Fair warning. (part 3)

Ok. So Maybe I should just really sort out everything I want to say on a subject before posting....

But....It just occurred to me what Jesus was telling the rich man when he told him to sell all his possessions. Earlier, in Matthew 13:44,45 Jesus told two parables. One about a hidden treasure and one about a pearl.

In the parable of the hidden treasure a man has unexpectedly found a hidden treasure. In his joy he sold all his possessions to buy the field it was in.

In the parable of the pearl, a merchant was looking for fine pearls and found one of great value. He went and sold all his possessions and bought it.

How had I never made the connection before....arghhh.

Nonetheless, and in spite of my obtuseness, in these two short parables, Jesus reveals His reasons and motives behind telling the rich man to sell all his possessions. Jesus wanted to be the man's joy. Jesus wanted to be the man's treasure. Jesus wanted to be wanted.

Wow.

M.

Fair warning. (part 2)

One thing I forgot to say about the stories of Zacchaeus and the rich man, the very thing that was my first revelation when I revisited the story, was this, that Jesus was not the one who called into question either man's sin or righteousness (in fact the men themselves brought it up). Jesus was not, nor is He, sin obsessed (like the modern church seems be at times). He was fully confident in the power of His presence and love to transform the hearts and natures of those that believed in Him. Fully confident in the person of the Holy Spirit to convict of sin, and righteousness, and judgment as the gospel of John tells us. And I can tell you from experience, I've never made friends with somebody by them telling me what was wrong with me. Never fell for a girl who was bent on bringing to light my shortcomings. It is God's kindness that leads us to repentance. Our kindness that expresses that to a fallen world. We all know John 3:16. But John 3:17 is just as mind blowing. That God sent Jesus to save us, not to condemn us. Amen!

M.

Fair Warning.

This feels like a sermon. But here goes....

Last week I was revisited by a sing-song melody of my distant childhood. As I placed it I began to sing along. "Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree to see what he could see." And so on.... So I reread the story of Zacchaeus, the miniature tax collector and found it quite compelling especially in contrast to another rich man in scriptures that met Jesus.


In Luke 19:2 we learn that Zacchaeus was a wealthy high ranking official. The next 8 verses sum up his encounter with Jesus. The itinerant Jewish rabbi was entering Jericho and Zacchaeus wanted to see Him. Of course as the song clearly notes, due to his diminutive stature and the throngs of gawkers, Zacchaeus was having a great amount of perturbation in that respect. So he ran ahead of the crowd and he climbed a tree. Now as much as I know about first century customs, which isn't a lot I suppose, this activity of running and climbing was very unseemly for a man, especially one of prominence. But it was an earnest act. One of apparent desperation and humility, and Jesus not only noticed but responded by inviting himself to the tiny taxman's house for dinner, an act in Jewish custom that signified in no uncertain terms the commencement of a friendship. Zacchaeus instantly renounced any and all fiscal impropriety and promised four fold reparations to the wronged at which point Jesus declared that salvation had come to the wee little man. Amen!

In Mathew 19 verse 16 another rich man has his life collide with Jesus. The short account has the man asking Jesus what good thing he can do to find eternal life. After a rhetorical question that might have been more a comment on the mans motives, Jesus gives him the Mosaic response telling the man to obey the commandments. This the man had done without fail since his youth. So Jesus said simply and yet improbably "If you want to be perfect sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor." (And as Luke 18:22 adds, to follow Him.) We all know how that went over, for the man was very rich and sulked away. Prompting Jesus to tell his disciples that "it [was] easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven". Ouch.

Two rich men. Two completely different outcomes. But why? What struck me first was each man's desires. The rich man in Matthew was looking for eternal life, Zacchaeus, well, he was looking for Jesus. The bible says God gives us the desires of our hearts. The ones we state and the hidden ones that rule us I suppose. Zacchaeus wanted Jesus. He got that and eternal life. The rich man wanted eternal life, but the price was too high. His desire was for his wealth more than anything else. He didn't get eternal life because he didn't desire the one in whom eternal life is found. He wanted heaven, and so Jesus offered it to him, but in the future tense, if he would spend himself on behalf of the poor. (Not, I suspect to "buy" his eternal salvation by some "good" work, but to show the humble repentance of his heart.) Zacchaeus just wanted Jesus and Heaven was given to him, that day, right there, "salvation came to his house". God responds to our urgency, our desperation, our earnestly, humbly seeking Him.

Secondly, Jesus says in Luke 19:10 that he came to seek and save that which was lost. Zacchaeus knew he was lost, knew his own corruption and greed. Certainly everyone else did as per their reaction when Jesus decided to eat with him. The rich man on the other hand was righteous by the religious standards of the day. He had obeyed the law and the prophets and this would have been well know in such a close community. In his pride, or maybe his religious conditioning, he missed what Jesus had asked him, albeit cryptically, "Why do you ask me what is good? Only One is good." In essence, there is no eternal life through your good works, but only in heaven's good work- The coming of the Christ, to seek and save the lost. And then the man's true desires were exposed, as desire's always are, in the self-evident truth that "where your treasure is there will your heart be also".

The final thing that I wanted to mention was this. Zacchaeus met Jesus and instantly gave half of his possessions to the poor. In the early church those that had experienced Jesus had all their possessions in common. This was the reoccurring theme of those having experienced the redemption of the cross and the Person of Jesus, and their subsequent desire to give back all they had in worship of the one who Sacrificed all of Himself for them. A primary external manifestation of a heart being filled with the loving presence of God is the desire to love others, to meet their physical needs, and to share in their suffering. A heart that has been transformed by God's sacrificial love will do this instinctively, organically, and spontaneously with great joy. It is the fruit of the Spirit that naturally grows from the seed of salvation. Which begs the question? What do we, the elect, do with what we have on behalf of the poor? Are we so incredulously fulfilled by God's tender longing for us that the world and it's possessions have dimmed and faded in importance? Or are we sulkily resisting the Holy Spirit when he asks us to take care of the least among us, to really love our neighbor as ourselves? If we really have met Jesus, if He is really the desire of our hearts, is He enough for us down here? Is He our treasure?

Two Weeks in India

I have wanted to put words to my experience.....pictures I think are better suited. What a beautiful people. What a deeply humbling and heartrending two weeks.



This little girl was a bit self-conscious. She was very wary of the pale person with the camera. And rightly so I suppose.


At the Bay of Bengal I met this girl with an infectious smile. She was quick to volunteer for a picture though her siblings were a bit more suspicious.



The younger brother of the girl at the Bay of Bengal. I especially like his American flag patch on his jean jacket. He wore it proudly but wore nothing else. His shyness I suspect was not modesty though. Naked and half-naked children were everywhere. With the heat index approaching 115 everyday I think they had the right idea. Jean jackets notwithstanding.



This young man wore his very best and suffered a bit for his trouble. Even in the shade of a porch the heat was suffocating. His sweating didn't in anyway dampen his song though and what an incredible voice he had. I didn't understand his Taligu language but his passion and his faith were evident.



These kids lived at an orphanage. They were timid and slow to smile. When contorting my face into ridiculously silly gestures failed to illicit smiles and probably served only to reinforce my alienness, I got them to pose with my sunglasses. This brought the smiles by the bucketfuls. Though the consensus was that I looked like Jesus I spent considerable time trying to convince them they were created in God's image and that Jesus was Arab and probably favored them more than me. I hope my interpreter conveyed those sentiments better than I felt I did.


The shelves in the orphanage were empty. There was not a single toy. They had nothing save for the kindness of believers and each other. These girls took to spinning and twirling and their laughter was the most amazing sound! There are 35 million orphans in India, 18 million of whom are homeless. After putting 20 some faces to a small percentage of those statistics I can only say that it leaves one shaken and sick.


This was taken in the village of Vata Pradhi (?spelling?). I cannot find this village on a map. I was told I was the first American to ever visit them. By the looks on their faces I'd have to agree. They, like so many others I met, were shy and standoffish. So I decided to frown desparatly in an attempt to make them smile. It worked! And oh what smiles they had!!


This woman defied description for me. She had this fierce look of independence in her eyes that was tempered with a deep compassion. Her story must be incredible. She tenderly corralled the children on to a porch where they sat covered in flies and lice, their clothing with stitches on stitches and safety pins doing what zippers and buttons once did.


This was my favorite picture that I took. Something about her dingy, tattered dress and her intense beauty personified all of India for me.


Love this shot. The henna vine wrapping around her arm, her silver bracelets and pink dress. And again, though you'll have to trust me on this one, what a smile.


This precious woman was the first believer in Vata Pradhi, 20 years ago. She flagged us down as we were leaving to offer us cookies and tea and to give the pastor her offering; A rooster, a bag of field peas, and some rice. It was a little hard not to get choked up by the exchange.



The aforementioned rooster with a most extraordinary man. His servant's heart and generous smile were indefatigable. Again, everything about him defied description. Certain people's story must be told in their own words to avoid sounding contrived or inauthentic. I suspect this gentleman would fall into that category of autobiographers.


My last day in Tuni I went to a traditional, albeit small, Indian wedding. The service proper started at 4 a.m after a night of dancing and singing. For the first time in two weeks I was not the only one lost in the language. The ceremony was entirely in Sanskrit. The bride and groom had to be continually prompted through sign language to fulfill their ritual obligations. What struck me the most were the elements of foot washing and the use of veils. It seemed to me in a culture where so many hopes, dreams and societal standings are tied to marriage that the gospel could be contextualized in a powerful way drawing reference to the mystery of the church as the bride and her bridegroom Jesus. A reoccurring thought I had and one I'd like to study.

There are other pictures of course. Ones not taken, ones not shared. Of the abject poverty and grotesque suffering. I suppose they should be shown, but not right now. Right now I wanted to introduce you to India at her best. Through the beauty of her people. In her innocence and lack of modern sophistication. What i want you to know about India, what I want you to learn from her, what I learned from her is this. In the villages anyway, the people I met were truly thankful and had no sense of entitlement. They were not spoiled, in any sense of the word. And maybe that's why I feel I owe them both an obligation and an apology. First to protect them from being westernized and secondly, I hope I left nothing of myself there. Nothing but the love of God. And if I did, I am truly sorry.

The Bone Factory.

When I was 15 I went to Mexico on a mission trip with my church youth group. We pantomimed bible stories for the school aged children. I was tallest in the group so I played Goliath in one skit. Our interpreter read the story of the shepherd boy who would be king, his five smooth stones, and the horrible six-fingered Philistine. Whenever she said the name "Goliath" I would roar and raise my cardboard sword and tin foil shield and the children would squeal as one and collectively shrink back from where they sat on the dirty concrete floor.

The day before we returned to the States we drove into Monterrey. The road stretched out before us long and flat and dull, with only a few sparse shacks that barely passed muster as businesses along the way. One proffered fresh fruit, while another offered tire repair in two languages. A smell began to bring comments from our crowded van that soon turned to complaints and simulated gagging and then into pervasive nausea and noses buried in shirts or held between thumb and forefinger. The smell increased at an alarming rate until it was burning our throats and keeping us from deep breaths. Our guide informed us of the origin of the wretched stench.

She pointed to an industrial structure rising out of the dirt. It was nearly a mile from the main highway and the only brick building for miles. She said it was called the Bone Factory by the locals. It was a processing plant for an ingredient in soap. The roadkill and waste from slaughterhouses was brought there and allowed to rot in a chamber and at certain intervals the carcasses were incinerated to reduce them to bone ash. This sediment was then taken somewhere off site and added to soap as a substitute for pumice as an abrasive. We were all barely able to keep from vomiting at this point. After getting on down the road a bit and upwind of the Bone Factory I mustered a question about the workers and there ability to work in those conditions. Our guide explained that the workers along with those living in this area had lost all sense of smell and taste. We were astonished. Even more so when she told us just how bad the smell was when the factory had been in operation.....it had closed 2 years previous.

I hadn't thought about the Bone Factory in years until last night when I was reading Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel's book "Children Of The Flames" about Josef Mengele and his wicked experiments on the twins at Auschwitz. In it, one of the twins, Eva Mozes, recounts an incident that happened after the war.

"A couple of years after the war, our Rabbi in Cluj decided to hold a memorial service for all the Jews from our town who had died in the Holocaust. The Rabbi said that if anyone in the congregation had bars of soap left over from the concentration camps, we should bring it to the temple. He told us it had to be "buried" because it had been made from human flesh. It was the first time I had heard that. Before we left the camp, my twin sister and I took whatever we could with us. At a time when goods were scarce, I used the soap all the time. After the Rabbi's address, I felt terrified. I thought, "Maybe I used soap made from my family." For years, I had continuous nightmares. Every night, I dreamt I was washing myself with soap made from my parents or sister."

The "bone factories" of Auschwitz spewed the ash and stench of 8 thousand Jews a day into the German countryside. From the fires of that hell may or may not have actually come soap. Scholars and historians have come to a relative consensus that this was probably one of many lies perpetrated on the Jews by the SS to further break their spirits. (Although there have been a few documented admissions of former SS scientists who did experiment with a process of using human fat to make soap.) Nonetheless, I remember my repulsion at the horrific smell for those 5 short minutes that afternoon in Mexico, and at the thought of using soap made from rotting animals. But I cannot even begin to imagine how young Eva must have felt having lived years in the shadows of the Nazi ovens. Each day breathing in the stench of the dead, and everyday since wondering if she had washed herself with the remains of her family.

I have a very keen, borderline acute, sense of smell. Some small consolation I suppose for my almost as acute nearsightedness, but it has left certain indelible marks on my psyche. One, of course, was the bone factory in Mexico, but another this past weekend at the Holocaust Museum in D.C.. This week marks the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps by American soldiers. There were special exhibits and events all week at the museum. But the one exhibit that affected me the most, the one that will stay with me the longest, was the thousands of confiscated shoes of the victims of the camps.



There they were piled on either side of the walkway, boots, sandals, loafers, even what appeared to be a pair of heels that would have been worn for a night on the town. Of course the shoes were in every size imaginable, the tiniest revealing the youngest victims. As gut wrenching as the sight of those miniature shoes was, what scarred me most was their smell. I have long disdained the smell of molded, damp, leather stored in airless places. That smell gets to working on my gag reflex rather efficiently. But I am thankful now for that smell. I will never forget those shoes, the brutality of Nazi torture. They will never become just a photo facsimile shut in a book, shelved among many other books, every time I smell that smell I will remember. I will remember the ovens, the "bone factories" of the Nazi camps, I will remember Eva and the twins. I will remember what happens when the world sleeps through the screams of the defenseless.

Oh, forgive me this rant.

I was sitting in the emergency room with a friend and our seats faced the front window and the television. The program was chronicling the life and times of a fallen starlet. Her career had hit the dreaded "rock bottom", and she was slowly trying to climb back up the mountain of artistic acclaim. We watched as her limo took her from one record label to the next for them to tell her that they didn't want to release her latest album. She reminisced about her days of glory from her mansion's commercial sized, granite paneled kitchen. She was quick to mention her faith and she even cried at one point.


I'm no marketing guru. But honey buy yourself your own record label and release your songs already. Jeez.


Next up was a preacher telling us to send him a "seed" and that if we did, God would bring such a harvest of cash and possessions into our lives that we would never want again. It's the familiar shtick we've heard for years and yet the audience was full of "believers" ready to testify to the financial "miracles" that had befallen them at the very hour of their desperation when they had obediently sown a "seed" into the particular man's ministry.


Now this begs a question, at least to me anyway. Is the only fertile soil on God's once green earth the pockets, wallets and bank accounts of these snake oil salesmen? I mean not once do these men encourage the unwashed masses to sow seeds into the lives of the the impoverished around them. Never do they actually put the sowing and reaping scriptures they are so fond to preach in the biblical context in which they were spoken. Of course not. Where's the profit in that.


In the ten minutes that I've been writing this 150 children died of malnutrition. Another will die before I finish typing this sentence. According to World Legacy.org it costs 2/3rds of a cent to feed a person a half a cup of food. My 3 dollar Americanos twice a day could feed a family of 5.


Here's a few scriptures for you madam and for you preacher man.


And especially for me.

Deuteronomy 15:11 For the poor will never cease from the land; therefore I command you, saying, “You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land.”

Psalms 82:3-4 Defend the poor and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy; free them from the hand of the wicked.

Proverbs 31:20 (It is said of the Godly woman that) She extends her hand to the poor, Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy.

Matthew 19:21 Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

Luke 14:13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.

Galatians 2:10 [They desired] only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do.

2^nd Corinthians 9:8-15 God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. As it is written: “He has dispersed abroad, He has given to the poor; His righteousness endures forever.” Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God. For the administration of this service not only supplies the needs of the saints, but also is abounding through many thanksgivings to God, while, through the proof of this ministry, they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal sharing with them and all men, and by their prayer for you.



M.

Father Jeremiah and the Illuminati

Father Jeremiah feared the subversive Illuminati most. He said they were the shadow government behind all governments, and most of the churches. Father Jeremiah was a Russian Orthodox priest, curt with disenchantment. He had a wizard’s beard and a monk’s hooded cloak made of black wool that smelled of stale sweat and mildew. Around his neck hung relics of a dying sect, silver-plated and peeling badly. He lived alone on Mars Hill Road in an electric blue and neon orange sanctuary whose front porch frowned at passing cars under the weight of a roof unequally distributed between its two outer posts. On one of those straining supports was tied a giant gong from Ethiopia whose other end was fastened to the house by thick nautical rope. Hanging by the front door that centered the porch was a mallet that Father Jeremiah used to wake the morning and announce the Holy days. Tied to the other post was a moon-eyed dog that wore the spotted coat of its wild desert brothers. Inside was candle-lit mostly, with a few dim bare-bulbs in the darkest halls and the bath. The walls were dark earth brown, eighteenth century icons hung like windows every six feet or so. The copper and brass images of long dead saints stared into the dark rooms through these windows and flickered with artificial life from the candles that clung to the walls between each flaking frame. In every room there were ornate canters slowly smoking incense into the air, black pepper and cloves.

The air was thick with damp, mildewing, slow-rotting wood. On the dark table in the largest room, the one with the fireplace, the sole source of heat, sat piles of undelivered newspapers. In the corner was a cot where Father Jeremiah had been sleeping off January in this one warm room with its stone hearth and picture less mantle. I was there to fix a shower drain but first was taking the makeshift tour of the musty little museum, listening to its eccentric curator reminisce about Russia and his fellow priests whose exploits of faith he would never be able to duplicate. The silence of the dead saints on the walls must have seemed to communicate their approval to Father Jeremiah for his pious humility because arbitrarily he would stop before one of them and say a silent prayer of thanks for their indulgence.

We had tea as I helped him roll and bag newspapers for the paper route he ran for some spending money. He gave me stern warnings of all the clandestine goings on of the dastardly Illuminati. I sipped my tea slowly and tried to read this man old enough to be my grandfather. What if any joy had his religion brought him? Here he was cloistered away in his tiny temple afraid and alone, the Jesus frozen in a frame on the wall unable to comfort him, unable to ease his fears. We finished our tea and the busy work that kept the lulls in conversation from being too awkward. Finally we said our polite goodbyes and I drove home a little sad for my new friend. I never saw Father Jeremiah again. My mom said he came into the drug store where she cashiered now and again to buy a case of beer, but that he never spoke and rarely ever made eye contact.

Maybe this is why our Heavenly Father warns us against graven images. Maybe it’s that Jesus becomes so familiar, so innocuous, so much a fixture in a room, that He ceases to be the risen savior that kicked the teeth out of the Beast and razed Satan’s kingdom to the ground. Or maybe it’s because Jesus becomes a fixed point in space, static and powerless to overcome our fears, our failures, our loneliness, or even the dreaded Illuminati.

I always meant to go visit Father Jeremiah again, I’m very sad and somewhat ashamed that I never did. I wish that even in my youth I could have somehow found a way that day to communicate the vibrant joy that knowing Jesus gave me. Wish I could have shared the comfort of the precious Spirit. Wish Father Jeremiah could have felt the tenderness of his heavenly Father the way I have so many wonderful times. When I close my eyes I can still see that old dog with its milky white cataracts. I can still hear the deep roar of that giant gong. And I can still smell Father Jeremiah’s mildewed robe from when we shook hands goodbye.