Desert Fathers Pt. 1

A Christian History article listing the author's favorite top-five books on desert spirituality pointed towards a really fun two-volume set called Barsanuphius and John of Gaza: Letters. The desert Fathers were monks in the 3rd+ cent. who sought God and holiness through separation from the world and asceticism. Their struggles were against demons, against their own pride, worldliness and temptation. They gained a reputation in part due to the biography of one of their greatest monks, St. Anthony, written by none other than Athanasius, the man whose tireless struggle in the fourth century preserved orthodox belief about the divinity and humanity of Christ.

These are people whose spirituality, completely foreign to Westerners, captures the imagination. A favorite account shared with me by my friend Dean Johnson reads,

Abba Lot came to Abba Joseph and said: Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and, according as I am able, I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: now what more should I do? The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not be changed into fire? [1]

Ah. So helpful! Another favorite example is Simeon Stylites, who is famous for living for 39 years on a platform on top of a pillar.

Simeon and Lot both show a characteristic problem with reading the desert fathers: The direction of their spirituality was so foreign to ours that their accomplishments, while at times amazing, tend to feel irrelevant.

Which is why the books of letters from Barsanuphius and John are so interesting. These two were monks in the desert of Gaza in the 6th century. They were regarded as holy men and spiritual authorities, and many people sought advice from them. Their responses are a sort of Frequently Asked Questions list on desert spirituality and asceticism. Here you see more than their cryptic advice and sayings—you get practical advice to an array of every-day questions.

For instance, one young brother asked the "Great Old Man" (as Barsanuphius was called) to guide him in talking to a fellow monk. The monk had asked the young brother about his thoughts, and he had responded in riddles, later wondering if he had acted correctly. The Great Old Man's reply was,

As for questioning in riddles, it is self-serving, lacking in discernment, and this person needs many prayers.

Score one for the riddled monk, and for common sense!

In a response to a monk who is discouraged because he can't stop thinking about sex, and wonders if maybe he just doesn't have what it takes to be a monk, Barsanuphius writes,

We hear that 'our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against rulers and against the authorities.' Until now, you have not struggled against sin tot he point of blood. Does the spirit of listlessness, then, already paralyze you? ...Ah, sleepy monk! Show the devil that you live for God, taking refuge in him, moving with hands and feet, swimming in the onslaught of the intellectual waves, which rise to the heavens and drop to the abyss. God is my witness, that my heart has been unfolded with you...

The compassion in this response is palpable. It also shows the spiritual context in which these monks lived: If you strip away the trappings of life--books, clothes, job advancement, (probably) good food, home--then maybe it makes it all the easier to see the demonic beings which resist our drawing nearer to God. Another letter to Barsanuphius has the request, "Please teach me how to reach abstinence [from food] and how to distinguish between natural and demonic weakness." He replies,

...if your body can accept daily food and is still slack, then this comes from demons; otherwise it is from the [fasting] itself.

Again, practical! (Though I might add "depressed about living in the desert" or even "common cold" to the list of possible explanations.) While I am not ready quite yet to yield to such a demon-crowded world view, I am open to the idea that the desert fathers knew something I don't about the spiritual world, and that their very different perspective allowed them to see things invisible to me.

From a Western perspective we wonder why they would pursue asceticism, and give up God's good gifts? Why they would separate themselves from the world, and thus cut themselves off from all the good they can do, the witness they can provide. Why they would spend so much energy scrutinizing each thought and emotion, when sometimes it's better to serve than to think. Why spend so much time looking for demons, rather than Jesus?

For their part they would ask us, Why are we holding so tightly to our worldly goods and pursuits, and trying to climb through the needle's eye? Doesn't it say in 1 Jn 2:15, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him"? And didn't Paul tell us to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Cor 10:15)? And didn't he also tell us that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood" (Eph 6:15)?

It helps me remember than two hundred years from now, my career, my house, my accomplishments, will be forgotten, and to admire the courage it must have taken for them to give away all of these things to draw closer to Jesus.

My reading has also taken me into perhaps one enduring gift of the desert communities, the Jesus Prayer. Frederica Matthewes-Green has written a brief and highly accessible introduction to the Prayer half of which is a list of frequently asked questions. What better way to connect with the desert fathers than with this ancient meditation? 'Tis the season.

And now, it's time for me to discern whether my hunger and slackness are due to demons, or impending lunchtime...

* * *

[Image: Michelangelo's The Torment of Saint Anthony, c. 1487-88.]
[1] The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century, Thomas Merton, New Directions Books, Norfolk, CT, 1960, p. 50.

Groupthink

I put a lot of mental energy into spiritual growth, and not nearly as much actual time and effort. In any day when I don't spent time studying Scripture, I at least feel guilty about it.

This is the sort of admission that would make the spiritual greats of history wince. I don't think I am unusual in this.

What do you do for spiritual growth? If a younger Christian asked you for thirty seconds of advice on spiritual growth, what would you say?

Get into a church, and get involved. Read your Bible and pray every day.

After that, it may start to sound a like a Lenten vow or a retreat at a local monastery: Meditate. Journal. Maybe do Compline every night, or practice the Jesus Prayer? Or get into a prayer partnership, or join a small group?

John Stott answered this question in an article where he was talking about "sowing to the Spirit" (in reference to Gal 6:8):

"...daily prayer, and meditation on the Scriptures, ... reading Christian books, making Christian friends, and getting engaged in Christian service."

Richard Foster, in Celebration of Discipline, lists meditation, prayer, fasting and study ("inward disciplines"), simplicity, solitude, submission and service ("outward disciplines"), and confession, worship, guidance and celebration ("corporate disciplines"). Dallas Willard, in his Spirit of the Disciplines has an even longer list: solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, sacrifice ("disciplines of abstinence") and study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, submission ("disciplines of engagement").

Do you also find these lists a little daunting? Like it would take all your free time just to maintain a spreadsheet of which disciplines you haven't gotten around to recently?

A very different approach can be found in Ephesians 4. Ephesians is all about God's bringing all things into unity under his Son, the primary example of this in Ephesians is the nascent unity between Jew and Gentile. Knowing the history of conflict and enmity between the two groups, Paul finds this oneness of purpose and faith nothing short of miraculous, a harbinger of the downfall of Satan himself (3:10). Think of a church where Israeli and Palestinians converts worship side by side in love and affection, and you get the idea.

In this treatise on the supernatural unity of the Holy Spirit, we read:

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ²with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace... 7 But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift... ¹¹The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹²to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. ¹⁴We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ¹⁵But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. [4:1-3,7,11-16]

Right in the center of a passage urging unity of spirit and purpose we find an unlikely reference to sanctification. Paul promises nothing less than "the full stature of Christ", and such discernment as to give stability in the midst of subtly deceptive teaching. And the road to maturity--in a sense, Paul's list like those of Stott, Willard and Foster above--is to work together in ministry. How do you grow spiritually? Find a way to use your gifts in community, and preferably in a community which represents the diversity we expect to see in the next life, and work towards in this one. Paul warns this will take love and patience and truth, and genuine effort, enough so that he begs the Ephesians to put everything into this pursuit.

Two observations:

1. This is ultimately a process done in community.[1] This is not to say that Foster or Willard are wrong to recommend solitary practices; but if we are serious about spiritual growth, we must do it with other Christians. In our culture, where it is much more acceptable to be "spiritual" rather than "religious," attaching yourself to a church is about as popular as being a single adult living with your parents. Paul doesn't give you the luxury of waiting until you find a church you can really show off to your friends. If you want to grow spiritually, you do it by striving with other believers, with all their faults and foibles.
2. Paul tells the recipients of this letter to use their gifts "for the work of ministry." Spiritual growth is a byproduct here of pursuing God's kingdom. Spiritual "muscles" aren't like those a bodybuilder gets in the gym; they are like the muscles you get working in the fields with the other laborers.
   

These are difficult truths. It can be hard for us to imagine ourselves being more Christ-like in a year or ten. How much harder, then, to envision to the sanctification of the whole community? When I think of the people in my church, I get the feeling sanctification isn't necessarily high on their list for some. What do I do with them? Do I just engage in ministry and grow alongside those others who do the same, forgetting about those who stayed home? It's not so tough to imagine and pray for the sanctification of the type-A members of the church, but Paul doesn't make such a distinction.

Maybe this is what the forty years in the desert were like. If Moses or Joshua could have mustered their crack team of the highly motivated, they could have stormed Canaan, cutting the trip by half. But God's people had to travel together, both the Calebs and the less motivated stragglers. They were dependent on God for their survival and salvation, but also were forced to work together. In a sense, they even had it easier than we do: The signs of God's presence were very physical, including the pillars of smoke and fire and manna from heaven. Also, it wasn't an option for them to stay put and go to sleep in the desert, or shuffle at a snail's pace, pretending it counted as travel. Happily, there were no Sunday-morning soccer matches in the desert to compete for their attention.

This is where we point out the many benefits of new-covenant life. They had a pillar of fire; we have the indwelling Spirit of the Living God, the Ancient of Days, who desires to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. The wandering people of God would have glad to hear Paul say,

But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. (2 Thess 2:13)

For all that, though, we also have bills to pay, kids to raise, and a roiling sea of distractions. The sad truth is that there will always be those among us who are indifferent to God's will for us and even some who choose, out of plain stubbornness, to quench the Spirit. Jesus' parable of the sower is fair warning of this. It's as if some in the desert had just wanted to sit down and give up, or pitch tents in the hot sun and forsake Canaan. The hard job of the family of believers is to love and cajole and encourage them. It's an exhausting thought, but as Jesus is patient with us, we must be the same.

On the bright side, this time around the earth generally doesn't open its mouth and swallow any of us up. That's some comfort, at least.

* * *

[1] This isn't of course the only passage on sanctification or spiritual growth. If by contrast you read only Jn 8:23-32, for instance, you will come away believing spiritual growth is all about immersion in Jesus' teachings. Given the themes of the letter, it's no surprise that Ephesians presents the communal aspect of sanctification. But that fact shouldn't lead us to de-emphasize this passage, as if the author were over-stating his case. Western believers are so inclined towards individualism that this is precisely the emphasis we need to hear.

Addendum:

Q: Do adult Christians need to put energy into pursuit of spiritual growth, or is that just for the overachievers of the church? I went through a dozen years of Sunday school growing up, I attend church, and a few years ago I was in that Bible study--you remember. Isn't that enough?

A: Several passages in the NT indicate that spiritual growth is meant to be central for believers. 2 Peter 2:18 commands the reader to "grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord"; in Col 1:10 the author prays for the readers to "grow in the knowledge of God," leading to patience and joy and "bearing fruit in every good work." In Hebrews we read that "anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil"--and the author goes on "leave behind the elementary teachings about Christ..." (5:13-6:2). Almost every one of Paul's letters includes a healthy dose of paraenesis, or teaching about holy living. Is this just for the young Christians of the early church? Two reasons not to think so: (1) The second-generation church addressed by the pastorals is cut from the same cloth; and (2) Paul's famous autobiographical passage in Romans 7-8 describing his struggle with sanctification assumes as a backdrop that an apostle whom all would consider a "mature" believer nevertheless grapples with spiritual growth.

Faith to save but not to change?

Hank is 18, a senior in college, and hoping to move east and enter the Maine Maritime Academy. Years of reading about the sea make him want to follow in the footsteps of his merchant-marine grandfather, but there's one problem: Hank needs to pass the lifesaving test. He knows how to swim, but Hank's always focused more on the elements of sailing which are above the water level and doesn't have the experience he needs.

So you can imagine how excited Hank is when he hears about Mr. Wilkins, who advertises that in six weeks he could guarantee Hank (or anyone else) would pass the test. Hank meets with him, and expresses his reservations:

"Are you sure after six weeks I'll pass the test?" asks Hank.

"Just show up each day for half an hour, and I guarantee you'll be a first-class life guard and swimmer. Put some effort in, and you'll feel at home even in rough waters," says Mr. Wilkins.

At Hank's dubious look, Mr. Wilkins adds, "The goal isn't just passing the test--you'll go way beyond that if you just show up each day for instruction. Most of my students become outstanding swimmers, and many are now in the Coast Guard."

"But you're sure I'll pass the test?" asks a worried Hank.

"Of course--just show up and do what I say," comes the exasperated reply.

*

Most of us have dark moments when we fear death. No matter what we believe, there are times when we lie awake and wonder if it's all true. How will it end? And once we breath our last, will we meet God, or will our thoughts and feelings come to an end forever?

Similarly, no matter how much we believe in grace, most of us get a chill when we read the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:31-46. This is the passage where Jesus says to the goats, "I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, a stranger and you did not invite me in", etc. Barbara Brown Taylor's experience is common to many of us:

So when I hear a story like this one I review my list. First I read it over very carefully and note that I need at least one hungry person, one thirsty one, one stranger, one naked person, one sick person, and one prisoner so that I can supply—in that order—food, drink, a warm welcome, some clothes, a hospital visit, and a prison visit. Then, presumably, I will have satisfied all the requirements for ending up with the sheep instead of the goats. Now isn't that absurd?

As Keith Green helpfully pointed out, "the only difference between the sheep and the goats, according to this scripture, is what they did, and didn't do." This passage could not be more blunt. It teaches many things, but at its core, it tells us that Jesus will judge on the basis of actions.

At this point it would be easy to go down the path of faith v. works, but we've been down this road before. Paul and James agree:

"The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love" (Gal 5:6b)

and

"In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead" (James 2:17).

Generally at this point we nod and acknowledge that any true faith will by necessity entail good works of the sort Jesus mentions. As Paul also says,

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." (Gal 6:7)

Well, then, this is the consistent message of the NT: when we stand before the throne of judgment, the test of true faith will be seen in whether we truly chose to follow Jesus. We need not draw a line to determine how many righteous works will save us; they won't. But true saving faith will produce those actions as sure as day follows from night.

It's no wonder we don't always sleep well. Many of us have frown creases on our foreheads due specifically to holding "there is therefore no condemnation" (Rom 8:1) in our minds along with the Sheep and the Goats.

There is a tonic for this.

A casual look at the grand sweep of Old Testament history shows us that God demanded righteousness from his people, and they managed it about as well as the peacetime Ulysses Grant stayed away from the bottle. From this standpoint Israel's story looks much like the Garden: given God's abundance and told to do what was right, time and again they chose evil. Finally God sends his Son, as if he's tried every other method and in frustration is forced to do what he didn't want to in the first place.

What OT history also tells us is that God always intended to create for himself a people bearing his righteousness. It may not have been the method we would have chosen, but it's God's goal, and he will accomplish it in his time. As Isaiah says (45:23-25),

By myself I have sworn,
my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:
Before me every knee will bow;
by me every tongue will swear.

They will say of me, `In the LORD alone
are righteousness and strength.' "
All who have raged against him
will come to him and be put to shame.

But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel
will be found righteous and will exult.

Or even more strongly in 60:20-21,

Your sun will never set again,
and your moon will wane no more;
the LORD will be your everlasting light,
and your days of sorrow will end.

Then will all your people be righteous
and they will possess the land forever.
They are the shoot I have planted,
the work of my hands,
for the display of my splendor.

Is this just for the next life? In Ezekiel (11:19-20), when talking about return from exile, God says

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

He speaks here of his new covenant, when God says,

I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people. (Jer 31:33)

This is the covenant we celebrate every time we share the Lord's Supper.

Now look to the New Testament. John writes in 1:12-13,

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

Unlike in modern Western culture, in ancient times the son most often did what the father did, and the daughter the mother. So the son of a cobbler made shoes; and the child of God does what God does--and bears his righteousness. We don't often read this as a statement of sanctification, but that's just what it is. So Paul writes in 1 Thess 4:2a, "It is God's will that you should be sanctified"--and later adds

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. (1 Thess 5:23-24)

Despite this--despite Paul's assertions that we are "being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory" (2 Cor 3:18), we often forget that we are part of God's plan from the beginning to make a righteous people for himself, a plan he intends to succeed. Ever wonder why Jesus, the man best acquainted with God's amazing grace, can speak so easily of the angels separating "the wicked from the righteous" (Mt 13:49--in many ways parallel to the Sheep and the Goats)? Not because in the end it all comes down to God sparing those who somehow manage to have a good enough Sunday-school attendance record and give enough to the poor. But because if we sow to the Spirit, God will bring about his righteousness in us.

As a community of faith, we can be a lot like Hank. We concentrate on passing the test, and fail to notice the wonderful things God will teach us and do in us. Like a husband who forever obsesses about the glorious moment when his wife agreed to marry him, we don't enjoy what the Spirit is working in us even now. Our righteousness is not merely some imputed thing which appears in God's ledger and saves us from eternal suffering as if by mere legal action. As much as we are willing to bathe ourselves in God's Word and little by little give him our time and priorities, we will find him creating in us a righteousness which transforms our very character.

That's the tonic for Sheep-and-Goats heartburn. God is even now making a righteous people for himself, and to the degree that we are willing to show up and let him, he will happily include us. Don't be surprised that the sheep do good works in Jesus' parable: That was God's plan for each of us from the very start.

*

[Artwork: The central panel of Hans Memling's Last Judgment Triptych. Taylor: "Knowing Glances" from The Preaching Life.]

The Widow's Might

The story of the Widow's Mite (Mk 12:41-55 and Lk 21:1-4) has received little attention in general. Scholarly articles on the passage tend to focus on the coins in the story or extra-biblical parallels, or how Jesus was able to know her financial situation from afar. The main point of the text gets relatively attention in the journals, perhaps because it's thought to be obvious.

When you turn to commentaries, you find a vast range of restatements of two main theories: (a) What counts isn't how much you give, but how much you have left (e.g. Marshall); or (b) What counts is the attitude of the heart--a non-trite version of "it's the thought that counts" (e.g. Calvin).

Both of these are surely true statements, though it's hard to support the second from the text since we can't read the widow's mind. Certainly, though, Jesus applauds her willingness to give all.

The more you think about her sacrifice, though, the less well it sits. Women in first-century Palestine got the short end of the stick in almost every way: They were restricted in their roles because they were seen to be inferior physically and mentally, and even to be responsible for most sin. One daily prayer regimen had men thanking God each day for not being born women. In addition, this woman is poor, and widowed. A woman's legal status depended on her relatives, so being without a husband left her in an unprotected state, to say the least.

So if she's giving money to the collection, who is it for? Can there be anyone who needs those two coins more than she?

Jesus takes great pains elsewhere to point out, as Lord of the Sabbath, that the Sabbath was made for people, not the other way around. Similarly, in Mark 7:10-13 he condemns a practice called "Corban," wherein you could abandon obligations to your parents so long as the money went instead to the temple coffers. The widow's gift is a very close parallel to that--her very living is being given away when she can ill spare it.

The key to this paradox comes from the context (Wright, 1982). This story appears in both Mark and Luke, and in both cases it comes after a condemnation of the Scribes--who love ostentation and take advantage of the poor--and before a prediction of the destruction of the temple and the religious authorities it represents.

The widow's sacrifice is said to be superior to all others in magnitude--"this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others"--but Jesus isn't lauding the sacrifice itself. In fact, it is an object lesson. Having just condemned the Scribes for "devouring widow's houses" (Mk 12:40), he points to where this is happening in front of their very eyes. As Addison Wright points out,

Jesus' saying is not a penetrating insight on the measuring of gifts; it is a lament, "Amen, I tell you, she gave more than all the others." Or, as we would say: "One could easily fail to notice it, but there is the tragedy of the day-she put in her whole living." She had been taught and encouraged by religious leaders to donate as she does, and Jesus condemns the value system that motivates her action, and he condemns the people who conditioned her to do it.

We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We learn both from what the widow is doing and what is being done to her. Any religious system which can consume its weakest and most vulnerable for fuel deserves to meet with the same fate as the temple did in AD 70.

It is tempting to bring up Father Arturo Uribe, who in seminary fathered a child, and later as a priest successfully argued in court that he shouldn't have to pay child support because of his vow of poverty. Or to learn from the mixed feelings of a father whose two daughters decided to give their careers to take holy orders.

We need to look a little closer to home. This passage warns us that not all judgment waits for the end of time. In AD 70 the temple met its fate, and later in Rev 2:5 Jesus warned the Ephesian church, "If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place."

If Jesus hadn't pointed her out, the disciples would never have noticed the widow. How are the marginalized in our church, the people we barely see, faring?

[Refs: The image is The Widow's Mite (Le denier de la veuve) by James Tissout, from the Brooklyn Museum; On women in the first century: Green, Joel B., McKnight, Scot; Marshall, I. Howard: Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (IVP, 1992) p. 880; Addison Wright, "The Widow's Mites: Praise or Lament?-A Matter of Context," Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 44, 256 (1982); Calvin: Commentary on Matthew, Mark, Luke - Volume 3.]

Fun Fact:

The widow's "mite" of Mk 12:42 is, in the Greek, the lepton, the smallest of the Roman coins. The term "lepton" is also used for a class of elementary particles containing some of the smallest particles, including the nearly massless neutrino. Neutrinos, while numerous, are so nearly "invisible"-interacting weakly with the universe around them-that it's been estimated more than 50 trillion neutrinos generated by our sun pass quietly through the human body every second.

There is a time, though, when neutrinos take center stage: during the collapse of a star in a supernova, a cataclysmic event where a single star can outshine an entire galaxy. A flood of neutrinos out of the dying star bears away most of the energy of this collapse, an effect which provides an early warning system; the neutrinos from Supernova 1987A, for instance, were detected three hours before the photons.

A litmus test of grace

Like most Christians, the story of the rich young ruler (RYR) has always made me squirm. He wants to know how to inherit eternal life and is told to give everything away and follow Jesus. The disciples are then scared, since for them the RYR's riches are a sure demonstration of his righteousness and God's favor. If he can't have eternal life, they surely are out of luck.

Jesus comfort for his disciples is that God can do what's impossible for us. Which is a comfort only if you know God is planning to show you that mercy!

In history there's been enough squirming about this passage that by the 4th century Cyril of Alexandria insists that instead of kamelon (camel) the correct Greek word is the similar-sounding kamilon (rope, or cable), which he says is “not entirely pointless (as a camel would be)” but is just next to impossible. An even more heroic effort to blunt this saying came with the myth of a small gate into Jerusalem called the "Eye of the Needle"--which would make entrance into the kingdom hard, but possible. There was no such gate, though! In fact, in Jewish rabbinical literature from Babylonia, where the largest land animal was the elephant, not the camel, an elephant passing through the eye of a needle is a figure of speech for sheer impossibility.

Well, maybe if we can just avoid reading this passage more than once a year, we can cut down on our squirming. No such luck: Jesus' words about counting the cost of discipleship and surrendering all to him appear in various places, notably The Parable of the Rich Fool (who builds storehouses for his crops rather than treasures in heaven), and the conclusion to the Lilies of the Field: "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Well--then it is about priorities, right, and not specifically money? Barbara Brown Taylor says it well:

It seems to me that Christians mangle this story in at least two ways. First, by acting as if it were not about money, and second, by acting as if it were only about money.

R. H. Gundry adds, pointedly,

That Jesus did not command all his followers to sell all their possessions gives comfort only to the kind of people to whom he would give that command.

Well, if it's about money, let's be practical. If I give up all I own, then I am just placing the burden of my support on others--and I am abandoning and dependents I might have. Nor does Jesus ask all his disciples to give up all they own. True. And in fact, Luke tells us of well-to-do women in the early church who "were helping to support them out of their own means" (Lk 8:3). Still, for most of us there's a pretty large gulf between what we currently give, and giving all. Even knowing that Jesus' message is about priorities and idolatry, his warning is dire. How sure am I that I can be the one who makes it through the eye of the needle, even though I share the RYR's reluctance to part with all my possessions?

This wall is just what Jesus wanted the RYR to run into. John Calvin, with an eye toward the book of Romans, sees the rich young ruler as pursuing the righteousness of the law (Rom 10:5), rather than the saving righteousness of faith (Rom 10:6) and believes Jesus answers to suit the question:

Hence we infer, that this reply of Christ is legal, because it was proper that the young man who inquired about the righteousness of works should first be taught that no man is accounted righteous before God unless he has fulfilled the law (which is impossible) that, convinced of his weakness, he might betake himself to the assistance of faith.

In other words, Jesus, hearing the RYR ask what he could do to inherit eternal life, wanted to drive home that there's nothing you can do. And for those who missed it, he drives home the message of grace: we are totally dependent on God's mercy because what is impossible for us is possible only for God.

There can be, though, a key difference between the RYR and us. If you are a baptized member of the Body of Christ, and your love for God and neighbor (however humble) bears witness to Christ's living within you, you have eternal life. The author of 1 John, having emphasized love for neighbor, comforts his flock, says just this: "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." As Paul says in Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." No final condemnation from God; and even none from this passage.

Seen rightly, this passage is a litmus test for our understanding of grace. To set our knees knocking when reading this passage is to believe that Christ's sacrifice isn't quite sufficient, and that we have to make up the deficiency with our own monetary sacrifice.

What, then, do we make of this passage? Writing in the fourth century, John Chrysostom says,

And so after Jesus had made eye contact with them, he said, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." So with a pleasant and gentle look, he soothed those whose hearts were terrorized and relieved their anguish… Then he uplifted them with his words as he focused on the power of God, and thus gave them faith.

If you also want to learn the way and how the impossible becomes possible, listen. He did not make this statement that what is impossible for man is possible for God merely so you could relax and do nothing and leave it all to God. No, he said this so you could understand the importance of calling upon God to give you help in this rigorous contest and that you might more readily approach his grace.

Jesus teaching isn't meant to make us afraid or guilty, except as way to warn us of the difficulties of leaning on him when we have first-world resources at our command; and it's meant to reassure is that God will take care of us with or without those resources. In fact, ultimately, Jesus calls us in compassion to stop thinking about our needs, and focus on the needs of others. We read this passage and focus on just on the RYR, and ignore the poor standing behind him, whose need he ignores when he turns from Jesus. To read this passage with God's grace in mind, we set aside the fear, the guilt, and focus instead on those in need--what better way to show our love for Jesus? Then we will find joy and peace.

[References: Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life (sermon "The Opposite of Rich"); Chrysostom: Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Matthew Vol 2, and Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew; Gundry: Walter Kaiser, Hard Sayings of the Bible; Calvin: Commentary on Matthew, Mark, Luke, Vol. 2. Image: Stained Glass Window in First Reformed United Church of Christ, Burlington, NC.]

Spiritual Forces and Sanctification

Here is a great quote from a paper from Bruce Longenecker, which (for me) casts a new light on Romans 8 and Paul's discussion of sanctification:

“Widespread in the Greco-Roman culture of Paul’s day was the belief that the world is populated by a multitude of suprahuman powers in constant conflict with each other. Human beings could become pawns and players in the rivalry and struggles that marked out the otherworldly realm. The spirit world could envelop the concrete world, as demonic spirits, and spiritual forces were thought to be alive and well, influencing human circumstances and destiny.

The Letter to the Galatians demonstrates that Paul could envisage the world in similar ways. So, for instance, he speaks of the Galatians having been ‘enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods’ prior to their Christian commitment (4:8). Moreover, Paul, having been transformed by God, claims to that ‘Christ lives in me’ (2:20), and hopes that his efforts among the Christians in Galatia will result in Christ being ‘formed in you’ (4:19). Paul expects the formation of Christ to be evident within the social relations of Galatian Christians, and this, for Paul, is first and foremost a matter of moral character; that is, Christian transformation is to be enacted in the giving of oneself for the benefit of others (5:13; 6:2) after the manner of Christ’s own selfless giving (1:4; 2:20). As Paul envisages the situation in Galatia, however, he perceives other spiritual realities to be at work, suprahuman forces that foster forms of moral character contrary to that of Christ and his people.”

Let's imagine sort of a straw-man "modern view." (Take these numbers with a grain of salt--the exact numbers aren't the point.) In a modern view, 90% of people are "free agents"--they are spiritually autonomous. 9% (maybe) are Christians, who are under the influence of the Holy Spirit, if all is going well, and the Spirit's role is to very very gradually make them a little more like Jesus. (And the remaining 1% are, say, shamans who are under a darker spiritual influence?)

In Paul's world, the 98% were under the influence of whatever deities or spiritual forces had jurisdiction where they were. Those 98% were constantly trying to appease the evil spirits/gods while pleasing the more benign entities. And 2% (or whatever) were Christians who'd put themselves under the aegis of the Holy Spirit.

It puts a different spin on Romans and Galatians to realize this: The effect of the Spirit seems much more immediate and powerful in this world view. Paul didn't have to explain that the Spirit would work to change your character--it was assumed if the Spirit of the creator of the universe were indwelling you, you'd notice. And just as importantly, you'd be free from other spiritual influences.

The $1,000 question, then, is how well Paul's understanding of his spiritual context translates to our modern context. The traditional conservative reading says that we should follow Paul's view of the spiritual world, which appears consistent with Jesus'. And this is based on the thought that even if Jesus, having emptied himself of his divine "omnis", didn't know everything (Mt 24:36; Philip 2:5-8), surely the Spirit ensured he was not captive to lies which would poison his teachings. I.e., he might not have known germ theory of diseases, but that didn't affect his presentation of the Gospel.

Is it possible that Paul's view of the spiritual world was correct for 1st-century Rome but not the 21st-century West? Hard to imagine.

But if we enter Paul's world, we have to acknowledge that a saving grace of the Gospel is to free us from influences most of us never see or credit.

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Cor 4:4)

Praise God that he has opened our eyes!

[Refs: Bruce W. Longenecker, “Until Christ is Formed in You: Suprahuman Forces and Moral Character in Galatians,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61, 92 (1999); The Rival Sacrifices of Elijah and the Priests of Baal, 1545, by Lucas The Younger Cranach (b. 1515, Wittenberg, d. 1586, Weimar)]

I have been reading Ron Sider's Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, first published almost 35 years ago. With about a half-million copies in print, I'm sure many or most of you have already read it. I have found it to be insightfully written, chock full of thoroughly-referenced information, and very convicting. I'm only about halfway through.

Sider's chapter 3, God and the Poor, is a pretty thorough-going and balanced assessment of God's historical defense of those who are poor, weak, and defenseless. One area in which his treatment seems balanced is in its consideration of Christians' responsibility to the poor in general as well as to poor and downtrodden brothers and sisters in Christ. In view of our discussion some time ago of the sheep and the goats (Mt 25), I thought his comments were interesting:

"We have seen how God declared that the people of Israel were really Sodom and Gomorrah rather than the people of God (Is 1:10). God could not tolerate their exploitation of the poor and disadvantaged any longer. Hosea solemnly announced that, because of their sins, Israel was no longer God's pepeple and he was no longer their God (1:8-9). In fact, God destroyed them.

Jesus expressed it even more pointedly. To those who do not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoners, he will speak a terrifying word at the final judgment: 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels' (Mt 25:41). The meaning is clear. Jesus intends that his disciples imitate his own concern for the poor and needy. Those who disobey will experience eternal damnation.

But perhaps we have misinterpreted Matthew 25. Some people think that 'the least of these' (v. 45) and 'the least of these who are members of my family' (v. 40) refer only to Christians. This exegesis is not certain. But even if the primary reference of these words is to poor believers, other aspects of Jesus’ teaching not only permit but require us to extend the meaning of Matthew 25 to both believers and unbelievers who are poor and oppressed. The story of the good Samaritan teaches that anybody in need is our neighbor (Luke 10:29-37). Matthew 5:43-45 is even more explicit: 'You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love you neighbor and hate your enemy'. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sum rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.'

The ideal in the Qumran community was indeed to "'ove all the sons of light' and 'hate all the sons of darkness' (1 QS 1:9-10, the Essenes' Community Rule). Even in the Old Testament, Israelites were commanded to love the neighbor who was the child of their own people and ordered not to seek the prosperity of Ammonites and Moabites (Lev 19:17-18; Deut 23:36). But Jesus forbids his followers to limit their concern to the neighbors who are members of their own ethnic or religious group. On the other hand, he commands his followers to imitate God, who does good for all people everywhere.

In light of the parable of the Good Samaritan and the clear teaching of Mt 4:43-48, one is compelled to say that part of the full meaning of Matthew 25 is that those who fail to aid the poor and oppressed (whether they are believers or not) are simply not the people of God."

Sider does not do away with the special responsibility of Chritians to one another. In fact, elsewhere in the book, he claims that we fail to take advantage of one of the most effective evangelistic tools available to us: caring for the worldwide church. Sider argues that, if we only cared for our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world as we ought, God would use our love for one another to call many to faith.

Some of the chapter is contained in this newsletter article, published around the time of the first edition of the book:

http://morrie.typepad.com/exploring_the_connections/files/the_bible_and_wealth.pdf.