and all the farmer's our Firewood Man's way are all gearing up for Wild Winter 2.0.

I am not ready for Wild Winter 2.0.

I've read three more chapters in Michael Card's commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.  Reading from the introduction, as I have been doing for each new chapter, I realized something tonight that is almost embarrassing.  I never really got why tax collectors were so reviled.  Duh, Myrtle, they were collecting taxes for the ROMANS, for the conquerers, not for the local government (or the religious leaders).  That is why Matthew, being a Jew, was seen as a traitor to his own people being that he was working for the enemy, so to speak.  That whole "render unto Caeser what is Caesar's" thing makes ever so much more sense now.  I cannot think of a real life example, but I suppose it is like an American having to pay taxes to the Sudanese government (to pick a country out of a hat) when that government had nothing to do with America becoming a country.

I wish I could just type up the whole darned introduction, because so much of it is about what was happening in Judaism at the time and about how those Jews who followed Christ were being edged out/forced out of their own faith, so to speak.  One example a bit too complicated to explain but also a bit too lengthy to type out is how an 18 benediction prayer segment was added to Jewish observance, often prayed several times a day.  Buried in them is a curse of Christians and heretics and the government.

For the apostates, let there be no hope
And let the arrogant government [Rome]
Be speedily uprooted in our days.
Let the Nazarenes [Christians] and the Minim [heretics]
Be destroyed in a moment.
And let them be blotted out of the Book of Life.
And not be inscribed together with the righteous.
Blessed art tho, O Lord, who humbles the proud.

Thus, observing folk reactions to this 12th benediction whilst praying/hearing them became a test to see who were still "real" Jews.  So, the nine benedictions of the Sermon on the Mount are important in structure as well as content.  They are the caddywhompus version of the benedictions, turning orthodoxy on its head, as well as true blessings spoken from the mouth of God meant to comfort, not to test or condemn.

Matthew's Gospel includes no curses, a consideration one could say for his first listeners, where as Luke's Gospel does.  Michael Card notes that when Matthew was written is not exactly known, so the benedictions could have been instigated after his Gospel was circulated, but the chaos and turmoil that brought about the benedictions (and the litmus test of the 12th one) were in full swing.

Three points about the upheaval in Judaism that were key for me in the introduction:

As we enter into that world, we need to unlearn our old picture of the Judaism of Jesus' day.  It was not the monolithic religion we usually imagine but one rife with pluralism.  The Gospels clearly portray a variety of divisions within Judaism:  Sadducees, Herodians, followers of John the Baptis, scribes, priests, Levites, and, of course, the Pharisees.  But even these groups were divided internally and often at odds with one another.  As the followers of Jesus of Nazareth came together, they were universally considered by both the Jews and the Romans as simply another division, another subset within the matrix of first-century Judaism.

AND

After the temple was destroyed, the Romans permitted a diverse group of scribes and Pharisees to settle in the city of Jamnia (Yavneh) near the Mediterranean coasts, west of Jerusalem.  The temple was gone, burned to the ground, its stones pried apart by soldiers seeking the gold that had lined the walls.  The destruction of the temple marked the end of the priest, Levite and Sadducee in Israel.  The Pharisees were effectively the only major group left standing.

AND

So, within the preexisting turmoil that was Galilee, another crisis was brewing.  Amid the growing conflict between the Romans and the Jews that would result in the destruction of the temple and the rebirth of Judaism as we know it, a small group of Jews was coming together.  They had found the Messiah, Jesus of Galilee. To the best of their ability, they carried on with their daily work, Sabbath observance and synagogue attendance (see the disciples observing the hours of prayer in the temple, Acts 3:1; 10:30).  The crisis that loomed on the horizon would destroy what fragile identity they had left.  They were Christians who did not yet know they were Christians.  Matthew's Gospel is written in the face of this growing crisis.  His portrayal of Jesus and his word will provide for this conflicted congregation the one they they most badly needed:  identity.


In a nutshell, Matthew is the most Jewish Gospel written by one who would be considered the least Jewish of Jesus' disciples ... one who was the Benedict Arnold of his people merely by performing his vocation.  The Gospel with ... a concern for the Old Testament and its fulfillment, for Judaism redeemed and reborn, and the triumph of the new reality over the old orthodoxy.  

So, consider the commentary on the conclusion of Jesus' benedictions:

In verse 11 [chapter 5], the poem ends.  The final benediction lies outside the poem.  The picture of Matthew's first hearers comes into the sharpest focus.  They will be insulted and persecuted, and they will have all sorts of evil things said about them because of their relationship with Jesus.  But the radical reversal of the first eight benedictions overflows here in the final blessing.  Insults and persecutions are an occasion for rejoicing and gladness because the reward is waiting, a reward that is the goal of the kingdom.  Their identity is not their present precarious persecution, not their mourning, not the insults they bear for Jesus; sake.  They are citizens of the kingdom of which Jesus is the king.  The persecuted prophets have led the way before them.  Their new identity is linked to the prophets!


Anyway this whole lightbulb about why tax collectors would be so reviled is a bit mind-boggling for me.  I wonder if there are any similar vocations today, ones where folk are disliked for performing a service.  Would those who cross picket lines be viewed as a tiny bit similar?

I really do feel stupid for never connecting the dots on the reviling of tax collectors.

As to the whole of Matthew 5-7, Jesus' first of five blocks of teaching (five also being the number of the books of the Torah), I am ... trying ... not to become fearful.  It is a most fearsome sermon.  I plan to read those three chapters again, twice more, as if I were reading them one by one.  I kept going because they are a block, a whole that felt ... odd ... for me to just set down and leave for another time.

I will note a few tidbits that made me both sigh and smile:

• Jesus redefines the new righteousness by redefining sin itself:  beyond the concrete act, sin begins with the intention of the heart.  Sin begins not in dark alleyways, but in a darkened imagination.
• The followers of Jesus, the citizens of his kingdom, will learn that their citizenship is based precisely on not getting what they deserve.  [more on this later because it has to do with mercy]
• Our confidence in prayer is not rooted in our ability to pray but in the manifestly loving nature of our Father.

I thought about writing out both Bible verses and quotes from the Book of Concord that popped into my head upon reading those tidbits, but I think that doing so doesn't really matter.  I smiled because of those references (those confirmations) that came to mind.  I sighed because this represents so very little of three entire chapters of commentary and yet is almost about all that I could say did not distress me or frighten me.

A sermon begun with benedictions (comfort and promise), continued with new identities (salt and light), and then this teaching of a "supra-pharisaical" righteousness, a new righteousness that is what actually fulfills the Law, that is demanding and impossible to keep, in part much less as a whole.  No wonder the reaction of Jesus' audience stunned silence.

I understand so very little.  SIGH.