I really, really, really dislike food waste, especially since I am in the throes of trying to follow my own personal austerity program.
However, I am not really willing to eat this potato that got "lost" in my "root cellar." I did, with some good baby red potatoes, make Crash Hot Potatoes tonight. I just love that the rosemary bushes are wintering nicely in the solarium.
I do not think that I posted a photo of the "sale" sneakers that I bought. After the Cartwheel discount and with sales tax, these beauties cost a whopping $6.83. In my younger years, vanity would have led me to purchase actual attractive shoes. However, although I find them to be quite ugly, they fit and are better for walking and were really, really, really cheap.
[Should I mention that I ate the potatoes after I had walked?]
Becky has been texting me to remind me about the times to take the Erythromycin, so that has been helpful. I have, however, had a few bouts of violent nausea and one day where the beached whale syndrome (writhing with swollen innards) nearly felled me. I really, really, really dislike dysautonomia.
I have been thinking a lot about Luke as I have been re-watching "Battlestar Galactica." In particular, I was thinking about how Jesus warns His disciples of what lies ahead for him, but they don't hear Him. They hear what they want to hear and do not hear what they do not want to be true. They are human. That is, after all, what humans do.
I am in season three and it astounds me to think about how the humans in the fleet vote out Laura Roslin and vote in Gaius Baltar as president because he sells them on the idea of giving up trying to find earth and settling on a planet that's murky atmosphere will provide some sort of protection from being detected by the Cylons who pursue them, intent on wiping out the last of humanity.
They elect Gaius. They settle on the planet. They start to eek out a pretty tough existence. The Cylons come. Thousands die. Commander Adama eventually rescues the people from the planet. Not all that long later, the people are complaining once more about the journey they are taking.
They complain about being left on the planet, even though it is what they demanded. They complain about the continued journey, even though it was what they dreamed of whilst in captivity.
I was also thinking about how very human Gaius is. Sooooooo unlikeable to me, I sometimes want to mute the television during his scenes. But, this time through, I noticed how often tears streak down his face, tears from an entire gamut of emotions: fear, joy, compassion, greed, horror. Gaius is a sinful man who knows his weaknesses and spends all of his energy fleeing from them, wanting them not to be his. And he was so very desperate to be one of the final five Cylons.
Were he a Cylon, then he did not betray his people, leading to the death of almost all of humanity. Were he a Cylon, on the planet playing the puppet president, he did not, again, betray his people. Gaius Baltar wants so very much to not be the sinful man that he is. He wants both forgiveness and for there to be no need of forgiveness. If ever there was a person wrestling with the Old Adam (I'm not saying he has a New Adam in him), it is Gaius Baltar. I think that it is this unflinching presentation of the sinfulness and weakness of flesh that makes one want to mute his scenes ... or fast forward through them.
There is no triune God on "Battlestar Galactica." It is not a story of Christianity, but it is a story of faith and of forgiveness and of suffering beyond imagination. I really am fascinated at watching people struggle to cling to their righteous anger and humiliation rather than forgive those who deserve no forgiveness. And, yet, survival is ultimately dependent upon forgiveness, upon being willing to forgive and to be forgiven. It also is a story, ultimately, of hesed.
A while ago, I watched the single season of "Caprica." I wish the prequel series had not been canceled, though I found some discrepancies in it. What fascinated me about "Caprica" was that it is the machines who have faith in the one true God, who reject the false gods of man. And, in the series, you see how very offensive the idea of a God with laws to curb the sinful flesh of man. How can a God who claims to love me not want me to be free to follow whatever desires I have?
I am a bit ... pensive ... watching the series once again whilst reading Michael Card's commentary on Luke and thinking about what I already learned in his commentaries on Mark and on Matthew.
Tonight, I thought I would note a few things that stood out as I re-read my way to Chapter 12:
John the Baptist's question really would be a great ... lessoning ... on faith, if presented at the comfort it really is. John's experience of being jailed and surely mistreated in there speaks doubt into what he knows to be true. Experience will aways lead us astray, even someone as great as John the Baptist. Even John struggles with his old Adam. Even John longs for his life to be something other than it was. Even John wondered if Jesus was really true.
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In chapter 9, Herod is perplexed about Jesus. Some say John was risen from the dead. Some say he was Elijah come again. Some say another ancient prophet who had risen again. Herod says that He beheaded John and wants to see Jesus. Michael Card points out that it is almost as if Herod was reassuring himself that John was dead and yet wondering what it would mean for him if John really came back. I do not remember if I missed it in the other commentary, but here Michael Card notes that in the future Jesus will be sent to Herod as a peace offering by Pilate before His crucifixion.
The question of who Jesus is begins with Herod's wonderings, but ends with Jesus asking the disciples themselves. In Luke, the praying Gospel, Jesus was praying in private with His disciples when He asks first who other say that He is and then who the disciples believe Him to be. Peter's answer, though is not phrased as "we say you are ..." but a pronouncement of "God's Messiah!"
Now that the crucial question has been answered, Jesus must undeceive his followers. Fro them, the Messiah is the victorious conquerer of Romans who will set up his earthly kingdom. Never could any of them have believed that the Messiah had in fact come to die for them and for the Romans as well. So before the echo of Peter's answer has died away, Jesus tells them that being the Messiah means he must "suffer many things ... be killed, and be raised the third day." It is a statement they only selectively seem to hear. T hat is, they only hear parts of it—the pieces they want to hear. When the times come, no one will seem to remember that Jesus had said he would rise on the third day. Not a single one of them is expecting it.
Isn't that a bit mind boggling to think about: none of the disciples expect Jesus to rise from the dead.
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In the commentary on Luke 9:51-62, Michael Card gives a glimpse into the enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans:
Jesus adopted the strategy of sending out heralds in advance of his coming to a town. This strategy will become more formalized in the next chapter with the choosing of the Seventy. As they travel from Galilee toward Jerusalem, they must pass through Samaria, the region of the hated Samaritans. Some commentators mention that by even going through Samaria Jesus exhibits an extraordinary openness. Josephus, however, tells us that it was customary for Galileans to go through Samaria.
Whatever openness Jesus might be showing, it is not reciprocated by the Samaritans, who do not welcome the group because they are on their way to Jerusalem for Passover. Passover was a particular time of tension between the Jews and the Samaritans. They took turns desecrating each other's temples. One Passover, the Samaritans dug up some graves and threw the bones into the temple court to keep the Jews from celebrating their most holy feast. The next year the Jews responded by burning the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim to the ground.
Well, then. My. That does make the parable of the Good Samaritan all the more strange. Powerful. Pointed.
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At the end of Chapter 9's commentary on this same passage, after going through all the reasons folk have for delaying following Jesus, there is this one last line that has had me ... pondering: The road to Jerusalem lies before us all, in one way or another, and so does the call to not look back.
I really don't have words, yet, for the thoughts in my head, but I think you could write an entire book on the "looking back" that can fell a person.
Throughout the Gospel, Luke starts so often with a statement about traveling ... while, before, after, setting out ... and I wondered if all that traveling is what started the trend to talk about your "Journey of Faith," to examine it and give witness to it. Personal Journeys with Christ. UGH.
Once again, that would totally miss the point. Luke is being very Markish in filling his text with reminders that Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem. After all, Mark shows us that Jesus did not come to simply teach or to heal, but rather He came to give the gifts of Himself and to establish the ministry that would continue past His death and resurrection. So, all that traveling talk is not to say that faith is a journey you spend with Jesus Christ, but a pointed reminder that Jesus came to die ... the very thing He tells his selectively-hearing disciples.
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Again, I thought of my friend Mary, who just might be called Mary the Musician in addition to Mary the Gospel Giver and Mary the Myrtle Speaker. For in Michael Card's commentary on Luke 10:21-24, he draws a parallel between Mary singing the Magnificat and the praise Jesus (might be singing) gives for the success of the Seventy's journey.
The successful return of the Seventy brings about a moment in the life of Jesus that is unlike any other recorded in the Gospels. If ever Jesus' joy could be said to overflow, this is the moment. If behooves those who long to being him more joy to look more closely at it.
The successful return of the Seventy is a high point in the ministry. We are not told if the first mission of the Twelve was successful or not, but the failures that surround them before and after their first mission are not cause for hope. Also, they have begun their final journey to Jerusalem, a trip that will have precious few moments of joy. Given the flow of the ministry, this seems to be a moment when success outweighs failure. It seems to be a time when the disciples are getting it. Jesus grabs the moment while he can and returns the Joy he is feeling to the Father as an act of worship.
This moment also explains the central theme of Luke: radical reversal. It helps us to see why those who should don't, while those who shouldn't do. It is because God wants it this way. Jesus is almost singing, "You have hidden these things from the wise and learned and have revealed them to infants ... because this was Your good pleasure." This is an appropriate song coming from a man whose mother once sang, "He has satisfied the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty" (Lk 1:53). The world is being turned upside down because the Father wants it that way, and Jesus could not be more joyful at the prospect. It is a rare moment of light on an otherwise dark journey to Jerusalem. [emphasis mine]
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Luke 10:25-37 Michael Card titles A Parable of Unexpected Mercy. I like that! It takes the emphasis off the Samaritan and places it squarely on the ultimate point: hesed. Skipping most of the commentary, I wanted to capture this final bit, though learning about why a priest might pass the beaten man by was fascinating to me. Okay, really, the whole blooming commentary series is fascinating to me. But I digress
Next comes someone who, to the Jewish way of thinking, is the last person in the world who would do the right thing. The schism began when the Jews who returned from the exile refused the help of the "half-breeds": those who were the mixed descendants of the Jew who had been left behind and the pagans who had settled in the region. The animosity only grew with time. The point is that the person who shouldn't have gotten it did. When the Samaritan saw the suffering man, he "had compassion." If our working definition of the Hebrew word hesed is "when the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything," then the Samaritan clearly exhibits hesed. His care for the injured man is over the top: he bandages, pours on oil to sooth the wounds and wine to disinfect them, puts him on his own donkey, takes him to the inn, cares for him there, and leaves moeny to cover any further care that might be needed. To top it off, he promised to come back later and check on the recovery of the nameless, wounded man.
I can see the scribe, wide-eyed, wondering where this distasteful story is going to lead, when Jesus responds to his original question with another question. It is a simple question, with an inevitable answer. "Which of these ... proved to be a neighbor?"
Swallowing hard, the scribe cannot even bring himself to say the word "Samaritan," so he uses the circumlocution, "the one who showed mercy."
Hesed is always something that you do, and so Jesus closes down the interaction with the simple command, "Go and do the same."
If Emeril Lagasse were telling the parable, I am most certain he would shout "BAM!" after the scribe's response.
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I really like that Luke is the praying Gospel and Michael Card's commentary on Luke 11:1-13 is a soothing balm to me. I reveled in connecting the text and the commentary to what I know from the Christian Book of Concord, most particularly the Large Catechism. Frankly, I want to type out the whole glorious pondering on Jesus' prayer. But it is four pages. SIGH.
In the passage (please go read it in full), I highlighted verses 9-10: So, I say to you, keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. [emphasis mine]
I literally fell off the couch reading this. I jumped up and got out all my many translations and read Luke 11 in all of them. I Googled the whole knocking thing and looked at how it is treated elsewhere in the Gospels and the Bible and then I set all my bibles aside and had a bit of a ... hissy fit.
Sometimes, I get really, really, really frustrated when I discover YET ANOTHER place where, in my years in the mainline evangelical church, I was most clearly taught only a portion of Scripture, which, in the slivering out, changes the passage.
Man, all the Knock and Seek and Find studies I've had! Plus, there is the whole praise song. ARGH. Never before have I encountered teaching on the whole of the passage, most particularly the parable in verses 5 to 8 that come before verse 9 (bolded above), a verse also left off.
A lot of the commentary is about the persistence in the parables and in the teaching of them. As is, not just once. Many times. Over and over again. If you only teach verse 10, then you can leave the believer with the thought that you just have to ask once for something and God will answer. In doing so, you open up a world of burden and doubt—an entire universe really—for the believer if his prayers do not seem to be answered and you also can lead one down the murky, errant path of "Name It and Claim It" praying. SIGH.
I want to capture just the commentary on the parable, even though I am still itching to type out all the commentary on the prayer itself.
Jesus follows the example of prayer with the first of two parables he will tell on the topic of prayer. (The other is found in Lk 18:1-8). It is a delightfully rustic story of two men, one who needs bread in the middle of the night and the other who is sound asleep in the family bed amid a pile of slumbering little children. It is a story based on the obligations of Jewish hospitality—the kind of hospitality Jesus and the disciples have just received from Martha and on which they depended for their lives when they were on the road.
The first man has had a surprise visitor in the middle of the night, and his cupboard is empty. After he knocks at his friend's door, he hears a sleepy voice from the inside telling him to go away: everyone is asleep. Anyone with children, especially more than one, understands his reluctance to wake them up. Without painting a detailed picture of the first man persistently knocking at the door until the sleeper gets up to help, Jesus implies that his persistence does the trick and that he finally gets what he wants. That is by far the most popular interpretation of this parable. But there is another.
In Luke 11:8, the "his" in the phrase "because of his persistence" is normally thought to refer to the first man—the one who is knocking. But the Greek is ambiguous. It could refer to the sleeper. And the word translated "persistence" can also means "shameless." In this version, the sleeper gets up and provides for his friend because he wants to avoid the shame of violating the law of hospitality.
I lean toward this second view. I like the idea that our confidence in prayer should come not from us "getting it right"—that is knocking long enough for the door to open—but rather from the knowledge that the One who sometimes seems to be sleeping will answer because of his commitment to doing what he has promised. When Jesus uses the rabbinic "how much more" (qal vahomer) at the conclusion of this block of teaching, he places the parable within that interpretative context. That is, if the lazy, good-for-nothing neighbor will get up to avoid being shamed, then how much more will the Lord answer the door of prayer when we knock?
In verse 9 Jesus sums it up like this: ask, seek, knock. Be confident in prayer, not because you have gotten the words just right (hence the bald-faced simplicity of the prayer Jesus has just taught them) but because of the goodness of the One to whom you are praying.
Of course, were this my commentary, I would the continue by quoting the BOC and the psalter to emphasize that last bit!
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One of the wildest thoughts I have had came in reading the text of Luke 12:49-58. It is not the commentary so much as a change in wording that I noticed.
When the angels herald Jesus' birth, they announce "Peace on earth" amongst other things. Yet, in verse 51, Jesus asks, "Do you think that I come here to give peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!"
I am mindboggled.
Gobsmacked.
Discombobulated.
I am so caddywhompus I just know I will bungle this wild thought. But, here it is: When people wish for peace on earth, do they know they are actually wishing for Jesus' return?
Jesus IS the peace. Well, that's how I read the wording change. Jesus IS peace, so when the angels proclaim "Peace on earth" they are saying that Jesus is now bodily on earth. But Jesus says that he did not come to bring peace to the earth. He came to bring peace between God and Man, not between father and son, daughter and mother. Yes, of course, peace in the family is a good thing, but that is not what Jesus being peace is.
A long while ago (I cannot find the link), I wrote a post musing about the word peace, thinking about the definition of it being a cessation of hostilities. Jesus, being our peace, ceases the hostility between sinless God and sinful man. That thought came back round to me reading Jesus proclamation here.
Isn't that where a lot of Christians start to go wrong? Don't they start down the slippery slope of trying to make peace with others of faith, trying to find common ground. It is not our job to make peace. Christ is peace, not us.
In a way, this points back to the beginning of Chapter 12 in which Jesus teaches what is right to fear: not man, but blasphemy. Man? Piffle. Man cannot kill your soul. Blasphemy? The thought of blasphemy should strike terror in your heart, for even the smallest blasphemy will act like yeast in dough, spreading until it acts on all the ingredients.
All of chapter 12 could be tossed into my category of "Scary Words of Jesus" that felled me so whilst reading Matthew. I need help with this chapter. However, I was not so felled as to yearn to set aside the commentary as I travailed through Matthew. I read a couple of verses of Chapter 13 just to pique my interest for the next time of study.
It helps, too, holding in my mind the thought that Luke is collecting eye-witness accounts and framing them for his audience. Being mindful of his concern for the poor and discarded, for the Gentile, for the hated Samaritans, helps to hold at bay the fear that started welling within me over Jesus' teaching in chapter 12 and tell myself to wait and listen to the rest of Luke's testimony. After all, I do not yet know all of his Jesus.
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