Author: James

What else can one do? Pentecost has come and gone with little sign of the Holy Spirit among us, its presence overshadowed by the Uvalde massacre, the Ukraine carnage, and God only knows what lies ahead. I have been reading the books of Joshua and Judges, during which times God fearing leaders invoked prosperity and godless leaders spread their evil, incurring God’s wrathful response. The final verse of Judges in my Bible reads, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.” Israel had no direction, no future as a people. Our democracy hangs its hat on the post of a higher truth, “one nation under God.” Can we survive as a nation if we ignore God? I doubt it.

So these days I am seeking solace in Scripture because Scripture reveals truth, and Jesus taught that the truth shall make us free (Jn. 8:32). Frankly, though, I found it difficult to find truth amid the bombardment of daily news. Then I remembered my last blog wherein I wrote that wisdom seeks truth, for truth is applicable to all creation. And I began to think that maybe I had it not quite right. Maybe wisdom is truth. Maybe wisdom and truth are one and the same, eternal and unchanging. And maybe the embodiment of wisdom and truth is the Holy Spirit.

King Solomon thought so. Wisdom says, “To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live…Hear, for I will speak noble things, for my mouth will utter truth…all the words of my mouth are righteous; there is nothing twisted or crooked in them.” Wisdom also says, “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,…at the first, before the beginning of the earth…When he established the heavens, I was there,…when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker;”¹ According to John’s gospel, Jesus was also with God at the beginning, and all things came into being through him (Jn. 1:2-4). On the night Jesus was saying farewell to his disciples he assured them, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own”( Jn. 16: 13).

Now, we know that the Holy Spirit arrived as Jesus promised at Pentecost about two thousand years ago to watch over and guide the apostles, imparting to them truth and wisdom. We also know from St. Paul that, as women and men of faith, God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us; all so that we may have peace with God through Christ (see Ro.5:1-5).

The source of solace then, seems to come back to faith in the God who created earth, incarnated itself in Christ and gave each of us the Holy Spirit of truth that God’s love for each of us cannot be overcome by the darkness of our times. While the gift of life is fragile, sickness and suffering abound, and evil may rule the earth, it seems perhaps that our singular role is to abide in faith and understanding from the Spirit of truth that each of our souls is in God’s Good hands, not permitting the darkness to overcome. It has been thus for humankind from the beginning. Thanks be to God.

1. See Proverbs 8: 1-36.

Lately, I have been listening and thinking about our times here in America. For many, it seems we are witnessing the disintegration of our culture, the breakdown of civility and the rule of law, and even the loss of safety and comfort in our own home. What is happening?

William Butler Yeats wrote his famous poem, The Second Coming, shortly after the tragedy of World War I, and his words tend to spring back into our minds during times like these we are now experiencing. From the carnage in Ukraine to the shootings in Milwaukee and Buffalo to leaders in our government threatening the Supreme Court (to name just a handful), it would seem that mere anarchy is loosed upon the world and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Yeats envisioned human existence as a series of overlapping circles of calm and torment, peace and war, in an ever widening gyre further and further from the center until the center cannot hold and chaos prevails.

A half century later an another poet put these lines to song amid the near chaos of America in the late 1960’s: All lies and jest, a man hears what he wants to hear and ignores the rest.¹ Essentially, there is no truth. Everyone makes up their own truth, from our elected leaders to the gangs on the street. Since that fateful era, wisdom has gone out of favor….so much so that today wisdom is considered a repugnant, dangerous relic of the past, the discredited darling of male supremacy.

Yet if there is truth, then wisdom seeks it. In ancient Greece, Athena was the goddess of reason and wisdom. In ancient Israel, King Solomon is credited with having written Proverbs, and he refers to Wisdom with a feminine pronoun (Prov.1:20). Both truth and wisdom transcend gender, for truth is applicable to all of creation, and the wise are those who discern it. For Solomon, wisdom begins with fear of the Lord and understanding of God (Prov. 2:3-6). For those of us who might conclude that modern humanity can now discern truth for itself and is capable of managing the earth, we might consider the words of an ancient poet who knew better (Job 38: 1-7, and 38:8-40: 14).

Christians know a certain truth that God sent Christ into this godless world as our refuge from fear, sadness and uncertainty. Christ did not teach us how to manage the affairs of others or to rule others. Christ taught service, kindness, and love for one another. His last teachings to his disciples focused on these salient truths (Jn. 13:12-15; 33-35). Paul, Christ’s missionary to the gentiles, taught the Romans to refrain from conformance to this world, but rather to be transformed so that they could discern the will of God (Ro. 12: 2).

However, we are not sequestered monks. We do live and work in this world. Perhaps then, wisdom is the acceptance of the godless world as we find it, serving and caring for others as we are able, and leaving to God the march of humankind. A famous prayer reads, May God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. ²

For sheer simplistic eloquence, though, I like best how four famous men of song responded to all this from their own introspection a half century ago. When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me… And in my hour of darkness, She is standing right in front of me, Speaking words of wisdom, Let it be. ³ This great biblical truth remains. God is with us, always and forever. Thanks be to God.

1. The Boxer, Paul Simon with Art Garfunkel, 1969
2. Known as the Serenity Prayer, popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous, is attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), who wrote the prayer in the early 1930’s. His original version is thought to have been, “Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.” See Serenity Prayer, Wikipedia.org.
3. Let It Be, The Beatles, lyrics by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, 1970

Here we are post-Easter when we turn once again to consider Luke’s well documented account of the Acts of the Apostles. Acts is essentially the story of incredible witness, which by any stretch of the human imagination, could not possibly have taken hold among a sane population. The OED defines “witness” as “a person present at some event and able to give information about it.” The same dictionary defines “incredible” as descriptive of something “that cannot be believed.” When Mary Magdalene blurted out to the disciples in hiding that Sunday morning that she had seen the Lord (Jn. 20: 18), nothing happened. They all stayed in the house with the doors locked for fear of the Jews (Jn. 20.19). No one believed her story. No one was willing to proclaim what she had witnessed. It was all too incredible.

In the evening of the same day, Jesus suddenly appeared before the disciples in the locked house (Jn. 20: 19b-23). Now, the disciples believed Mary’s incredible story because they could see for themselves. They had become eye witnesses along with Mary. Thomas, however, was not with them at the time and refused to believe their incredible story until Jesus appeared to the group a week later when he was present. Thomas was acting no differently from the other disciples who could not believe this thing based on the witness of another. He had to experience the risen Christ himself, just like the others. Yet Jesus mildly scolds Thomas (and all the others indirectly) by saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn.20:29). Do you think maybe Jesus is talking to us….you and me?

In Acts, the Apostles proceed to proclaim what they have seen and heard as eye witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection, suffering the pain and persecution of one bearing incredible witness contravening the accepted authority of one’s culture. They gain credibility because many others see for themselves the power of the Holy Spirit in these men. Yet still, what is recorded in Acts is the personal eye witness to incredible events.

What of us, then? Have we been given enough witness, incredible as it seems? During the 1970’s, I was privileged to enjoy a friendship with a Dominican priest who would engage me late into the evening in discussions of Christian theology. In his frustration with my questions, “but what about….?”, he would liken me to doubting Thomas. I distinctly remember one night he spoke of his sincere worry that I might go to hell on my ‘buts’.¹ What my priest friend knew that I as yet had not fully understood was the importance of honoring the credibility of persons who had the courage to bear public witness to incredible events, and thus coming to believe though having not seen. We are “blessed” because the resulting faith in the living Christ is indeed an eternal blessing.

Pharisee Rabban Gamaliel, a widely respected teacher of the law, sat in the Sanhedrin Counsel listening to the arguments favoring death to Peter and his colleagues who insisted on preaching the Christian gospel in contravention of direct orders from the Sanhedrin. After listening to Peter’s explanation and giving due consideration to Peter’s popularity among the people and other popular rebels in the past, he rose to advise the Council to leave these men alone. “For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God” (Acts 5:38-39). There are now roughly 2.3 billion Christians living on the planet.

Considering all the evidence, J.R.R. Tolkien advised the young doubting C.S. Lewis that the Christian myth was like all the Norse myths that Lewis loved, with one exception, it actually happened. As it turns out, Mary gave credible witness to an incredible event. Thanks be to God.

1. Rev. Thomas L. Fallon, O.P. , 1920-1993, professor of theology and history at Providence College, Providence, Rhode Island

Yesterday morning my wife and I attended a small community church built 96 years ago with the help of my grandfather in this little town in southern Wisconsin where we now make our home. The sturdy oak pews were crafted in Grandpa’s mill on the south side of Chicago. We were joined by my older brother, now a widower, together with a few old friends and acquaintances. It was a very traditional worship service in a very common place attended by very ordinary people like us.

I began my day with a cup of coffee and John’s Gospel because I find his reflections on his time with Jesus Messiah to be the most thoughtful, credible and meaningful. John reflected on what he had witnessed personally, and these reflections were written down in clear Greek by his colleagues (Jn. 21:24). When I arrived at church I was pleased to learn that the scripture lesson for the day was Jn. 20:1-18. I wondered, though, what the preacher could possibly say to augment my understanding of that passage. But once again I was in for a treat.¹

Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early Sunday morning to perform an act of kindness to the dead in honor of the life that had ended. When she saw the empty tomb she immediately ran to report that Jesus’ body had been taken. Peter and John immediately ran to the tomb, only to discover the truth of Mary’s report. The dead body was gone. The men left for their lodgings. Mary stayed, weeping, and saw two angels in the tomb, who asked her why she was weeping. Mary said someone had taken her Lord and she didn’t know where they had laid him. She turns around to see a man standing in front of her who asks her why she is weeping and whom is she looking for. She asks him if he had taken away her Lord, and the man replies, “Mary!” At that moment she knows the man is Jesus Messiah. Jesus then speaks to her, telling her that he is ascending to his Father. She rushes back to tell the disciples all that she saw and heard.

Now, imagine the shock. It’s a wonder she didn’t faint straight away. I might have. Seeing angels as a vision of two figures in dazzling white did not shock her. Angels somehow exist. But dead men stay dead. For Peter and John at that moment, there was no thought that Jesus might have risen out of the grave. They did not then understand the scripture that he must rise.(Jn.20:9). Nor did Jesus appear to them. Instead, Jesus first appeared to Mary. And herein lies the basis for another kernel of thought. We don’t know why Jesus revealed himself first to Mary. Perhaps it was an act of mercy to assuage her grief.

What we do know is that Mary was the perfect first witness. She had nothing to gain by blurting out her discovery and could have suffered ridicule and even loss of her own life over blasphemy. But she was undaunted. She did not try to downplay the event or make it seem more normal, like a vision or some such. No, she simply reported, “I have seen the Lord” (Jn. 20: 18). As eye witness, she proclaimed the truth, the shockingly stark, simple truth.

My thought kernel is that yesterday in our worship service nothing remarkable happened except that Christ came among us to embrace us and remind us that we are Easter people. Though very ordinary in every earthly way, we are nonetheless people of the Resurrection. We know Christ is risen. We are witnesses to those who were eye witnesses. We, like Mary Magdalene, don’t need to explain it. Perhaps we would do best to just proclaim it. Christ is risen, indeed. Thanks be to God.

1. Credit the thought kernel to Rev. Jim Iliff’s sermon yesterday.

In the midst of the war in Ukraine and the millions made refugees, I find myself approaching the Easter season reading scripture in reflection on our suffering God. Is there any gift we lowly humans can give our God to ease God’s suffering? Do we have any idea what God values most from us when God is suffering? We know that God commands us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; and to love our neighbor as our self (Mk. 12:30-31). Love itself, though, is a only a feeling, intense though it may be. And our love for God is in reality love from afar, which we express in prayer and hopefully in our relations with others. It is essentially passive or indirect. Is there anything actionable that we can do for God?

Perhaps we might find a clue in scripture as Jesus approached his tortuous death in Jerusalem. It seems to me that what Jesus valued most in those few days before the Passover was an act of kindness toward himself from his friends and disciples. He knew he would receive betrayal, denial and abandonment, but before that he needed company. He asked Peter and Zebedee’s sons to stay with him at Gethsemane while he prayed and to keep watch because he was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mt. 26:37-38). A simple act of kindness. Keep watch, stay awake, be near me as I suffer. But they failed, falling asleep.

The one act of kindness to Jesus reported in the Gospels occurred in the little town of Bethany about two miles northeast of Jerusalem where Jesus stopped to stay with Martha and her young sister Mary early that week. Mary must have sensed in Jesus a mood of dark determination to enter Jerusalem and meet his fate. While he was at the dinner table, she came to him with a very expensive jar of perfume, broke it and anointed him with its contents (Mk. 14:3; Mt.26:7; Jn.12:3).¹ There was criticism among those at the table for such a wasteful use of valuable perfume. But Jesus told them to leave her alone, for she had done him a service. “She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial” (Mk.14:8; Mt. 26:12). This was a pure act of kindness to a dear friend and teacher. It was not the same as the kindness of the harlot who came to a Pharisee dinner and washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, desperate for his mercy (Lk.7:36-49). In this case, Jesus is clearly troubled and Mary is doing what she could to ease his pain with her simple act of generous kindness. Jesus then delivers the punch line, “Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her” (Mk.14:9; Mt.26:13). One simple, generous act of kindness to our God is so valuable it will be remembered and told forever.

When I was a Boy Scout we had a slogan, “Do a good turn daily.” Every day each of us can do a generous act of kindness for someone in need, because every day each of us comes across a person in need of kindness. Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes one such child welcomes me” (Mt. 18:5). When we do a good turn, I think we ease God’s suffering. And who knows, one simple anonymous act may be remembered and told forever.

1. Both Matthew and Mark report an anointing by an anonymous woman at the home of Simon the Leper in Bethany two days before Passover. John reports in his gospel a dinner at the home of Lazarus with his sisters Martha and Mary six days before the Passover. John reports a washing of the feet and the others report and anointing on the head.

The Western world is groaning in pain and despair as it bears witness to the barbarian destruction of life in Ukraine from thousands of explosives sent from the safety of bombers and missiles through an uncontested sky, raining terror down upon the entire population, all for Ukraine’s inexcusable wish to remain a free, self-governing people. Yet as we groan, we must acknowledge that human history is replete with such behavior. God seems nowhere to be found, having long ago given up an alliance with one side or the other in collective violence. Instead, God sent God’s Son as a sacrifice to violence to show the futility of such behavior, a magnificent gesture of mercy which to date has proven less than effective. So I wonder, is God groaning too? Is God suffering with us?

Long, long ago Paul observed in his letter to the Romans, “we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Ro. 8: 22 KJV). We groan because we want to graduate from the decay of death to the glory of children of God. Karl Barth, in his classic commentary on Romans, observed that we will always groan and travail in pain because our knowledge is not the knowledge of God. And God is in heaven while we are earth bound. “Therefore, it is precisely our not-knowing what God knows that is our temporal knowledge about God…”¹ Likewise, the church would have us know that God is in control of all things, omnipotent. God has a plan, and somehow, far beyond our capacity to comprehend, all that occurs is part of God’s plan. We as Christians are to pray in the name of Jesus Messiah for God to exercise God’s power on behalf of the innocent and to relieve our suffering. We can’t really know anything else.

But maybe the will of God is not that humankind learns to live by the teachings of God’s Son. God certainly knows that humankind exists in a largely godless world. Maybe God’s abiding hope is that more and more of us learn to share God’s suffering by acting fully in the world as servants of God’s will; that we ease God’s suffering by the good we can do in the face of evil (see Ro. 12: 14-21). Essentially, humans’ inhumanity to humans provides the framework in which God’s servants can ease human suffering and the suffering of God.

Scripture tells us that God’s plan is to send Jesus Messiah back to earth at the end of times (Mt. 24:1-41). In the First Century CBE and in every century since, people have believed that the return of the Messiah was imminent, likely in response to the continual display of awful human behavior. Yet God abides in God’s suffering, perhaps because of the many, many servants who are easing this suffering by acting in the secular world consistent with the will of God. It is up to us to pray and do.

1. Barth, Karl, The Epistle to the Romans, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1968, 310

No good comes in war. When the good wields evil to overcome evil, the good suffers from the evil the good let loose. Spend a day at Gettysburg or several hours at the cemetery above Omaha Beach. But wars continue to happen, and our own country engages in them. Does the Bible help us understand how we are supposed to behave and reconcile these events? I offer the following perspective to ponder.¹

The Old Testament is replete with stories of God backing his Chosen in war for centuries, beginning with Abraham and including Joshua and Gideon to name just a few ( Gen.14:11-15:1; Josh. 5:13-6:5; Judg. 7. 1-25). But for over 700 years God witnessed God’s Chosen turning to evil ways notwithstanding the victories God provided. Finally, as God’s prophets warned, God turned on the Chosen, aiding the Assyrians in 722 BCE to conquer the Northern Kingdom (2Kgs. 17: 7-23) and the Babylonians in 586 BCE to destroy Jerusalem and scatter the Chosen into exile (2kgs. 24:18-25:21). After that, biblically speaking, God as agent was finished with war. In fact, God seems to have stood pat on the matter for over 2,500 years, abiding the most hideous atrocities humanity has seen fit to inflict on one another. So, has God gone AWOL on us? Not at all!

God just changed God’s tack. About 600 years after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, God sent His Son, Jesus Messiah, who distilled all of God’s Will for human behavior down to one single commandment of love with two objects of that love: God and Neighbor (Mt. 22: 37-40; Mk. 12: 30-31). This development was a sea change in God’s effort with humanity. God no longer seemed interested in a Promised Land, a nation of the Chosen or the Temple where God would lend God’s name. God would save human souls for all eternity on a personal basis, one soul at a time. Jesus made no promises except personal salvation, an eternal life with God. He did this because God his Father sent him to do so (Jn. 12:49-50; 14:24). Jesus warned the rich and those who failed to repent, but he did not condemn because he was not sent to do so (Jn.12:47). All things remain possible with God (Mk. 10:27). God’s relationship with humanity was no longer in the collective (group, people, nation, tribe), but wholly personal through the presence of God’s Spirit in each of us. Ours is to kindle the Spirit by following the pathway through the narrow gate of faith and obedience to God’s single command of love for God and Neighbor (Mt. 7:14).

Since Jesus, it’s all changed, and it’s all quite simple; and that’s the rub. God has shown us the path to eternal life as God’s gift to us whom God loves. God does not seem very interested in how long each of us enjoys the gift of mortal life, nor the circumstances, pain and suffering, that we experience along the way. These sufferings or inconveniences do not even remotely compare to the weight of glory awaiting each of us (see Ro. 8: 16-18; 2Cor. 4:17). No whining. And as for our enemies, God said long, long ago that it is God’s prerogative to avenge, not ours (Lev. 19:18). Overcome evil with good (see Ro. 12:19-21). No wiggle room. It is our role as individuals to pray for all, including the Ukrainians and the Russians. We are to feed the refugees, clothe them and care for them, accept them into our homes (Mt. 25: 34-40).

The rub is that the world is not simple; nor has the world changed much for the better. God changed in God’s relationship with humanity by moving from support for a nation of Chosen to salvation for individual souls, but the world did not change. Our rulers are charged with protecting us from destructive force, and from time to time require us to fight evil with greater violence, while God has taken another tack. As Christians, we are called to respond to God’s tack through Jesus, while our rulers advise us to fight evil with more effective violence of our own. What to do?

Jesus refused to resist his captors, and he instructed his disciples to stand down. Jesus would have us love our enemies (Mt. 5:44) and turn the other cheek (Mt. 5:39), but he did not advocate rebellion against ruling authorities. Jesus also knew that while He was sent by the Father, we are born of mortals and conditioned by our mortal nature with a will to survive and defend ourselves. The clearest direction we have from another mortal is Paul’s twin admonition to live in peace with everyone if it is possible as far as it depends on you, but to remain subject to the governing authorities (Ro. 12:18-13:5). So, as responsible free men and women who have elected their rulers, when called upon, we serve. And when directed to fight, we fight. We take up weapons with a small NT in our breast pocket, not because we believe we are doing God’s will in opposing evil, but because we believe in a God who will forgive us and console us for becoming sinners in that bold venture, sharing God’s suffering at the hands of a godless world. ² Thanks be to God.

1. All this is way beyond my pay grade, but I felt it was perhaps called for in these times.
2. As the brilliant theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, awaited his execution by the Nazi authorities for treason in opposition to Hitler, he wrote letters from prison. God summons us in our secular lives to share in His sufferings at the hands of a godless world, taking seriously not our own sufferings but those of God in this world. Eberhard Bethge, ed., Letters and Papers From Prison, New York, Touchstone, 1997, 361,370.

(John 1:14)

The relationship between the opening verses of John’s Gospel (1:1-14) and the opening verses of Genesis (1:1-2:3) is striking, and thus, perhaps worth a few moments of reflection. John wrote his gospel late in the first century following the destruction of the Temple, and he likely had access to the other gospels. His disdain for the “Jews” relates most likely to the contemporary spate of excommunication from the synagogue of Jewish believers in Jesus. John’s embrace of Jewish tradition and culture is a bold proclamation to all Jews as an eye witness that their God became man and dwelled among them.

Hebrew tradition and scripture record that “In the beginning,” when the earth was formless and empty, the God was Spirit hovering over the waters (Gen. 1: 1-2). God’s Spirit spoke the world into being over a period of six days as recorded by Levite priests from oral and written tradition probably as late as the fourth century BCE (Gen. 1:3-27). According to these same priests, God was not alone in this endeavor, at least not at the end when he announced to His presumably heavenly court “Let us make mankind in our image”, (Gen. 1:26), whereupon He created male and female (Gen. 1:27). Also present with God before creation was Wisdom, a female personification ( Sophia in Greek) of the cosmic force indispensable to civil order. She was with God by God’s side during all the acts of creation (Prov. 8: 22-31).

John embraces all this tradition as he introduces his gospel. Yet John’s personification of God incarnated is male, not female. Therefore, John selects the Greek logos, a masculine noun translated as “word.” In Genesis 1, God speaks the world into being, using God’s Word. So, John’s introduction: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Then, according to John, “He [Jesus] was with God in the beginning” (John 1:2). John reports in his gospel three occasions when Jesus refers to his eternal existence: a. “before Abraham was born, I am!” (8:58); b. “Father, glorify me …. with the glory I had with you before the world began (17:5); and c. “because you loved me before the creation of the world (17:24).

In John’s letter to the churches near the end of his life, he continued to proclaim the historical fact of incarnation that he witnessed. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched——this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.” (1Jn. 1:1-2).

It would appear that from the very beginning of creation, the flesh created by God was useless without the Spirit giving the flesh life which is meant to be eternal life. This is God’s great hope for each of us. What we are of this world is only of short value during our brief time in this bodily tent that quickly deteriorates to dust. It is only the Spirit that gives real life that lasts forever. John reported Jesus saying to his disciples, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—-they are full of the Spirit and life” (Jn. 6: 63).

I am thinking that a tiny part of God’s Spirit is embedded in each of us at birth. We only need to kindle it to provide us the real life God intends for us.

Thanks be to God.

In ancient times, God spoke directly to Noah and the patriarchs. However, when God delivered the Ten Commandments during the Exodus, deathly fear struck the Israelites, and they pleaded with Moses, “‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die'” (Ex. 20:19). So, Moses assumed the role of mediator, and before he died, he told the Israelites that God would raise up prophets like him from their own people to communicate God’s Words (Deut. 18: 15-22).

Prophets, then, are essential to an understanding of scripture because historically God spoke to the people through the voices of the prophets. The entire history of the Israelites from the death of Moses to the beginning of the Second Temple in about 400 BCE is a saga of God’s interaction with God’s people told through the actions and voices of the prophets. There were three divisions in the Hebrew Bible: Torah, Prophets and Writings. The second division includes Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel and Kings in addition to the major and minor prophets. Jesus gave credence to this history when he said he came not to abolish but to fulfill the law and the prophets (Mt. 5:17).

Having been fulfilled, then, are the Hebrew prophets no longer theologically relevant to Christians¹ other than in their historical context? And what of modern day prophets? Are they useful to us in our relationship to God? Christian worship services in many churches ignore the OT altogether. In more traditional denominations with two or more scripture lessons, the prophets are regularly quoted, but rarely preached. It seems to me that we may be missing an enormous opportunity to become better acquainted with God.

The word ‘prophet’ is derived from a Greek root that means primarily “to foresee”, which is perhaps the least important attribute. In the Hebrew Bible there are four words that translate respectively, “seer”, “diviner”, “man of God”, “prophet”. The Hebrew word that translates “prophet” means primarily one who is called. The one who was called was already known as a “seer” (1 Sam. 9:9). Prophets seem best described as boundary figures ² living in their own space on the edge between civilization and the kingdom of God. What prophets see clearly from their space on the very edge, we see only dimly at best, to use Paul’s phrase (1Cor. 13:12).

As Christians, we have no need to foresee because Christ told us what lies ahead. However, we do need to know God, and Jesus was well aware of our difficulty as cracked vessels living under the constant drumbeat of what passes for civilization. God is present, but seemingly unreachable amidst the cacophony of modern life. Even Jesus or Paul can seem somehow too disconnected from our circumstance to be of help to us.

The prophets, however, exist with us, next to us in our physical space though somehow divinely informed or even prescient, and are available to us in our daily lives. In this sense, Paul and Peter and John were prophets. Prophets abound in history and in our neighborhood today. God is present in these men and women whom we know or can know. The biblical prophets provide us the knowledge of God’s Word that has never changed. If we listen, we may hear that Word from our neighbor , whether pastor or gardener, and thereby be strengthened with the assurance of God’s presence.³

Thanks be to God.

1. For the Jews, the Talmud explains that with the beginning of the Second Temple era, the “spirit of prophecy departed.” See Shurpin, Yehuda, “Why are there no more prophets”; www.chabad.org/library/articles
2. Peterson, David, “Introduction to Prophetic Literature”, New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Vol. IV, Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2015.
3. During my time in seminary I would practice solitude to try to put myself in that boundary space between civilization and the kingdom, inviting God to pay me a visit through the Holy Spirit. Though I highly recommend the practice, I have learned since to be alert to the prophets in my midst every day. The Holy Spirit seems active, indeed.

A common theme in social discussion these days (and perhaps for all time) is to lament the general state of human affairs in which we find ourselves: widespread lawlessness, violent crime, drug addiction, lust for power, hypocrisy among leaders, decline in moral values, and so on. These discussions are potentially significant because they reflect the intensity level of public concern and by extension the public mood and the integrity of the social contract. Is there a relevant biblical perspective?

Jesus also lamented his generation as he castigated the Pharisees for their haughtiness and hypocrisy, predicting the destruction of the temple and a world in chaos preceding the coming of the Son of Man in a cloud with power and glory to execute God’s final judgment. Then in a verse repeated verbatim in all three synoptic gospels, Jesus proclaimed, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass a way until all these things have taken place”(Mt. 24:34; Mk. 13:30; Lk. 21:32). Well, the temple was destroyed in 70 CE during “this generation,” but here we are many generations later with no return of the Son of Man arriving in a cloud or even on the horizon.

Theologians are generally agreed that Jesus was simply mistaken, perhaps ill informed by his Father. One notable commentary concludes, “Like the prophets, both Jesus and Luke probably expected the end to come before the end of their generation…”¹ There is no argument about language. The Greek is clear in all three Gospels. “This generation” is defined as those collectively living about the same time. It could be defined as the Jewish people or the human race, but that is a stretch. As for “these things taking place,” certainly there have been plenty of persecutions, wars, pestilence, earthquakes and general world chaos to satisfy the conditions precedent. But Jesus was not a man who became a prophet, but God’s son who became man. Suppose Jesus was not wrong in his claim. What then?

One theologian seems to have it right. ² When Luke cites Jesus’ use of the word “truly” five other times in his gospel, no Christian would doubt the veracity of his message (Lk. 4:24; 12:37; 18:17; 18:29; 23:43). And when Luke reports Jesus referring to “this generation”, Jesus is not referring to people living at a certain time, but to those people who turn their backs on the divine purpose (Lk. 7:31; 9:41; 11:29-32,50-51; 16:8; 17:25). This generation of people does not pass away. It does not give way to the new. It propagates, renews itself and will be with us until the very end. It will not pass away until all “these things” described by Jesus happen and the Son of Man returns in a cloud of glory with power and judgment.

Until then, it seems to me that we should not lament this generation but rather accept its presence and spend our time, efforts and spiritual energy deflecting its significance as best we can with our own behavior as humble servants of God’s Way. And one more thing. Maybe we should take Peter more seriously when he writes, “scoffers will come…..saying, ‘where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were form the beginning of creation!’….But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” (2Pet. 3: 3-9)

So here we are, enjoying the gift of life as God continues God’s experiment with God’s creation. And we do have darn good guidance from God’s son, including the promise of eternal life. Thanks be to God.

1. R. Alan Culpepper, New Interpreters Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, Luke, Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2015
2. Joel Green, Gospel of Luke, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1997