The Definition of Sanity
Commentary
Since Albert Einstein is considered the genius above all geniuses, he is often credited quotes he never said. (If Einstein said it, it must be true.) That includes the saying that insanity is defined as doing the same thing again and again and expecting to get a different result. Actually, it wasn't until the 1980's that he was first connected to that saying, but it doesn't matter who actually said it, because these three scriptures seem to validate the saying.
There's a central dysfunction in Genesis where one child is favored over others and it has led to alienation and misery over the centuries, until Joseph breaks the cycle and brings some sanity to the family history. Paul addresses some questions the Corinthians have about the whole idea of immortality by telling them we're not doing that old thing with the bodies of the old creation all over again, we're part of a new creation. And Jesus, in the Sermon on the Plain as presented in the Gospel of Luke, addresses the insanity of our times by commanding a whole other way of living.
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Nineteenth-century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy once called the Joseph saga the most beautiful story ever written. At its heart is forgiveness, but preceding that forgiveness is a tale of dreams, sibling rivalry, murderous jealousy, false charges, unjust imprisonment, redemption, and an unexamined dysfunction that plagued a family unto the fourth generation. Joseph grows from spoiled brat to shaman and wise man, and through it all God continues to control history. Despite every effort to put an early end to the story, God's will is done.
Abraham and Sarah favor Isaac over Ishmael. Isaac and his wife Rebekah each favor a different twin, Esau and Jacob respectively. Jacob/Israel favors Joseph over the other eleven sons. His gift of a "coat of many colors" to his favorite poisons the family to the point where the brothers plot to kill Joseph. His descent into slavery, the false charges from his first master's wife in Egypt, and his descent into an unjust imprisonment are more than matched by God's blessing which has rested upon each generation since Abraham in turn. Though God is largely unseen in this story, that blessing results in Joseph finding favor and success in the service of Potiphar, the Warden of the jail, and ultimately Pharaoh himself! Joseph becomes the savior of Egypt and humanity during a world-wide seven year famine.
Meanwhile the brothers are the sharers of a bitter secret about their brother, and their father takes no joy in the rest of his family but broods upon the seeming death of his favorite. Starvation sends them to Egypt to obtain much needed grain, and this leads to a collision between perpetrators and victim of revenge.
This story should end in a gloriously bloody and horrifying scene of counter-revenge as Joseph toys with his brothers. They don't recognize their brother in this august Egyptian official who is at times caring and helpful, and other times judgmental and vindictive. The plot is complicated by Joseph's demand that the brothers bring their other favored sibling, Benjamin on the next visit, and when they do so, despite their father's pleas that this will kill him if he does not returned (more jealous and anguish), Benjamin is caught in a trap.
If this were a modern movie Joseph would reveal his identity at the moment when the brothers are about to be destroyed in painful and eradicating ways.
But God is the director of this story. Judah confesses guilt, insists he should be sacrificed in his brother's place, and is in his own way an agent of the reversal of the cycle of vengeance.
What cannot be overlooked in the midst of the weeping and wailing of revelation and reconciliation is Joseph's insistence that God has worked through these events to create a more blessed reality than before. It's not perfect. When their father dies some years later the brothers worry that Joseph has only delayed his revenge. But no, there is real change. Three times Joseph makes it clear that God is doing a great thing. We see that it is made possible by breaking the cycle of dysfunction and revenge.
The mystery of life remains: God is named as the author of this saga, but is largely unseen. Much like our own lives. Forgiveness is not easy, and it doesn't come quickly. Forgiveness can take time -- even a lifetime. There are no shortcuts.
Luke 6:27-38
While the Gospel of Matthew has its famous Sermon on the Mount, the Gospel of Luke also has its sermon delivered by Jesus, often referred to as the Sermon on the Plain. While there are many similarities in the themes of these two speeches, there are a few differences. In Luke, for instance, Jesus matches his "blesseds" with warnings of "woes." In Matthew we are told that the poor in spirit are blessed. In Luke we learn that blessed are the poor.
In this section of the Sermon on the plain Jesus outlines another way of living that is absurd on the face of it, yet this is the way of life. It begins with the command to love your enemies. In the Hebrew Bible the word for love is not just about a feeling -- love is action. Love is doing. So what does it mean to love your enemies -- it's not just a forlorn wish that they were nicer to you. We're to do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who abuse us. We're to turn the other cheek, and to reward those who rob us with even more stuff.
The examples given by Jesus are absurd -- but as he points out, if we don't do these things we're no better than the culture that surrounds us. Sometimes we use the larger culture as our excuse -- this is what we're expected to do. This is how everyone acts.
The Golden Rule, outlined in verse 31, is the counter to how everyone acts. And in verse 34 the example of lending money without expecting it back gets to the core of the matter. Money lending is criticized within the body of the Hebrew scriptures probably because it was a common, and even logical practice, not only outside the body of believers but within it as well. But lending money is not really loving or doing good. It's just a quid pro quo. Lending without expecting a return is the radical approach that Jesus.
Then the whole passage pivots on the word "but" in verse 35. Jesus has corrected a false interpretation of the Golden Rule. Just lending is not loving. This is a turning point not only in the passage but in the way we live our lives.
The fact that this command is for everyone, in and out of the faith, is indicated by the use of the phrase "Most High God" when it comes to a question of reward! That is the phase used in the Greco-Roman world for the God of Israel. Everyone is being addressed, not just a small group of those especially committed to following Jesus. During much of Christian history it was common to talk of the Two Kingdoms Theory. Clergy might be expected to turn the other cheek and to obey Jesus radically, but not people who had to live in the so-called "real world." But acting in mercy, actively doing good in response to evil, these are the marks of the real disciple.
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
Most people know about Jonathan Swift's satirical novel Gulliver's Travels without having read it. They know that in Lilliput Gulliver is a giant among tiny people, and in Brobdingnag he is a tiny person among giants. But his travels aren't limited to those two places. In the third part of the novel he travels to the floating island of Laputa, where he discovers that some people are born with a mark that sets them apart as immortals. Gulliver thinks this is marvelous but the Laputans know better. These immortals, known as Struldbruggs, continue to age. They get more frail, lost memory, outlive their contemporaries, and are pitiable creatures. This kind of immortality, Swift is telling us, is no blessing.
In his first letter to the Corinthians the apostle Paul is encouraging his listeners to quit thinking about the resurrection of the dead as a return to the old body and the old infirmities and the old ways. What we see in our earthly bodies is only a seed of the new life that is within us in Christ. There's a radical new way of living that awaits us that is not merely a repetition of the old. A corpse is repulsive, and it is not that body, which began decaying long before it died (think of our normal aches and pains!) but we are to be transformed.
That means also that we can begin to live now according to the new life in Christ, even if we do not yet have our new bodies. The new life Jesus outlines in the Sermon on the Plain, the new life exemplified in Joseph's decision to forgive, these are signs that Christ is alive in us!
Jesus himself addressed some of this confusion when he was asked by some Sadducees a question about a woman who had seven husbands, one after the other -- whose wife would she be in the resurrection? This is a useless question, Jesus said, based on assumptions that the new life is nothing more than more of the old life.
In Daniel 12 we learn that some will rise to everlasting glory. In Revelation we see that the martyrs, their bodies destroyed in bloody displays, look just fine in heaven. Things as we see them here in the present life are not things as they really are!
There's a central dysfunction in Genesis where one child is favored over others and it has led to alienation and misery over the centuries, until Joseph breaks the cycle and brings some sanity to the family history. Paul addresses some questions the Corinthians have about the whole idea of immortality by telling them we're not doing that old thing with the bodies of the old creation all over again, we're part of a new creation. And Jesus, in the Sermon on the Plain as presented in the Gospel of Luke, addresses the insanity of our times by commanding a whole other way of living.
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Nineteenth-century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy once called the Joseph saga the most beautiful story ever written. At its heart is forgiveness, but preceding that forgiveness is a tale of dreams, sibling rivalry, murderous jealousy, false charges, unjust imprisonment, redemption, and an unexamined dysfunction that plagued a family unto the fourth generation. Joseph grows from spoiled brat to shaman and wise man, and through it all God continues to control history. Despite every effort to put an early end to the story, God's will is done.
Abraham and Sarah favor Isaac over Ishmael. Isaac and his wife Rebekah each favor a different twin, Esau and Jacob respectively. Jacob/Israel favors Joseph over the other eleven sons. His gift of a "coat of many colors" to his favorite poisons the family to the point where the brothers plot to kill Joseph. His descent into slavery, the false charges from his first master's wife in Egypt, and his descent into an unjust imprisonment are more than matched by God's blessing which has rested upon each generation since Abraham in turn. Though God is largely unseen in this story, that blessing results in Joseph finding favor and success in the service of Potiphar, the Warden of the jail, and ultimately Pharaoh himself! Joseph becomes the savior of Egypt and humanity during a world-wide seven year famine.
Meanwhile the brothers are the sharers of a bitter secret about their brother, and their father takes no joy in the rest of his family but broods upon the seeming death of his favorite. Starvation sends them to Egypt to obtain much needed grain, and this leads to a collision between perpetrators and victim of revenge.
This story should end in a gloriously bloody and horrifying scene of counter-revenge as Joseph toys with his brothers. They don't recognize their brother in this august Egyptian official who is at times caring and helpful, and other times judgmental and vindictive. The plot is complicated by Joseph's demand that the brothers bring their other favored sibling, Benjamin on the next visit, and when they do so, despite their father's pleas that this will kill him if he does not returned (more jealous and anguish), Benjamin is caught in a trap.
If this were a modern movie Joseph would reveal his identity at the moment when the brothers are about to be destroyed in painful and eradicating ways.
But God is the director of this story. Judah confesses guilt, insists he should be sacrificed in his brother's place, and is in his own way an agent of the reversal of the cycle of vengeance.
What cannot be overlooked in the midst of the weeping and wailing of revelation and reconciliation is Joseph's insistence that God has worked through these events to create a more blessed reality than before. It's not perfect. When their father dies some years later the brothers worry that Joseph has only delayed his revenge. But no, there is real change. Three times Joseph makes it clear that God is doing a great thing. We see that it is made possible by breaking the cycle of dysfunction and revenge.
The mystery of life remains: God is named as the author of this saga, but is largely unseen. Much like our own lives. Forgiveness is not easy, and it doesn't come quickly. Forgiveness can take time -- even a lifetime. There are no shortcuts.
Luke 6:27-38
While the Gospel of Matthew has its famous Sermon on the Mount, the Gospel of Luke also has its sermon delivered by Jesus, often referred to as the Sermon on the Plain. While there are many similarities in the themes of these two speeches, there are a few differences. In Luke, for instance, Jesus matches his "blesseds" with warnings of "woes." In Matthew we are told that the poor in spirit are blessed. In Luke we learn that blessed are the poor.
In this section of the Sermon on the plain Jesus outlines another way of living that is absurd on the face of it, yet this is the way of life. It begins with the command to love your enemies. In the Hebrew Bible the word for love is not just about a feeling -- love is action. Love is doing. So what does it mean to love your enemies -- it's not just a forlorn wish that they were nicer to you. We're to do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who abuse us. We're to turn the other cheek, and to reward those who rob us with even more stuff.
The examples given by Jesus are absurd -- but as he points out, if we don't do these things we're no better than the culture that surrounds us. Sometimes we use the larger culture as our excuse -- this is what we're expected to do. This is how everyone acts.
The Golden Rule, outlined in verse 31, is the counter to how everyone acts. And in verse 34 the example of lending money without expecting it back gets to the core of the matter. Money lending is criticized within the body of the Hebrew scriptures probably because it was a common, and even logical practice, not only outside the body of believers but within it as well. But lending money is not really loving or doing good. It's just a quid pro quo. Lending without expecting a return is the radical approach that Jesus.
Then the whole passage pivots on the word "but" in verse 35. Jesus has corrected a false interpretation of the Golden Rule. Just lending is not loving. This is a turning point not only in the passage but in the way we live our lives.
The fact that this command is for everyone, in and out of the faith, is indicated by the use of the phrase "Most High God" when it comes to a question of reward! That is the phase used in the Greco-Roman world for the God of Israel. Everyone is being addressed, not just a small group of those especially committed to following Jesus. During much of Christian history it was common to talk of the Two Kingdoms Theory. Clergy might be expected to turn the other cheek and to obey Jesus radically, but not people who had to live in the so-called "real world." But acting in mercy, actively doing good in response to evil, these are the marks of the real disciple.
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
Most people know about Jonathan Swift's satirical novel Gulliver's Travels without having read it. They know that in Lilliput Gulliver is a giant among tiny people, and in Brobdingnag he is a tiny person among giants. But his travels aren't limited to those two places. In the third part of the novel he travels to the floating island of Laputa, where he discovers that some people are born with a mark that sets them apart as immortals. Gulliver thinks this is marvelous but the Laputans know better. These immortals, known as Struldbruggs, continue to age. They get more frail, lost memory, outlive their contemporaries, and are pitiable creatures. This kind of immortality, Swift is telling us, is no blessing.
In his first letter to the Corinthians the apostle Paul is encouraging his listeners to quit thinking about the resurrection of the dead as a return to the old body and the old infirmities and the old ways. What we see in our earthly bodies is only a seed of the new life that is within us in Christ. There's a radical new way of living that awaits us that is not merely a repetition of the old. A corpse is repulsive, and it is not that body, which began decaying long before it died (think of our normal aches and pains!) but we are to be transformed.
That means also that we can begin to live now according to the new life in Christ, even if we do not yet have our new bodies. The new life Jesus outlines in the Sermon on the Plain, the new life exemplified in Joseph's decision to forgive, these are signs that Christ is alive in us!
Jesus himself addressed some of this confusion when he was asked by some Sadducees a question about a woman who had seven husbands, one after the other -- whose wife would she be in the resurrection? This is a useless question, Jesus said, based on assumptions that the new life is nothing more than more of the old life.
In Daniel 12 we learn that some will rise to everlasting glory. In Revelation we see that the martyrs, their bodies destroyed in bloody displays, look just fine in heaven. Things as we see them here in the present life are not things as they really are!
