Unfixable...

The house smells so wonderful because I roasted more maple chili sunflower seeds.  My pumpkin seeds order will be in next week, but I have been rather happy with the tastiness of the more economical raw sunflower seeds after I roasted them.

I gave a snack bag of them to my neighbor to try.  She opened it up whilst we were chatting outside across the fence from each other and was wowed by the flavor.  The bag never made it inside her house.  Her effusive adulation of my seed roasting skills brightened my day.

I also mixed up more gorp, but that did not leave any pleasant aromas wafting through my home.

Today for lunch I had some of the asiago sourdough bread from that specialty grocery store and leftover steak.  Something that I did with the marinade leftover in the bowl was to cook it in a sauce pan.  It reduced a bit into this thicker glaze, which I dribbled onto my tacos and then saved in a small glass container.  So, I had cold steak strips dipped in a spoonful of the sauce.  Even though the steak was cooked a bit overly long, I still enjoyed the meal.  I am looking forward to trying to grill the second skirt steak again soon.  I thought that since the flank steak is supposed to be slightly more forgiving, I would try the second skirt steak before I try the flank steak so as to (hopefully) have a better outcome with the flank steak.  Then, when I am done with all the older steaks, I will buy fresh steak and (hopefully) have much success.

Today, I also "processed" the fresh chicken breasts I got.  By that I mean I slice off all the bits of skin and stuff that really ought not be found on boneless skinless breasts and divide the breasts into Ziplock bags according to the portions I need for recipes.  I have some 2-piece bags, 3-piece bags, and 4-piece bags.  Chicken sufficiency happiness abounds here on Kinnaird Avenue.

Amos is still a bit sulky from being transformed from a sheep back to a puppy dog last night.  He is just so adorable when you can see how small his legs and body are, even though the latter stretches to near miraculous lengths when need be.

Here he is wedged between my stomach and the TV table whilst I am sitting on the couch.  From this view, it hardly looks like I took off a good two inches of curls.  I do think I need to snip a bit more on the left side of his neck though, right?

I spent some time reading Michael Card's commentary on John, John: The Gospel of Wisdom. Reading it reminded me that I have not written much about the end of his commentary on Luke.

Luke is the first commentary in the series, but I remain convinced that the order in which I have been reading the commentaries is good, almost better, for me.  Mark is so sparse and yet so focused.  Matthew is so illuminating with the contrast of audience and the history of Judaism.  Luke, with its focus on prayer, has been timely and also an interesting balance with all the unique words and inclusions in his testimony.  Plus, Luke's shaping of others' eye witness accounts provides a chance to step back from the intimacy of Mark and Matthew and truly absorb both the Good News and the perfection of all three testimonies.  The commentary on John was the last one Michael Card wrote and I am curious how I will think and feel about John's Jesus, having met Mark's, Matthew's, and Luke's.

I did want to note just a few things from the final few chapters of Luke:

It is a misnomer, of sorts, to speak of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  I learned this because, for the first time, I saw that He was weeping as He entered.  Michael Card writes more about the destruction of the temple and the suffering that was to come to the people of Jerusalem in here than in the other two commentaries.  This one part speaks volumes:

Verse 20 [Luke 21:20] jumps ahead to A.D. 70, when Titus surrounded the city with three legions for an entire year.  The suffering inside the walls was unimaginable.  Some people even resorted to cannibalism.  These horrific images in Jesus' imagination are what caused him to weep when he entered Jerusalem.

When you see these things, he warns them, "Flee to the mountains."  Shortly after he laid siege to the city, Titus surrounded it with a low wall, marking the boundary, the line past which no one could go.  He built the same sort of low wall around Masada, the remains of which can still be seen today.

In book 5 of his War of the Jews, Josephus describes specifically the suffering of the women in the besieged city.  After it was all over, the Romans crucified those left alive until they literally ran out of wood for making crosses.  In verse 23 Jesus mentions pregnant women and nursing mothers, who provide some of the most ghastly images in Josephus' account.  The few who survived were dispersed.  Many were sold as slaves.  From the proceeds of the sacking of the city, Titus was able to construct the well-known Colosseum.  This Jesus refers to as the fulfillment of the "times of the Gentiles."

So, if you are thinking about man, yes, there were shouts of adulation. From man's perspective, it was a triumphal entry.  But, if you are thinking about Jesus, there were tears of sorrow, of suffering and loss.  From His perspective, there is no triumph in those things.

How hard it must have been, to be teaching day after day, in the very spot where such horrors would come to the children of Israel.  Jesus had the weight of what was—a temple where the courtyard set aside for Gentile prayer was turned into a market place—and the weight of what was to come—His death and the destruction of the temple.

Years ago, I saved for a long time to take Becky and myself to Italy.  We walked the grounds of the Colosseum, marveling at its massive structure and the thought of just how much marble used to be there.  I suppose that it is almost fitting that a structure built on the plundering of a city would later be plundered itself.  I wish I had read these commentaries before that trip. I wish I had understood more of Rome then.

Skipping back to Michael Card's commentary on Luke 20:18:

In verse 18 Jesus lists the only two possibilities of encountering this messianic Stone.  The first possibility is that a person can stumble over it and be broken—a metaphor of what happens to all Jesus' disciples.  Brokenness is foundational to becoming a follower.  The second possibility speaks of the judgment that will fall, like a stone, on those who refuse to accept Jesus' saving grace.  It is an image of complete, grinding destruction.

In a way, one of the themes of Luke could be brokenness, for he does include so many stories about the marginalized, the loathed, the outcast.  Jump back to Luke 19 and consider Michael Card's commentary about Zacchaeus ... which is not the little ditty about the wee little man in a tree children learn:

Let me state the obvious:  Zacchaeus is not misunderstood.  He is not the victim of circumstance.  He is a genuinely bad man.  He has chosen to work for the Romans, to bilk his own people.  So successful is he at this job that he has risen in the ranks to become a chief tax collector.  The people don't despise him because they are close-minded and judgmental; they despise him because he is a slimy, good-for-nothing thief.  And he knows he is.

In verse 8 Zacchaeus stands up before Jesus, presumably now at the meal in his home, and makes the announcement that, first, he will give half his possessions to the poor and, second, he will restore anything he has extorted from the taxpayers four times over.  The "four times" figure is the required restoration a thief was commanded to make in the Torah (Ex 22:1).  It is a vivid (and expensive!) confession of his thievery.

Compared to the story of the rich ruler from the preceding chapter, Zacchaeus is a happy contrast.  He is the poster child, the paradigm for the radically reversed value system Jesus has been teaching from the very beginning.  The fact that it is Zacchaeus who meets Jesus on this last stop before Jerusalem—Zacchaeus, the short, gleeful, reformed, tree-climbing con man—must be a thoroughly satisfying moment for the tired, footsore rabbi from Galilee.

So often, Luke provides more, even if the actual story or parable is shorter than other accounts.  In reading through the commentary, I have learned to appreciate the setting, the historical background, the cultural or sociopolitical context that are some of the riches of Luke's testimony.  And, subsequently, the riches of Michael Card's commentary on Luke.

I did like this ending note in chapter 21:

It seems as if, to make a point, Jesus feels the desire to fictionalize it.  Perhaps a parable reaches us more broadly and more deeply than mere didactic information.  He can list the signs, both concrete and apocalyptic, but they are too big for our minds to contain.  But the feeling of looking for a lost coin or waiting for a wayward child or anticipating the change in the trees when spring is here: those things we can understand with all of our hearts and minds.

Something about the Last Supper that I believe that I missed before is to ponder why it is that Jesus sent Peter and John to make the preparations for the meal instead of some of the women who traveled with Jesus.

...It is going to be a long night for Simon.  Every time he tires to do the right thing, Jesus will rebuke him for it.  He will pledge his loyalty, and Jesus will respond by telling him that he's going to deny him three times.  When he approaches Peter to wash his feet, out of respect for Jesus, Peter will try to refuse; yet then Jesus will tell him that unless he submits, they have nothing in common.  He alone will have the courage to draw his sword in the garden, and yet Jesus will rebuke him and tell him to put it away.

Once more, I particularly like a title for a Scripture passage Michael Card chooses for his commentary.  Luke 22:31-38 is "The Sifting of Simon."  The passage is interesting because I did not realized that Satan asked to sift the disciples (the first "you" of verse 31 is plural) the way he approached God about Job.  The second "you" of that passage is singular ... Jesus prayed for Simon Peter, for his repentance and the subsequent strengthening of his brother disciples.

Thinking of the commentary above and then the idea that Peter was being "sifted" adds layers and layers and layers of meaning and struggle to what befalls Peter in the coming hours.

We know the story.  Peter, the rock, will crack, denying that he even knows Jesus.  But in the end he will "turn around" and become one of the keystones in the building of the church.  Not because of his courage or his faith or intestinal fortitude, but simply because his best Friend has prayed for him.  Luke who shows us so much concern for the prayer life of Jesus, has taught us this: nothing happens without prayer.

Not because of his courage or his faith or intestinal fortitude, but simply because his best Friend has prayed for him.  Not because of his courage or his faith or intestinal fortitude, but simply because his best Friend has prayed for him.  Not because of his courage or his faith or intestinal fortitude, but simply because his best Friend has prayed for him.  Not because of his courage or his faith or intestinal fortitude, but simply because his best Friend has prayed for him.

What an incredible statement.

A bit later, Michael Card expands the lesson on sifting:  For those of use who are being "sifted" right now, the Bible speaks these two words of comfort:  First, God is sovereign over all our suffering.  Second, Jesus himself is praying for us, even as he prayed for Simon.

About Judas' betrayal, Michael Card includes a bit of personal background in his commentary:

When I was in college, I read a book that said that those of us who follow Jesus today still betray him with a kiss.  It was a disturbing thing to read, and I must confess that for a good while I hated the author for writing those words.  It seemed easier to hate him than hate myself, since what he said was true.  I know something now that I did not know then.  Even though each of us does betray him, time and time again, the point is not to try and fix us.  We are unfixable.  Judas will try to fix what he had done by returning the money.  But it won't be enough.  It will never be enough.  The point is to follow Peter's lead.  The main difference between Peter and Judas is that only Peter weeps in repentance.  That is what I know now that I did not know when I read the book.  While we cannot avoid the sin, we can live a life of repentance.


There is much more goodness, many more thoughtful gems in the rest of the commentary on Luke, but I think that I would like to leave off here:  We are unfixable.

Jesus never tried to fix anyone.  He pronounced the forgiveness of sins.  He healed people.  He even raised the dead.  But every one of those people who received His direct forgiveness went on to live a sinful life.  Jesus did not fix their brokenness because they lived—we live—in a broken world.  It and we are not fixable.

To me, therein lies the heart of so very many problems with so very many books and bible studies and sermons and blogs and movements and outreach programs of the Church:  either blatantly pronounced or subtly laced is this idea that we can be fixed.  Ways and means by which we can give back the silver we took for betraying Jesus.  We can't give it back.  And Jesus doesn't want us to try.  We are already forgiven.  We are forgiven and loved so very much that we were given the Holy Spirit to help us receive, over and over again, the gifts of Christ and to enable us to live in repentance.

I confess that I have, from the beginning, been afraid to read the Gospel of John.  Yes, it was logical to read Mark, Matthew, and Luke first, since they have more in common with each other than does John.  However, the truth is that some of the most scary-words-of-Jesus to me are in John's testimony.  Were it up to me, I have said, John would end at 1:5.  I remain afeard.  I do.  Even armed with the comfort and consolations of all three commentaries, with meeting Jesus through the perfect words of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, I remain afeard.

It is good, therefore, being enmeshed in the Gospel of John now, to remind myself of some of those gems of Luke.  And of the fact that I am unfixable.  I am unfixable and that is okay.