Facing the Giant

Series: Beloved Rascal

1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-12, 19-23, 32-49 (50-51)

July 1, 2018

William G. Carter

Israel loved King David. The nation never tired of telling stories about him. He was a monumental figure, the second of their kings and by far the greatest. And as my parents told my little brother, also named David, the Hebrew name means “beloved.” Indeed, he was, as my brother is. For the next five weeks, we are going to hear and learn from some of the David stories, including a few that the church has been a bit reluctant to tell.

The Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.” But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand.”

This story is the one that everybody knows. It inspires action figures and pictures in children’s Bibles. When I was a kid, it even inspired the Lutherans to create a Claymation children’s show with a little boy and a talking dog. There is something here for the kids: the little guy takes on the giant and he wins.

There is something here, too, for the adults. The little nation of Israel, small and disregarded, found a hero in this shepherd boy who triumphs over the enormous Philistine. David is just a kid, sent by his father to deliver some lunch boxes to his brothers, who were serving in the army of Saul, who was king of Israel at the time. The brothers are in the battle lines against the Philistines, and the battle isn’t going so well.

It’s not that there has been a great loss of life. In fact, as the story begins neither side has struck against the other. The battle lines are formed: Team Israel, small and ragged, over here; Team Philistine, strong and mighty, over there. They face one another, shake their swords, and grunt at one another, when suddenly Goliath steps up.

Israel’s never seen anybody like that. That giant is about ten feet tall. He’s covered with armor plating. His spear is enormous, and the iron tip on it must weigh fifteen or twenty pounds. And he’s ugly – the Bible doesn’t say that, but you know he has to be ugly. So, he’s big, and he’s ugly, and he has a big mouth. While David drops off the food, he hears Goliath mouthing off.  

“I can take you all,” he says. “There is no way you Israelites will win this war. Look at how big I am! Look at how impressive I am!” Then he proceeds to insult them, demean them, denounce them, dismiss them, and he makes all this noise before the battle even begins. This went on for forty days. It was a battle of words. Every day, Goliath was step out, strut his stuff, and insult the Israelites. What do you expect? He’s a Philistine.

When John Cleese and the guys of Monty Python wanted to insult somebody back, they said, “This is just the sort of blinkered philistine pig ignorance that I’ve come to expect from you non-creative garbage.” That, and “Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.”

Words, words, words. No action, just a lot of words. That is all the Philistine has going for him: an endless heap of insults. That, and he’s nearly ten feet tall.

David hears all this: the forty days of insults, the put-downs and the swaggering. In response, he has only one word in his repertoire: God.  Goliath speaks garbage, David speaks of God. There’s a world of difference between them.  

When the giant sees little David, he makes fun of him: “Am I a dog that you come after me with a stick?” David could have insulted him right back and said, “You’re no dog; you’re worse than a dog.” But he doesn’t say that. He says, “God who delivered me from the teeth of the lion and the claws of the bear, will deliver me from this Philistine.”

Goliath of Gath says, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.” As Eugene Peterson translates, “Kid, you’re going to be road kill.” Yet David says in response, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.”

Do you see the shape of the battle? The oppressor, the giant, inflates himself with a lot of words. The hero of the story – we already know David will be the hero – speaks first and foremost of God. God has protected him against the wild animals before. God will deliver him from this wild-eyed Philistine. For David, it’s all about God.

This is the primary lesson that Israel draws from the story. They are God’s people, claimed in God’s promises to Abram and Sarah, marked in God’s covenant, released from Egyptian slavery by God’s power, and led out of chaos by God’s Torah instruction. God is bound to them, and David knows this in advance. That’s why he doesn’t need to rely on all that armor that King Saul wants to put on him. He has the blessing of God.

So, David preaches a short sermon on judgment and then he lunges toward the giant. He whirls the sling around his head and hits the bullseye, right in the middle of Goliath’s forehead. The giant falls on his face like an eight-hundred-pound statue. David pulls out the giant’s sword. It’s so heavy he can barely lift it over his head, but he gives it a swift swing – whhht -- and then looks up to see the Philistines running away.

Like I said, this is the story that everybody remembers. If they don’t know anything about the Bible, they probably still know about the story. It’s David against Goliath, Bethlehem against Rome, the American colonists against King George, Rosa Parks against the white people of Montgomery and Martin Luther King against Bull Connor and his dogs, it’s the 1962 New York Mets against the 1961 New York Yankees. We know the story: it’s the little guy against the big, well-armored, well-funded enemy, and the little guy wins.

What we might miss is how the little guy wins: he relies on his wits, rather than his words. He is small enough that the giant figures he is insignificant, but his small size works to his advantage. Goliath is loaded down with a hundred pounds of armor. His defensive system makes him slow to move, while David is agile. His spear is so heavy he needs a separate soldier in front of him just to hold his shield.

Not only that: there’s recent medical evidence to suggest that Goliath had trouble with his eyesight. It’s in the story. He says to David, “Have you come against me with sticks?” David is holding only one stick, his sling. And the medical experts tell us that, given the pituitary malfunction that creates enormous growth, there is usually blurred vision.

As Malcolm Gladwell says in his book on David and Goliath, that’s why the giant has a shield bearer – to guide him out onto the field. Which is to say, he may be big, and he’s certainly ugly (Philistines are always ugly), but Goliath has some built-in flaws. With all his swaggering insults, he can’t even see his own flaws – which could be why he spends most of his ink in this story saying nasty things about David and his tribe.

And, of course, Goliath, despite his probably poor eyesight, misreads the situation entirely. He is dressed for armed combat and he’s up against a shepherd boy. The shepherd boy has fought off wild animals with just a sling . . . but don’t think for a minute it’s “just a sling.” He whirls that contraption around his head, lets the stone fly. From a hundred feet away, the stone would have been hurled “at a velocity of thirty-four meters a second – more than enough to penetrate the skull and render him unconscious or dead.”[1] The whole conflict would have been in a few seconds.

I recommend Malcolm Gladwell’s book. It is well-written, like all his other books, and he listens to this three-thousand-year-old story deeply enough to draw a lot of lessons from it. We can learn, for instance, about the importance of courage. As he declares, “Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you’ve been through the tough times and you discover they aren’t so tough after all.”[2] Witness, he says, the city of London standing up to the Nazis in World War 2 and still fighting, even after the city was repeatedly bombed.

Or a civil rights leader like the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a black Baptist preacher in Birmingham. His house was bombed by the KKK one night, and a police office pulled him out of the wreckage. The cop said, “Reverend, I know these people. They are vicious. If I were you, I’d get out of town.”

Shuttlesworth said, “Well, officer, you’re not me. Go back and tell your Klan brothers that if the Lord saved me from this, I’m here for the duration. The fight is just beginning.” A few months later, he takes his daughter to enroll in an all-white high school. He is met by white men with brass knuckles, clubs, and chains. They screamed at him, called him names, smashed the windows of his car. He went to the hospital, discovered he had minor kidney damage, checked himself out, and stood in his pulpit to tell his church he had only forgiveness for his attackers.

You know, my friends, it’s a brutal world out there. There is a lot of hatred, a lot of angry words, plenty of insults, and even a few giants. But what can they do to us if the God of David is with us? What could ever separate us from the love of God, which is revealed to us in Jesus, the Son of David? And what might we accomplish if we are faithful, persistent, agile, resourceful, and clear-eyed about what God wants this world to become?

So, Israel remembers David, the resourceful shepherd boy who stands up to the ugly giant. This is the best-known story about him, and we will hear more stories in the next four weeks. The Bible moves on quickly from here; Israel does not gloat about David’s victory over the giant; there will be plenty more ups and downs yet to come.

But when Israel does remember the story one more time, in a glued-together psalm, written down hundreds of years after the moment and placed on David’s tongue, there are these final words from that beloved rascal: “I took away disgrace from my people.” (Psalm 151:7, Greek version). Disgrace is taken away, finally and ultimately, and grace steps in.

Grace always steps in. The giant may be on the battle field, but the God of grace is with us. And grace will win. See you next week.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (New York: Little, Brown, 2013) p. 11.

[2] Ibid, p. 149

When Yelling Does No Good

Mark 4:26-34

June 17, 2018

William G. Carter

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

For all of his powerful deeds and compassionate works, Jesus was a storyteller. When he spoke about God, and how God rules over the heavens and the earth, he often used a story.

Once upon a time, a traveler fell among thieves, who robbed him and left him for dead. Two religious leaders passed him by, and the one who took care of him was a dreaded enemy. Which one is the true neighbor?

There was a man who had two sons. The younger boy ran off with a share of the family fortune, blew it all on wine, women, and the roulette table, then came back to his Daddy with his tail between his legs. Is it right to throw him a welcome home party?

A king threw a wedding banquet for his son. Invited a lot of people, none of them would come. Invited a lot more people, they all gave excuses. So he sent his servants to round up the kind of people who could never attend one of his parties… because that the kind of kingdom that he wanted to have.

Jesus doesn’t toss around a lot of doctrines. Nor does he offer a lot of “do’s” and “don’t’s.” He tells stories, and he leaves it to people like you and me to figure out what kind of truth may be inside those stories. So today, we have a couple of stories, each one taken from the experience of farming.

The second one isn’t actually a story at all. It doesn’t have a plot. In a good story, as you know, something has to happen. This happens, then this happens, then this… and in this story, hardly anything happens at all. There’s a little bitty seed, the smallest of all seeds. Somehow it grows, nobody quite knows how.

It’s a mustard seed, which grew into something called a “mustard shrub.” It was widely regarded as a weed. The kingdom of God is like a weed. It grows out of control. That’s the second story.

The first one is a bit more intentional. Once upon a time, a farmer scattered a lot of seed. It was something he wanted to grow, a crop that he intended to raise. But here’s the thing: the farmer throws around all that seed and then he goes to sleep. That’s the story. That’s all there is. One day the harvest will come, but for now…nothing happens.

I like that parable. I like it a lot. The farmer casts about some seed and lets it go. He does not hover. He cannot rush. He will not yell, because yelling would not speed up a thing. For the time being, nothing happens.

Do you suppose this is the way God is? That God is not a helicopter parent, buzzing around overhead to make sure we’re doing the right thing? That God does not hover, or wag the finger, or raise the voice? That God doesn’t plant a garden and then stand over it screaming, “Now start growing!” No, the farmer tosses around the seed and lets it go.

What I like about this parable is also what is most maddening about it. Nothing happens, or it doesn't look like anything's happening, or if it's happening, there is an unseen benevolence beyond our control. The lesson seems to be that God is in charge of his own kingdom. Imagine that! No amount of badgering, controlling, shrieking, convincing, cajoling, or conniving will advance the rule of God over all things. 

Maybe there’s a lesson here in parenting or grandparenting, or perhaps there’s a corrective for how our rookie parents once handled us. As I think of my own father, I don't remember him yelling very much. I often knew where he stood, but he also gave me a lot of room to make my own mistakes and to correct them. 

Like that summer night when I was nineteen or so. I was out on a date with a pretty woman. We drove around the car, we parked the car, we started up the car and drove around some more. Then we went to a place called “Pancho’s Pit” to get something to eat. The hour was late, it was time to take her home. So we went out to the car, kissed a little bit, and then I turned the key to start the car and nothing happened. Nothing at all. You know how when something doesn't work, you keep trying it again and again? Yep.

So about one in the morning I was forced to do the thing I dreaded: call home and see if I could score a ride home for me and my young lady friend. I mean, they always told me if you’re ever in trouble, call home, so I did. My father answered.

Whenever he answered the phone in the middle of the night, it always sounded like he had been awake for hours. In a deep voice, he said, “Yes?” I told him my dilemma and where I was. He asked no further questions and said, “See you in twenty minutes.” Twenty minutes later, here came the paneled station wagon. 

As it turned out, it was a busted distributor cap which I would have to fix the next day. Dad arrives, my friend and I get in back seat. He looks at me in the rear view mirrow, doesn’t say a word, but I know the look. So say to my friend, “How about if you ride in the front seat and I'll sit in the back?” Dad smiled. We took her home, dropped her off, I walked her to the door, climbed back into the front seat. We started up, and Dad said four words: “You never mentioned her.” I gulped. He said two more words: “Pretty girl.”

We drove the rest of the way home in silence. It was about two o’clock as we rolled into the garage. It seemed that I was going to get off without a speech. The car came to a stop. He turned off the engine. I reached for the door handle, breathing a sigh of relief, and Dad said, “Wait a minute.” I froze in horror. I braced for the speech. The silence was deafening.

Then he said it… know what he said to me? He said, “Just be glad that your mother didn't answer the phone.: That's all he said. He never had to raise his voice at all. 

Maybe you have noticed this is precisely how God works most of the time, how God parents us all. There’s no yelling, no badgering, no bullying, no exertion of influence. We have freedom to grow, freedom to flourish, freedom to mature, and freedom to both take note of, and respond to, the unseen kindness that grants us life.

It can be a terrible freedom. If God gives us the room, we can do all kinds of things. We can make all kinds of mistakes. Yet we also have the freedom to grow, to flourish, to change, to grow. And it can happen when it really doesn’t seem like anything is going on.

It’s like the wisdom from Malcolm Gladwell. He says, “If you do anything for ten thousand hours, you start to become good at it.” Twenty hours of work a week, for ten years; that’s a long time. Then you realize, “I can knit a sweater, I can write a novel, I can play the clarinet, I can run a marathon. It didn’t happen overnight; good things take a while. Even in the moment when the fog lifts and we get a clear-eyed view, we might just discover there’s some progress we have made… and it might even be in spite of us. The kingdom of God grows because God is at work. Usually just out of sight, but out there, staying busy, sometimes effecting change even in us.

I was talking to a medical professional the other day. I’ve been making regular visits, due to my sedentary, lazy, middle-aged life, and the effects of too much pepperoni pizza. In the middle of our conversation, I blurted out that I have begun walking on a treadmill. She looked at me in astonishment and said, “Are you feeling okay?” We both had a good laugh, and it felt good.

Sometimes good things happen, or healthy things happen, because God awakens us, or nudges us, or simply works behind the scenes. That is one way of saying that we shouldn't take a lot of credit for what's happening to us due to the grace and kindness of an unseen God. The seed is planted, it grows and bears fruit, and it happens even when we are asleep.

So if you are frustrated with your life, or dismayed at the general condition of the world, take heart. For this is God's world. And I think we can give God a good bit of the responsibility for how things are going to turn out. That's faith.

Perhaps you have heard the name of Angelo Roncalli. Ring a bell? Later in life, he took the name of Pope John 23^rd. He presided over the Roman church in a time of enormous turmoil. It was John 23^rd who oversaw a great many sweeping changes at the time of the Second Vatican Council: a less legalistic approach to faith, a turn away from a legacy of medieval gloom and doom, a change from worshiping only in Latin to the language of the people, an openness to non-Catholic Christians.

These were enormous changes, and they came with a high emotional toll on the Pope. He would stay up late at night, reflecting, fretting what would happen, worrying what he should do. Some nights he would open his heart in late night prayers, as he thought the trials and tribulations of the day. So he would say out loud, “Angelo, who governs the church? You – or the Holy Spirit?” After a pause, he added, “Very well then. Go to sleep, Angelo. Go to sleep.”

As for us, we can welcome the rule of God if we’re patient, if we hang in there and persist over the long haul. There’s a poem that I like, from the Jesuit scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. My mom gave me a copy years ago, probably after years of putting up with my dad. The poem keeps popping up, so I think that’s a sign to give it to you. I’m going to read it, sit down for a minute, and then we’ll get on with the rest of the service. Here is the poem:

  

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

 (c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

Plundering the House

Mark 3:19(b)-35

June 10, 2018

William G. Carter

Then (Jesus) went home, and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.”

“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

At the height of his popularity, the family of Jesus came to take him away. At the pinnacle of his effectiveness, they came to restrain him. Let that sink in for a minute.

It’s still early in the Gospel of Mark, but Jesus has been busy. He’s been preaching that God rules over heaven and earth. He has collected a few unimpressive fishermen and invited an imperial tax man away from his table. Jesus has been hanging around with the wrong kind of people and pronouncing forgiveness without official approval. He has been touching lepers, always a fearful practice, even if it was to heal them, and he has cured every manner of illness. He has an unconventional view of the Sabbath, which angers the religious professionals to the point that they conspire to kill him, and it’s only chapter three.

And then, there are all the demons: Jesus has been chasing out the demons. It doesn’t matter if they have been infesting the synagogue and lodging in the soul. He says, “Get out of here!” and they go.

So, his family comes to take him away, to restrain him. Are they afraid for his safety? Perhaps. He could meet with some harm, if not from the furious Pharisees and scribes, perhaps from all those demons. If you start confronting evil, it will strike back. Or worse, it’s can be running through the thistle patch on a summer day: some of what you’re trying to get through starts to stick to you.

And this is only chapter three. Yet even this early, Jesus has revealed two character traits. First, he is fearless. Nothing frightens him, nothing slows him down, nothing gives him a second thought. He plunges right in to do what he needs to do. Second, he has complete clarity about what it is that he has come to do. There is no confusion about where he should go or whom he should confront. He has come to proclaim that God rules over all things, and that’s what he going to do.

His family comes to restrain him and get him to stop. Why would they do that? Well, the word on the street is that he has “gone out of his mind.” The first-century diagnosis is that Jesus is “beside himself,” that he has literally split himself, so his mother and his brothers come to remove him from society. This has gone on long enough, they figure. Let’s get him out of there. Long before his crucifixion, let’s get him out of sight.

It is a striking scene, unlike any other in the whole New Testament. If it weren’t so dangerous, we might think it was funny.

I used to think it was funny. When I was a teenager, I locked myself in the bedroom on Sunday nights. Then I tuned in to a syndicated radio show on the local rock station. The host called himself Doctor Demento, and he specialized in playing the most peculiar recordings ever to hit the airwaves.

This was the show that introduced Weird Al Yankovic to the world. He played to the Spike Jones Orchestra performing the “Billy Tell Overture” and the pyromaniac version of “My Old Flame.” At Christmas time, we heard “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” At Halloween, we grooved to “The Monster Mash.” In springtime, he played Tom Lehrer’s satirical tune, “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.” The show was out there.

But by far, the most bizarre song on a very strange show was a little ditty by an artist who called himself “Napoleon 14.” Over the sound of an insistent snare drum, an unstable man in a straight jacket lamented a lost love:  

Remember when you ran away / And I got on my knees
And begged you not to leave / Because I'd go berserk

Well you left me anyhow / And then the days got worse and worse
And now you see I've gone / Completely out of my mind…

And they're coming to take me away, ha-haaa
They're coming to take me away, ho-ho hee-hee ha-haaa,
To the funny farm / Where life is beautiful all the time
And I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats
And they're coming to take me away ha-haaa.[1]

That song from 1966 was insensitive and rude, which is exactly why a teenager enjoyed it so much. The fact is it reinforces every inappropriate stereotype of emotional challenges and mental disorders. It assumes that some people are completely well and those who are not ought to be removed.

In the week that we’ve lost Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, two cultural icons who were widely loved and highly respected, we are reminded again of how fragile all of us are. A lot of us struggle out of sight, often in isolation. We don’t say anything lest we be demeaned, degraded, or demolished. Or worse, removed.

So it’s all the more important that we lean in to see what’s at stake with Jesus. By all accounts, he was not “out of his mind.” He was completely in his mind, completely clear, completely fearless. Every day, with single-minded vision, he got up and went about his work. And his work was to make people well. To confront the forces that splinter human souls, that oppress human spirits. Mark says Jesus has come to drive out evil.

It’s fascinating, in a way, that the religious establishment piles on the popular assessment of Jesus. That not only is he crazy, he’s possessed by a demon. You see, that was the first-century pop psychology. They figured someone was disturbed because something got into them – a demon, an unclean spirit, something. And the scribes look at the relentless work of Jesus, he can only do these things because Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies, has infested him.

Now, may I say, that’s pretty twisted. Their argument, according to the text, is that Jesus casts out evil because he is so full of evil that he can drive out the evil. It’s kind of head-spinning argument, but it’s exactly the sort of thing that happens when anybody confronts something that is so blatantly wrong, so divisively nasty.

For instance, Roseanne says some racist nonsense, gets fired, loses her number one show, apologizes, but then says more nasty things. Samantha Bee says something nasty on late night television, apologizes, doesn’t get fired, goes back on the air and apologizes. And the people who like Roseanne, who laugh at her caustic comments, are furious and condemn Samantha Bee. They say it’s a double standard, as if any of these people have any standards, on either side of the hedge.

It takes somebody with the moral clarity of David Brooks to point out the obvious: that maybe we shouldn’t be saying foul and disgusting things about one another. “These days,” he says, “a lot of corrosion has happened in the way we talk to one another. And one of the good things about being conservative is you tend to think manners are more important than laws… Manners are what purify or degrade, and manners touch us every day and really determine the shape of society.”

“And our manners have taken a hit these days,” he says,[2] and we can probably figure out some of the reasons why.

The family of Jesus wants to restrain him and remove him. The scribes want to dismiss him, essentially on the twisted argument, “He must be full of evil, the same way everybody is full of evil.”

But Jesus responds with devasting clarity in a single question: How can the devil drive out the devil? How can evil eradicate evil? They accuse him of being “beside himself,” but what they say about him is even more schizophrenic. Jesus is not torn in two; he is completely clear. He has come to heal, to restore, to purify. Every day of his life, he lifts up the downtrodden and frees the oppressed. He comes to drive out the poison. He comes to make people well.

In short, he comes to plunder the house of evil. In the power of God, Satan’s days are numbered. There is a cosmic struggle between good and evil, and it come to a head because Jesus, in his perfect goodness, steps into a world that is infected with toxic hatred and really bad manners. Whether they realize it or not, both the Jerusalem scribes and his own family are conspiring – colluding – to get him to stop. It’s precisely because Jesus is so effective that the powers-that-be will do whatever they can to get him to shut up and go away.

And will they succeed? No. The conflict will continue in the next twelve chapters of Mark. It will come to a head on the cross, when the powers of hell think they’ve finally gotten rid of him. And you know what happens: on the third day, his tomb is found empty and the news comes that he is alive again and on the loose. God truly does rule, even over a rebellious, resistant world. And the struggle will continue for a while, until God says enough is enough.

In our time, perhaps no one has seen the true social dimension of God's kingdom more clearly than Martin Luther King, Jr. King confronted the evil of division. poverty, and hatred with a clear word of gospel justice. The clearer he could see, the more got thrown back at him. There were allegations against his character and threats on his life. His own moral failures were tossed in his face to get him to stop. Yet he remained faithful to his vision until the day he died.

How did he keep going? The key, as he said in a number of his speeches, was a certain maladjustment:

There are certain things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon all [people] of good will to be maladjusted. If you will allow the preacher in me to come out now, let me say to you that I never did intend to adjust to the evils of segregation and discrimination. I never did intend to adjust myself to religious bigotry. I never did intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never did intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, and the self-defeating effects of physical violence. And I call upon all [people] of good will to be maladjusted because it may well be that the salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted.

 Then Dr. King concluded:  

Let us be as maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth, who could look into the eyes of the men and women of his generation and cry out, 'Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Pray for them that despitefully use you.’[3]

Ah, who’s crazy now?

It really comes down to what we believe about the first coming of Jesus. Has the world changed because of him? Has the kingdom of God truly come near?

If nothing has changed, then human life will be an endless string of oppression, misery, darkness, and defeat. But if God has come, if God is intruding upon the status quo, then we can act like Jesus. We can do the will of God. We can confront the powers of hell as if God rules over heaven and earth. We can act in the face of death as if death has already been defeated. We can heal, lift up, and love all people abundantly. We can gather here to sing praises to a Savior who has already assured us of the world's ultimate redemption.

The world might look at us and say, “You’re out of your minds.”  But that’s when we hear Jesus say, “You’re my brother, you’re my sister, you’re my family.”

 (c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Hear the song for yourself at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-lJZiqZaGA

[2] https://www.npr.org/2018/06/01/616257705/week-in-politics-u-s-allies-react-swiftly-to-new-u-s-tariffs-on-steel-and-alumin

[3] Martin Luther King, Jr., "The American Dream," A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: HarperCollins, 1986) 216.

How Do You Keep a Sabbath?

Mark 2:23-3:6

June 3, 2018

William G. Carter

One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

On a trip to Scotland, my wife and I landed for a few days in Stornoway. The city is on the Isle of Lewis, some 30 miles off the northwestern shoulder of Scotland. It is a bit secluded, which is exactly as the locals prefer it to be. News of the outside world doesn't get to Stornoway very quickly. The people are not so much isolated as insulated, again, just as many would like it to be.

In Stornoway, everything shuts down on a Sunday. Everything (except a few pubs). The guide books warn you of this, but it must be seen and experienced to be believed. Some of us may remember life before shopping malls and big box stores, all of them now open seven days a week. There was a time when life slowed down on Sunday and enjoyed family meals and refreshing naps. But somehow the old system of Sabbath keeping has unraveled in America. It happened around the time professional football got popular, or when the general population stopped caring about what the church had to say.

Not so in Stornoway, or at least not yet. The city is still run by well-starched Presbyterians, a species of which purports to be quite pious. All the public parks are closed, and the swings are chained together lest the children be tempted. Margaret, the proprietor of our bed and breakfast, told us how she once hung up her wet laundry on a Sunday. When she wasn't looking, one of her Presbyterian neighbors took it all down, folded it wet, and left a note to say, “We don't work on the Lord's day.”

It seems like an old Victorian photograph, black and white and remarkably clear. On Sunday, the Lord's Day, this is what we do, and that is what we don’t.

For the Jews of Jesus’ day, Sabbath began at sundown on Friday. No work was to be done until an hour after sundown on Saturday. The experts in God's law offered their judgments on how far somebody would be allowed to walk before it began to looks like work. They called that a Sabbath day’s journey, and it was about a half mile. No commerce was to be conducted on the Sabbath. Big meals were prepared in advance so that even Mama got a day of rest

The Jewish scriptures offered two reasons for keeping this day different. First, remember you were slaves in Egypt and God set you free. To perpetually remember this, work for six days but remain free from work on the seventh (Deuteronomy 5:12-15).

The second reason goes all the way back to Creation (Exodus 20:8-11). God is so firmly governing the world that God can take a day of rest. God is not frantic, obsessive, overbearing nor over-functioning. God is free and God is sovereign.

So naturally, the people who loved God's law had a good question for Jesus: why do your disciples break the Sabbath? They were talking about the twelve disciples, not us. The twelve were Jews, very much a part of the Jewish faith, but they were observed plucking grain on a Sabbath Saturday while walking through the fields.  

It’s a good question. God has given us the commandments to direct how we should live. They are intended for our well-being. Jesus essentially says, “Well, the boys are hungry.” He reminds them of a thousand-year-old Bible story, of a moment when David and his buddies were hungry, too. The only available bread was Holy Bread on the altar. So David has to convince the priest to hand it over, which he does.

Reminds me of the Sunday night communion services in our seminary chapel. We would gather after a long day of serving our field education churches. One of us would preach a sermon that we were getting ready for our classes. Someone would find a real minister to preside over the communion liturgy. We stood in a circle around the Table and passed the bread and cup.

I’ll never forget the first time there was a big piece of leftover bread, and somebody passed it around a second time. The guy next to me said, “Are we allowed to eat this?” The woman on the other side said, “Well, if you don’t want any more, give it to me. I’ve been with a senior high youth all day and I’m starving.”

Is it OK to eat the holy bread if you’re hungry? I suppose you could leave it there on the altar and watch it decay. Or you could eat and give thanks to God that there’s food.

Jesus raises the question: Were we made in order to keep the Sabbath, to keep the rules? Or is the Sabbath for our benefit? The Pharisees don’t bother to respond; they weren’t convinced.

We know that because they kept watching. They were waiting to pounce. And the opportunity came shortly after that. They followed him into a synagogue and saw him call out to a man with disabled hand, “Come here.” Then they heard his question for them: “What does the Law say? On the Sabbath, should we do good or do harm? Should we save a life or take a life?” And they said nothing.

You see, they had the rules on their side… but he had the Power on his side. And when Jesus called on the man to stretch out his hand and allowed it to be restored, “the Pharisees went out to conspire how to destroy Jesus.” Jesus chose to save a life, the Rule Keepers chose to take a life.

Now, this wasn’t the first time something like this happened. A number of years ago, I preached on the Sabbath every Sunday during the summer. There was no shortage of biblical material, and fortunately no shortage of patience on the part of the congregation. You know, when a preacher keeps hammering away at the same issue week after week, everybody starts to perceive what the preacher must be working through.

So one Sunday, near the end of the series, I read a paragraph from the 15^th chapter of the book of Numbers. When Israel was in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath. So they dragged him before Moses and Aaron, to ask what they should do. Nobody was sure. So the Lord said, “Put him to death by stoning.” Sticks and stones… I don’t remember the point of that sermon, but I’ve never forgotten that text. Nor have I forgotten the look on some of your faces.

How should we keep the Sabbath? I can’t think of a stranger question in the suburbs because most people don’t have a clue what a Sabbath is. People are on the go all the time. If they sit still, they feel guilty. Or worth-less. Or unproductive. Stillness and too much quiet stir up all that undigested experience that they’ve been racing to stay ahead of. And in these reality-show days, a lot of people create some noise to stay ahead of the noise in their own heads.

Sometimes my kids would plop down in a chair and say, “We’re bored.” Know what I would say? “It’s good to be bored; boredom means that you are in a holding pattern, ceasing activity, and mulling over some possibilities.” Katie would look at Meg and say, “We have the weirdest Dad in the world.” Meg would say, “Amen, sister.” Then off they would go.

About ten minutes later, here they come again. “Dad, we’re bored.” And I’d say, “Good! What an opportunity to develop your inner life! Read a book, write a poem, compose a symphony, or listen the bird song. There’s nothing wrong with cultivating depth and imagination and spirit.” Meg would look at Katie and say, “Not only is he weird, he’s crazy.” Katie would say, “Amen, sister.” Off they would go.

The rhythm would continue. Once in a while, they would get really quiet. So I would creep up silently to see what was going on. Meg would be working on a coloring book, Katie would be chasing a butterfly in the back yard. Yes! Maybe they’re going to get it after all.

The best way to keep Sabbath is by saving a life, beginning with your own. You don’t save a life by running it into the ground. You can’t save a life by hovering over things you can’t control or trying to prove that you’re important, essential, or invaluable. By resting on the seventh day, God got it right. It was all about restoration, replenishment, and giving the world some breathing room - and that sets the pattern for everything that God has created.   

So I don’t know what is going to save your life on this Christian Sabbath, which is our recurring day of resurrection. Maybe it’s kneeling in the potting soil, taking a stroll on the rail trail, or catching up on a nap. Whatever it is, let some life return to your soul. That’s the promise of keeping Sabbath, a true Sabbath.

If you’re rushing out of here to catch a tee time, meet friends for brunch, or drive to visit some family, try giving yourself some extra time. Build in some pauses, a time to breathe. Nothing is ever improved by rushing. As the psychologist Carl Jung once quipped, “Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.”

And by all means, practice some restraint. We can’t force anything on anybody, neither can we say all that we think we need to say. If you feel the need to take down somebody’s wet laundry so that you can make some grand statement, don’t do it. That’s intrusive and rude. And Sabbath keeping means that we give some room for other people to exist without the need to fix them.

Take some time today to recalibrate your expectations of how little you are actually able to accomplish, and how much more God can do beyond your efforts. It’s about breathing. I came across some wisdom from Thomas Merton which was life-giving to me, and hopefully will be for you:

The rush and pressure of modern life are a form of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence…It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.[1]

The antidote? To be still for a while, to be here together, to gather together in worship and listen to the Word of God. For this is the place where we hear once again that God has set us free from any delusion about running the world. We spend some Sabbath right here, together, and Jesus fills us with life. 

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966) p. 73