Harmony #49: “I Am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:1-21)

“I tell you the solemn truth, the one who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber.[2] The one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The doorkeeper opens the door for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he has brought all his own sheep out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. They will never follow a stranger, but will run away from him, because they do not recognize the stranger’s voice.” Jesus told them this parable, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

The story from the previous chapter is continuing. The once blind man is the sheep who hears Jesus’ voice; those who kicked him out of the synagogue are the thieves and robbers;[3] Jesus is the good shepherd whose voice the healed man is following.

So Jesus said to them again, “I tell you the solemn truth, I am the door for the sheep.[4]  All who came before me were thieves and robbers,[5] but the sheep did not listen to them.[6] I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.[7]

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep and runs away. So the wolf attacks the sheep and scatters them.  Because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep, he runs away.

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not come from this sheepfold.[8] I must bring them too, and they will listen to my voice, so that there will be one flock and one shepherd.[9]

 This sheepfold is the Jewish people; the other sheep are the Gentiles.

 This is why the Father loves me—because I lay down my life, so that I may take it back again. No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down of my own free will. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it back again. This commandment I received from my Father.”

Another sharp division took place among the Jewish people because of these words. Many of them were saying, “He is possessed by a demon and has lost his mind! Why do you listen to him?”  Others said, “These are not the words of someone possessed by a demon. A demon cannot cause the blind to see, can it?”

We learn something about shepherds and sheep in this passage – that is, about Jesus and humanity. There is potentially a lot to unpack from this passage, but I am going to focus on two main points.

The first point is this, and we will circle back to it at the end: Jesus is the Good Shepherd. We are on Episode 49 in his life, so I suspect this point is clear by now J He contrasts himself sharply with the false shepherds, the hired hands and the wolves; that is, those inside and outside of the flock who are there to plunder the sheep rather than bring them life.

The second point is this: sheep recognize and respond to the voice of our shepherd. This is apparently a thing with sheep. They know the voice, or the shepherd blows a whistle or plays on a flute, and the sheep will follow. Court cases where someone’s sheep were stolen have been decided by having the shepherds in question call to the sheep. On the flip side, the same instinct that enables a sheep to recognize the voice of the true shepherd also prompts it to flee from a stranger.[10]

Do you want to know who your shepherd really is? Ask yourself which voice you follow and which voice you flee.

I want to walk us through some scenarios. This isn’t about the initial response to the call of Jesus to follow him. That is obviously an important part of the parable. As we have been going through the life of Jesus, we have noted how many times he identifies himself through his words and actions as the promised Messiah, the Savior. Just last week we saw the blind man hear his voice, respond, and worship him. There’s a reason we keep coming back to the reality of Jesus as the Savior of the world: the Bible keeps reminding us of it!

But there’s a second part to this parable. There’s a rhythm of the sheep ‘going in and out’, which I think is another way of saying that life goes on J If they share a pen with other flocks or are in fields with other flocks, there’s going to be other shepherds calling out. There might still be thieves breaking in to attempt to plunder the herd, or wolves lurking about. The sheep must remain attuned to the voice of the shepherd. It could literally save their lives. So here we are this morning, sheep :) Let’s do a little self-assessment How are we doing listening to the voice of the Shepherd who brings us life vs. the thieves and wolves that would plunder us?

·      Repentance or hardness of heart? Do we follow the voice that leads us to see your sins and failures honestly and acknowledge them to God and others so we can bear the fruit of repentance (Matthew 3:8), or do we follow a voice that tells us to excuse ourselves, or not think of our sins as that big of a deal, or think that at least we aren’t as bad as THEY are!! (Luke 18:10-14)

·      Forgiveness or bitterness? Do we follow the voice that leads us to extend to others what God has given to us through Jesus and that we hope others will extend to us (Ephesians 4:31-32), or do we cling to unforgiveness and bitterness, keeping score of what’s been done to us, filing it away for future use in case we ever need to shame or control someone?

·      Humility or pride? Do we follow the voice that reminds us to see ourselves honestly, which is going to bring about humility (1 Peter 5:5) because not everything about us is awesome? Or do we follow that voice that lies about how amazing we are so that we can avoid having to see ourselves as God and others see us, because that might involve repentance and humility?

·      Kindness or callousness?  Do we follow the voice of kindness, an attribute of God that leads people to repentance (Romans 2:4) and that Paul described as spiritual clothes in which to dress ourselves (Colossians 3:12)?  Are we looking out for others, purposefully saying and doing things that remind people that they matter and they are worthy of care? Or do we overlook or ignore those around us because we don’t think they deserve kindness?

·      Peace-making or peace-breaking? Do we follow the voice that leads us into spaces to bring peace to situations (Matthew 5:9), or do we follow the voice that leads us into unnecessary drama, silly arguments and destructive gossip? When we get into a fender bender with someone who apparently met their first roundabout, and we both get out of our cars, will we escalate or deescalate the situation? What about when the self-checkout doesn’t work? Or when our friends are in tension? Or when our spouse has had a long day and isn’t in the best of moods? Do we make it better or worse?

·      Self-control or indulgence? Do we follow the voice that leads us into discipline and health physically, relationally, spiritually (Proverbs 16:32), or the one that tells us anyone or anything that wants to put a boundary around some part of us is the problem? Do we love the saying, “You can’t have me at my best if you can’t handle me at my worst” because what we really mean is, “I don’t want to have to care if I hurt you by my lack of control”?

·      Hope or Despair? Do we follow a voice that reminds us God is with us – in the storm, in the sun, for better or worse, for rich or for poor, even through another round of elections (!)? We have hope, because Jesus rose from the dead (1 Peter 1:3). We serve a risen Savior who is King over even the most daunting of situations and adversaries.  Or do we hear someone say that the sky is falling, take our eyes off of Jesus, and begin to sink into a kind of clinging despair that keeps us anxious and fearful?

·      Community or isolation? Do we follow a voice that calls us into the rhythms of church community and relationship (Romans 12), or the one that tells us we can do this on our own?

·      Honest transparency or hiddenness? Do we follow a voice that leads us into being known not only by God but also by others (Galatians 6:2; Proverbs 28:13), or do we hide everything in us that we think others might not like or approve of?

·      Turn the other cheek or slap back? Do we follow a voice that does not respond to antagonism with antagonism but with generosity and kindness (Matthew 5:38-39)? Does it tell us to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21)? Or do we follow a voice that tells us an eye for an eye is absolutely our right?

·      Generosity or greed? Do we follow a voice that leads us into holding our possessions with an open hand, realizing it’s God’s anyway as we look for ways to bless others (Acts 4:32-33)? Or do we follow the voice that just keeps whispering that we don’t have enough yet, and we already gave God some so the rest is ours to do with what we want?

·      Hospitality or stinginess? Do we follow the voice that reminds us to think the best of others until proven wrong (Philippians 2:3; Romans 12:10), or do we lead with negative and judgmental assumptions until proven wrong? “That guy on the corner of 14th street should just get a job!” Maybe it’s not that simple. “I can’t believe that person ignored me at church today.” Maybe that person can’t believe they pushed through their anxiety and depression and made it to church today, and that’s the most they have to give this morning.

·      Gentleness or harshness? Do we follow the voice that reminds us that a soft answer turns away wrath (Proverbs 15:1)? Or when that other voice whispers, “Listen, if they can dish it out, they better be ready to take it!” are we ready to meet fire with fire?

·      Grace or merit? Do we follow the voice that leads us to extend undeserved mercy (Proverbs 3:3-4) in line with what Jesus did for us (Luke 6:36), or do people need to earn grace from us…which won’t be grace anymore if it’s earned.  

·      Justice or injustice? Do we follow a voice that leads us into unjust places in the world to right wrongs and challenge corruption (Micah 6:8; Proverbs 31:8-9), or do we follow the voice that says either it’s not happening or it’s not important?

·      Serving or being served? Do we follow the voice and the life of the one who was broken and spilled out for others (Galatians 5:13), or the voice that keeps telling us that those around us are resources to be plundered to make us happy and comfortable?

·      Patience or lashing out? Do we follow the voice that tells us in moments when we want to lash out to take a deep breath and send up a prayer as we count to 10 (Colossians 3:12), or the voice that tells us it will feel really good to let that person have it?

·      Love or not-love (hate?fear?indifference?) Do we follow the voice of agape love into radical, self-giving care for those around us, either directly or by praying and hoping for their best, or do we refuse to invest our lives because we despise them, or are afraid of them, or we just don’t care?

To what voice do you listen? Who is your shepherd?

* * * * *

And now, let’s come back to the shepherd whose voice we are trying to hear.  What makes the Good Shepherd so good? There are some obvious points in the parable: 

·      His ability to save the sheep

·      His protection and provision for the sheep

·      His knowledge of the flock

·      His expanding of the flock

But as I was studying this week, a different aspect stood out to me. The Good Shepherd does not drive his sheep; He leads them.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing that I need. He makes a resting place in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The sheep want to follow the Good Shepherd – and why not? There is something compelling, safe, and nourishing about his presence. They don’t have to be coerced into the flock; they have been convinced. They don’t have to be frightened into the kingdom; they are fascinated. They don’t have to be pressured; they have been persuaded. They don’t have to be entertained; they have been entranced.

What does it look like to model this principle in our representation of the Good Shepherd to the world? If Jesus is leading his sheep, I wonder what it looks like for us to lead those around into the way of the Shepherd? How might we be compelling, safe and nourishing people like the Good Shepherd such that others want to follow us where we are going – which is to the fields and the fold of the Good Shepherd?

I think we just saw the list. When we listen to the voice of the Shepherd, and we follow Him – first into salvation and then into sanctification - our lives and relationships will increasingly reflect the character of the Shepherd:

·      Forgiveness

·      Humility

·      Kindness

·      Peace-making

·      Self-control

·      Hope

·      Community

·      Honest transparency

·      Overcoming evil with good

·      Generosity

·      Hospitality

·      Gentleness

·      Grace

·      Justice

·      Serving

·      Patience

·      Love

If that’s the community that emerges as we follow Jesus, that’s Kingdom gold. That’s the abundance of life into which the Shepherd has been leading us all along.

____________________________________________________________________________

[1] The most important background for this metaphor is Ezek 34, where God berates Israel’s false shepherds for fleecing God’s sheep rather than guarding, guiding, and nurturing them (cf. Isa 56:11; Jer 23:1–4; Zech 11).

[2] thief . . . robber. Symbolizes the Pharisees, who belittle and expel the sheep (see, e.g., how they treat the healed man in ch. 9). (NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible)

[3] Jesus portrays some of Israel’s leaders in his day as being like the leaders of Israel who were condemned as exploitive shepherds in the OT (Jer 23:1 – 2; Eze 34:2 – 6,8). (NIV  Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible)

[4] I am the gate. Because the hill country was cool during winter, shepherds kept sheep in pens close to home; during pasturing season, however, they used temporary shelter… some shepherds sleep across the entrance to a temporary shelter, guarding it themselves. (NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible)

[5] “ All professing to be themselves the door, to be the means by which men enter the fold, to be the Mediator between man and God.” (Ellicott’s Commentary)

[6] All who came before me may refer to messianic pretenders (e.g., Acts 5:36–37; 21:38). thieves and robbers. Compare Ezek. 34:2–4; see note on John 10:1.

[7] Jesus’ promise of abundant life brings to mind OT prophecies of abundant blessing (e.g., Ezek. 34:12–15, 25–31).

[8] The other sheep that are not of this fold are Gentiles (see Isa. 56:8).

[9]  Ezekiel 34:23, “I will set up one Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, even My servant David; He shall feed them, and He shall be their Shepherd.”

[10] Believer’s Bible Commentary

Harmony #48: Healing a Man Born Blind (John 9:1-41)

Now as Jesus was passing by, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who committed the sin that caused him to be born blind, this man or his parents?” [1] Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,[2] but he was born blind[3] so that the acts of God may be revealed through what happens to him.

As I understand that last comment, Jesus is smacking down the idea that sickness must be a result of someone’s sin, and instead elevating the value of the sick person by viewing them as one in whom God’s glory rather than their sinfulness will be revealed.

We must perform the deeds of the one who sent me as long as it is daytime. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said this, he spat on the ground and made some mud with the saliva.[4] He smeared the mud on the blind man’s eyes and said to him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated “sent”). So the blind man went away and washed, and came back seeing.

I wouldn't overthink why Jesus did it this way. It meant something to the man and did not seem to surprise the people. Apparently, using saliva was a common medical approach to eye issues. What confounded the people was not how Jesus did it, but what it accomplished.

First side note: Jesus healed people in all kinds of ways: up close, at a distance; upon request or on no request; instantly or in stages. There is no need to try to discover a miraculous potion made of clay and spittle. 

Second side note: Jesus didn’t need to apply a known medicinal practice to this man’s eyes. He could have just healed him. This isn’t the first time Jesus has outwardly used a natural remedy while bringing about a supernatural result. As I see it, it’s okay to go to a doctor and pray for healing. These don't have to be contradictory things. Even if you think it’s just ‘going through the motions’, using medical help for illness does not reveal a lack of faith.

Then the neighbors and the people who had seen him previously as a beggar began saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some people said, “This is the man!” while others said, “No, but he looks like him.”

The man himself kept insisting, “I am the one!” So they asked him, “How then were you made to see?” He replied, “The man called Jesus made mud, smeared it on my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and was able to see.”

They said to him, “Where is that man?” He replied, “I don’t know.” They brought the man who used to be blind to the Pharisees.  (Now the day on which Jesus made the mud and caused him to see was a Sabbath.) So the Pharisees asked him again how he had gained his sight. He replied, “He put mud on my eyes and I washed, and now I am able to see.”

Then some of the Pharisees[5] began to say, “This man is not from God, because he does not observe the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such miraculous signs?” Thus there was a division among them. So again they asked the man who used to be blind, “What do you say about him, since he caused you to see?”

“He is a prophet,” the man replied. Now the Jewish religious leaders refused to believe that he had really been blind and had gained his sight until at last they summoned the parents of the man who had become able to see. They asked the parents, “Is this your son, whom you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?”

So his parents replied, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But we do not know how he is now able to see, nor do we know who caused him to see. Ask him, he is a mature adult. He will speak for himself.”

(His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Jewish religious leaders. For the Jewish leaders had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. For this reason his parents said, “He is a mature adult, ask him.”)

Then they summoned the man who used to be blind a second time and said to him, “Promise before God to tell the truth. We know that this man is a sinner.” He replied, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. I do know one thing—that although I was blind, now I can see.”[6]

Then they said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he cause you to see?” He answered, “I told you already and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You people don’t want to become his disciples too, do you?” They heaped insults on him, saying, “You are his disciple! We are disciples of Moses! We know that God has spoken to Moses! We do not know where this man comes from!”[7]

The man replied, “This is a remarkable thing, that you don’t know where he comes from, and yet he caused me to see! We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is devout and does his will, God listens to him. Never before has anyone heard of someone causing a man born blind to see. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

They replied, “You were born completely in sinfulness, and yet you presume to teach us?” So they threw him out. [8]Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, so he found the man and said to him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

The man replied, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus told him, “You have seen him; he is the one speaking with you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

Jesus said, “For judgment (a verdict) I have come into this world, so that those who do not see may gain their sight, and the ones who see may become blind.”  Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and asked him, “We are not blind too, are we?”[9] Jesus replied, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, but now because you claim that you can see, your guilt remains.”[10]

* * * * *

Let’s talk about this verdict of judgment, and blindness, and light.

When light comes into the world, it renders a verdict in the sense that it shows truth. I tore apart an old sofa last week. Before the light revealed what all had fallen between the cracks, I had no idea how much junk had accumulated in the frame. But then light rendered a verdict: a lot. That’s how light works. It shows us what is true, and then we have to decide what to do with that. It is inevitable: when light is introduced, it separates light from darkness. This is a principle as old as Genesis 1.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. (Genesis 1:3-4)

So how do we reconcile Jesus saying, “For judgment I have come into the world” with John writing, “God did not send his son into the world to condemn it, but to save it”? (John 3:17). By the same principle, the light is not a judgment in the sense of a punishment; it’s just that when light is introduced, it renders a verdict on reality.

Ephesians 5:13 “But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible…”

John 3:19-21  “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”[11]

The arrival of Jesus brought a light of truth the revealed the condition of humanity and the nature of God. The light that starts by revealing truth goes on to reveal what people will do with it (that’s the verdict): people either love truth or they don’t. It’s one reason non-violent Jesus can say in Matthew 11:25 and Matthew 10:34; "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." Those sound like fighting words, but they’re not: the sword is the Word of God whose truth pierces us to our souls (Hebrews 4:12).

A new kind of light is introduced, and it clarifies the chasm between spiritual light and spiritual darkness. Those who love the darkness of deception will be held responsible for why they rejected the truth. Here’s a good explanation for the judgment question from Ellicott’s Commentary:[12]

“The special form of the word rendered “judgment” in this place is used nowhere else by St. John, and indicates that…His coming was a bringing light into the darkness of…hearts, a testing of the false and the true…That light judged no one, and yet by it everyone was judged.” (Ellicott’s Commentary For English Readers)[13]

“As those are most blind who will not see, so their blindness is most dangerous who fancy they do see. No patients are managed with so much difficulty as those who… say they are well, and that nothing ails them. The sin of those that are self-confident remains… and therefore the power of their sin remains unbroken.” (Benson Commentary)

I was thinking of when I have had knee and shoulder surgeries done, or when I got my stent. I was broken and sick and needed healing. The doctors did not do Xrays and MRIs to bring condemnation but to bring clarity as to the nature of the problem. They were there to save me. Did what their ‘light’ revealed render a verdict? You bet. ‘That’ is torn; ‘that’ is not. ‘That’ is blocked; ‘that’ is not. That new knowledge didn’t make me more sick; it clarified just how sick I was – and what kind of treatment could make me well.

That’s how Jesus can say he came to save the world not condemn it, even while bringing truth that renders a verdict on the true nature of the world, humanity, and of Jesus himself. Light brings (an often uncomfortable) truth that is for our good and that is meant to save us; we have to decide what to do with the truth we have been given.

That’s the first point.

Second point: People are responsible for the light given to them. When the Bible tells us that not one person is righteous on their own[14], it’s referring to everyone everywhere, even those who have not had the light of the Gospel specifically presented to them. How is that fair?  Well, the author of Romans shed some light on this.

For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus (Romans 2:12-16). 

Let’s walk through this one phrase at  time just so we have clarity. 

·  For when the Gentiles (those who don’t have the Law)

·  by nature (they have imago dei. There are moral and ethical requirements widely recognized and honored in people generally. It was a commonplace of rabbinic teaching that Abraham kept the laws of Sinai long before they were given.[15])

·  do the things contained in the law (they do right things)[16]

·  these, not having the written law, are a law unto themselves, (“Gentiles, though not given the Mosaic law, also have some knowledge of God’s law”[17] by the light and grace of God. It’s a moral code, fallen and incomplete though it may be.)[18]

·  who show the law written in their hearts, (by the same divine hand which wrote the commandments on the tables of stone) 

·  their conscience and their thoughts bearing witness, accusing or defending them ([19]“The way conscience operates is described as a process of accusation or defense by the thoughts of a person, the inner life being pictured as a kind of debating forum, so that at times one finds oneself exonerated at the bar of conscience, at other times convicted of wrong.”[20]  

Here is an example of how this works. A fourth century Roman emperor named Julian the Apostate (he was raised Christian and reverted to paganism) wrote “Against the Galilaeans,” which criticized Christianity and its Jewish foundation. At one point, he disparages the uniqueness of the Ten Commandments:

“What nation is there, I swear before the gods, which does not think that it ought to keep the commandments, excluding ‘Thou shalt not worship other gods’ and ‘Remember the Sabbath day’? Thus also penalties have been assigned to transgressors...” (Against the Galilaeans, 152D).[21]

Unwittingly, I think, Julian made Paul’s point in Romans: God has provided all with the ability to respond to a moral order that can be known at least to some degree. God, through general revelation of nature and conscience, has ensured that people know that there is good and evil, and that they are responsible to do good and not evil.  

The apostle hath explained what the light of nature is, and demonstrated that there is such a light existing. It is a revelation from God written originally on the heart or mind of man; consequently is a revelation common to all nations; and, so far as it goes, it agrees with the things written in the external revelation which God hath made to some nations. (Benson’s Commentary)

Even Gentiles, who had not the written law, had that within, which directed them what to do by the light of nature. Conscience is a witness, and first or last will bear witness…Conscience is a witness, and first or last will bear witness. As they kept or broke these natural laws and dictates, their consciences either acquitted or condemned them. (Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary)

The point is not that those without divine revelations will escape the Day of Reckoning.  They will have to give an answer like everyone else for what they have done with what they were given. And, like all of us, they will not keep the dictates of the Law.

“Paul emphasized that all individuals will be judged on the basis of their response to the revelation they have received. Gentiles will not be condemned for failing to adhere to the stipulations of the law, which were unknown to them.  God will not judge Gentiles on the basis of the Jewish law, and the Jew will not be excused by the Gentiles’ failure to uphold the law… Furthermore, human conscience serves as grounds for condemnation because it establishes a framework of right and wrong and reflects the law written in their hearts”. (NKJV Evangelical Study Bible)[22]

People will not have to give an answer based on the light they did not receive; we will all give an answer for what we have done with the light we have been given. Those who have never seen a Bible can still know God’s revelation of himself in nature and in their consciences. They, too, have a light for which they will give an answer. All will be judged for their actions and motives, which are controlled by their consciences.[23] 

·    How are you responding internally to the light you have been given? If you are sitting in this church, the Bible is yours to read. How are you responding to the light Jesus has revealed to you? How are you responding to the person of Jesus as revealed in Scripture? What has it shown in your heart, soul, and mind, and how are you responding. “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24) How’s that going? Are you able to be honest, humble, surrendered, committed to dealing with what the light reveals?

·    What are you doing externally with the light of revelation you have been given? Is it changing the rhythms of life? Is it ordering your steps? Are you living like a different kind of person than you were before you had the truth? Has the truth set you free from the bondage of sin? Are you stepping into or hiding from the light?

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[1] “Many in ancient times believed serious birth defects were the product of personal sin—thus the disciples’ question in verse 2.” (CBS Tony Evans Study Bible)

[2] (Acts 28:4) “The people of the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other, “A murderer, no doubt! Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live.”

[3] F. F. Bruce notes, "This does not mean that God deliberately caused the child to be born blind in order that, after many years, his glory should be displayed in the removal of the blindness; to think so would again be an aspersion on the character of God. It does mean that God overruled the disaster of the child's blindness so that, when the child grew to manhood, he might, by recovering his sight, see the glory of God in the face of Christ, and others, seeing this work of God, might turn to the true Light of the World.”

[4] “We know from the pages of Pliny, and Tacitus, and Suetonius, that the saliva jejuna was held to be a remedy in cases of blindness, and that the same remedy was used by the Jews is established by the writings of the Rabbis.” (Ellicott’s Commentary) 

[5] The Pharisaic school of Hillel permitted prayer for the sick on the Sabbath; the dominant Shammaite schoo didn’t. (NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible) 

[6] “Many people do not bear witness to Christ because they fear they will be asked questions they cannot answer…“That I don't know, but what I do know is this,” is foundational to witnessing one's faith to others.” (Orthodox Study Bible)

[7] “Critics sometimes insulted their opponents by refusing to name them (and)denying their importance.” (NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible)

[8] “The man who had been physically blind had become a believer, for his spiritual eyes had also been opened. On the other hand, the Pharisees could see physically but were spiritually blind.”(Africa Bible Commentary)

[9] “Many ancient writers spoke of spiritual or moral blindness (see Isaiah 6:9 – 10; 42:18 – 19); some also spoke of those who were physically blind yet had great spiritual insight.” (NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible)

[10] Paul makes a similar argument in Rom. 1:18–3:20.

[11] There are plenty of other ‘light’ verses, such as this one in 2 Corinthians 4:6  “ God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”

[12] “Bringing a sword” is simply an observation that not all will accept the truth about Jesus, and disagreement over this issue will lead to conflict.

[13] “His coming would manifest the disposition and character of every man. The humble, teachable, and upright, though they were as much in the dark with respect to religion and the knowledge of divine things, as the blind man had been with respect to the light of the sun, should be greatly enlightened by his coming: whereas those, who in their own opinion were wise, and learned, and clear-sighted, should appear to be, what they really were, blind, that is…foolish.” (Benson Commentary)

[14] Romans 3:10

[15] Expositor’s Bible Commentary

[16] In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul deals with a disturbing situation in the Corinthian church: “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.” Seneca the Younger (another contemporary of Paul) wrote a play called Phaedra in which Phaedra desires her step-son, Hippolytus. Phaedra’s nurse counsels her: “I beg you, then, extinguish the flames of your incestuous love, a sin which the barbarians have yet to commit. The nomadic Getae do not practice incest, nor the inhospitable Taurians, nor the scattered Scythians. Expel this perversion from your mind.” (Paul and the Pagans, faith.edu)

[17] Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary Of The New Testament

[18] “Without individual conscience, there could be no public moral code. But we believe the main reference here to be to the public code; to the general consciousness and opinion of heathens that right and wrong are eternally different, and that judgment is to be accordingly hereafter…and as all pointing to a great manifestation of the truth of the principle at the Last Day.” (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges)

[19] Expositor’s Bible Commentary

[20] Benson’s Commentary

[21] “Paul and the Pagans,” faith.edu

[22] “Heathen sinners shall be justly condemned; for though without the law, they have a substitute for it.” Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

[23] Africa Bible Commentary

Harmony #46: The Meeting of Misery and Mercy[1] (John 7-8:12)

Jesus moves around the Galilean countryside to avoid Judea, because there were Jews there who wanted to kill him. His brothers try to convince him to do a bunch of public miracle, and Jesus declines. His brothers leave for the Festival of Booths, and eventually Jesus slips in. When he gets there, the Jewish leaders are looking for him and the crowds are divided about who he is. Jesus eventually heads to the Temple (Sadducee territory) and starts to preach. The people are amazed at his ability. Jesus say,

I do not claim ownership of My words; they are a gift from the One who sent Me. If anyone is willing to act according to His purposes and is open to hearing truth, he will know the source of My teaching. Does it come from God or from Me?  If a man speaks his own words, constantly quoting himself, he is after adulation. But I chase only after glory for the One who sent Me. My intention is authentic and true. You’ll find no wrong motives in Me… (7: 16-18)

The people are like: I think this is the guy they want to kill, but nobody is challenging him. Do they think he really is the Messiah? But, he’s from Galilee so….maybe not.

You think you know Me and where I have come from, but I have not come here on My own. I have been sent by the One who embodies truth. You do not know Him.  I know Him because I came from Him. He has sent Me. Some were trying to seize Him because of His words, but no one laid as much as a finger on Him—His time had not yet arrived.  (7: 28-30)

Meanwhile, some of the crowd was thinking he might be the Messiah. So the Pharisees and temple authorities sent officers (Roman-backed muscle) to arrest Jesus. They don’t. We will see why in minute. On the last day of the festival, Jesus speaks again.

If any of you is thirsty, come to Me and drink. If you believe in Me, rivers of living water will flow from within you [a reference to Isaiah 41]  Jesus was referring to the realities of life in the Spirit made available to everyone who believes in Him. But the Spirit had not yet arrived because Jesus had not been glorified…  (7:37-39)

Rumors spread. Some want to arrest him, but no one does. The officers who failed to arrest him say,

We listened to Him. Never has a man spoken like this man. (7:46)

The Pharisees were like, “You are stupid, and this is why we are under God’s curse. (7:49) But Nicodemus (that Nicodemus) said,

Does our law condemn someone without first giving him a fair hearing and learning something about him? (7:51)

 Cue the episode with the woman caught in adultery, which in this context definitely reads like a set-up to find a way to condemn Jesus.

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.  He awoke early in the morning to return to the temple. When He arrived, the people surrounded Him, so He sat down and began to teach them. While He was teaching, the scribes and Pharisees brought in a woman who was caught in the act of adultery; and they stood her before Jesus.

The Pharisees said, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  Moses says in the law that we are to kill such women by stoning. What do You say about it?’ This was all set up as a test for Jesus; His answers would give them grounds to accuse Him of crimes against Moses’ law. Jesus bent over and wrote something in the dirt with His finger. They persisted in badgering Jesus, so He stood up straight.

Jesus replied, ‘Let those among you who have not sinned cast the first stone.’[2]  Once again Jesus bent down to the ground and resumed writing with His finger. The Pharisees who heard Him stood still for a few moments and thenbegan to leave slowly, one by one, beginning with the older men.

 Eventually only Jesus and the woman remained, and Jesus looked up. Jesus said, ‘Dear woman, where is everyone? Are we alone? Did no one step forward to condemn you?’ The woman replied, ‘Lord, no one has condemned me.’ Jesus said,‘Well, I do not condemn you either; go, and from now on sin no more.’

Again, Jesus spoke to the crowds. ‘I am the light that shines through the world[3]; if you walk with Me, you will thrive in the nourishing light that gives life and will not know darkness.’

__________________________________

In the story of the Woman Caught In Adultery, we see Jesus embody God’s perspective on how to balance judgment and mercy.[4] We will first look at the context of the story, then at the person of Jesus, and finally why this story matters to us. Let’s start with some background.

·      This happened on the day after thcelebration of the Feast of the Tabernacle/ Feast of Booths. The Jews lived in huts during this time to commemorate how the Israelites lived in tents during the Exodus.

·      Moses had commanded that during the days of this Feast the law be read, so this was an annual, purposeful focus on the Law of God.

·      The main purpose was to thank God for his provision during the past in the wilderness wanderings (Lev 23:39-43) and in the present as seen in the harvest just completed (Deuteronomy 16:13-15).

·      The people were reminded of their profound dependence upon God for provision. They would recite Psalm 118:25 every day: “O Lord, defend/rescue/deliver us, and prosper us.”

·      They had a ceremony in which four different types of plants were brought to the altar. These four plants symbolized four different kinds of Jews.  One plant had a good fragrance and a good taste, symbolizing knowledge of the Torah and good deeds. One only had fragrance (only good deeds); one only had taste (only knowledge of the Torah), and one had neither. 

·      There was a series of water offerings each morning in the temple, commemorating the provision of water in the wilderness. When Jesus tells them to come to him to drink (7:37-38), he is linking himself to God’s provision in the Exodus.

·      Menorahs would be lit in the House of Water Drawing, which was in the Court of Women in the temple. People would dance and sing, “Blessed be he who hath not sinned; and he who sinned and repented, he is forgiven.”[5]

·      Jesus' proclamation that he is the light of the world (8:12) linked him to the feast's lamp-lighting ceremonies that commemorated the pillar of fire during the Exodus. The morning that Jesus is challenged is the morning that four festival lamps in the court in the Temple ("The light of the world") were put out.

So Jesus claimed to be the Water and the Light while quoting a revered Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, all to show that he is the Messiah for whom they have been longing. The good news was that the God whom they worshipped during this feast was with them. Many of the people were starting to believe. The Pharisees want to kill him; they think he was blaspheming. But to kill him they need a formal trial and a Rome-sanctioned execution.[6]

So the next morning, on the Sabbath, they meet Jesus in the temple. The temple area was about 35 acres, and in the middle sat a courtyard surrounded on three sides by a large, covered walkway that connected the temple court to Herod’s garrison. His soldiers patrolled the courtyard by walking on top of the covered walkways in case anything bad developed. Josephus noted that during feast days, an entire legion (over 4,000 men) would patrol the temple area.

Into this venue, the Pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery for judgment. They most likely bring her into the Court of Women. If all went well, they might be able to trick Jesus into ordering capital punishment, and then Rome would take care of their problem because at the time the Sanhedrin needed Rome’s permission for capital punishment. If that didn’t happen, they figured they could show how much more they knew about the law with the hope that this crowd of simpletons would finally reject him as Law Breaker and so reject him as the Messiah.

This seems like a win/win for the Pharisees. Jesus gets arrested or his lack of knowledge of the Law gets him rejected. Things do not go as planned.

·      As has often been noted, they only brought the woman. That’s unusual to say the least. Even then, it took two to tango, and the Law demanded that both be brought to the trial.

·      A formal accusation required two eyewitnesses. There was no circumstantial evidence allowed in a case like this. The eyewitnesses would have warned couple ahead of time about the consequences of their action, the couple had to acknowledge this, and then the witnesses had to watch them do it. Odds are really good those standards were not met. I suspect Jesus (and perhaps the whole crowd) realized this.

·      The death penalty was virtually obsolete in Jewish culture by the time of Jesus[7] (in fact, that sentence was highly unusual ever since the time of Moses). Over the centuries, the Sanhedrin had increasingly made the standards incredibly high because they believed the Law was meant to teach, not kill.[8]

·      Remember: the Sanhedrin needed Rome’s permission.

·      A legit trial had to happen in front of a duly constituted court, which included over twenty Sanhedrin leaders who sat in a semicircle so they could be sure they were all paying attention. If capital punishment happened outside of a court ruling, those who administered the punishment were considered murderers.

·      The Talmudic Sanhedrin trecate (treatise), written before the time of Christ, clarified Deuteronomy’s command that the eyewitnesses should start the stoning (thus the “cast the first stone”).[9] There apparently aren't any eyewitnesses – or at least the text does not record their presence.

·      Capital punishment could not be carried out on a day sacred to religion – and this was a Sabbath.

So, following a celebration in which the people prayed for God to save them, and in which they celebrated the combination of Law and Good Deeds, Jesus will show what it looks like when their longings are fulfilled. He begins by honoring the Law.

When an accusation was brought, a priest was required to write the law that had been broken, along with the names of the accused, somewhere where the marks were not permanent – which was usually the dust on the floor of the temple. Early Armenian translations of this passage claim that is the proper understanding of this passage[10] - that Jesus wrote first the name and crime of the woman in the dust on the temple courtyard floor.

After Jesus writes, he says,  “Let those sinless of the same crime (which should be one of her eyewitness accusers) cast the first stone.”  It’s a brilliant response. First, I suspect it reminded the crowd of the song that had been sung in that very court - “Blessed be he who hath not sinned; and he who sinned and repented, he is forgiven”. If so, Jesus’ comment reminded them of their sin and chastised them for wanting to do something that is at odds with what they just celebrated.

After Jesus says this, He begins writing again; considering the Armenian texts as well as the fact that everyone will eventually leave, it seems reasonable to speculate that he wrote the names and crimes of the Pharisees who broke the law, which was all of them.

Surely his audience remembered Jeremiah 17:13:

"All those who leave your way shall be put to shame (publicly embarrassed), those who turn aside from my ways will have their names written in the dust and blotted out, for they have departed from Yahweh, the fountain of the waters of life."

By writing, he points to himself as the Baptizer of Israel, and to the Pharisees as those whose name will be blotted out.[11]

And that was that. The crowd melts away. Jesus asks, “Where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” She replies, “No one, Lord.” Jesus responds, “I don’t condemn you either [that is, I am not an eyewitness against you], but stop your sin.”

No one could say Jesus was a Lawbreaker, but He refused to use the Law as a tool of oppression and shame. Going back to the symbols of the previous week’s festival: He had the fragrance of the Law and the taste of good deeds.

And then, just in case the crowd was missing all the ways Jesus was proclaiming himself to be the Messiah, the Savior they longed for, he immediately says, in a courtyard in which the menorahs and the “light of the world” festival lamps had been lit and then put out,

“I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

___________________________________________

How do we balance judgment and mercy? How should we treat sin – and sinners – in our midst of our church community?[12] This question ought to matter to all of us, because no one in this room is exempt. You will sin; you will have to deal with the sin of others. We are all going to be in the place of either the Pharisees or the woman who sinned at some point in our life. So what do we do? How do we learn from this story?

We look to Jesus for our example.

We must exercise righteous judgment of sin and show mercy and grace to those who sin.

This is not always easy.

If we aren't careful we can get so caught up in condemning the sin that we forget to love to those who sin. Religious Pharisees think mercy is a sign of moral weakness. They think people should get what’s coming to them – especially people whose sins are so visibly public. They appoint themselves as moral watchdogs in the church trained not simply to be truthful and challenging but to tear the sinner to pieces. Their goal is not to point people who deserve judgment toward the mercy found only in Christ. They might never say that out loud, but their goal is suffering, not sanctification; punishment, not restoration.

When we look to Jesus, we see that our goal should be not to shame, humiliate, or drive to despair those around us who are caught in sin; our goal should be to bring to repentance and restoration those who have fallen. We may need to start by calling sin what it is in the lives of those who refuse to see it in themselves (as Jesus did with the Pharisees). But even if we do that so the self-righteous and proud are humbled – even if we are the self-righteous and proud who are humbled by our honest brothers and sisters in Christ - we must never lose sight of the goal of the Great Physician: to heal the sin-sick soul. The great commentator Matthew Henry wrote,

“In this matter Christ attended to the great work about which he came into the world, that was, to bring sinners to repentance; not to destroy, but to save. He aimed to bring, not only the accused to repentance, by showing her his mercy, but the prosecutors also, by showing them their sins; they thought to ensnare him, he sought to convince and convert them.”

If the first thing we have to be careful of is too much judgment of sin, the second thing is becoming so focused on extending mercy to the sinner that we forget there is a just judgment for sin. This story if often cited as an example of why we shouldn’t exercise judgment, That badly misses the point. Jesus absolutely judged. When Jesus wrote in the dust, he (presumably) wrote that they were all lawbreakers. He didn't let the Pharisees off the hook. He didn’t say to the woman, “Hey, it’s no problem. Go do what you want.”  He said, “No one hear can formally accuse you, but…stop sinning.” He didn’t try to contextualize her situation. He didn’t say, “You’re perfect just the way you are.” In his mercy, he gave her the same kind of truth he gave the Pharisees: she had sinned, and she needed to repent.

Telling the truth about sin is not a bad thing. Offering sincere, honest, biblically sound judgment about sinful actions is not a sign that you are mean; it is a sign that you understand the importance of walking in the way of Christ.

Love actually requires honest judgment. Why? Because sin destroys. Someone talked last week in Message+ about people who are the “casualties of sin.” Right. It eats away at your peace with God, with others, and within ourselves. Sin corrodes relationships, it distorts love, it sows something we are going to reap, and “the wages is sin is death.” A holy, loving God must use judgment in the service of justice so that evil does not have the last word. For all of us who have experienced the sin of others crush our lives, it is heaven’s promise that evil will be held to account.[13] 

But we have to be careful. If we don’t confront sin in love, we will be abrasive and mean (see 1 Corinthians 13).  And if we don’t do this with an eye on the sin in our own lives, we will do this with a kind of pride that God despises.

Here’s the reality: all of us have hurt others with our words, our attitudes, our choices, our violence. A holy, loving God cannot let that evil go unaddressed. We long for justice when it’s meant for people who have done us wrong, but if God’s justice were to rain down on us all and give us the justice we deserve right now, we would all beg for mercy. There is no one righteous (Romans 3:10). If Jesus were here, and we all demanded that sin be addressed, we would all walk away as Jesus wrote in the dust on the floor of this church.

Here's the tension we must embrace: We should long for God’s justice (as we see the devastation of sin and the need for someone to hold people to account) but we should also crave God’s mercy (as we see our own sin, condemnation and need for a Savior).

When justice and mercy work together, just judgment drives us to our knees at the foot of the Cross; mercy reaches down from that cross and pulls us to our feet. This is where we look back to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), the embodiment of God’s justice and mercy.

It is on the cross that God’s holy justice was perfectly satisfied while His holy mercy was perfectly displayed.[14] Someone has to pay the price for sin, and God in his mercy said, “Let it be me.”  This included the woman and her accusers - and all of us. The Israelite prayer, “O Lord, rescue us, deliver us, save us,” has come true; Jesus has come so that the world through him might be saved. 

 ______________________________________________________________________________

[1] This is how Augustine described the story of the woman caught in adultery

[2] “ αναμαρτητος, meaning the same kind of sin, adultery, fornication, c. Kypke has largely proved that the verb αμαρτανειν is used in this sense by the best Greek writers.” (Adam Clarke)

[3] “So in Bamidbar Rabba: "The Israelites said to God, O Lord of the universe, thou commandest us to light lamps to thee, yet thou art THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD: and with thee the light dwelleth."’ (Adam Clarke)

[4] Your Bible may note, “Many early manuscripts omit 7:53–8:11.” Eusebius, the first historian of the Church, claimed to have learned the story from Papias, who lived from about 60 AD to about 130 AD.  Augustine thought the early church removed the story out of fear that adultery would be encouraged by Jesus’ display of mercy. Whatever the reasons, the event is alluded to very early. It appears to have been widely known and accepted in the early church, and it soon appears in the canon.

[5] http://www.agapebiblestudy.com/john_gospel/Chapter%208.htm

[6] At times, Rome allowed the Sanhedrin packed with their picks to use capital punishment. At the time this happened, the Sanhedrin needed Rome’s permission.

[7] (Mishnah Makkot 1:10): “A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says: even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death. Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel says: they would have multiplied shedders of blood in Israel.” Read a good article here: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-death-penalty-in-jewish-tradition/2/

[8] http://www.reformjudaismmag.net/02summer/focus.shtml

[9] “With reference to two offenders subject to this penalty, the Pentateuch says, "Thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people" (Deut. xiii. 10 [A. V. 9]), and again (ib. xvii. 7), "The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people." (Sanh. vi. 4; 45a et seq.; Sifra, Emor, xix.; Sifre, Num. 114; ib. Deut. 89, 90, 149, 151). “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_and_corporal_punishment_in_Judaism#In_Rabbinic_Law

[10] https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/dsb/john-8.html

[11] The Bible does not connect those dots, but considering the audience and the context, it seems likely.

[12] I realize the ‘church’ had not started yet, but the religious Jewish community is probably the closest comparison we have before the NT church community began.

[13] So is there any place for judgment and justice when God extends mercy? First, the Bible clearly teaches that there will be practical consequences to our actions. Forgiveness does not necessarily negate the fact that we will reap what we sow. The woman’s adultery may still have ruined her marriage even thought the forgiveness of Christ was available to her. Second, there are consequences to our actions within God ordained systems of government. Those harmed by rape may extend forgiveness, but the rapist will still go to jail – and rightly so. Finally, there is an ultimate day of judgment when we will all give an answer to God for what we have done. It’s possible to the first two forms of judgment can be avoided depending on the nature of the sin, but no one will escape the final accounting.

[14] Read “The Only Thing That Counts” for a better understanding of why Jesus needed to die in order for God’s justice to be satisfied. http://clgonline.org/the-only-thing-that-counts-galatians-51-8/

Harmony #45: The Yeast Of The Sadducees (Mark 8:13-21; Matthew 16:5-12)

I mentioned last week that the “yeast of the Pharisees” and the “yeast of Herod/Sadducees” were so different they each get their own week. This week, let’s look at the Sadducees.[1]

After the end of the Jewish exile in Babylon, the high priests (mostly Sadducees) ruled at the pleasure of Rome, who stacked the Sanhedrin to get the results they wanted. The Sadducees got their power and privilege from cooperation/collaboration.

They controlled Judaism’s two most important institutions: the Temple in Jerusalem and the Sanhedrin, the governing body for religious and civil issues. They also enjoyed the military backing of Rome, so Temple Law enforcement was backed by Roman muscle. At one point, Herod put the Golden Eagle, a ‘holy’ standard their army carried into war, on the entrance to the Temple. The Sadducees accepted it.[2]

The Gospel writers use the yeast of the “Sadducee” and “Herod” interchangeably. This is important, because we are talking about Herod.

Herod’s family had largely converted to Judasim; he contributed to building the temple in Jerusalem; he distributed food during famine and cut taxes; the economy did well. So far, so good. But his extreme cruelty is legendary - the massacre of the children when Jesus was born, killing his own family, beheading John the Baptist, etc.

So just to be clear, the Sadducees were willing to overlook Herod’s evil because it worked out well for them.[3] Why? Because the goodies of Empire were their only hope; they weren’t waiting for a Messiah.

We do not speak of the messianic views of the Sadducees, because they had none. They had no belief in the kingdom of God as such, either in this world or that which is to come. Their doctrine left no place for a [divine]Messiah… their only fear was that some impostor messiah might arise and cause them to be deprived of the offices they held at the pleasure of their conquerors.[4]

If they wanted to change the situation of the Jewish people, it was going to happen in the halls of earthly power.[5] You see their hearts revealed clearly when Jesus was on trial.

“Here is your king {Jesus},” Pilate said to the Jews. But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!” “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered. (John 19:14-15) 

As for the crowd, they had turned on Jesus when they realized he was serious when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey instead of a warhorse while weeping because they did not understand the way to peace.

The Sadducees were dissolving as a party when Roman destroyed the Temple in 70 A.D. in response to a Jewish revolt in Jerusalem. Rome took 13,000 Jewish slaves and the loot from the temple and used both to build and pay for the building of the coliseum. Note: The Romans destroyed the Temple. The Romans never liked them. The Sadducees were tools for Roman power. Their passing was not mourned.

We often talk about religious syncretism as Christianity synchronizing with contradictory beliefs from other religions. We don’t often talk about syncretism with the Empire. I believe that this is the yeast of the Pharisees. Their hope was not in God, but in man. Not from Heaven, but from earth. Not to bring about the Kingdom through evangelization, but through legislation. This has been addicting through all of church history.

1. In the 1st century, a good Sadducee was a good Roman. Followers of Jesus had no time for that. Christian values were sharply at odds with Roman values. A sincere Christian was not going to be a good Roman by Roman standards. It’s why Rome was so suspicious of them.

2. But in 154, Justin Martyr, in an attempt to stop Emperor Pius from persecuting Christians, wrote, “Whence to God alone we render worship, but in other things we gladly serve you, acknowledging you as kings and rulers of men.” As Jason Porterfield points out, “whole swaths of life were moved out from under God’s authority and placed under the authorities of this world.”Now, instead of everything belonging to God, everything but worship belonged to Caesar. As a result, “Caesars of this world became increasingly bold in telling Christians what they must do on earth.” [6]

3. When Constantine legalized Christianity in the 300s, it didn’t take long for a good Christian to look a lot like a good Roman, to the point that Augustine developed an argument for how Christians could fight for Rome’s military machine that brutalized the world and killed tens of thousands of Jewish people and Christians. Constantine brutally conquered under the banner of a cross, the Christian symbol of laying down one’s life in love.

“For the first three hundred years of the church any suggestion that the aims of the kingdom of Christ could be served by corrupt Caesars would have been viewed as ludicrous or even demonic. The early Christians knew that the ways of Jesus and the ways of Caesar are forever incompatible. One is Christ; the other is anti-Christ… Christians never thought Caesar was capable of carrying out the work of Christ. ― Brian Zahnd, Postcards from Babylon: The Church In American Exile

4. In letters between King Clovis and local bishops in the 500s, we see the church converting and being converted by an ancient warrior ruling class. Bishop Avitus urged King Clovis to let the church tag along into the regions he intended to conquer. For the first time, the church began to spread the message of the cross behind the point of a sword. To be conquered was to be Christianized.

5. In the eastern Byzantine Empire, the emperors considered themselves to be the “supreme pontiff” of the Church, as well as head of state. Justinian I called this harmonia: the state and the Church should work together for God’s will on earth under the emperor’s leadership. The bishops at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 affirmed that nothing could be done in the Church contrary to the emperor’s will. This doctrine remained in effect for centuries.[7]

6. Fast forward to Charlemagne, who was crowned by Pope Leo II as the first “Holy RomanEmperor” on Christmas Day in the year 800. What a change in 800 years. The claim was that Charlemagne was chosen by God to revive the glories of the Roman Empire - and to defend and promote the cause of the church, which were starting to look like one and the same. Like Herod and Constantine, he used state power and money to help the church do its mission. Meanwhile, Charlemagne also waged a brutal thirty-year campaign against the Saxons. In 782 he ordered the beheading of more than four thousand, five hundred Saxons on a single day. Why? They weren’t Christian. This, from his set of laws titled Ordinances for the Region of Saxony. “If any one of the race of the Saxons hereafter concealed among them shall have wished to hide himself unbaptized, and shall have scorned to come to baptism and shall have wished to remain a pagan, let him be punished by death.” In 800 years, Christians had gone from being the ones killed for their faith to being the ones supporting the killing of others because of their faith.

7. In the Middle Ages, when the church sought to win warrior cultures to the faith in France, Germany, or Scandinavia, etc., Jesus morphed into the ultimate warlord and his church into the knights of Christ. Once again, the church converted many, and it found itself converted in the process. By the time Alexius I pleaded for help aganst the march of Islam, the church was ready to be the “knight of Christ.” This is when Bernard of Clairvaux (AD 1090–1153) wrote In Praise of the New Knighthood by appropriating Paul’s letter to the Ephesians - which was about spiritual warfare.

“The knight who puts the breastplate of faith on his soul in the same way as he puts a breastplate of iron on his body is truly intrepid and safe from everything…So forward in safety, knights, and with undaunted souls drive off the enemies of the cross of Christ.”

If, by the 500s, being Christian was indistinguishable from being Roman, by the 1000s being Christian was indistinguishable from being Frankish or Saxon. Europe and the church found themselves converted to each other’s ways. Martin Luther (1500s) even developed a ‘doctrine of two kingdoms’ claiming God willed the state and the church to be governed by a different set of morals. In their private lives, Christians should follow the ethic of Jesus. In their public role as citizens, Christians should follow the lead of the Empire. Now, our private lives belonged to God, but our public lives belonged to Caesar.

In Western history, Europe has long intermingled church and state in various ways (Catholic, Anglican Church of England, and Protestant[8]). On how that went over the years, look up “Inquisition.” To this day, many countries in Europe either have a state church or support one church over the other.[9] How’s that going now, you wonder?

The 2022 Talking Jesus report (a partnership between Alpha, the Evangelical Alliance, HOPE Together, Luis Palau Association and Kingsgate Community Church) describes the current state of faith in the UK[10]: 48% of the population described themselves as 'Christian' of which 6% described themselves as 'practicing Christians'.[11]

To bring us up to date:

“The church in every western power after Constantine has at some point succumbed to the Siren seduction of empire and has conflated Christianity and nationalism into a single syncretic religion. Rome, Byzantium, Russia, Spain, France, England, and Germany have all done it. Seventeen centuries ago the Roman church got tangled up in imperial purple. In the 1930s, the German evangelical church got tangled up in Nazi red and black. The Anglican church spent a long time tangled up in the Union Jack[12]. Today the American evangelical church is tangled up in red, white, and blue. That this kind of entanglement has been a common failure of the church for centuries doesn’t make it any less tragic.”  ― Brian Zahnd, Postcards from Babylon: The Church In American Exile

This is, I believe, the yeast of the Sadducees, the yeast of Herod. It is the yeast of corrupt power, compromise and anti-supernaturalism that results in followers of Jesus at least living as if they believe it is through earthly power and control that we can and should bring about the Kingdom of God.

Yet over and over in history, when the Kingdom of God got too closely intertwined with Empire, it compromised the church. The church was never made to be authoritarian in a culture in order to bring about transformation. It was always made for persuasive, loving, truthful service as it preached the gospel, living as an embodiment of the Kingdom of God to bring about transformation. #salt #light 

Once again, I looked for some help online in what modern-day Sadducees would look like. There is not nearly as much about Sadducees as there is about Pharisees. I wonder if it’s because it steps on our political toes, and that’s meddlin’! But if Jesus warned about it, I have to preach it. This list is built from an article called “7 Signs The Leaven Of Herod Has Taken Root In Your Life.”[13]

[Quick note: I believe Christians have a responsibility to be actively involved in our culture, doing justice and loving mercy. This list is not about disengagement from our society or even disengagement from politics. It’s about keeping our faith untainted by the values and priorities of the Empire as we go about spreading the Kingdom.] 

We forget that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood (people), but against principalities and power, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

Our gaze is earthly rather than heavenly. We say we believe God is able; we say we believe in God’s sovereignty and providence in the world; we say that we have hope, joy and peace that surpasses our circumstances, but we don’t live as if we believe that. We don’t find ourselves turning to the power of God in the journey of life.

Our passion for political change eclipses our devotion for expanding the Kingdom of Christ. We don’t focus on praying and ‘bearing good fruit’ as much as we focus on getting out the vote.  We don’t rest in the power of God; we rest in the power of the legislature. We are more passionate about changing laws and promoting public policy than we are about taking the message of Jesus to the people impacted by that policy. We live in deep fear that the next election will crush us or in irrational optimism that it will save us. We trade our hope in the persuasion of the spirit for the might of the state.[14]

We think the symbols of the Empire and the temple go together. This goes back to the Roman symbols the Sadducees put in the temple or the cross Constantine fought under. Francis Schaeffer warned us about this decades ago:[15]

The whole "Constantine mentality" from the fourth century up to our day was a mistake. Constantine, as the Roman Emperor, in 313 ended the persecution of Christians. Unfortunately, the support he gave to the church led by 381 to the enforcing of Christianity, by Theodosius I, as the official state religion. Making Christianity the official state religion opened the way for confusion up till our own day. There have been times of very good government when this interrelationship of church and state has been present. But through the centuries it has caused great confusion between loyalty to the state and loyalty to Christ, between patriotism and being a Christian. We must not confuse the Kingdom of God with our country. To say it another way: "We should not wrap our Christianity in our national flag.-  Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto

We believe a political leader is the key to restoring our nation. The Gospel is the key to restoring our nation. The identity and mission of the body of Christ does not depend upon who gets elected as president or Senator or governor. Voting for capable leaders is a way to practice biblical stewardship of our country, but the elevation of a leader to the role of a savior is borderline idolatry.

I remember more than one painting of Obama in which he was framed to look like Jesus; I saw a billboard for Trump that said, “Unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulders.” This is blasphemous. And when adoration reaches that point, we will be blind to the realities of what people are really like. Kevin Burgess writes in Dangerous Jesus,

“We will begin to excuse the inexcusable in our public leaders because public witness is not a priority. It’s not as important to be winsome or persuasive as it is to be powerful. It doesn’t matter how Christians look to the outside world when our guy is winning. There is not sin that success cannot atone for.”

If we act as though anyone other than Jesus is the hope of our nation or our church, then the leaven of Herod has taken root in us. Brian Zahnd, in talking about “faith leaders fawning over proximity to political power,” writes:

God may have occasionally worked his will through pagan kings in the world before Christ, but we’re now living in Anno Domini—the year of our Lord. If you’re looking for God to work his will through a pagan king (who will always coincidently belong to your political party!), I’m thinking you haven’t spent much time seriously reading and digesting the New Testament epistles. God is no longer raising up pagan kings to enact his purposes; God has raised Jesus from the dead, and the fullness of God’s purposes are accomplished through him!”  ― Brian Zahnd, Postcards from Babylon: The Church In American Exile

And, I would add, through His church.

You believe a political party represents the Kingdom of God. Many Christians on both the Left and the Right act as if their particular political party represents God’s Kingdom. Meanwhile, at times Jesus made both the Pharisees and the Sadducees angry. He didn’t feel the need to fit neatly in a box. I’m quoting from KB again:

“If your wagon is hitched to Jesus, you will inevitably find yourself agreeing, intersecting, and aligning with all kinds of movements and political camps as you travel through the world. But rest assured, at some point, Jesus is going to complicate things and possibly get you kicked out.”

We talk about the world not being our home; neither is any party of the Empire. If we are not speaking prophetically to our own tribe, we’re missing something. If we start to think that a party represents the Kingdom of God, political rallies may begin to feel just as exciting and important as a church assembly or church retreat. In fact, passionate engagement in the political structure of the Empire can start to feel a lot like evangelism. Converting others to a political party can begin to feel like conversion to Christ, when it’s nothing of the kind.

And when that happens, “the fields ripe for harvest” looks a lot like conservatives if you are liberal and liberals if you are conservative. And if that is the lenses through which you view the problem, the solution will be to get them on the same side of the political aisle as you.

You get discipled more by political platforms than biblical principles.

·      Who disciples you the most on how we should view immigrants? Your Bible or partisan political figures?

·      Who disciples you the most on the value of marriage and family and all things swirling around sex?

·      Who disciples you the most on how we should treat those who live in poverty or sickness, or the widow and orphan?

·      We read about how Jesus dissolves culturally biased differences (“neither Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female”) such that we see each other as equally valuable image bearers of God. Does your party treat all people – all people – as image bearers of equal dignity. No? Do not be discipled by them.

·      Jesus calls for individuals to be characterized by humility, repentance, forgiveness, and justice combined with mercy, grace, generosity, love, and the honoring of all people. Does your party and their candidates do that, or do they fight their political fights with the weapons of the world? They fight like the world? Then do not be discipled by them.[16]  

·      Does our political system value the values of the Sermon on the Mount? No? Then do not be disciple by it.

·      James said God opposed the proud but gives grace to the humble. Does our political system do that, or does it glorify the proud and run over the humble?

·      Does our system value humility and repentance, or arrogance and justification?

·      Does our system believe the ends justifies the means (winning at any cost) or does it believe how we get there is just as important as where we are going?

·      Does it reward mercy or vengeance?

·      Does it value the Golden Rule?

·      Does it encourage us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us?

·      Does it admire those who insist that sacrificial, costly love is the life more abundant?

Don’t be discipled by the Empire. As we seek to engage in the world but not of it – as we engage in a political system while trying not to be of it -  may God give us the strength to refuse to be sucked into the Way of Caesar and stay true to the Way of Christ.

And may the salt and light that God intends to come with the presence of His people truly offer righteous preservation in a decaying world, and shine hope-filled gospel light into even the darkest of places.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

[1] A key book that covers today’s topic is John Dickson’s Bullies and Saints, from which many of my historical examples have been pulled.

[2] Though some of the common folk did not. https://www.jpost.com/judaism/the-golden-eagle-in-jerusalem-history-repeats-itself-618440

[3] Meanwhile, they became rich by cheating people who came to the temple to offer sacrifices, a thing Jesus did not care for at all (Matthew 21:12-13).

[4] “Ancient Jewish Views Of The Messiah,” by Edward Wicher https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/474263

[5] The explanation is from N.T. Wright, as paraphrased at https://www.johnpiippo.com/2010/11/why-did-sadducees-deny-idea-of.html

[6] As quoted in Fight Like Jesus, by Jason Porterfield

[7] https://brewminate.com/the-relationship-between-church-and-state-since-the-ancient-world/

[8] John Calvin (1500s), the ‘Pope of Geneva’, used his combined church/civil authority to burn a heretic to death – slowly, over green wood. It took half and hour. Christians who were once burned at the stake for their faith now burned others for their faith.

[9] The Puritans, escaping Anglican persecution in Europe, brought the muddled mix of church and state authority with them. In Puritan colonies, public taxes supported the church. Voting rights were limited to church members in many places. In Connecticut, people were fined for not attending church services. Puritans believed that the state was empowered to use corporal punishment, banishment, and execution to combat heresy. 

Between 1658–1692, Quakers were executed and Baptists imprisoned for their faith.

[10] England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

[11] https://talkingjesus.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Talking-Jesus-Report-A4-AUG-23-WEB.pdf

[12] The flag of England being the official flag of the Church of England.

[13] By Joseph Mattera, with some expansions of my own.

[14] Kevin Burgess, Dangerous Jesus

[15] This requires several myths. The “myth of righteousness” sets values of the Empire on par with the values of the Kingdom (in which both are seen as part of the euangelion, the good news of God’s plan for the world). The “myth of greatness” as defined by the standards of Babylon and Rome: financial, political, and/or military strength as the markers of success.  The “myth of innocence” sees the power, prosperity, and peace of the Empire as achieved by and sustained by thoroughly righteous means and people. The “myth of worthiness” demands an appreciation of and allegiance to the state as a profoundly moral responsibility for Christians.

[16] https://www.christianpost.com/voices/7-signs-the-leaven-of-herod-has-taken-root-in-your-life.html

Harmony #44: The Yeast of the Pharisees (Mark 8:13-21; Matthew 16:5-12)

Then Jesus left them, got back into the boat, and went to the other side. Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. And Jesus ordered them, “Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod/Sadducees!” So they began to discuss this among themselves, saying, “Is it because we brought no bread.” When Jesus learned of this, he said, “You who have such little faith! Why are you arguing among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand?

Have your hearts been hardened? Though you have eyes, don’t you see? And though you have ears, can’t you hear? Don’t you remember? “When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of pieces did you pick up?” They replied, “Twelve.” When I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many baskets full of pieces did you pick up?” They replied, “Seven.”  

Then he said to them, “Do you still not understand? How could you not understand that I was not speaking to you about bread? But beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees!” Then they understood that he had not told them to be on guard against the yeast in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. 

“They they understood.” Ah hah! I love the disciples. They are so ordinary. Peter: “Guys, we forgot the bread. Again.” John: “It’s fine. I have some crumbs in my pocket he can multiply.” Andrew: “I was responsible for bread last time. This is on Thomas.” James: “I wonder if we should have brought unleavened bread if it's a yeast issue.”

Thank you, gospel writers, for giving us all permission to be ordinary. If this is where the bar is for following Jesus, I can clear it, and so can you. And if Jesus can put up with those kind of disciples, so can we.

Now, to the yeast.

* * * * *

Pharisees and Sadducees emerged when the Jews left their exile in Babylon. The Essenes and Zealots popped up later, but the Pharisees and Sadducees were the two main parties. Think Republicans and Democrats, but there is still the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, etc. There were key differences.

• Pharisees dominated the synagogue (spiritual community center), Sadducees the temple (rituals of worship).

• Pharisees acknowledged all the books we know as the Old Testament; the Sadducees highly favored the books of Moses (the Law) and basically ignored the prophets.

• Pharisees acknowledged an oral tradition passed down by the rabbis; Sadducees rejected the oral tradition.[1]

• The Pharisees believed in the supernatural; the Sadducees didn’t.

• Pharisees were the party of the people; the Sadducees of the elite.

• The Pharisees kept Rome away; the Sadducees collaborated.

The “yeast of the Pharisees” and the “yeast of Herod/Sadducees” is different.  In fact, they are so different they are each going to get our focus for a week. This week, let’s look at the Pharisees.

When Jesus called out the Pharisees, their hypocrisy was a common theme.[2] Here’s just a sample:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matt. 23:23-24)

 “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’” (Mark 7:6-7)

Notice that Jesus wasn’t calling out the yeast of Plato, or Simon the Sorcerer. I think he expected people to see that for what it was. Magic is bad. Rome’s Pax Romana (peace by the sword) is not a Kingdom value any more than the very immoral culture surrounding Roman temple worship. He’s calling out the ones who are supposed to be safeguarding truth and righteousness who had become “the blind leading the blind.” (Matthew 15:14)

These are the kinds of verses that keep me up at night.

Since people are the same everywhere, Jesus would call out the same thing in some of us that he called out in them. So, here we are J

I went online to see what people were saying about modern-day Pharisees. And let me tell you – people have a LOT to say about Pharisees. I was a little worried that if I come up with the list on my own, you might be thinking, “That felt really personal!” and wonder if I was crafting my sermon around you!  Heads up: I hope it feels as personal to you as it did to me.  So, let me welcome you to my holy discomfort.

 1. Pharisees Are All Talk And No Action

Jesus said the following concerning the Pharisees:

“So do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger” (Matt 23:3-4).

We know how this works.

• The environmentalists who flies a private plane everywhere and leave a huge carbon footprint with their mansions.

• The free speech advocate who practices “cancel culture” with those who disagree.

• The person with the co-exist bumper sticker who attacks those who disagree with them on particular issues.

• The politician who campaigns on family values while having a year’s long affair or getting kicked out of a theater for public make-out session with someone not their spouse.[3]

• The new face of the fight against the sexual exploitation of children who is revealed to have sexually exploited the women who helped him do undercover stings.[4]

The Pharisees talked a good game, but they were not the real deal. They were all talk. This creates such cynicism and distrust in those around them. If they can’t or don’t live up to their own words, why should we? Either they are lying or they don’t care enough for it to change their lives. 

Being all talk and no actions is why…

2. Pharisees Major in the Minors

For the Pharisees, everything was a big deal except the things that really matter. They tithed herbs meticulously while ignoring justice and mercy. It’s so much easier to look good in minor things than it is in major things. Shockingly, the major things are harder J If we look at that too much, we might have to address weakness, flaws, and even sinful failure. And that will not be okay to a Pharisee.

I’m not quite sure what our modern equivalents are to tithing mint. All I know is that Pharisees make light things weighty and weighty things light. It’s like a football team spending all its time nailing down the color scheme on the uniform while neglecting working out.  

• You’ve spent years finding a version of the Bible and put it on a hill on which you will die while your family lives with your toxic attitude.

• You start every day reading Our Daily Bread before going to work and mistreating your employees.

• You never swear, so your constant gossip is PG.

• You tithe 10% while the love of money overpowers the kind of generosity you could be showing with what God has given you.

It’s not that the minors are bad. But Majoring on the Minors lets you keep a tally of how good you are doing while avoiding the rottenness in your heart. It makes it easy to do the following…

3. Pharisees Care More About Looking Good Than Being Good

They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad (they carry more Scripture with them!) and their fringes long (they really remember the law!) and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. (Matt 23:5-8).

 I’ve been in many different churches, and these phylacteries and fringes seem to creep in everywhere.

• The size of a head covering.

• The wornness and amount of highlighting in your Bible.

• How you dressed on a Sunday to honor God.

• How much of the Bible you had memorized.

• How expressively you worshipped.

• What gift of the Holy Spirit you appeared to have.

• How impressively you could pray.

It’s not that the things on the list are bad things. It’s that you could look good in all these areas and not be a good person. Your Bible can be falling apart from use, you can dress to the 9s, you can the entirety Scripture committed to memory, you can dance without fear, you can speak with the tongue of men and of angels, you can pray as people think a mighty river has rolled into the room, but… if you don’t have love, if you neglect justice, mercy and faithfulness, it’s just empty show.  

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matt 23:25-28)

Jesus is talking about integrity: the integration of our exterior and interior lives; the alignment of our heart and hands. We should be what we do. Since what looks good is so important to a Pharisee…

4. Pharisees convince themselves they don’t have any “serious” sin to repent of.

“The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector’.” (Luke 18:11)[5]

Pharisees have a reputation and status to maintain. Acknowledging sin issues would involve vulnerability and weakness, neither of which a Pharisee can afford to have. Repentance is for broken, unhealthy people, not for them. If they have to put on a facade of repentance to look good to others, they usually talk about things in the past, but never in the present. All their struggles are apparently behind them.

Once Pharisees have convinced themselves that they are not part of sick who need the Great Physician, they will be full of disdain and lack empathy for those around us who are struggling.“What is their problem? Why can’t they be as spiritually mature as I am?”

This is why…

5. If someone tries to correct Pharisees or point out flaws, they get angry and offended.Pharisees see any rebuke as a personal attack and circle the wagons. Pharisees will always have an excuse. It’s never their fault. They were pushed into some corner, or somebody pushed their buttons. They lack the self-awareness to see themselves as others see them; even if they did, they lack the humility to take it seriously. They will always turn the interrogation spotlight on others and never let the light that others shine on them do the work it’s meant to do. This is why…

6. A Pharisee’s friends primarily look, act and think alike.

Pharisees are exclusive. This makes sense, since everyone else is far less righteous and much more sick. These less righteous people might even be openly repenting – in front of others, mind you - and asking God to search their hearts.  Pharisees are really uncomfortable when they are around people who practice true honesty or humility, because who knows where that might lead?

If there are conversations about sin and its impact in the world and the importance of the transformation that happens on the other side of repentance, it’s always going to be about others who are ruining the church or our culture.

If Pharisees have a small group that does a book study, and they have to choose between one in which ‘judgment begins in the house of God’ vs. one in which looks to call down fiery judgment on the Samaritans around us, it will always be about the Samaritans.

The danger is always “out there” in another group. It’s never in their circle, and certainly not in them. Because they need their circles to be homogenous and safe…

7. Pharisees believe church outsiders should conform to a certain lifestyle before they are accepted as “Christian.” They can’t be “part of the group,” unless they meet your criterion: “Stop the drinking and smoking, don’t wear that Deadpool t-shirt to church (#trueevent), and those sleeve tats are making me nervous.” Pharisees insist that people follow their way of doing things. Fellowship with a Pharisee will always be on a Pharisee’s terms.  Maybe another way of saying it is this: You might be a Pharisee if you can’t accept those God accepts, on God’s terms.

So what’s the cure?[6]

Honesty

Practice self-evaluation.

1. “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” (2 Corinthians 13:5)

2. 1 Corinthians 11 tells us to examine ourselves before we share communion: “If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged by God.” (27-32)

Embrace trustworthy feedback. "To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate correction." (Proverbs 12:1)

See ourselves as God sees us: image bearers in need of a Savior.

1. “And have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” (Colossians 3:10)

2. “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:49)

Live Transparent Lives. Without a willingness to be transparent, we cannot bear each other's burdens (Galatians 6:2); comfort one another (2 Corinthians 1:4-7); encourage each other (1 Thessalonians 5:11); forgive one another (Ephesians 4:32); care for one another (1 Corinthians 12:25); nor weep or rejoice with each other (Romans 12:15).[7]

Humility

Charles Spurgeon once said,

“If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be. If he charges you falsely on some point, yet be satisfied, for if he knew you better he might change the accusation, and you would be no gainer by the correction. If you have your moral portrait painted, and it is ugly, be satisfied; for it only needs a few darker touches, and it would be still nearer the truth.”

This doesn’t mean we beat ourselves up constantly. Self-loathing is not a fruit of the Spirit. This doesn’t mean we should think more lowly of ourselves than we should, but we shouldn’t think more highly of ourselves than we should. We could simultaneously be worse than other people know, and more glorious than they realize. Humility simply means we are to do an honest assessment of both.

Repent.

“Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” (Luke 3:8)

“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.” (Revelation 2:5)

“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” (Revelation 3:19)

Repentance involves turning around, going the opposite direction. It’s not just words; it’s a heart change demonstrated by a life change.

Ask forgiveness.

“If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)

Aaron Lewis and Willie Nelson have a song called “Sinner.” One of the verses goes like this: My eyes are open; now I can see all of the damage brought on by me.” That’s why we ask forgiveness. We have done damage. We want others to know that we see what we have done and how it has landed on them, and we want to make it right if we can. In asking forgiveness, we validate the dignity and value of those we have wronged. They are not just something to damaged and forgotten – they are imago dei, and one does not vandalize that which bears the image of God. Our brothers and sisters in Christ are temples of the Holy Spirit, and one does not simply vandalize a temple and act as if nothing is wrong.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Interestingly, this makes the Sadducees theologically conservative (safeguarding the foundation and being very skeptical of anything new) and the Pharisees theologically progressive in their time.

[2] Because the Pharisees were so highly respected, Jesus labeling them “whitewashed tombs” (Matt. 23:27-28) would have gotten people’s attention.

[3] True stories breaking this past week L

[4] The man whose story was told in Sound of Freedom left O.U.R. under the cloud of 7 women accusing him of sexual exploitation while on undercover operations. His former organization has released this statement. "Tim Ballard resigned from O.U.R. on June 22, 2023… O.U.R. is dedicated to combatting sexual abuse, and does not tolerate sexual harassment or discrimination by anyone in its organization.”

[5] E. Stanley Jones notes, “The measure of my spirit of criticism is the measure of my distance from Christ.”

[6] I got the lists of the problems and the cures from these websites: https://godtv.com/6-signs-modern-day-pharisee/, also https://firstcenturyfaithtoday.com/pharisees-5-signs/, as well as https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/warning-signs-of-a-pharisaical-heart.html, and https://billmuehlenberg.com/2020/02/15/6-signs-that-you-might-be-a-pharisee/, oh and https://www.christianpost.com/news/5-signs-you-are-becoming-a-pharisee.html. Oh, and don’t forget https://outreachmagazine.com/features/22092-modern-day-pharisee.html

[7] Thanks for that handy list, smallgroups.com. https://www.smallgroups.com/articles/2010/benefits-of-transparency.html#:~:text=Without%20a%20willingness%20to%20be,(Romans%2012%3A15)

Harmony #43: Mission and Miracles (Mark 7:31-37; Matthew 12:38-41; Matthew 15:29-31)

Then Jesus went out again[1] from the region of Tyre and came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis [where he had healed the demoniac]. Jesus went up a mountain, where he sat down.  Then large crowds came to him bringing with them the lame, blind, crippled, mute, and many others. They laid them at his feet, and he healed them.

They brought to him a deaf man who had difficulty speaking, and they asked him to place his hands on him. After Jesus took him aside privately, away from the crowd, he put his fingers in the man’s ears, and after spitting, he touched his tongue. Then he looked up to heaven and said with a sigh, “Ephphatha” (that is, “Be opened”). And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his tongue loosened, and he spoke plainly.

Then they came to Bethsaida [the hometown of Philip, Andrew, and Peter] . They brought a blind man to Jesus and asked him to touch him.  He took the blind man by the hand and brought him outside of the village. Then he spit on his eyes, placed his hands on his eyes and asked, “Do you see anything?”

Regaining his sight he said, “I see people, but they look like trees walking.” Then Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes again. And he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home, saying, “Do not even go into the village.”

As a result, the crowd was completely astounded when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing, and they praised the God of Israel. Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone. But as much as he ordered them not to do this, they proclaimed it all the more, saying, “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

After sending away the crowd, Jesus immediately got into a boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha, in the region of Magadan. Now when the Pharisees and Sadducees came to test/tempt Jesus, they began to argue and asked him to show them a sign from heaven.  

He said, “When evening comes you say, ‘It will be fair weather, because the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, because the sky is red and darkening.’ You know how to judge correctly the appearance of the sky, but you cannot evaluate the signs of the times.”

Sighing deeply in his spirit Jesus said, “Why does this generation look for a sign? I tell you the truth, a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

THE SAME PASSAGE AS A COMMENTARIED NARRATIVE

Then Jesus went out again from the region of Tyre and came through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the very pagan Decapolis, where he had previously healed the demoniac. Apparently the demoniac had done what  Jesus requested: he told everyone about the mercy God had shown him.

When Jesus went up onto the side of a mountain and sat down, large crowds came to him bringing with them the lame, blind, crippled, mute, and many others. They laid them at his feet, and he healed them. The word had spread. This man can heal. For the Jewish people scattered throughout the region, surely this reminded them of what the prophet Isaiah had foretold long ago.

In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see. Once more the humble will rejoice in the Lord; the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel….Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. (Isaiah 29:18-19; Isaiah 35:5-6)

At one point, they brought to him a deaf man who also had difficulty speaking, and they asked him to place his hands on him. So Jesus took him aside privately, away from the crowd, put his fingers in the man’s ears, and after spitting, he touched his tongue. Then he looked up to heaven and said with a sigh,  “Be opened”. And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his tongue loosened, and the man spoke plainly.

Oh, and what that manner of healing conveyed to this man. The Gentile religions had a ritual of “enlivening images of the gods,” which involved anointing and thus symbolically “opening” the eyes, ears, and mouth of the image they had created to represent their god.

In this case, Jesus enlivened the real image-bearer of God: humans who are made in God’s image. Jesus’ actions testified that he is the True God come to restore the image of God in humanity – in this case, giving a sign of His power by literally opening his ears and loosening his tongue.[2]

Then they came to Bethsaida, the hometown of Philip, Andrew, and Peter. They would know their hometown; they would know if there were fakers or charlatans trying to trick Jesus. The people brought a man who had become blind to Jesus and, apparently aware of his previous miracle already, asked him to touch him.

Jesus took the blind man by the hand and brought him outside of the village. Then he spit on his eyes, placed his hands on his eyes and asked, “Do you see anything?” Regaining the sight he had lost, he said, “I see people, but they look like trees walking.”

Then Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes again. And he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home, saying, “Do not even go into the village.”

As a result of all the miracles Jesus did, the crowd was completely astounded when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing, and this largely pagan crowed praised the God of Israel. Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone.

But as much as he ordered them not to do this, they proclaimed it all the more, saying, “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” This unqualified affirmation from Gentiles is about to stand in sharp contrast with the Pharisees and Sadducees.

After sending away the crowd, Jesus immediately got into a boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha, in the region of Magadan. Now when the Pharisees and Sadducees came to test/tempt Jesus, they began to argue and asked him to show them a sign from heaven.[3]

The Pharisees were unwilling to accept that the miracles Jesus did were empowered by God; they thought his power came from Satan (Matthew 12:24; Matthew 12:38). Their rabbis thought that demons and false gods could perform certain miracles on earth, but God alone could give signs from heaven:

·      the manna of Moses' time

·      the staying of the sun and moon by Joshua

·      the lightning and thunder that came at Samuel's word

·      the stroke of death on the captains who tried to arrest Elijah

·      the rainbow after the flood

So, as impressive of the miraculous meals were, they might have been done by magic or through the power of Satan.

The Sadducees did not believe in the existence of any Spirit or Satan himself.[4] They joined the Pharisees because they were fully persuaded that miracles were impossible, and any one who attempted to produce them would prove himself a miserable impostor.[5]

So this generation, represented by the Pharisees and Sadducees in a ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ coalition, asked Jesus for some apocalyptic “sign from heaven” they didn’t believe he could do, something in line with the ʻmighty deeds of deliverance’ that God had worked on Israel’s behalf in rescuing it from slavery.

So Jesus gave them an example of a sign in the heavens – but not the kind of sign they were hoping for. This was one even children knew: “Red in the morning, sailor’s warning. Red at night, sailor’s delight.” And then he pointed out that they have missed the point. “You know how to read the signs in the sky, but you’re missing the signs of the times.”  

Sighing deeply in his spirit, Jesus said, “Why does this generation look for a sign?” It wasn’t just a question. It’s part of an oath formula that would typically include something like, “May God strike me down” or “May I be accursed of God” if a sign is given to this generation.[6]  It’s kind of like if Sheila, die-hard Florida State fan who bleeds garnet and gold and actually has hope this year, would say, “May I be a Gator fan with season tickets for life before I give you another sign.”

Then Jesus told them, “Here you are, a wicked[7] and adulterous generation, one that brings about the agony that comes from evil[8] and saddles people with idolatrous hardships, asking for yet one more impressive sign on your terms and not God’s. Here’s your sign, on God’s terms: the sign of Jonah. Surely you remember this passage:

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish[9], and he said, “I called out of my distress to the Lord, and he answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol;[10] you heard my voice…Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, weeds were wrapped around my head.

“I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, but you have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. “While I was fainting away[11], I remembered the Lord…“ Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.  (Jonah 2:3-10)[12]

To his interrogators, Jesus continued. “Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish; so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth before he returns to life. In fact, the men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because when Jonah warned of the danger of judgment, that pagan Assyrian city repented without having a single sign, and God spared Nineveh.

Now someone greater that Jonah is here, and has provided numerous signs in line with the prophets, and will be raised from the dead, to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins for the entire world,[13] and God’s own people will refuse to listen and respond.”

* * * *

There’s a lot we could unpack in this section. I want to focus on what Jesus said to the Pharisees and Sadducees about signs.

“They desired a sign of their own choosing: they despised those signs which relieved the necessity of the sick and sorrowful, and called for something else which would gratify the curiosity of the proud. It is great hypocrisy, when we slight the signs of God's ordaining, to seek for signs of our own devising.”  (Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary)

Jesus had been dropping signs like candy, but they weren’t the signs the Pharisees and Sadducees wanted. They had so many cynical reasons to dismiss amazing things as they held out for the grand earth-shattering, public spectacle on their terms.

Meanwhile, the blind can see, the deaf can hear, the mute can speak, the lame can walk, the possessed are freed, water turns into wine, thousands of people are fed with miraculous provision, dead people are raised, and good news is proclaimed to the poor.[14] None of that counted.[15]

So Jesus offers the sign God has ordained: Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Jesus dies and then brings himself back to life, demonstrating His claim to be God in the flesh, the Incarnation, the one sent to save those who are spiritually dying. That’s the sign that matters the most.

I’ve been thinking of how tumultuous life is with its rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, and how often I’ve wished I had an sign (on my terms) that God is near. At times, I have prayed that I could see something obviously miraculous – an angel would be cool, or money magically appearing in my bank account, or I wake up 20 pounds lighter, or the Lions win the Superbowl. That, my friends, would be the sign that God is near and cares.

To connect the dots with today’s stories, that would mean I am dismissing all the signs of the miraculous intervention of God in the world around me just unfolding in what feels like ordinary life.

Take this church over 50 years. There were really good years and really bad years. The people in this congregation have been the source of hope to some and heartache to others. Both the church as an institution and the individuals in at have had times of spiritual feast and famine. It’s life in every church. When Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble,” he didn’t add, “except in your congregations, which will be perfect!” And yet here we are by the grace of God.

And let’s make it more complex:

• We have people whose church history (in some church) has been characterized by joy and blessing who are communing with those who have felt traumatized by churches they have attended, and they have to figure out how to understand each other when they respond so differently to the successes and scandals of the American church.

• We have people on sharply different sides of the political aisle with very strong opinions.

• We have people who have attended Black Lives Matters rallies taking communion with people who attended the Capitol on January 6.

• Remember Covid? We had small differences to navigate.

• We have different streams of the faith trying to make a unified river: Calvinists, Arminians, Provisionists, charismatic, liturgical, progressive and historical theologies.

How does this work? Is that not a miraculous act of God, working through the truth of His word and power of his Holy Spirit, to create what should be an impossible community out of what Paul calls a new humanity (Ephesians 2:15-16) transformed by and united around the person of Jesus Christ. And is it not a testimony to the great power of God when communities like ours make it work? Our Christ-centered unity is supposed to be a sign to us, and a sign to the world.

But it’s even more personal for me. I can’t ignore the times I have seen God’s supernatural intervention and provision in my life: finding the inexplicable ability to forgive when I was ready to settle in to bitterness; freedom from the chains of addiction; a slow arc of maturity against all odds (that still has a long way to go); surviving childhood trauma that could have crushed me but did not; navigating deep grief with hope. So many signs. It doesn’t feel to me like I got the signs I wanted every time and in every way, but I know I have those.

But Jesus reminded his generation that if none of those signs were there (or at least not obvious), there was one sign that mattered: the Resurrection of Jesus.

• The death it took to offer salvation to us establishes the depth of the love of God for all of His image-bearers.

• The Resurrection demonstrates His power to save from even the most foreboding valleys of the shadow of death.

• The gift of the Holy Spirit means The Comforter will always be with us.

In other words, the fact that God is for us and with us is enough on its own. Even if life does not unfold in the way we hoped; even if what God allows us to go through is baffling, the death and resurrection of Jesus have demonstrated that God is for us and with us.

[1] I am skipping the Feeding of the Four Thousand referred to by “then.” It’s functionally the same sign given to the Jewish people in the Feeding of the Five Thousand, but this time it’s for Gentiles.

[2] See Isaiah 29:18–19; 35:5–6

[3] Of course they argued. The Pharisees were religious conservatives; the Saducees religious liberals. The Pharisees appealed to the lower and middle class; the Sadducees the upper class. The Pharisees would not collaborate with Rome; Sadducees did. The Pharisees believed in the afterlife; the Sadducees did not. The Pharisees were waiting for a Messiah; the Sadducees were not.

[4] This difference is noted in Bengals Gnomen.

[5] Pulpit Commentary

[6] Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Of The New Testament

[7] HELPS Word-studies

[8] HELPS Word Studies

[9] Interesting article speculating on what could have swallowed Jonah. https://armstronginstitute.org/315-what-was-the-great-fish-that-swallowed-jonah

[10] Sheol and the Pit are Old Testament terms that refer to the realm of the dead.

[11] The Hebrew says that his soul or nephesh fainted, meaning he took his last breath.

[12] When God then tells Jonah to “arise,” this is the same word Jesus used when he raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead. Mark 5:41reads: “Taking the child by the hand, He said to her, “Talitha Kum!” (“Little girl, I say to you, get up!“) – The previous three footnotes are from an article by Frank Turek at crossexamined.org

[13] I appreciated this point found in “Reading the Sign of Jonah: A Commentary on our Biblical Reasoning,” by Chad Pecknold (University of Cambridge) https://jsr.shanti.virginia.edu/back-issues/vol-3-no-1-extending-the-signs-jonah-in-scriptural-reasoning/reading-the-sign-of-jonah-a-commentary-on-our-biblical-reasoning/

[14] A sign Jesus gave to John the Baptist, Matthew 11:5.

[15] In one sense the Pharisees were right to be cautious. The Jewish people remembered how Pharaoh’s magicians mimicked Moses’ miracles. The book of Acts records magicians getting very angry that miracle-workers are hurting their profits. Even today, spiritual warfare of the supernatural kind rages between forces of good and evil. There are principalities and powers in the unseen realms that have a very real impact on the world.

Harmony #42: Crumbs Of Faith (Mark 7:24-30; Matthew 15:21-28)

It’s been a minute since I preached last in this series, so let’s do a quick recap. In the preceding incident, Jesus challenged the Pharisees’ fixation on ritual purity laws to show that defilement comes from within us, not from outside of us. This is important to clarify, as he will be in places that the Jewish people considered unclean as he begins to move into his ministry to the Gentiles through Gentile regions.

In today’s episode, he will demonstrate to his disciples that Gentiles are not unclean as his ministry points toward the Gentiles.[1] The heart of today’s passage is a much discussed one.

She [a Gentile] came and bowed down before him and said, “Lord, help me!” Jesus replied, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not right to take the children’s [Israelites] bread and to throw it to the little household dogs [Gentiles].” “Yes, that is true, Lord,” she replied, “but even the little dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs that they make fall from their masters’ table.”

Did Jesus just call a woman a dog? Well, yes, but there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

* * * * * *

First, let’s talk about dogs. We generally love dogs in our culture. They are our ‘best friend’. I love dogs, probably going back to a time my pet dog in Alabama saved me from a rabid rat that attacked me in our front yard. When Jesus was alive, dogs weren’t always the family pets like they are today in the United States. That’s not to say people didn’t bond with them; plenty of Greek and Roman records survive that show that dogs were often well loved. You see it in a lot of the literature and even tombstone inscriptions.

“My eyes were wet with tears, little dog, when I bore thee (to the grave)... In a resting place of marble, I have put thee for all time… sagacious thou wert like a human being. What a loved companion have we lost!"[2]

In the Jewish world, while dogs were domesticated, they generally represented uncleanness, rebellion, or savagery. It’s fair to say that while at least some Jewish people individually cared for dogs, corporately, they had a much lower view of dogs than did the Greeks and Romans.[3]

·     [Goliath] said to David, "Am I a dog that you come against me with sticks?" And David said, "No! Worse than a dog!" (1 Samuel 16:43)

·    Hazael said, "How could your servant, a mere dog, do this monstrous thing?" (2 Kings 8:13)

·    “Dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has closed in on me; they pierced my hands and my feet.” (Psalm 22:16)

·    “Don't give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them with their feet, turn, and tear you to pieces.” Matthew 7:6

·    Rabbinic tradition explains that ‘as the sacred food was intended for men, but not for the dogs, the Torah was intended to be given to the Chosen People, but not to the Gentiles.’[4] 

So, the Jewish community that saw dogs as a symbol for the unclean, animal side of humanity lived within in a bubble in a broader culture that saw dogs in a much more positive light. While there is no way that calling a person a dog was a compliment at that time, what Jesus’ disciples heard and what the woman heard were different. More on that in a bit.

Second, let’s talk about Tyre and Sidon.

These cities were filled with descendants of the Caananites, cousins of the Israelites driven out of Canaan because of their terribly violent idolatrous practices (child sacrifice, etc). While they had been assimilated into the empire that ruled the Israelites, you could still cut this old family tension with a knife.

To make it worse, they apparently flourished in part at the expense of the countryside, whose resources they exploited. Economically, Tyre took bread away from a food-rich Galilee while Galileans went hungry (see Acts 12:20). To connect the dots with my opening discussion about dogs, there is reason to believe they had a popular proverb about not giving food to their children first and then letting dogs eat the crumbs. In their proverb, the dogs were likely the Jewish people.

This is modern Israel and Palestine perhaps, with a history of land wars; if you like Appalachian history, maybe it’s the Hatfields and McKoys. Those aren’t perfect analogies, but I hope it captures the idea. The disciples would not have thought of them any more kindly than they did of Samaritans - and the disciples wanted to call down fire on Samaritan towns.

When this story begins, imagine how the disciples must have felt going into this territory with Jesus. This is not just a Gentile area, which poses problems for them staying ceremonially pure (I’m assuming they were still processing Jesus’ teaching on that). This is the enemy.[5] These are people who have caused suffering to them and their families.  The testing and highlighting of a woman’s faith in this story occurs in this context.

After Jesus left there, he went to the region of Tyre and Sidon (a Gentile region with some of Israel’s “most bitter enemies”[6]).[7]When he went into a house, he did not want anyone to know, but he was not able to escape notice. Instead, a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him and came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek (Canaanite), of Syrophoenician origin.

She cried out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is horribly demon-possessed!” But Jesus did not answer her a word.  Then his disciples came and begged him, “Send her away,[8] because she keeps on crying out after us.”  So Jesus answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” [I have come to feed my children.]But she came and bowed down before him and said, “Lord, help me!”

 [He responded with a saying she recognized:][9] “Let the children be satisfied first[10], for it is not right to take the children’s bread and to throw it to the little household dogs.[11]” “Yes, that is true, Lord[12],” she replied, “but even the little dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs that they make fall[13] from their masters’ table.”

Then Jesus answered her, “Dear woman[14], your faith is great! Because you said this, you may go and let what you want be done for you. The demon has left your daughter.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.  She went home and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

First, this story in context applauds Jesus as just and the woman as virtuous.

When we read other healing miracle stories, Jesus never treats someone who asks with disrespect. That gives us good reason to think that if this story comes across that way, we might be missing something important. This quote might be a little bit literature nerdy, but it matters to understand what’s happening here.

“[This story] fits a type common in ancient literature wherein a subject approaches their leader with a request, which is initially dismissed, but later conceded to. In the exchange, the leader is shone to be just and fair, and the subject is judged virtuous. Both receive public honor, a win-win situation which was uncommon in the zero-sum game of honor/shame that structured the ancient world’s social customs… this encounter fits a pattern whereby a ruler who had every social right to ignore a plea was nevertheless shown to be compassionate by acceding to his subject’s wishes.”[15]

This is where I do a brief aside about the importance of studying context. We want to hear and see what the first audience heard and saw as much as possible whenever reading Scripture. When seen in this light, what at first glance presents a rude and insulting Jesus talking to a demeaned woman is revealed instead as a scenario in which the worth of the woman and the goodness of Jesus are revealed.

A common saying was refurbished to show that though she is not one of the children of Israel and is not part of the fellowship around the table, her persistent request is rewarded and her character is applauded (no doubt much to the surprise of the disciples).[16]

“The dialogue presented the woman a chance to gain honor. She pursued the virtuous course, and with the occasion to speak (and model) uprightness publicly, she earned the highest prize in antiquity - honor. She also secured Jesus’ highest praise, “Woman you have great faith.”[17]

Second, this reveals a God whose compassion is scandalous.

Remember, he has just called out the Pharisees who drew really sharp lines between clean and unclean, holy and unholy, Jew and Gentile.

·    He heads to a Gentile place (ceremonially unclean) to recover from ministering to his own people.

·    It’s Canaanite folk: distant, idolatrous relatives; enemies (spiritually unclean)

·    It’s a place full of people who harmed his children (economic exploitation)

·    A woman approaches him in a culture where only men should do that (culturally offensive)

·    Odds are good that she had tried the gods of her people (which were part of the problem) so that wasn’t going to work. Jesus likely wasn’t her first resort, but he was the one to whom she turned now.

And then Jesus tells her that her faith is great. This, in contrast to the times Jesus has told his disciples that their faith was struggling. 

 It’s a great reminder that Jesus came to offer Himself and His Kingdom to all people groups, all statuses, all ethnicities, all levels of rich and poor, educated or uneducated, sick or healthy, happy or depressed, in-group or outcast.

Notice how quickly he sent his disciples out – first the 12, which we already saw, and soon the 70, and then the Great Commission into all the world. Part of their training, no doubt, was to watch him respond compassionately to those his disciples were least likely to feel compassionate toward. If first Samaritans and now Canaanite enemies have access to Jesus, then there are no untouchables, no one so unclean that God’s grace and truth cannot impact their lives, no sinner outside of the length of Jesus’ reach.

Later in Matthew’s gospel, we will hear a parable about a seemingly sketchy group invited to a wedding banquet after the invited guests fail to respond (22:1–14). All along, Jesus has been welcoming outsiders and disenfranchised people such as tax collectors, prostitutes, and “unclean” people. Who can come to Jesus? Anyone.

It’s a good reminder that the light of Christ shines into surprisingly dark places. No way did the disciples expect to go to Canaanite Tyre and find someone ready to kneel at the feet of Jesus.

This is why we never write off a people or a place. This is why we go into all the world to preach the gospel. We may be shocked at how hardened those with access to Jesus have become – and how ready are those who seem to us to be far from Him.

Third, even the crumbs of the gospel are amazing and good.

"Not of the children? True…. [but] one crumb of power and grace from Thy table shall cast the devil out of my daughter."(Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary)

I had not thought of that before studying this. Freeing someone from demonic possession is a crumb from the feast of the Kingdom. Remarkable. It’s a pretty incredible crumb. Of all the types of healing and deliverance recorded in Scripture, that seems like the ultimate example of God’s good power bringing healing from the bondage of spiritual wickedness in high places.

Other stories of signs and wonders that Jesus performs in us as recorded in Scripture and throughout history. We see all kinds of ‘crumbs’ that are good for the world. Matthew has recorded this story between the Feeding of the Five and Four Thousand, so talk of “bread” and “crumbs” brings to mind how the leftovers were collected after everyone in Jesus’ audience had eaten his or her fill.

The woman appeals to Jesus’ love and generosity: “All right. I am not one of your children at the table, but what’s on that table is good, and there’s more than enough on that table for everyone.” The Africa Bible Commentary notes, “By faith, she saw herself, as a Gentile, benefiting from the blessings of Israel.”

My sense is that she arrived and left a God-fearer[18] like Cornelius but not a worshipper of Jesus.[19]  I don’t think this is a conversion story. I think it’s a provision story, because it doesn’t stop Jesus from providing for her need from the Kingdom storehouse.  Consider this tory from the Talmud:

“There was a famine in the land, and stores of corn were placed under the care of Rabbi Jehudah the Holy, to be distributed to those only who were skilled in the knowledge of the Law. And, behold, a man… clamorously asked for his portion. The Rabbi asked him whether he knew the condition, and had fulfilled it, and then the supplicant changed his tone, and said, ‘Nay, but feed me as a dog is fed, who eats of the crumbs of the feast,’ and the Rabbi hearkened to his words, and gave him of the corn.”[20]

The language of crumbs and dogs was applied within the Jewish community; Jesus applied it to the Gentiles as well. Here, I think, is the fullness of the Gospel:

• Jesus came to earth to save, deliver and heal first in the hearts and souls of humanity and second in the entirety of a creation that groans as it awaits redemption.

• His life, death and resurrection have confirmed that the King has arrived to establish His Kingdom in the midst of fallen empires.

• The church establishes outposts, oasis…es, fighting spiritual principalities and powers, and taking cups of water and Living Water to the spiritually and physically thirsty; bread and the Bread of Life to the spiritually and physically hungry, clothes and clothes of righteousness to the physically and spiritually naked; practical provision to the economically poor and riches of Christ to the spiritually bankrupt; doctors and the Great Physician to the physically and spiritually sick; declaring freedom to those in spiritual bondage and working for freedom for the physically oppressed.[21]

• Jesus, the Bread of Life, the fountain of Living Water, offers the nourishment of life everlasting, with even the crumbs and the sips of his grace and goodness pointing toward the deep, deep love of Jesus.

The Gospel begins with God so loved the world that He gave His son, and whoever believes on him will not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).  The Good News does not end there. God is at work through Jesus mending all that is broken. And when that happens, it’s a signpost pointing toward Jesus. The Good News of the Kingdom of Heaven touches every part of life. Nothing is outside of its scope. It changes our hearts and then guides our hands.  “The least of these” around us should be rejoicing when Jesus brings us sinners into his family, because that means their lives are about to get better. These crumbs leave a trail that points to the feast.

But…they are crumbs. Delicious, to be sure, but crumbs. But a trail of bread crumbs can lead hungry people to the Baker, right? What did Jesus tell the demon-possessed man after he healed him?  “Go and tell people about this crumb of the gospel.” Crumbs remind people that there is a feast. To where do the crumbs lead?

·    “The bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” John 6:33

·    “Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’” John 6:35.

·    “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” (John 6:51)

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[1] NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible

[2] (https://www.thedodo.com/9-touching-epitaphs-ancient-gr-589550486.html)

[3] Here’s a concise overview of dog ownership in Judaism. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/judaism-dogs/

[4] Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Of The New Testament

[5] She was a descendent of those seven nations of Canaan. (Pulpit Commentary)

[6] Per Josephus (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary Of The New Testament)

[7] Elijah had also helped a non-Jewish woman in this area (1 Kings 17:8). 

[8] “The disciples used [the language of] releasing someone from prison or from a debt…or a painful condition. Likely, they were not asking that Jesus… grant her petition to keep her quiet.” https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/jesus-and-canaanite-woman/

[9] In his answer Jesus was probably quoting a popular proverb. (New Bible Commentary)

[10] “First” implies that this is not the final word, especially since the people of Israel just ate with much left over (Mark 6:42–43) (NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible)

[11] The Greek word includes the nuance pets.

[12] “Lord” seems to be a respectful title rather than a divine one. (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon)

[13] “Not merely the crumbs which by chance fall… but morsels surreptitiously dropped by the children to their pets.” (Expositor's Greek Testament) “[Jesus is] likely referring to how Greeks view dogs… that’s clearly how this Greek woman interprets Jesus’ words.”  https://www.rethinknow.org/jesus-and-the-canaanite-woman/

[14] The same word by which he addressed his mother, Mary. It’s a term of tenderness.

[15] From “The Canaanite Woman of Matthew 15” by Lynn H. Cohick, https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/the-canaanite-w.  “A similar story is told by Dio Cassius about a woman who calls out a request to the emperor Hadrian. At first he said he hadn’t the time, but when she declared “Cease, then, being emperor” he stopped and granted her a hearing.”

[16] https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/jesus-and-canaanite-woman/

[17] https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/the-canaanite-w

[18] “In the New Testament and early Christian writings, the Greek terms God-fearers and God-worshippers are used to indicate those Pagans who attached themselves in varying degrees to Hellenistic Judaism without becoming full converts…” “God-Fearer,” Wikipedia

[19] She does not identify herself as one of the children. Jesus doesn’t disagree. He doesn't say her faith has saved her as he does in some other places. He says her daughter will be healed.

[20] Ellicott’s Commentary For English Readers

[21] The early church modeled it: they helped not only the spiritually lost and sinfully broken by introducing them to the saving power of Jesus, they also addressed injustice by helping the poor, the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned, the abandoned. They eventually built hospitals and schools and established economic safety nets.

Harmony #41: Clean and Unclean (Mark 7:14-23; Matthew 15:10-20)

Last week, we read how Jesus called out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. They were offended at the disciples’ ceremonial uncleanliness because they didn’t wash their hands before they ate; meanwhile, they dishonored their parents by exploiting loopholes in their traditions.

The first thing Jesus did was to address their hypocrisy. Now he returns to the question of what it means to be clean or unclean.

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand. There is nothing outside of a person that can defile him by going into his mouth. Rather, it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles him.”

Now when Jesus had left the crowd and entered the house, the disciples came to him and said, “Do you know that when the Pharisees heard this saying they were offended?”

And he replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted.  Leave them! They are blind guides. Someone who is blind cannot lead another who is blind, can he? Won’t they both fall into a pit?”

Peter said to Jesus, “Explain this parable to us.” Jesus said, “Even after all this, are you still so foolish? Don’t you understand that whatever goes into a person’s mouth from outside cannot defile him? For it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and then goes out into the sewer.”[1] (This means all foods are clean.)

“But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a person. For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder,  adultery, greed, evil, deceit, debauchery, envy, false testimony, slander, pride, and folly. These are the things that defile a person; it is not eating with unwashed hands that defiles a person.”

* * * * *

I have two points today. The first has to do with evangelism.

“Jesus’ replacement of ritual purity with purity of the heart prepares the way for his ministry in impure Gentile regions. In the book of Mark, this is the last story before Jesus begins to reach the Gentiles. He is going to be in impure places with impure people… he is not going to be made impure by being in ceremonially unclean places.”[2]

I love this aspect. Jesus was breaking down barriers of judgment and disdain for the “other.”

Before, to be ritually pure, there was no way a Jewish person could have spent any kind of meaningful time with a Gentile. There were just too many ways that one could become impure by touching so many things, or eating particular food, or not washing properly. Not only was it a huge barrier to meaningful connection, it must have surely sent a message about the status of the other person as a human being. “I can’t be around you. You’re gross.” There’s no way to soften that blow.

But Jesus, and then the writers of the New Testament, made it clear that the “us vs. them” mentality needed to stop. The original plan was for the children of Abraham to bless the entire world.  They were pretty good at letting immigrants and foreigners into Israel (they didn’t have to join Judaism as a faith, but they had to leave their idols and obey the civil laws and cleanliness laws). But… they were not good at all at going into all the world and telling the good news of Yahweh. Over time, the traditions that arose made it almost impossible.

So, that needed to change. Here’s Paul.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, [Wolverines or Spartans, locals or fudgies, natural born citizen or immigrant, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, no Baptist or Reformed or Pentecostal,] for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth… were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside… the [ceremonial] law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.  

17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.   21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:11-22)

 I love how Jesus and Paul are knocking down snobbery or superiority. There will be no “turning up our nose” when we go into all the world and preach the gospel. What we will see instead is that every person is a potential member of this household, a potential part of the church that rises to become a dwelling whose cornerstone is Jesus and in which God lives by his spirit.  That is a message of hope for those without hope in the world.

* * * * *

The second point is a basic point of correction for Jesus’ listeners: what does not enter the heart cannot make a person unclean. Food does not enter the heart. It might make you unhealthy, and there are good reasons to consider the ethics involving what we eat, but that’s different from being spiritually unclean.[3] Adam Clarke summarizes well:

In the heart… the principles and seeds of all sin are found. And iniquity is always conceived in the heart before it be spoken or acted.

In other words, what comes out of the mouth reveals what’s in our hearts. And if our words are full of sinful corruption, it reveals a heart that is full of sinful corruption as well. 

Why would our hearts be in this state, especially if we claim to be followers of Jesus? I think it’s because our diet is a problem. Remember, Jesus is still riffing on the narrative that started with him doing miracles with physical bread, then telling his audience He is the bread they need to eat, and now coming back to the diet analogy again.

Our spiritual diet matters. A lot. We are constantly feeding our hearts and minds. We can’t go through the day without that happening. And we get to make choices about what we are going to feed it.

An old Cherokee said to his grandson, “A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

That not a quote from the Bible, but it’s a pretty good biblical principle. To go back to last week’s sermon on hypocrisy, this is why his audience needed the bread that was Jesus. Our hearts need the Bread of Life. We need spiritually pure and perfect nourishment for our heart, soul, and mind, so that what comes out from our heart, soul and mind is good.

God’s Word is described often as various kinds of nourishment:

·      milk (1 Peter 2:2)

·      meat (1 Corinthians 3:2)

·      bread (Deuteronomy 8:3; Job 23:12)

·      sweeter than honey (Psalm 119:103).

Biblical writers had a lot to say about consuming God and His Word.

“When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, LORD God Almighty” (Jeremiah 15:16)

“Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

“I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.” (Job 23:12)

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34).

“Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you …” (John 6:27)

I like this summary from Abigail Dodds:

He has prepared food for us. The food he has prepared is himself. He serves us himself through his holy word—the Bible. The feast he’s invited us to is not a potluck. We do not bring a side dish to share, rather the Son of Man came to serve, not be served. We bring nothing but our hunger, our deep need for him. And the Lord says to us, “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Ps. 34:8)[4]

So how do we feast on Jesus? David Nasser, in his devotional "A Call to Die," states that spiritual eating requires "intention, selection, and effort".[5] I want to build from his material to talk about this a bit more.

Intention: When we don’t eat well or we skip a meal, it can have an impact on how we fell. We might feel nauseous, shaky, bloated, light-headed, maybe depressed, or get ‘hangry’.  It's the body's way of letting us know that we either didn’t choose the right nourishment or didn’t choose enough. For optimal health, you need optimal nutrition.

If I want to eat well, then I must go places where nutritious options exists and avoid places in which junk food abounds. If I am hungry, I can’t go to Billy’s Deep Fried Burgers and Twinkies and think that I will eat well.  Likewise, if I want a spiritually healthy diet, I must go to places or be with people who offer me spiritual healthy options and avoid people and places that offer me junk. Paul wrote,

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8)

Notice he didn’t limit this to Scripture. While Scripture is the core of our diet, through common grace God has put good things all around us all the time.

It’s impossible for us to live in the world and not ingest things that are anywhere from junky to toxic. But we can choose a lifestyle that immerses us into spiritual food forests where food is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and grounded on a foundation of the truth of God’s Word.

Selection: We have to make conscious choices. If we are not purposeful, we will wander further and further from true nourishment. I’ve noticed that the more fried chicken I eat, the more I want fried chicken. The more I snack on Cheetos, the more all other lesser snacks fade into the background. I didn’t drink pop for a long time; when I had a couple Coke Zeros, they started calling to me with their sweet, bubbly song. And, yeah, I responded.

But that’s the way it’s supposed to work, right? I don’t think it’s a secret that the food industry knows how to create cravings in us for salties and sweets.

If we are not purposeful, we will increasingly ignore healthy but overlooked broccoli because it doesn’t trigger desire like an Onion Blossom does. If you are like me, I select vegetables because I know that they will lead to better health, not because I necessarily want them. But the more we keep them in the rhythm of our diet, the more we begin to desire those instead.

I’ve noticed this with salad. I was driving back from downstate the other week and I stopped at Ponderosa in Clare - FOR THE SALAD BAR. How did this happen? After my heart attack, I started eating salad not because I wanted to but because I had to. Lo and behold, I picked up a hankerin’ for salad. With ranch dressing, obviously.

In the same way, once you begin to "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8) it changes your palate. You develop a spiritual dietary momentum that allows you desire more and more of the healthy while avoiding more and more of the unhealthy.  

One more thing about selection. We need variety. Biologically, if we only eat a small variety of food we will deprive our bodies of necessary fuel. We need a range of carbs, fats and proteins to get everything we need for a healthy body. The same is true with how we study Scripture. We need to read the depth and breadth of the Bible. It tells a unified story.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

In addition, I think it’s important to study widely in church traditions throughout history and across nations and denominations. I have been challenged and enlightened so many times as I have broadened the community input in my study of the Bible.[6]

Effort: Fast food is a microcosm for a reality in the United States: convenience in king. It’s easy (and delightful) to swing by Pizza Hut to get a deep dish thin garlic-coated cheese-filled crust with all the meats.  It takes work, time, and commitment to make a healthy meal at home.

This is just as true in the spiritual sense.  The classic disciplines are the spiritual foundations for health:

·      Worship (not just a lifestyle, but focused times of praise)

·      Studying God's Word (in depth, in community)

·      Prayer (don’t overthink it. Just do it J)

·      Service (setting aside time to practice agape love)

·      Fellowship (honest, transparent life together in Christ)

These are the staples of the spiritually healthy diet. 

These things take effort.  The nourishment is life-giving, but it takes purposeful effort on our behalf.  And since God will equip us for what that to which He calls us, God's spirit will empower this effort (II Timothy 3:16-17).

The Word you read has to "become flesh" in you. It has to become part of you. As it nourishes you, it will change you by changing the way you see yourself and the way you see others.

This, I think, is the path to freedom from hypocrisy. If we really consume the Word of God, it will change us.

 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. (James 1:22-25)

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[1] “A variant reading, however, has a… participle that would modify the noun “latrine” immediately preceding it. If this is the original reading, the statement affirms that the food has become clean in the process of elimination. This reading surprisingly fits the rabbinic laws of clean and unclean. According to the Mishnah, excrement is not ritually impure. Rabbi Jose is said to ask: “Is excrement impure? Is it not for purposes of cleanliness?” This startling judgment may be the key to Jesus’ argument. Jesus, with droll humor, may be exposing the illogic of the Pharisee’s arguments. If food defiles a person, as the Pharisees claim, why do they not regard it as unclean when it winds up in the latrine? Defilement must come from some other source than food.” (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Of The New Testament)

[2] NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible

[3]  “Jesus will keep using the image of food to talk about what feeds our hearts; soon, we will see his warning to avoid the impure “yeast” that defiles the hearts of Herod and the Pharisees.” (NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible)

[4] “What Our Physical Diet Says about Our Spiritual Appetite.” Abigail Dodds

[5] I found this at “The Healthy Spiritual Diet.” http://www.newhopefree.org/viralfaith/2011/06/healthy-spiritual-diet.html

[6] Start with Reading While Black by Esau McCauley for a great example of how this works, or Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World, or Misreading Scripture Through Western Eyes, both by E. Randolph Richards and Richard James. If you use Bible Gateway to study, be sure to check the Orthodox Study Bible or the Africa Bible Commentary for some global variety.

Harmony #40: Hypocrites (Mark 7:1-13; Matthew 15:1-9)

By the time Mark and Matthew wrote their gospels, the new followers of Jesus had already spent some time wrestling with the changes in how they now should relate to God and live righteously in His world.  For the Jews in particular, who were very concerned about being pure in line with the Old Testament’s guidelines, they had questions about things like clean and unclean foods (see Acts 10:9-16; 11:5-10; Romans 14:13) and meat offered to idols (1 Corinthians 8-10) and the necessity of doing the rituals of ceremonial cleanliness.

We will see here two of the gospel writers record how Jesus made it clear that being spiritually pure or clean was not about following the ceremonial laws for physical cleanliness; it was about the status of their hearts.[1]

Now the Pharisees and some of the experts in the law who came from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus. And they saw that some of Jesus’ disciples ate their bread with unclean hands, that is, unwashed.

(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they perform a ritual washing, holding fast to the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. They hold fast to many other traditions: the washing of cups, pots, kettles, and dining couches.)

The Pharisees and the experts in the law asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with unwashed hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.’

Having no regard for the command of God, you hold fast to human tradition. You neatly reject the commandment of God in order to set up your tradition. For God said through Moses, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever insults his father or mother must be put to death.’

But you say that if anyone tells his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you would have received from me is corban’ (that is, a gift for God),  then he does not need to do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like this.”

If something was corban, it was an offering devoted to God. That’s a good thing. However, these Pharisees would declare their money to be corban in order to avoid giving financial help to parents who were in need so that they could give it to the temple instead. This would impress people with their apparently generous support of God’s work, when actually they were cheapskates avoiding family obligations, which in the Jewish community was one of the highest obligations God commanded. You honored your father and mother by taking care of them.

In Jewish tradition, those who forsake their parents deserve the same penalty as blasphemers. Basically, dishonoring one’s parents was like dishonoring God.[2]

In addition, they could keep the money and use it in business until they decided to give the initial amount to the temple.[3] So….greed, hypocrisy, dishonoring of parents, pride. The list goes on.

Keeping traditions are not markers of holiness. We can keep traditions that look righteous to everybody else and be terribly corrupt inside. We can find loopholes in our humanly generated systems of that can allow us to indulge the worst parts of our nature instead of challenge us to grow in Christ-likeness.

If we were in the Orthodox or Catholic family of churches, here’s where I would talk about liturgy and symbolism (like making the sign of the cross or using incense). We are not that kind of a church, so I will leave that message for the preachers in those places. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the kind of traditions I grew up with that were not necessarily bad but were not revealed truth from heaven. Then, I ‘m going to look at CLG’s history before we get personal.

Traditions I Had Growing Up

·      Keeping the Sabbath holy meant we didn’t work at all on Sundays; we were encouraged to do as little as possible, even when it came to recreation.

·      We weren’t supposed to play cards, drink, go to movies, own TVs, listen to music not made by Christians. These were all associated with being worldly.

·      We carried a physical Bible. The kid who won the Sword Drill was impressive.

·      Women wore head coverings (churches split over this issue); men didn't wear ties.

·      We sang acapella hymns (though that changed over time) because instruments were too worldly for worship.

·      Church went like this: opening devotion for everybody, age-specific Sunday school, singing, then sermon. Always. 10:00 to 12:00.

·      The offering was public – we passed the plate.

·      We dressed nicely for a Sunday service.

·      Services three times a week: twice on Sunday and then Wednesday evening.

·      We saved altar calls for week-long revivals, which needed to happen at least once a year, ideally with other churches in a tent.

·      We dressed modestly (boys wore long sweats to play basketball; girls wore long coulots to play sports).

·      We weren’t big into patriotism (we would never have talked about the Revolutionary War on the 4th of July, or talked about Memorial Day or Veterans Day. There were no veterans in my church, as we were pacifist Mennonites.)

·      We celebrated Christmas but did not participate in Halloween festivities even to hold an alternative party. For many, having a tree at Christmas was too secular.

·      We didn’t dance at weddings. We didn’t dance at all. It was too likely to inflame the passions.

There’s nothing in that list that is bad or wrong in and of itself. My only point is that they were traditions, not biblical mandates.

I wasn’t here for half of CLG’s 50 year life, but I know there were traditions embedded here at CLG, and as they have changed over time it’s been hard to see the change of traditions  (the way we are supposed to do things) as just that: the change of traditions.

Changing Traditions At CLG

·      Style and length of musical worship has changed over time and probably will again at some point.

·      The time and place in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are exercised has changed over time.

·      Bringing a physical, well-worn Bible – reading the screen – bringing a phone to look up the Bible.

·      Dress up - dress down – just be dressed.

·      Altar calls every week – altar calls occasionally

·      Extravagant programs on holidays – much simpler gatherings

·      Changing focus of small groups: discipleship, friendship, Bible study…

·      2 hour services - 1 hour service with classes.

·      We’ve never had Sunday evening services here like I just assumed everybody did growing up.

As far as I can tell, nothing in these lists was inherently less holy or more holy. It was a way of doing things, and when done properly in a way that matched who we were (or are) as a church, it’s great. There is a beautiful range of flexibility in things like this in the Kingdom of God.

It’s when these things became markers of holiness or treated as if they were sacred writ that traditions becomes a trap. Looking good by the markers of church traditions can begin to subtly become the thing by which we gauge our holiness, our spiritual progress, or our standing before God. Looking good must mean we are good. And when that happens, it also becomes a thing by which we judge the spiritual progress or maturity of others.

·      I won Sword Drills more than once because I was fast, not because I loved God’s word.

·      I carried a physical Bible to church for years simply because somebody would call me out or look at me with judgment, not because it was precious to me.

·      I worked for years to say publicly impressive prayers so that people around me would be impressed, because surely spontaneous prayers that roll off my tongue are a sign of deep faith.

·      I’ve had break myself of thinking, “Oh, a great worshiper looks like that person!” when we are singing, especially as I’ve realized that the least involved person may be full of far more godly character than the most expressive one.

It turns out that, like the Pharisees, we can go through all of the currently approved motions of religiosity and have a deeply wicked heart.

Jesus called this hypocrisy. Think of hypocrisy as “the distance between one’s heart and one’s hands.” The Pharisee’s outward appearance of faithful piety was a lie, because it was not accompanied by a life and a heart committed to loving God and loving others. Matthew records another time Jesus criticized the Scribes and Pharisees for the same thing:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!”

You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” (23:23-24; 27-28)

There is a famous passage in Isaiah 58 in which the prophet spoke on behalf of God and gave a very specific example:

“Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God.

They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves,
    and you have not noticed?’ Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
    and exploit all your workers.

Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?

Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

The prophet Amos didn’t pull any punches either:

There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground…There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court and detest the one who tells the truth…You levy a straw tax on the poor and impose a tax on their grain…

There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts… Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy…

I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.

Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5)

Holiness involves integrity: the consistent integration of our lives in the service of Christ, from the little things to the big things.

Jesus’ 2,000 year old warning is timeless. Hypocrisy has plagued the church throughout its history.

John Dickson wrote a book called Bullies and Saints. As you might guess by the title, he addresses both the bullies and saints in church history. It’s a sobering and hopeful book, and I highly recommend it. Close to the beginning, he summarizes where he is going this way:

It is clear that “love of enemies” and “the image of God” drove much of what was unique in the history of Christianity, as even the most begrudging historians and philosophers will acknowledge. The church is at its best, in history and today, when it performs these melody lines contained in its founding documents.

Reminding ourselves of the moral logic of Christ and the New Testament makes the story I am going to tell all the more tragic. The bigotry, selfishness, and violence of the church, whether in the Crusades, Inquisitions, wealth accumulation, or the horrors of child abuse, are not only departures from broad humanitarian principles. They are a betrayal of the specific mandate Christ gave his movement.

His book covers church history in general. I’ll just note just a few things we have seen in our own country’s history as a warning of how easily we can slide into hypocrisy.

·      The Puritans journeyed to America in pursuit of religious liberty — but only liberty for their very particular exercise of faith. They were very harsh to those who disagreed, including fellow Christians.

·      Christians in the antebellum South engaged in passionate worship and showy revival meetings while owning other people and then later denying basic rights to people they wished they still owned.

·      The church has often called out sexual exploitation in the culture - and too often covered it up at within the church.

·      We have stressed the importance of truth, honesty, kindness and godly character but have endorsed and even applauded American leaders of deeply sinful character who lie boldly, cheat freely, and constantly attack and belittle others.

God forbid we be “whitewashed tombs,” appearing externally “righteous” while being internally “full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:25-28). Holiness involves integrity: the consistent integration of our lives in the service of Christ. God forbid that our assemblies are a stench rising to God rather than sweet incense.

And now, for the part where I step on our collective toes.

Signs of Hypocrisy

·      You talk a lot about generosity and how the church should be taking care of the poor, not the government, but you give money to God and his kingdom begrudgingly or not at all.

·      You denounce human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of those trapped in it while using pornography, which is founded on the sexual exploitation of people.

·      You love the Great Commission when we get to go there and do ministry on our terms and our schedule, but get really uncomfortable when they come here and need ministry on their terms.

·      You fast with your belly to honor God but won’t fast with your budget.

·      You call out the coarseness, rudeness and vulgarity of culture while supporting public figures who are course, rude, and vulgar.

·      You say ‘all lives matter’ and then don’t care about or do anything for the lives of people who are in groups you fear or dislike.

·      You talk about how amazing grace is while constantly rendering judgment on those around you.

·      You say you don't worship money but you give a way as little as you think you absolutely have to and order your life around financial security.

·      You loudly denounce the sexualization of society while clicking on those articles with pictures that objectify men and women.

·      You say you love God but don’t love others. All the others. “ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20) 

·      You sing with gusto Sunday morning and go home and ridicule your spouse and demean you kids.

·      You take communion in memory of a God who has forgiven your offense and refuse to forgive those who have offended you.

·      You denounce the after school clubs run by Satanists but do the work of the Father of Lies by spreading gossip, lies, and slander on social media.

·      You love to quote Scripture that you never apply to your own life.

·      You prepped this sermon thinking, “Thank God I’m not part of the problem. I hope everybody listens this morning!”

·      You are sitting here thinking, “Thank God I’m not part of the problem. I hope everybody else is listening this morning!”

I don’t want to resolve this today. Next week we are going to talk about an antidote to hypocrisy, so think of this as Part 1 of 2. I want us to take a week to pray and seek God about this. Are there areas of our life in which we are honoring God with our lips but our hearts are far from Him? And if so, let’s take a week to repent and mourn, and regather next Sunday to move forward more in tune with the melody line of Christianity.
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[1] Expositor’s Bible Commentary

[2] NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible

[3] Thanks for the context, Believer’s Bible Commentary!

Harmony #39: Bread of Life (John 6:22-71; Matthew 14:34-35; Mark 6:53-54)

 After they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and anchored there. As they got out of the boat, people immediately recognized Jesus. The next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the lake realized that only one small boat had been there, and that Jesus had not boarded it with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone.

Other boats from Tiberias came to shore near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

“When did you get here?” There’s some FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) going on here, but not so much about Jesus as the goodies he apparently hands out.

I feed my chickens snacks that they love. As a result, they follow me around the yard and up onto the deck and hang out with me. It’s adorable. But…I know it’s not because they want to be around me because they like me so much. They like the treats they get in my presence. Now, because they are chickens, I don’t care. If that’s what it takes to get them to hang out with me, cool. I am not bothered by the sincerity of my chickens’ hearts toward me. But if my kids did that, that would feel different. If AJ only invited me down to Grand Rapids because I was going to bring BBQ ribs and leave $50 bucks on the table when I left, that’s not a relationship. That’s a transaction.

Jesus ignores the spoken question and cuts right to the heart of the issue: you’re here because you’re selfish and you simply want me to satisfy your appetites.

Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate all the loaves of bread you wanted.  Do not work for the food that disappears, but for the food that remains to eternal life—the food which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has put his seal of approval on him.”[1]

So then they said to him, “What must we do to accomplish the deeds God requires/approves?” Jesus replied, “This is the deed God requires—to believe in the one whom he sent.”

 “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” sounds a lot like the question Nicodemus asked: ”What must I do to be saved?” Jesus answered that there is only one work, so to speak – to believe that Jesus had been sent by God, which would mean He is the Messiah, and that has implications for our lives.

The “work” is not something we typically associate with doing as ‘work.’ Biblically speaking, the work is kneeling before Jesus in wholehearted surrender. One of the hardest pieces of advice to accept when you want to so something to fix yourself is  “Don’t do. Just rest.” I’ve become something of an expert on spraining and straining things. One of the worst ones was a calf muscle tear. What could I do? Nothing. No PT. No stretches. I had to rest. It was in the rest that I found healing.

 Jesus didn’t need people who tried to do something to impress him or earn their salvation – he needed people who were ready to rest in him, who were looking to give their lives to him because they believed he was the Messiah, and that His Way was the path to life.  The ‘work’ a surrender, letting go our autonomy and receiving the Holy Spirit. It’s tapping out in a spiritual struggle. “What must I do to be saved?” Give up. Let Jesus not only take the wheel, but own the title to the car that is your life.

So they said to him, “Then what miraculous sign will you perform[2], so that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”[3]

Then Jesus told them, “I tell you the solemn truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but my Father is giving you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. ”So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread all the time!”[4]

This was an image not unknown to Jesus’ Jewish audience.

 "Many affirm, says Rab. Mayemon, that the hope of Israel is this: That the Messiah shall come and raise the dead; and they shall be gathered together in the garden of Eden, and shall eat and drink and satiate themselves all the days of the world. There the houses shall be all built with precious stones; the beds shall be made of silk; and the rivers shall flow with wine and spicy oil.

He made manna to descend for them, in which was all manner of tastes; and every Israelite found in it what his palate was chiefly pleased with. If he desired fat in it, he had it. In it, the young man tasted bread, the old man honey, and the children oil.

 So shall it be in the world to come, (i.e. the days of the Messiah.) He shall give Israel peace, and they shall sit down in the garden of Eden, and all nations shall behold their condition; as it is said, My servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry.”[5]

It’s in their own literature, this vision of the Messiah’s kingdom being characterized by delicious food. They are just stuck on the literalness of it.  When Jesus said he was the bread, he was using symbolic language. Think about how Jesus said he was a “door”. No one tried to oil his hinges. In the same way, no one should try to take a chunk out of him.

 “The ideas of eating and drinking are here borrowed to express partaking of and sharing in. Spiritual happiness on earth, and even in heaven, is expressed by eating and drinking (Matthew 8:11; Matthew 26:29; Luke 14:15; Luke 22:30; and Revelation 2:17.) Those who were made partakers of the Holy Spirit are said by Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12:13, to be made to drink of one Spirit. (Adam Clarke)

Jesus was simply identifying himself as the point of the symbolism:

o  In the past, the bread was manna – now the bread is Christ.

o  Neither group deserved this gift, but God gives abundantly.

o  In both cases, the bread comes from heaven.

o  In both cases, the bread nourishes them.

o  In the past, the food would satisfy them temporarily – now the food will satisfy them eternally.

Back to the text.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.[6] But I told you that you have seen me and still do not believe. Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never send away.[7]

For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. Now this is the will of the one who sent me—that I should not lose one person of every one he has given me, but raise them all up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father[8]—for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him to have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began complaining about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and they said, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

Jesus replied, “Do not complain about me to one another. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to me. (Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God—he has seen the Father.)

“I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.  Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.[9] This is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person may eat from it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began to argue with one another, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.[10] The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.[11] For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who consumes me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread your ancestors ate, but then later died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”

What did the Israelites do with the bread Moses gave them? They ate it. That’s what you do with bread. Studying the recipe is not going to do it. Watching the Great British Bake Off episode on bread is not going to do it. The only way to take advantage of the benefits of bread is to internalize it.

When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Satan brought up how God fed his people wandering in the wilderness and told Jesus to basically do it again right there. Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD”. What did John call Jesus in the opening of his book? The Word. Jesus was the very Word of God. Our flesh needs the food that goes in our stomach, but our spirit needs the nourishment that comes from God.

“To eat of this bread means to appropriate Christ as one's life. It is a figure of speech for believing, for no one will eat what he or she cannot trust as edible. Eating a meal implies that it is wholesome, nourishing, and real.” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary)

Jesus was not suggesting cannibalism. He was describing wholehearted commitment. “Don’t just watch my tricks. Don’t just listen to my teaching. Do it. Be it.” There was some movie about ants that I used to watch with my kids where the ants made a ball to bust out of something, and they were supposed to “Be the ball.” That’s the idea. “Be the disciple.”

James would later say that anyone who listened to (or read) Jesus’ words and didn’t do what he said was like someone who stared in the mirror endlessly and forgot what they looked like. Jesus was saying the only way you will benefit from me is if you stop being a consumer and internalize what I’m telling you. And in your “eating”, you will become like me in your actions and motivations.

 Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Then many of his disciples, when they heard these things, said, “This is a difficult saying! Who can understand it?” When Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining about this, he said to them, “Does this cause you to be offended?"

Then what if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before? The Spirit is the one who gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”

(For Jesus had already known from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) So Jesus added, “Because of this I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has allowed him to come.”

After this many of his disciples quit following him and did not accompany him any longer. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?”  Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!”

I want to finish this morning by reminding us all of what we mean when we talk about salvation. If you want the fancy theological word, it's the doctrine of soteriology. The final point is going to be “we are nourished by the bread of life,” but we are going to have to work our way there.

 The person who is saved is:

Drawn by the Father (who draws everybody)[12].  Jesus said, “If I am lifted up, I will draw all people to me” (John 12:32), he’s referencing an incident in the Old Testament where Moses was instructed to make the image of a serpent to put on a pole, so that all the Israelites who were being bitten by a swarm of snakes could be healed. They just had to look up. It’s an odd story, but in literature it’s called foreshadowing. The Old Testament constantly uses physical events to foreshadow important spiritual truths in the New Testament.

“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:14-17)

God initiates or reaches out to everyone so that they have an opportunity to respond. This is through His Word and/or his Holy Spirit, though we often have the privilege of being the vehicle of His word (think of the disciples passing out the bread and fish). God draws all people to himself through Jesus by the Holy Spirit so that they can see what God has to offer to them.

God, through what is called prevenient grace[13], enables every person to choose to come to Christ or not. God breaks through to us when we are dead in our sins.[14] God enables all to see him through the revelation they receive from Him. Then, they can choose to either reject the truth or embrace it.

“For this is the will of my Father--for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him to have eternal life…." (John 6:40)

 “…people who suppress the truth…” (Romans 1:18)

Like when Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, all who chose to look to the source of their salvation would be healed; not all did. Because Jesus has been lifted up on the cross, all can see and be saved; not all do.

 If we accept the truth of Jesus and his offer of salvation, we are justified. There’s a TV show called Justified in which a law enforcement officer named Raylan is put in situations over and over in which the viewer is supposed to wrestle with whether or not he was justified in responding the way he does. Ideally, Raylan’s choices would defend his integrity. Realistically, they often didn't.

All our lives, we are put in situations where we hope our choices defend our integrity such that we are justified in doing what we do. Unfortunately, that’s not working great for us. However, there is good news.

Justification is the doctrine that God pardons, accepts, and declares sinners to be "just" on the basis of Christ's righteousness, which makes them right with God (Romans 3:24-26; 4:25; 5:15-21).

“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them.” (2 Corinthians 5:18)

This results in us being at peace with God (Romans 5:1).[15]

Because of Christ, we are saved from the penalty, power, and eventually the presence of sin. We are saved from the eternal PENALTY of sin when we surrender our lives to God. This doesn’t mean we won't reap what we sow in this life; God and others can forgive us for our sins, but that’s different from a very practical harvest that involves penalties. We are talking here about what is happening spiritually. A debt we build all our lives can be covered because the Lawgiver has taken the penalty for Lawbreaking upon himself in the person of Jesus.

Because of Christ, we are being saved from the present POWER of sin. Because the Holy Spirit is now in us, we have God’s power to break what the Bible calls the bondage of sin. We will struggle with temptation, but the Holy Spirit at work in us has given us the power to withstand. The sin which defined us or formed us does not need to continue to define or control us.

One day, we will be saved from the PRESENCE of sin. In heaven, the peace of shalom will be restored.  The New Heaven and New Earth will not be broken, and neither will we. 

God begins a process of regeneration. Regeneration is the spiritual transformation brought about by the Holy Spirit that moves us from spiritual dead to spiritual life. Regeneration is a reminder that salvation is more than what happens in a moment; we are being saved[16]. God has begun a good work in us. It’s ongoing. It will be complete in the world to come. You’ve probably seen the memes: “Be like the roads in Detroit. Never stop working on yourself.”  Think of us as the roads, and God as the one who continues a good work in us. And yes, it’s a lifelong construction project :) Maybe we should all be wearing “Under Construction” T-shirts to remind each other what’s happening.

God also begins a process of sanctification. This literally means "to set apart" for special use or purpose, which is very similar to what it means to be holy. It’s both a state and process that begins at the point of our surrender (salvation) and continuing throughout our life.

“God is the one who began this good work in you, and I am certain that he won't stop before it is complete on the day that Christ Jesus returns.” (Philippians 1:6)

We are doing baptisms in two weeks. Maybe think of the act of baptism as a public proclamation that these people have been set apart for God’s good purposes. The old self has been put to death; a new self is arising. That symbol reminds us of a truth about the life of follower of Jesus. We are always set apart and being set apart for God’s good purposes.

We are nourished by the bread of life. This means our spiritual nature finds sustenance in the person of Jesus and all the truth that comes from him, specifically with what has been revealed in Scripture. Once again, this is more than just head knowledge. It’s more than just observing and giving a formal assent to the truth about who Jesus is. Is allowing the entirety of our lives to be changed.

It’s interesting: modern food studies are talking about how our diets affect our epigenetics; that is, how our food changes how the genetics we have are expressed. In other words, what we eat changes us. It’s not a neutral force in our bodies. Our lives change because of what we eat.[17]

This is true spiritually as well. Our lives change because of what our souls consume. Nothing lands in us neutrally. We know that we have eaten the bread of life when who we are changes. It might be slow, it might be fast, but we cannot eat the Bread of Life without becoming something new. 

This sustenance enables us to persevere in the faith, so that in the end we are made a partaker of eternal life.[18]

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[1] Similar to the reply given to the Samaritan woman at the well, who needed water “so that I may never thirst again.”  Here, we have "food that endures to eternal life." 

[2] “Even miracles are lost on persons whose hearts are fixed on the perishing things of the world, and whose minds are filled with prejudice against the truth.” (Adam Clarke)

[3] Implying that bread from heaven was more impressive than multiplying the boy’s lunch.

[4] “Jewish expositors had already often used manna as a figure for spiritual food, God’s law, or Torah/Wisdom/Word. Ancient writers also often used water or drinking figuratively (including Jewish teachers using it for Torah or Wisdom)...Sirach 24:19 portrays Wisdom as saying, “Come to me . . . and eat your fill of my fruits”; in Sirach 24:21, Wisdom cries, “Those who eat of me will hunger for more, and those who drink of me will thirst for more.” But Jesus… shows himself greater than Wisdom; he emphasizes the satisfaction of those who eat and drink from him (John 4:14).” (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Of The New Testament)

[5] As cited by Adam Clarke

[6] This should sound familiar. Remember he said the same thing to the woman at the well?

[7] “Shall come to me — All that are drawn by the Father, John 6:44, i.e. all those who are influenced by his Spirit, and yield to those influences: for as many as are LED (not driven or dragged) by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God, Romans 8:14… And though Christ would have gathered them together, as a hen would her chickens under her wings, yet they would not. Matthew 23:37. Those who come at the call of God, he is represented here as giving to Christ, because it is through his blood alone that they can be saved... I will in no wise cast out. — The words are exceedingly emphatic - I will by no means thrust out of doors… Our Lord alludes to the case of a person in deep distress and poverty, who comes to a nobleman's house in order to get relief: the person appears; and the owner… receives him kindly, and supplies his wants. So does Jesus. Never did he reject the suit of a penitent, however grievous his crimes might have been. He is come to the house of mercy… the Master not only grants his suit, but receives him into the number of his family: he alleges his unfitness, his unworthiness, his guilt, his crimes, his ingratitude: no matter, all shall be blotted out through the blood of the Lamb, and he be put among the children, and on none of these accounts shall he be put out of the house.” (Adam Clarke)

[8] “Far from any person being excluded from his mercy, it was the will of God that every one who saw him might believe and be saved. The power, without which they could not believe, he freely gave them; but the use of that power was their own. God gives the grace of repentance and faith to every man; but he neither repents nor believes for any man.” (Adam Clarke)

[9] “It was an opinion of the Jews themselves that their fathers, who perished in the wilderness, should never have a resurrection. Our Lord takes them on their own ground: Ye acknowledge that your fathers who fell in the wilderness shall never have a resurrection; and yet they ate of the manna: therefore that manna is not the bread that preserves to everlasting life, according even to your own concession.” (Adam Clarke)

[10] Figuratively, Jesus could be identified with the Passover lamb (Ex 12:8). Because the law forbade drinking blood, including that of the Passover lamb (Lev 17:10), a stronger analogy is with divine Wisdom.” (NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible)

[11] “By comparing this verse with verse 47, it can be definitely shown that to eat His flesh and to drink His blood means to believe on Him. In verse 54, we learn that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life…. To eat His flesh and to drink His blood is to believe on Him.” (I lost track of my source here L.)

[12] Revelation 22:17; John 12:32

[13] Grace that precedes and prepares for conversion. Prevenient is from Latin, meaning grace that comes (venire) before (prae).

[14] Ephesians 2:5

[15] Thanks, Theopedia, for that helpful summary of justification.

[16] 1 Corinthians 1:18

[17] Check out Scientific American’s article “How Diet Can Change Your DNA.”

[18] A paraphrase of Adam Clarke’s words.