Mohammed Khatib, a modern-day Gandhi?

"Nonviolence is our most powerful weapon. If they cannot accuse us of terrorism, they cannot stop us. The world will support us."_Mohammed Khatib

"Khatib, 35, is a modern-day Gandhi in a culture that enshrines the language of the gun, even if most Palestinians have never used one. And the risks of his activism are enormous."

"In a long conversation, he spoke in rapid-fire sentences about his role models -- Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela -- while taking cellphone calls about the next move in a legal challenge to the barrier. He believes Israel is trying to crush nonviolent activists because it would rather take on an armed insurgency."

"It was 2001. Khatib watched in horror as Israeli soldiers shot an unarmed friend at a checkpoint. Two weeks later, the militant Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade made a revenge attack on the checkpoint, killing seven soldiers.'My first reaction was 'Good for Al Aqsa!' ' Khatib said. Then he realized the dead soldiers belonged to a different unit, not the one on duty when his friend was shot. 'It made me wonder: This cycle of death, of violent action and reaction, how we can break it?' "

"He made sure protesters carried video cameras to document the army's use of tear gas and rubber-coated bullets to keep them away. And he worked to enforce zero-tolerance of violence by the activists..." Read the LA Times Article.

The Irony of Dispensationalism

I watched a video called "7 signs of the Apocalypse" from the History Chanel. I found it amusing but overall horribly one sided. They talked as though believing the "7 sings" and believing the book of Revelation were synonymous with believing in a literal and dispensationalist narrative of the End Times. I could have been offended by this but, who's to judge, it's the History Chanel. They introduced folks like Joel Rosenberg and Tim LaHaye as "Bible Scholars" which is a slap in the face to real scholars who actually participate in scholarship. They discussed passages of Revelation without giving a single thought toward what the author may have believed about what he/she was writing in the original context. For example, when they talked about the Antichrist (by the way, they never mentioned that such a word does not show up at all in the text of Revelation) they portrayed him as someone who will be "such a lover of peace" (which hurt my heart because that made people like John Dear, Desmond Tutu, and all of our Mennonite brothers and sisters sound like candidates for the position) that people will want to follow them. They never bothered to mention that Caesar, in the original context of the scripture, was all about Pax Romana which means the Peace of Rome... They didn't even consider that the beast of Revelation could have something to do with Caesar or someone like him--someone who promotes peace but conducts war and conquest. There were no bible scholars interviewed in the video, just dispensationalist propagandists.

Without going into detail, I will say that the overall message of Revelation is a call to oppressed people to carry on in the midst of their oppression because victory is on the other side of martyrdom and a call to wealthy and powerful folks to end their involvement with the systems of death and oppression, to live in such a way that "the beast" might actually want to kill you, and to come out of those systems which kill and oppress God's people. As for the church's faithfulness to this call, there is little to be said outside of obscure stories and individual examples (i.e. Martin Luther King Jr. and "church" efforts such as "the Simple Way"). The Church, especially the American Church, is still quite buddy-buddy with the Beast and quite enticed by the Whore of Babylon.

However, it was interesting at the end of the video to hear from a "Bible Scholar," who has made plenty of money by writing a book and taking advantage of the economic system, who probably lives quite well-off in the United States, and who should know, through the lens of Revelation, that the beast is alive and well in American systems of economics and "defense," that "the book of Revelation has never been read with more earnest true belief than it is today" (Jonathan Kirsch, author of A History of the End of the World). Not only is this arrogant to say, it is profoundly telling.

The dispensationalist perspective on Revelation which calls for a hermeneutic of "decoding" current events and inserting them into the framework of "end times prophesy" is ironically prepositioned to miss the point of Revelation altogether. Someone who can, while looking at our culture where the Church is so heavily involved in the systems of the world and is apparently getting along quite well with them, say that "the book of Revelation has never been read with more earnest true belief than it is today" cannot be someone who actually understands Revelation (unless they have a pitifully bleak outlook on the history of the Church preceding today).

That's the irony of dispensationalism... it predisposes its adherents to blindness toward the message of their most beloved book because it distracts them and entices them to use it as a key to decode symbolic signs of future events.

Matthew 24, First Thought Commentary: Part 4

"Immediately after the distress of those days
" 'the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'
"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. "
_Matthew 24:29-35

The cryptic language of these passages is not easy for the modern reader to understand. It should be no surprise that all sorts of strange predictions of the future try to utilize these passages for support. When something leaves us with a question mark over our head we're prone to wander off and to construct all kinds of other narratives which may or may not have any positive value for the church or the world (hence dispensationalism), just look at what the community that wrote 1 Enoch did with Genesis 6. Once again, we have to take off our Sunday School lens, as though it could get us three inches into an interpretation of this passage without some gymnastics or rigid literalism, and put on our 1 century apocalyptic lens (at least let's have the humility to try before we go nuts with strange predictions).

Jesus doesn't just pull this kind of apocalyptic imagery out of the air (no pun intended), rather this kind of talk would have been familiar to his hearers as well as to Matthew's readers (once again we must try to remember the dual hermeneutic involved with gospel text). Not only would the imagery of darkness have suggested a sort of chaotic state which can be so symbolic of so many things, but Jesus is actually referring to something a little more specific.

Jesus is quoting Isaiah.

Tell me... do you think this verse sounds like it may have been on Jesus' mind: "The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light" (Isaiah 13:10)? Now consider that Jesus' audience may have been quite familiar with this verse too, so familiar, in fact, that they would not have been able to miss the fact that Jesus has just quoted it.

And how about this verse: "All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved and the sky rolled up like a scroll; all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the fig tree" (Isaiah 34:4). Do you think Jesus may have had this on his mind? It helps to notice that he even brings up the fig tree later on in the passage as though it's a no-brainer that fig trees should come to mind when you're talking about stars falling from the sky. These passages would have been so ingrained in the memory of the people that upon the mention of one element from the passage, all the other elements should come to mind as well.

the first of these passages which Jesus is quoting is Isaiah 13:10 which pertains to the fall of Babylon and the second is Isaiah 34:4 which pertains to Gods judgment upon "all the nations" (see R.T. France's commentary on Matthew from the Tyndale New Testament Commentary series, page 346). Jesus seems to be drawing these two concepts, Babylon and "all the nations", together around the destruction of the Temple (see the last post on this). Symbolically, Jesus is asking us to understand the events of AD 66-70 and the culminating destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem as the destruction of Babylon and as God's judgment upon the nations. The language suits the magnitude of the situation and Jesus' hearers and Matthew's readers would have understood it, if only in part.

What does this fall mean? It is not the cosmic finality of the universe, as many would see it. It is the fall of particular temporal powers to which the people of God have grown attached. This theme is not only found here. In Revelation the fall of "the whore of Babylon" represents the fall of a specific temporal economic system, although it invites us to look for the "whore" within whatever systems we find ourselves in. As the fall of Babylon as referred to in Isaiah was the fall of an economy of greed and of a power of oppressive injustice, so the destruction of the Temple, though ironically having been destroyed itself by oppressive and greedy forces, is the fall of a power not worthy of the Kingdom of God. This destruction, though tragically detrimental to the life of the Jewish worshiper, is in some way opening up the future to bright restoration, as God's judgment always does. That is why it is "at that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky" (italics mine). And the response of the nations (not unlike the response in Revelation 18:9-19) is mourning.

It is sadly ironic that the sign of the coming of the Son of Man should be met with mourning. This mourning (as R.T. France points out in his commentary to which I already referred ((which is friggin' great)) on page 348) points us to Zechariah 12:10 which says:

"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son."

The sense here is that Israel is mourning for "the one they have pierced." Jesus (and Matthew) equates this one they've pierced with himself and the mourning with the event of his coming. Jesus' coming on the clouds of heaven is a reference to Danliel 7 where it says,

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed" (Dan 7:13-14)

Jesus' coming on the clouds of heaven is the sign of his vindication. The system which rejected him is falling and he is receiving the glory, hence the fact that Israel mourns the one they pierced.

We must understand that the event of his coming is not just Jesus showing up on literal clouds in the sky with cool music playing, but even these are images with deeper meaning. This "sign" of the son of man may be the "banner" which Isaiah talks about when it says

"He will raise a banner [or a sign] for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth"(Isaiah 11:12)

Paired with the trumpet, the sign is the eschatological gathering of the exiles, referred to here as the "elect" which openness the eschatological gathering to even those not normally included, i.e. the gentiles, therefore the elect which may best be understood as the church by Matthew's audience takes on the role of Israel, into whose story the church is "grafted in" according to Paul (Romans 11:11-24), or at very least it is left open for re-thinking who is included in the exile. the glorious event which is to take place after the destruction of the Temple is the gathering of the exiles around not a temple but around the Son of Man--Jesus. And the angels, either heavenly angels or earthly messengers, i.e. the church, are about the task of gathering these exiles and implementing the vindication of Christ throughout the world, "from one end of the heavens to the other."

The Temple, which here is about more than the Temple and it's about something very different from true worship of Yahweh, has come to an end. The Temple here becomes a snap shot of all kinds of powers and principalities which no longer have power because of the resurrection and vindication of Christ. The Church has become the Body of Christ and the temple of Yahweh, and the exile is over through the power of Jesus' resurrection. The resurrection rescue is at hand and we get to be a part of it.

The next verses remind us of the fig tree, that "as soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near." Just when it seems that it all must be over, that death has had its victory, and we should close the book on our hope for this world, resurrection is just around the corner. This is the hope by which we live and through which we are empowered to carry on with Christ's mission of healing and salvation through all kinds of "distress."

These passages offer to us a hope that even when the powers seem overwhelmingly unstoppable, the resurrection and Christ's vindication turns the powers upside down. We can look up at a temple with huge stones and say prophetically with Jesus, "not one stone here will be left on another." However tragic it may be to us that these powers will fall, due to our insatiable lust for their beauty, we are reminded that our hope is not in the Temple or in any other power in which we might seek our identity, that when the powers fall it will not be the end of the world, but our hope is in Jesus Christ and we are invited to rejoice with him in his vindication over the powers of death. The sun may be darkened but the Son will rise in glory.

Hauerwas at APU 2

Well, as if the morning session wasn't great enough, the evening session of Stanley Hauerwas' lectures at APU was outstanding. There was a larger crowd and a better venue (APU's UTCC) and Stanley's topic was on "America's God." He talked a bit about the differences between what America believes and what the Church believes. Although it is impossible to speak like this without some level of generalizing and even stereotyping, Stanley was talking in broad terms of what ideas have been pervasive in Americanism verses what is inherent within Christianity. Some differences include America's fear of death (specifically over against its fear of God) verses the Church's belief in Christ's victory over death, its definition of freedom verses the church's, differences in memory of history, and America's belief that "you should have no story other than the story you chose when you had no story" verses the Church's belief that we are grafted into a story we did not choose through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some of these foundational differences almost automatically place our identity as Christians, if our Christianity is to be coherent at all, in tension or even at odds with our identity as Americans.

One thing Hauerwas said that was quite pointed was that the church in America has been less than it could be in part because "we know how to die [and to kill, I might add] for America but we've forgotten how to die for our faith." Chew on that for a while...

One important task that the protestant church in America has too often failed in is the task of making it clear and distinct what our "we"s mean and when our "we" is not America's "we."

Hauerwas at APU 1

This morning I went to Stanley Hauerwas' first lecture at Azusa Pacific University. As should be expected, Hauerwas was incredibly insightful and remarkably interesting. His topic was "Pentecost: Learning the Languages of Peace." Notice that it's languages of peace and not language (singular) of peace. Stanley pointed out that it's not helpful to talk as though there is one language through which we can all communicate. Communication is paradoxically the very root of our differences as it is also the culmination of our being human. Communication and a shared language comes from a shared life. Therefore communication is not something we can do outside of bodily experience. Thus we must open ourselves even to the folks to whom nobody really wants to be open. We must patiently tend to those to whom no one tends. That's peace!

Though we are all fragmented, fragmented and divided in our communication, we can still begin by speaking the language of peace within our own language and as it was in the Pentecost others may find themselves understanding in their own language (not forcing everyone to speak the same universal language). The Church, as a social ethic, must embody the anticipation of a future in which it may be possible to write a unified world history. At the very least, this means refusing to kill the ones for whom Christ died on the cross--that's everyone! When we speak our language of peace, we will find ourselves at peace but ironically as we work toward this language we must be ready for conflict. We must be ready for conflict because non-violence means exposing an entering into conflicts before they become violent.

One thing I really enjoyed from Hauerwas was that for him, non-violence and peace are not tactics through which we reach world peace. We are not non-violent so as as a means to make the world less violent, we are non-violent because in a violent world as followers of Christ we cannot imagine any other way to live, and this may in fact make the world more violent. Nevertheless the church must embody what it experienced in the Pentecost, it must embody the language of peace, it must refuse to kill the ones we're supposed to love--not as a means to an end but as a way of living the life that's truly life.

There's probably more to come... Stanley has another lecture tonight.

Matthew 24, First Thought Commentary: Part 3

"So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time. So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather." _Matthew 24: 15-28

These 13 verses are probably the most problematic verses in this chapter. It almost certainly requires a first century lens to understand them. When Jesus uses the term "abomination that causes desolation" he is indeed quoting the book of Daniel (an earlier apocalyptic text) but assuming Jesus listeners knew how to read apocalyptic literature the way the scholars tell us it should be read, they would have thought of much more. The book and stories of Daniel, as an apocalyptic text, would have been passed from generation to generation in order to offer its readers a lens through which to see and to interpret their own experiences. It would have offered to them a language for the oppression they witnessed and the systems in which they lived. Originally, the text of Daniel 9:27 and the term "abomination that causes desolation" referred to the actions of Antiochus IV in 167 BCE (1 Macc 1:54), when he erected pagan idols in the Holy Place, which provoked the Maccabean revolt. But as the text was passed on, there's no doubt that all sorts of other images, anything that threatened the purity of Jewish worship and identity, woud have been associated with the "abomination that causes desolation." Imagine what images would have raced through the mind of a first century Jewish disciple. Would not have images of oppression and persecution come to mind? Would not a myriad of foreign rulers and oppressors have been remembered? Perhaps one might have thought of the Roman preatorium which was built directly next to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem so that the Romans could regulate the happening in the Temple. All sorts of memories, not just Antiochus IV and the Maccabean revolt would have come to mind, and Jesus meant for those memories to be part of his apocalyptic discourse.

Now put yourself in the shoes of one of Matthew's original readers. Remember that the text was written not just to recount history but also to address the specific issues of the original reader. Its words would not just have been for Jesus' contemporaries but also for the people to whom the author of Matthew was writing (in fact, in this particular passage, we even have an interpolation to let us know that this passage is for the reader: "—let the reader understand—").
What images might have been conjured by the reading of the term "abomination that causes desolation"? The year is roughly 80AD. The destruction of the temple and the Jewish revolt is still fresh in your memory. You have witnessed armies surrounding the holy place, you have seen the Temple of Yahweh laid down in ruins. Does it get any worse than that when it comes to tainting Jewish worship?

For the original readers Jesus words must have pertained to the destruction of the Temple and the events of AD 66-70, the "abomination that causes desolation" must have pertained to Roman invasion and Roman armies (see Luke 21:10). The horrors of those events are described here in Matthew 24: "For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again." But that's not where it ends. The story of salvation the story of Jesus' return doesn't end with destruction. "At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible."

What questions must have been on the minds of Matthew's readers? Surely they would have wondered if the events of the Jewish revolt were part of Jesus' return. Perhaps they wondered if they'd missed out on the parousia altogether. Jesus reminds them that his coming will not be something they could miss, "For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." Perhaps they wondered if they should have stayed and fought in the revolt, if perhaps a revolt was part of Jesus' return just as a revolt was prompted by the first "abomination that causes desolation" (the Maccabean revolt). But Jesus said, " let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." Revolt wasn't part of Jesus' plan. Fighting back wasn't his intention. Jesus' coming and thus true restoration will happen with or without people fighting wars in the name of Yahweh.

The point (or at least a point) is that this is not how Jesus is returning--not in revolt, not in the chaotic destruction of the Temple, and not in any of the events to which we today may be able to apply apocalyptic images such as "abomination that causes desolation." Jesus' return will be quite different than you'd expect, quite different from how things have worked in the distant and recent past. Jesus' return is like lightning, visible from everywhere, unmistakable.

So whatever it is you're looking for to be the "abomination that causes desolation," whether it be in the destruction of the Temple or in some future event, though it's alright to be on the look out for figures and events to which we might be able to apply such apocalyptic imagery, know that Jesus "told you ahead of time" not to believe those who say, "look there he is." For Christ's coming will be quite different from how you might expect. Perhaps it will be in glorious renewal rather than in horrific desolation.

If someone were to make a movie just for me...

If someone were to make a movie just for me it would probably have to capture both of my passions which have made me who I am today, namely, social justice and rugby....

For those of you do not know, I played Rugby in college for four years. Of the many sports in which I have competed throughout my life (baseball, football, wrestling, shot-put/discuss, and Rugby), there is a special place in my heart for Rugby. Its untainted form in the U.S. (because it's just not popular enough to be marketed) is like that of none other. It's raw, it's tough, it's from the heart, and it's about pouring yourself out for the guys next to you. It might be the greatest sport in the world (although on any given day I might say the same about wrestling).

Also, for those of you who do not know, Nelson Mandela is a hero of mine. Mandela once said, "For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." This captures, I believe, the kind of freedom Paul was talking about when he said, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Mandela fought for freedom, he fought for equality, and he empowered a nation to find healing.

Well, Clint Eastwood has brought these two passions of mine together in a movie. The movie Invictus comes out on December 11th. It tells the story of how Nelson Mandela (played by Morgan Freeman) joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team, Francois Pienaar (played by Mat Damon) to help bring healing to their country and to reconcile the racial prejudice that had developed over so many years. It's just my kind of movie--even ironically so. I had to laugh a little when I heard about it just because it's so right up my alley. It's like Hotel Rwanda meets Rudy.

Matthew 24, First Thought Commentary: Part 2

"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" Matthew 24:9-14

These passages are particularly encouraging to me right now. I'm so sick of being misunderstood, called naive, idealistic, liberal, etc. because of my faith in Christ's victory over death. But whatever "persecutions" I think I am going through, they are certainly quite mild compared to what the early Christians were going through. Often misunderstood as "atheists" because they didn't follow the gods of Rome and as rebels because they would not support the war machine which was supposed to be ushering in the Peace of Rome, Pax Romana (which didn't turn out so peaceful for the people who were put under the sword in the name of Pax Romana), the early Christians were often ridiculed, rejected from their communities, and put under the sword for their disobedience to Caesar and their faith in another King called Jesus the Christ. They truly were persecuted for their faith.

What could happen to one of these early Christians if they only saw themselves as "waiting" for Christ's return? What if that was their primary focus? Things could get confusing. If Jesus is coming, where is he? There they were, being persecuted for their faith, put under the sword, denied the ability to buy and sell because they wouldn't take Caesar's mark, and the hope for which they're being persecuted doesn't seem to be coming... Where's Jesus? Where's the Pax Chistos, the peace of Christ, the Kingdom of God? The Romans were probably laughing at the early Christians' seemingly false hope.

Perhaps this part of the text was written for those Christians in particular.

Going back to the basics of Biblical interpretation, I must remind you that Matthew was written some time after Jesus' death and resurrection. For quite some time, the gospels were passed on verbally from one generation to another before they were finally written down. So essentially, within the text, we have two cultures being spoken to (not to mention our own). We have, first of all, the original audience of Jesus, the actual people who sat at his feet, followed him, witnessed his life, watched him die, and experienced his resurrection. Jesus' words would have certainly been for that crowd. But then, secondly, we have Matthew's audience, the people to whom Matthew thought the book was important enough to write. Matthew surely would have remembered the things that were most important for him and his fellows and he would have written the story not just to recount history but specifically to answer the questions and provide some lens for the people to whom he was writing.

This passage is probably specifically for the people to whom Matthew was writing. Sure it was probably out of some memory of what Jesus actually said but what's important is that it answers the questions of Matthew's audience, living post-resurrection Christian lives, following Jesus' teachings, and now experiencing heavy persecution for it. It's Matthew's way of saying, "don't be surprised, this persecution isn't a surprise to Jesus, it's not going to change the plan... look! Jesus expected it and said it was going to happen." He's reminding them that even though persecution is tough, they should still press forward. Even though some are giving in to cynicism and despair, even though some are buying in to death's claim to power, even though many "turn away from the faith and betray and hate each other," and even though some believe the false prophets who pervert the gospel and trade it for some other narrative, there is still hope. "He who stands firm to the end will be saved" and this good news of death's defeat, this gospel of true peace will "be preached in the whole world" even though the empire thinks they can silence it and squelch it by torturing and killing the agents of the gospel. The "love of most" may "grow cold" but Jesus calls the Church to stand firm even when we feel alone, even when we're mocked for still believing that there is hope.

We may not always end up with a sword to our throats or with a gun to our heads, but there are times when it seems that everyone, even our own fellow Christians, has given up on the gospel of Jesus Christ, on the peace that surpasses understanding, and on the freedom Christ offer, even freedom to love our enemies. When we find ourselves standing for the marginalized, fighting for the hope of salvation and insisting that death has lost it's power, we may very well find ourselves feeling very alone if not in chains of physical persecution. Names like, "idealist," "communist," and "liberal" may be hurled at you for being foolish enough to believe Jesus was right when he said "love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked" (Luke 6:35).

Once again, I must point out that this is not in any way mapping out the end times. It is indeed pertinent to the future, to anyone who is experiencing or will experience suffering and persecution for Christ's sake, but it is no time-line of "signs." Rather, it is, as all apocalyptic literature is, resistance literature--written for the marginalized and the oppressed in order to offer to them a lens of hope through which to see the world around them so that they might be empowered to press on toward the invisible but assured victory of the resurrection.

Matthew 24, First Thought Commentary: Part 1

Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains." _Matthew 24:4-8

I feel like I should probably consult the commentaries before writing a post like this but let me just offer my sense of what's going on in Matthew 24. Whereas we are often taught to interpret these passages as sort of mapping out for us what we should look for as "signs of the end times" and such, I don't think that's what's really going on in these passages at all.

Jesus is telling his disciples not to get caught up in the hype of waiting for "the Christ" and not to get deceived into putting their trust in any of the many who might come along claiming to offer salvation, claiming to offer freedom, claiming to be for them what Jesus is and has been for them. Jesus sees in his disciples the potential impatience that might come if their biggest and most distracting question is "when's it comin'?" If we're looking around every corner for "the Christ," if we fall into cynicism, falling into the lie that the kingdom of God is somehow less than what Christ offered (i.e. Matthew 11:5), and if we put our trust in anything less than Christ we will find ourselves among the many who are deceived. These other "Christs" will deceive many, Jesus says, and we only need to look around us to see that this is true.

We only need to look at the Americanism that surrounds us--the trust that so many around us have placed in their country, their economy, their wealth, their own country's military might, and their personal sense of who's "in" and who's "out"--to see that so many have been "deceived" and are missing out on Christ's call to radical self sacrifice and enemy love. This is not some sign of the end times for it was not untrue for the disciples either. They could easily look around them and see people offering themselves, their allegiance, and their trust to Caesar or to Herod. Caesar saw himself as ushering in the peace of Rome, a time of prosperity. Caesar offered himself as a savior with the might of his sword which was quite different from how Jesus offered himself. Many people around the disciples were devoting themselves to Caesar and were trusting them as their Christ. Herod too saw himself as a savior, as the king of the Jews, and as the Son of God. Jesus warns his disciples not to settle, out of impatience or cynicism, for any system or leader who claims to offer freedom, salvation, or liberty which are precisely the things that only Christ offers and offers freely.

Jesus then refers to a pattern with which the disciples again would have been familiar--"wars and rumors of wars." As the empire was busy expanding itself, conquering nation after nation through military conquest, it makes sense that the disciples would have known "wars and rumors of wars." Their entire history, in fact, was filled with wars and rumors of wars. Ever since the curse of Genesis 3, the chaos of nation rising against nation, famines (I'm sure the disciples knew about those), and earthquakes has been reality. This pattern of chaos threatens over and over again to claim creation (through the flood), to claim Israel and God's covenant (through slavery in Egypt), and to claim that death is the true end of the world (through killing Jesus on the cross) but God continually disrupts the pattern with creative peacemaking (with an ark, a speech impaired herdsman raised by Egyptians, and with glorious resurrection) showing us that just as you're about to close the book, resurrection is just around the corner. When it seems hopeless and when it seems that the end has come, Jesus says "such things must happen, but the end is still to come" as if to say "this isn't how it ends, death doesn't win, this is just the beginning. Resurrection is around the corner, don't give up!"

Birth pains, thank God, is not where the story of life ends... it's just where it begins. Though we might be tempted to give up, there is precious life yet to come... the best is yet to come. It's as if to say, "don't lose hope, press through the suffering, take up the cross, keep living the call of the Kingdom of God and move toward new life... it's just around the corner."

So let's not get caught up in the hype of looking around every corner for Jesus' return and for signs thereof. Let's not give in to the temptation of thinking that wars and rumors of wars are the end, that they're the inevitable path to destruction, that the patterns of chaos should divert us from the path of the Kingdom of God when in fact we should not be alarmed at these things, we should not think that they're really the way it's got to be, we should continue to work for the best that's yet to come.

Talking Politics

I've decided that as much as I enjoy and value the discipline of Political Theology, I just hate politics. I guess, like everyone else, as long as I'm talking with people who agree with me I do alright but even then I get frustrated with people on either side of a political argument. I have always been one to try and see both sides of an argument (although I can't claim to be without bias because I hope I'll always come out on the side of the oppressed and of those who suffer). But it's difficult because it seems that the people who are open minded are rarely passionate about politics and the people who do care about politics are rarely interested in hearing both sides. Of course there are many exceptions, exceptions like many of my friends (including Danny) who are never so quick to a conclusion that they miss the full argument of both sides. But even with those exceptions, I can't help but dread political conversations.

Everyone thinks they know something that "nobody realizes." Everyone thinks they're the "educated" ones. Everyone thinks that they came to their conclusion by unadulterated logic. It makes me wonder if we're all just a bit dumber, a bit more ignorant, and a lot more arrogant than we think we are. The truth is almost always on both sides of any argument. The debate is rarely truly about one side being "right" and another being "wrong" (although I am convinced that this is the case sometimes). The true debate is in the values of either side--what is important to one and to the other. We shouldn't make it out to be about "right" and "wrong" if it's not because we'll find ourselves divided with little hope of overcoming our differences.

An example, though I don't want to make any statement about which side I'm on in this particular post, is the health care debate. Though both sides seem to have "truth" on their side and both sides seem to be logical, the true debate is about what's important. Many of the people I know who are against a public option are against it because they don't want more taxes. They're convinced that if there is a public option "somebody's gotta pay for it" and that somebody will be them along with all the other hard working Americans. Other reasons may be that they're convinced that their own health care with get worse, that the government will have too much control, or that it'll increase incentive for illegal immigration. Whatever the case, they have their values that they aren't willing to compromise. Well, the other side is in the same situation.

Many people I know who are for a public option are so convinced that everyone should have health care, that it's a moral issue, blah blah blah, that they don't really care who pays for it. It's a problem and it needs to be solved, so moving forward is crucial and the details need to be worked out along the way. They've decided that universal health care is important and they're not willing to compromise on that value.

Neither side is "stupid." They just share different values and they can't get past that. If we all realized that and if we realized that we're not privy to some secret knowledge that the other side doesn't have then we may be able to have more real and productive political conversations.

Today in the same two hour period I heard someone say "those liberals just don't get it" and I saw someone else holding a sign that said "to hell with the people who support the insurance companies." When's it gonna stop?