God I ain't
Commentary
The movie Rudy (1993) is about a football player who refuses to quit. Rudy (played by Sean Astin before he became a Hobbit) is too small to play college ball, but his dream has always been to wear the uniform of the Notre Dame Irish. He's 5-foot nothing, 100 and nothing pounds, with only a speck of athletic ability -- all he has is heart. He knows he'll never be a scholarship player, but he would be content just to be a walk-on who serves as practice fodder for the big guys.
No one doubts his tenacity and grit; he is hustle personified ... but Notre Dame? ... the top football program in the country, under coach Ara Parseghian? His family and friends tell him that no one ever found happiness pursuing a stupid dream. Nevertheless, Rudy gets on the bus and shows up at the gate in South Bend, saying he's come to enroll at Notre Dame. He is steered to Father Cavanaugh (a great performance by Robert Prosky), who makes him a deal: If he can keep up his average at the local community college, Father Cavanaugh will give him a recommendation to Notre Dame -- and we'll see what happens.
What happens is that Rudy busts his rear in the classroom and does the same on the field. He makes the honor roll. He applies for transfer to Notre Dame. He is denied. He works harder, gets even better grades, and applies again. Denied. He works even harder, does even better, and is denied again. Finally, his last chance: Notre Dame does not accept senior-level transfer students. If he doesn't get in this semester, he will never get his chance for a walk-on tryout with the team.
In all but despair, he finds Father Cavanaugh. He lays out the problem: this is his last chance to realize the dream. He doesn't want any special privileges, only to know that he's done every thing he can possibly do. His fear is that the dream will slip past him, and he will be back on the bus to home and "I told you so."
Father Cavanaugh thinks for a minute, and before he gets up and walks away says this: "Son, in 35 years of religious study, I have come up with only two hard incontrovertible facts: there is a God, and I'm not Him."
No doubt Father Cavanaugh found his inspiration in people like the prophet Hosea, the Apostle Paul, and Jesus himself. Hosea played out the identity of God in his own personal life. Paul instructed the Colossians on the nature of God and what it means to everyday life. And Jesus gave us assurances about the God to whom our prayers are directed.
Hosea 1:2-10
The biblical prophets were often performing symbolic acts. Amos took up a plumb line and a basket of fruit and made them into prophetic lessons (Amos 7:7-9; 8:1-3). Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for three years (Isaiah 20:1-6), while Jeremiah wore a linen loincloth to prove his point (Jeremiah 13:1-11). Ezekiel performed a variety of acts to illustrate the command of the Lord (Ezekiel 4-5; cf. Acts 21:10-14). But of all the prophets, Hosea is the supreme and extreme example, because the symbolic acts the Lord commanded of him involved his own family. His wife and children became walking PowerPoint presentations on covenant and idolatry.
"Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord" (Hosea 1:2). Hosea worked during a time of great upheaval, when the Northern Kingdom of Israel joined forces with Syria against the empire of Assyria, and tried to coerce the Southern Kingdom, Judah, to join them in a disastrous rebellion. The revolt against Assyria resulted in the downfall of Israel (2 Kings 14:23--17:41). For the prophets, however, this was not a political but a religious story (or rather the political was the religious). Israel's downfall, which served as a warning to Judah, was seen as a result of their idolatry. They practiced politics as if the Lord were not God. They worshiped the Baals of the land, the gods of wind, storm, and especially fertility (sexual fertility rites helped give the name "adultery" to idolatry). They tried to worship the Lord as if the one God were a Baal. Their infidelity to God would be dramatized by Hosea and his family.
Presumably Gomer was a real woman, and really Hosea's wife (it is an open question whether she is the same woman as in chapter 3). Our passage does not say that she was a prostitute, but "a wife of whoredom," perhaps meant symbolically, but perhaps referring to unspecified sexual promiscuity ("Gomer" would become the designation of any unchaste woman). The children are seen symbolically, as inheriting the proclivities of the mother. The inhabitants of the land have had other lovers than the Lord; they love their prosperity more than the covenant. Their children follow their parents.
The three children of Gomer and Hosea demonstrate the progressive deterioration of the relation between God and Israel. The first child is named "Jezreel," and symbolizes a nation without a king. Jezreel (which means "God sows") was the name of a city and plain in Israel that had become known for incredible bloodshed and abuse of kingly power (cf. 1 Kings 21; 2 Kings 9-10); to name a son after the town was the equivalent of naming a child today "Hiroshima" or "Baghdad." Bloody politics was idolatry, because under the covenant, not even the king was exempt from following the commandments. The blood of Jezreel would come back to haunt the current dynasty, the house of Jehu, due to their abuse of power. So the attempt of the current king, Jeroboam, to resist the might of Assyria would prove futile, not because Assyria was so strong, but because the Lord was God: "On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel" (1:5).
The second child is named "Lo-ruhamah," which means, "not pitied," and she symbolizes an Israel without God's favor: "For I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them" (1:6). Forgiveness is instead extended to the Southern Kingdom of Judah, as long as they remain faithful to the covenant, and forswear trust in arms for trust in the Lord (v. 7).
The third child is named "Lo-ammi," meaning, "not my people," and symbolizes an Israel without God at all. In the prophet's view, the covenant has been broken, and the people of God are no longer the people of God, for they have forsaken the Lord to become the people of some other deity. The connection between the Lord and "my people" was fundamental to the covenant (Exodus 6:7; Leviticus 26:12-13; Jeremiah 11:4; Ezekiel 11:20; 14:11; 37:26-27), but it made absolutely no sense if the people were going to be intimate with other gods. The Hebrew of verse 9 alludes to the revelation of God's name to Moses in Exodus 3:14-15, reading literally "I am not I AM to you." Lo-ammi symbolizes the dissolution of the covenant, on grounds of infidelity.
Would there be any hope for Israel (not to mention Judah)? Our lection promises a future reversal of fortune. After all, the promise to Abraham, to be the father of a people as numerous as the sand on the seashore, still stood (v. 10). Therefore the people are promised return and renewal: "In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' it shall be said of them, 'Children of the living God.' " There is hope, not because human beings will grow any less prone to the temptations of idolatry, but because compassion is fundamental to the nature of God. We always get another chance, even when we don't deserve it.
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
The Letter to the Colossians presents more warnings against idolatry, in this case directed to a situation that is just as specific as that addressed by Hosea, but in a very different social context. The Colossians were Greeks, Gentiles (2:13), and residents of a town that was a center for magic and the mystery religions. The Christian community there was obviously being upset by teachers of "philosophy" (v. 8) who had incorporated many disparate elements from both Jewish and Greco-Roman religious traditions. Who they were and what exactly they said can only be inferred by what the letter tells us about them (and that is obviously skewed by the sarcasm and irony that is employed against their philosophy). They seem overly concerned with angels and demons (v. 8, "the elemental spirits of the universe," i.e., celestial powers thought to rule the universe), with ecstatic heavenly visions and with self-denial and ritual, perhaps as preparation for such visions of the elemental spirits (cf. vv. 16-18). Suffice to say that Paul was concerned lest the Colossian Christians turn from the worship of the one true God to something less. (My assumption is that Paul was responsible for the letter; while this is a minority position among scholars, there is no compelling evidence against it, and the letter can be interpreted to fit quite nicely within the accepted range of Paul's thought.)
Paul's concern for the Colossians is that they become teleios, which is usually translated "complete, perfect" or "mature" (1:28; 4:12; the noun form is found in 3:14). Encouraging Christian maturity is in fact the point of Paul's mission: "It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ" (1:28). The secret of maturity is in fact no secret, since it was proclaimed to the Colossians from the beginning: Maturity is found in Christ, who is the example and source of spiritual growth for all believers (2:19). There is nothing extra to spirituality; the whole thing has been laid out from the beginning (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; 2:1-16).
Our lection picks up this line of thought by exhorting believers to continue in the theological tradition they have received (2:6-7). "As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, keep walking in him" (2:6, author's translation). Maturity is found by continuing on the path already begun. Paul mixes three successive metaphors to describe the Christological foundation of their growth: It is "rooted," "built," and "established" (a legal metaphor, v. 7) solely in Christ, in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (v. 9). Their "fullness" of maturity is found in him (v. 10). Clearly Jesus is superior to any heavenly "ruler and authority" that might be found through the human philosophy propounded by his opponents, so there really is no point in listening to their futile advice (vv. 8, 10). The practices they advocate are but shadows of the truth, which is found bodily in Christ (v. 17). Jesus is all you need, as role model and as power source.
Paul connects the dead and risen Christ to the individual believers through a complex set of allusions to Christian initiation and the work of Jesus, following a line of thought much the same as in Romans 6. Baptism is a "circumcision without hands," because stripping one's clothes for the water is a symbolic act, pointing to Jesus' own stripping of his flesh, "the circumcision of Christ," i.e., his death (v. 11). Baptism further symbolizes burial with Christ, and being raised into fresh air (v. 12). Baptism represents forgiveness of sins, since it unites the believer with Christ's death, in which the record of good and evil deeds is forever set aside (vv. 13-14, cf. Revelation 20:12). Like the titulus that proclaimed the crucified one's indictment (Mark 15:26), and like Jesus himself, the record that would judge us has been nailed to the cross. In his death and resurrection, he has disarmed and triumphed over those very "rulers and authorities" that his opponents would have the Colossians seek in their quest for new spiritual experience (v. 15). Like a victorious Roman general, Christ has made an example of his enemies, leading them in chains in the procession toward the baptismal font.
The true test of religion, Paul would hold, is whether it leads one toward the example of maturity set by Christ (1:28). In this, the Colossians can neither be judged nor disqualified by the proponents of human philosophy, which amounts to idolatry (2:16, 18). Their "self-abasement" is not humility at all, but amounts to being "conceited in vain by the mind of the flesh" (v. 18). The irony of their philosophy is that it substitutes lesser beings for Christ, and would have believers be proud of their spiritual attainment, rather than following the example of Jesus. Thus the root of their failure is exposed: They have failed to hold on to the head, from whom the whole body sustains growth (v. 19; cf. 1 Corinthians 12).
Luke 11:1-13
Luke places his version of the Lord's Prayer in quite a different context from that of the more familiar version in Matthew (Luke's version is simpler than Matthew's, and thus usually considered earlier). Beginning in Luke 9:51, Luke takes Jesus on a long journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, in which he stops to interact in turn with the crowd, his disciples, and his enemies. Here he stops to engage his disciples, who want him to instruct them in prayer. His response includes a brief example of prayer, a parable, and related exhortations. Throughout, Jesus focuses on the meaning behind the prayers: What do they say about us, and our relation to the God we are praying to?
The first thing our prayer addresses is literally theological, because it addresses God as "Father" (on the problems inherent in this address, see the Alternative Application on the next page). As so often in Luke, Jesus acts as a prophet, fulfilling in the narrative what he promised in 10:21-22: He has revealed God as Father to those he has chosen. While Jesus did not invent the idea of addressing God as Father in prayer, it was rare that Jewish prayers began this way (cf. Psalm 89:26; 3 Maccabees 6:8), even though the tradition of God as "Father" of the people was well founded in the biblical tradition (cf. Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 63:16). Jesus is credited with establishing this address as the norm for believers, with the emphasis that it signified a close and intimate relationship involving not just power, but love, nurture, and joy. (There is no evidence for the oft-repeated claim that the Aramaic word that Jesus used, abba, was a child's word that meant "Daddy"; it meant simply "Father").
The God that Jesus taught his disciples to pray to was no earthly father, however, and the very concept "father" could not possibly exhaust this God. This is the meaning of the second clause, "Let your name be set apart/sanctified" (v. 2, author's translation). To be "sanctified" or "made holy" was to be set apart from all earthly things, as God is by nature set apart from all created things. The petition wards off idolatry; if God's name is set apart, there will never be the possibility that we might worship that which is less than God. Where God's name is so honored (cf. Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11), God's true relation to the world as creator and sustainer is established (cf. Ezekiel 36:22-28). This leads inevitably to the coming of God's kingdom, which Jesus proclaimed (cf. Luke 4:43; 10:9, 11; 17:20; 22:16, 18). It also leads to the proper acknowledgement that God sustains us daily, for the notion that we can provide for ourselves is an illusion and the snare of an idol (v. 3).
Tempted as we are to direct our allegiance to that which is not God, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray for forgiveness of sins (a major Lukan theme). Their forgiveness is linked with their willingness to forgive -- not the sins, which only God can do -- but the debts of others. Spirituality is connected to possessions in a way that the two complement each other. In contrast to the common view that life is about debt and repayment, with the poor always bowing to the superior rich, Jesus breaks the back of the patronage system by insisting that no one is greater than another, but all owe their material and spiritual status to God. Not that living such a life is going to be easy -- this is why the final prayer is to be spared trial or temptation (v. 4). If, as Jesus concludes, prayer is ultimately about receiving God's gift of the Holy Spirit, we can be assured of help in such times of trial (v. 13; cf. 12:11-12).
Jesus' parable of prayer is obscured by the unfortunate choice to translate anaideia as "persistence." There is no evidence that the word ever meant anything but "shamelessness": "Because of his shamelessness he will get up and give him whatever he needs" (v. 8, author's translation). Those who are not part of a culture that values honor and shame codes to the extent that Jesus' civilization did, will have trouble understanding the significance of the parable (and thus the poor job in translation!). The man who received visitors had an obligation to provide hospitality; he would be shamed in the eyes of all if he did not. In the tight-knit village Jesus is picturing for us, such hospitality would be the job of all in town, so the would-be sleeper would owe hospitality to both the guest and the visitors. Both the petitioner and the sleeper are shameless in the eyes of their neighbors, because there is no shame in asking for the code of hospitality to be honored, and in honoring it. Jesus' point is that the scene where the bread is refused could never possibly happen -- it was unthinkable! No one would allow himself to be shamed so.
The lesser-to-greater argument is spelled out in the sayings that conclude the section: How much more, then, will God give to those who ask, seek, and knock? Like any good father and provider, God gives good things, not bad look-alikes (vv. 11-12). However, Jesus does not promise a carte blanche. In the end, God knows what good gifts we need -- this is why he gives us, in Luke's version, not "whatever we ask," but "the Holy Spirit" (v. 13). Here Jesus speaks prophetically of what will happen subsequently in Luke's narrative.
Application
When Rudy went to Father Cavanaugh in his last-ditch desperation, he was willing to do anything. Was there something he had not yet done that might get him accepted into Notre Dame, and give him that chance at the walk-on tryout? The answer was to be found in setting and posture: Father Cavanaugh found Rudy sitting in a church pew, eyes upward. "Appealing to a higher court?" he asked.
Prayer is the recognition that there is incontrovertibly a God, and it ain't us. Anything less than prayer as the fundamental approach to life is idolatry. To think that we control the universe, that we have no need of others, is to put ourselves on the shrine. Ultimately, to forget to pray is to forget God. Maybe that's why Jesus made prayer so easy for us.
An Alternative Application
Luke 11:1-13. Many modern Christians are troubled by the use of the designation "Father" for God. They rightly point to the patriarchy inherent in the biblical documents, the cultural assumptions embedded in them, and the somewhat arbitrary nature of all theological language -- if God is beyond the world, and in fact created the world, how could anything in the world be any more than a feeble analogy to God? Some would say that other analogies could work just as well or better these days; for example, a woman who was abused by her own father might have trouble seeing fatherhood as a worthy image of God, but might respond well to a "Grandmother God."
As far as I am concerned, all language for God is analogical, and I have no problems appropriating whatever titles work. The view that God is seen in multiple images is itself rooted in the Bible, which not only addresses God as "Father," but also speaks of God as a mother protecting her children. To preach faithfully from the Bible week after week would inevitably lead to a greater diversity of images of God. Preachers can throw in many different theological images, in hopes of making our congregations see that God is simply beyond all our human categories, and that to set up those categories as absolutes is a form of idolatry.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 85
In 1988, Southern Baptists held their annual convention in San Antonio, Texas. It was a contentious meeting as factions within the denomination vied for control of the various agencies and boards. Throughout the week angry words were spoken across the aisle as various resolutions and officer elections revealed the deep schism growing within the group.
Meanwhile, beyond the halls of the heated convention, most of the rest of the country was in the midst of the worst drought since the dust bowl days of the 1930s. It had been months since there had been any appreciable rain. Livestock and crops were languishing for lack of water.
At the peak of one hotly contested business session during the convention, a pastor stepped up to one of the microphones set up for floor discussions and made a motion that the convention pause and pray for the people affected by the drought -- and to pray for rain. His motion received a second and a vote was taken. The result was unanimous. Pausing to pray for rain was the only unifying action taken that entire week.
The writer of Psalm 85 would have appreciated that brief moment of unity. He too is concerned about the land. In fact, his psalm opens and closes with a reference to God's favorable stance toward the land. In between, however, there is trouble. Not a drought, but something else. The land of which the psalmist writes is not beset with natural calamity. The land of the psalmist has been beset by God.
Part of the problem, apparently, is that the people have forgotten whose land it really is. It turns out the land does not belong to them. The psalmist makes this clear as he declares, "You were favorable to your land" (v. 1).
Forgetting that the land belongs to God's is where most of our trouble begins. The moment we stop recognizing God as the author and sustainer of all life, selfishness, greed, violence, and idolatry will not be far behind. We experience alienation from God as individuals when we forget God's ownership, and we experience exile as a people when we forget that life itself is a gift from God.
But judgment, alienation, and exile are not the last things we hear from God. God's desire is not to punish us forever. The psalmist asks the question, "Will you be angry with us forever?" (v. 5). But the tone is not one of despair. He asks the question in the midst of a plea for forgiveness, "Restore us again, O God of our salvation" (v. 4).
Repentance means to turn, or in this instance to "return." As we return to a proper understanding of who owns what, and of who is in charge, the forgiveness that we need, and the blessing God wants to give will not be far behind.
No one doubts his tenacity and grit; he is hustle personified ... but Notre Dame? ... the top football program in the country, under coach Ara Parseghian? His family and friends tell him that no one ever found happiness pursuing a stupid dream. Nevertheless, Rudy gets on the bus and shows up at the gate in South Bend, saying he's come to enroll at Notre Dame. He is steered to Father Cavanaugh (a great performance by Robert Prosky), who makes him a deal: If he can keep up his average at the local community college, Father Cavanaugh will give him a recommendation to Notre Dame -- and we'll see what happens.
What happens is that Rudy busts his rear in the classroom and does the same on the field. He makes the honor roll. He applies for transfer to Notre Dame. He is denied. He works harder, gets even better grades, and applies again. Denied. He works even harder, does even better, and is denied again. Finally, his last chance: Notre Dame does not accept senior-level transfer students. If he doesn't get in this semester, he will never get his chance for a walk-on tryout with the team.
In all but despair, he finds Father Cavanaugh. He lays out the problem: this is his last chance to realize the dream. He doesn't want any special privileges, only to know that he's done every thing he can possibly do. His fear is that the dream will slip past him, and he will be back on the bus to home and "I told you so."
Father Cavanaugh thinks for a minute, and before he gets up and walks away says this: "Son, in 35 years of religious study, I have come up with only two hard incontrovertible facts: there is a God, and I'm not Him."
No doubt Father Cavanaugh found his inspiration in people like the prophet Hosea, the Apostle Paul, and Jesus himself. Hosea played out the identity of God in his own personal life. Paul instructed the Colossians on the nature of God and what it means to everyday life. And Jesus gave us assurances about the God to whom our prayers are directed.
Hosea 1:2-10
The biblical prophets were often performing symbolic acts. Amos took up a plumb line and a basket of fruit and made them into prophetic lessons (Amos 7:7-9; 8:1-3). Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for three years (Isaiah 20:1-6), while Jeremiah wore a linen loincloth to prove his point (Jeremiah 13:1-11). Ezekiel performed a variety of acts to illustrate the command of the Lord (Ezekiel 4-5; cf. Acts 21:10-14). But of all the prophets, Hosea is the supreme and extreme example, because the symbolic acts the Lord commanded of him involved his own family. His wife and children became walking PowerPoint presentations on covenant and idolatry.
"Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord" (Hosea 1:2). Hosea worked during a time of great upheaval, when the Northern Kingdom of Israel joined forces with Syria against the empire of Assyria, and tried to coerce the Southern Kingdom, Judah, to join them in a disastrous rebellion. The revolt against Assyria resulted in the downfall of Israel (2 Kings 14:23--17:41). For the prophets, however, this was not a political but a religious story (or rather the political was the religious). Israel's downfall, which served as a warning to Judah, was seen as a result of their idolatry. They practiced politics as if the Lord were not God. They worshiped the Baals of the land, the gods of wind, storm, and especially fertility (sexual fertility rites helped give the name "adultery" to idolatry). They tried to worship the Lord as if the one God were a Baal. Their infidelity to God would be dramatized by Hosea and his family.
Presumably Gomer was a real woman, and really Hosea's wife (it is an open question whether she is the same woman as in chapter 3). Our passage does not say that she was a prostitute, but "a wife of whoredom," perhaps meant symbolically, but perhaps referring to unspecified sexual promiscuity ("Gomer" would become the designation of any unchaste woman). The children are seen symbolically, as inheriting the proclivities of the mother. The inhabitants of the land have had other lovers than the Lord; they love their prosperity more than the covenant. Their children follow their parents.
The three children of Gomer and Hosea demonstrate the progressive deterioration of the relation between God and Israel. The first child is named "Jezreel," and symbolizes a nation without a king. Jezreel (which means "God sows") was the name of a city and plain in Israel that had become known for incredible bloodshed and abuse of kingly power (cf. 1 Kings 21; 2 Kings 9-10); to name a son after the town was the equivalent of naming a child today "Hiroshima" or "Baghdad." Bloody politics was idolatry, because under the covenant, not even the king was exempt from following the commandments. The blood of Jezreel would come back to haunt the current dynasty, the house of Jehu, due to their abuse of power. So the attempt of the current king, Jeroboam, to resist the might of Assyria would prove futile, not because Assyria was so strong, but because the Lord was God: "On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel" (1:5).
The second child is named "Lo-ruhamah," which means, "not pitied," and she symbolizes an Israel without God's favor: "For I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them" (1:6). Forgiveness is instead extended to the Southern Kingdom of Judah, as long as they remain faithful to the covenant, and forswear trust in arms for trust in the Lord (v. 7).
The third child is named "Lo-ammi," meaning, "not my people," and symbolizes an Israel without God at all. In the prophet's view, the covenant has been broken, and the people of God are no longer the people of God, for they have forsaken the Lord to become the people of some other deity. The connection between the Lord and "my people" was fundamental to the covenant (Exodus 6:7; Leviticus 26:12-13; Jeremiah 11:4; Ezekiel 11:20; 14:11; 37:26-27), but it made absolutely no sense if the people were going to be intimate with other gods. The Hebrew of verse 9 alludes to the revelation of God's name to Moses in Exodus 3:14-15, reading literally "I am not I AM to you." Lo-ammi symbolizes the dissolution of the covenant, on grounds of infidelity.
Would there be any hope for Israel (not to mention Judah)? Our lection promises a future reversal of fortune. After all, the promise to Abraham, to be the father of a people as numerous as the sand on the seashore, still stood (v. 10). Therefore the people are promised return and renewal: "In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' it shall be said of them, 'Children of the living God.' " There is hope, not because human beings will grow any less prone to the temptations of idolatry, but because compassion is fundamental to the nature of God. We always get another chance, even when we don't deserve it.
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
The Letter to the Colossians presents more warnings against idolatry, in this case directed to a situation that is just as specific as that addressed by Hosea, but in a very different social context. The Colossians were Greeks, Gentiles (2:13), and residents of a town that was a center for magic and the mystery religions. The Christian community there was obviously being upset by teachers of "philosophy" (v. 8) who had incorporated many disparate elements from both Jewish and Greco-Roman religious traditions. Who they were and what exactly they said can only be inferred by what the letter tells us about them (and that is obviously skewed by the sarcasm and irony that is employed against their philosophy). They seem overly concerned with angels and demons (v. 8, "the elemental spirits of the universe," i.e., celestial powers thought to rule the universe), with ecstatic heavenly visions and with self-denial and ritual, perhaps as preparation for such visions of the elemental spirits (cf. vv. 16-18). Suffice to say that Paul was concerned lest the Colossian Christians turn from the worship of the one true God to something less. (My assumption is that Paul was responsible for the letter; while this is a minority position among scholars, there is no compelling evidence against it, and the letter can be interpreted to fit quite nicely within the accepted range of Paul's thought.)
Paul's concern for the Colossians is that they become teleios, which is usually translated "complete, perfect" or "mature" (1:28; 4:12; the noun form is found in 3:14). Encouraging Christian maturity is in fact the point of Paul's mission: "It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ" (1:28). The secret of maturity is in fact no secret, since it was proclaimed to the Colossians from the beginning: Maturity is found in Christ, who is the example and source of spiritual growth for all believers (2:19). There is nothing extra to spirituality; the whole thing has been laid out from the beginning (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; 2:1-16).
Our lection picks up this line of thought by exhorting believers to continue in the theological tradition they have received (2:6-7). "As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, keep walking in him" (2:6, author's translation). Maturity is found by continuing on the path already begun. Paul mixes three successive metaphors to describe the Christological foundation of their growth: It is "rooted," "built," and "established" (a legal metaphor, v. 7) solely in Christ, in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (v. 9). Their "fullness" of maturity is found in him (v. 10). Clearly Jesus is superior to any heavenly "ruler and authority" that might be found through the human philosophy propounded by his opponents, so there really is no point in listening to their futile advice (vv. 8, 10). The practices they advocate are but shadows of the truth, which is found bodily in Christ (v. 17). Jesus is all you need, as role model and as power source.
Paul connects the dead and risen Christ to the individual believers through a complex set of allusions to Christian initiation and the work of Jesus, following a line of thought much the same as in Romans 6. Baptism is a "circumcision without hands," because stripping one's clothes for the water is a symbolic act, pointing to Jesus' own stripping of his flesh, "the circumcision of Christ," i.e., his death (v. 11). Baptism further symbolizes burial with Christ, and being raised into fresh air (v. 12). Baptism represents forgiveness of sins, since it unites the believer with Christ's death, in which the record of good and evil deeds is forever set aside (vv. 13-14, cf. Revelation 20:12). Like the titulus that proclaimed the crucified one's indictment (Mark 15:26), and like Jesus himself, the record that would judge us has been nailed to the cross. In his death and resurrection, he has disarmed and triumphed over those very "rulers and authorities" that his opponents would have the Colossians seek in their quest for new spiritual experience (v. 15). Like a victorious Roman general, Christ has made an example of his enemies, leading them in chains in the procession toward the baptismal font.
The true test of religion, Paul would hold, is whether it leads one toward the example of maturity set by Christ (1:28). In this, the Colossians can neither be judged nor disqualified by the proponents of human philosophy, which amounts to idolatry (2:16, 18). Their "self-abasement" is not humility at all, but amounts to being "conceited in vain by the mind of the flesh" (v. 18). The irony of their philosophy is that it substitutes lesser beings for Christ, and would have believers be proud of their spiritual attainment, rather than following the example of Jesus. Thus the root of their failure is exposed: They have failed to hold on to the head, from whom the whole body sustains growth (v. 19; cf. 1 Corinthians 12).
Luke 11:1-13
Luke places his version of the Lord's Prayer in quite a different context from that of the more familiar version in Matthew (Luke's version is simpler than Matthew's, and thus usually considered earlier). Beginning in Luke 9:51, Luke takes Jesus on a long journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, in which he stops to interact in turn with the crowd, his disciples, and his enemies. Here he stops to engage his disciples, who want him to instruct them in prayer. His response includes a brief example of prayer, a parable, and related exhortations. Throughout, Jesus focuses on the meaning behind the prayers: What do they say about us, and our relation to the God we are praying to?
The first thing our prayer addresses is literally theological, because it addresses God as "Father" (on the problems inherent in this address, see the Alternative Application on the next page). As so often in Luke, Jesus acts as a prophet, fulfilling in the narrative what he promised in 10:21-22: He has revealed God as Father to those he has chosen. While Jesus did not invent the idea of addressing God as Father in prayer, it was rare that Jewish prayers began this way (cf. Psalm 89:26; 3 Maccabees 6:8), even though the tradition of God as "Father" of the people was well founded in the biblical tradition (cf. Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 63:16). Jesus is credited with establishing this address as the norm for believers, with the emphasis that it signified a close and intimate relationship involving not just power, but love, nurture, and joy. (There is no evidence for the oft-repeated claim that the Aramaic word that Jesus used, abba, was a child's word that meant "Daddy"; it meant simply "Father").
The God that Jesus taught his disciples to pray to was no earthly father, however, and the very concept "father" could not possibly exhaust this God. This is the meaning of the second clause, "Let your name be set apart/sanctified" (v. 2, author's translation). To be "sanctified" or "made holy" was to be set apart from all earthly things, as God is by nature set apart from all created things. The petition wards off idolatry; if God's name is set apart, there will never be the possibility that we might worship that which is less than God. Where God's name is so honored (cf. Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11), God's true relation to the world as creator and sustainer is established (cf. Ezekiel 36:22-28). This leads inevitably to the coming of God's kingdom, which Jesus proclaimed (cf. Luke 4:43; 10:9, 11; 17:20; 22:16, 18). It also leads to the proper acknowledgement that God sustains us daily, for the notion that we can provide for ourselves is an illusion and the snare of an idol (v. 3).
Tempted as we are to direct our allegiance to that which is not God, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray for forgiveness of sins (a major Lukan theme). Their forgiveness is linked with their willingness to forgive -- not the sins, which only God can do -- but the debts of others. Spirituality is connected to possessions in a way that the two complement each other. In contrast to the common view that life is about debt and repayment, with the poor always bowing to the superior rich, Jesus breaks the back of the patronage system by insisting that no one is greater than another, but all owe their material and spiritual status to God. Not that living such a life is going to be easy -- this is why the final prayer is to be spared trial or temptation (v. 4). If, as Jesus concludes, prayer is ultimately about receiving God's gift of the Holy Spirit, we can be assured of help in such times of trial (v. 13; cf. 12:11-12).
Jesus' parable of prayer is obscured by the unfortunate choice to translate anaideia as "persistence." There is no evidence that the word ever meant anything but "shamelessness": "Because of his shamelessness he will get up and give him whatever he needs" (v. 8, author's translation). Those who are not part of a culture that values honor and shame codes to the extent that Jesus' civilization did, will have trouble understanding the significance of the parable (and thus the poor job in translation!). The man who received visitors had an obligation to provide hospitality; he would be shamed in the eyes of all if he did not. In the tight-knit village Jesus is picturing for us, such hospitality would be the job of all in town, so the would-be sleeper would owe hospitality to both the guest and the visitors. Both the petitioner and the sleeper are shameless in the eyes of their neighbors, because there is no shame in asking for the code of hospitality to be honored, and in honoring it. Jesus' point is that the scene where the bread is refused could never possibly happen -- it was unthinkable! No one would allow himself to be shamed so.
The lesser-to-greater argument is spelled out in the sayings that conclude the section: How much more, then, will God give to those who ask, seek, and knock? Like any good father and provider, God gives good things, not bad look-alikes (vv. 11-12). However, Jesus does not promise a carte blanche. In the end, God knows what good gifts we need -- this is why he gives us, in Luke's version, not "whatever we ask," but "the Holy Spirit" (v. 13). Here Jesus speaks prophetically of what will happen subsequently in Luke's narrative.
Application
When Rudy went to Father Cavanaugh in his last-ditch desperation, he was willing to do anything. Was there something he had not yet done that might get him accepted into Notre Dame, and give him that chance at the walk-on tryout? The answer was to be found in setting and posture: Father Cavanaugh found Rudy sitting in a church pew, eyes upward. "Appealing to a higher court?" he asked.
Prayer is the recognition that there is incontrovertibly a God, and it ain't us. Anything less than prayer as the fundamental approach to life is idolatry. To think that we control the universe, that we have no need of others, is to put ourselves on the shrine. Ultimately, to forget to pray is to forget God. Maybe that's why Jesus made prayer so easy for us.
An Alternative Application
Luke 11:1-13. Many modern Christians are troubled by the use of the designation "Father" for God. They rightly point to the patriarchy inherent in the biblical documents, the cultural assumptions embedded in them, and the somewhat arbitrary nature of all theological language -- if God is beyond the world, and in fact created the world, how could anything in the world be any more than a feeble analogy to God? Some would say that other analogies could work just as well or better these days; for example, a woman who was abused by her own father might have trouble seeing fatherhood as a worthy image of God, but might respond well to a "Grandmother God."
As far as I am concerned, all language for God is analogical, and I have no problems appropriating whatever titles work. The view that God is seen in multiple images is itself rooted in the Bible, which not only addresses God as "Father," but also speaks of God as a mother protecting her children. To preach faithfully from the Bible week after week would inevitably lead to a greater diversity of images of God. Preachers can throw in many different theological images, in hopes of making our congregations see that God is simply beyond all our human categories, and that to set up those categories as absolutes is a form of idolatry.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 85
In 1988, Southern Baptists held their annual convention in San Antonio, Texas. It was a contentious meeting as factions within the denomination vied for control of the various agencies and boards. Throughout the week angry words were spoken across the aisle as various resolutions and officer elections revealed the deep schism growing within the group.
Meanwhile, beyond the halls of the heated convention, most of the rest of the country was in the midst of the worst drought since the dust bowl days of the 1930s. It had been months since there had been any appreciable rain. Livestock and crops were languishing for lack of water.
At the peak of one hotly contested business session during the convention, a pastor stepped up to one of the microphones set up for floor discussions and made a motion that the convention pause and pray for the people affected by the drought -- and to pray for rain. His motion received a second and a vote was taken. The result was unanimous. Pausing to pray for rain was the only unifying action taken that entire week.
The writer of Psalm 85 would have appreciated that brief moment of unity. He too is concerned about the land. In fact, his psalm opens and closes with a reference to God's favorable stance toward the land. In between, however, there is trouble. Not a drought, but something else. The land of which the psalmist writes is not beset with natural calamity. The land of the psalmist has been beset by God.
Part of the problem, apparently, is that the people have forgotten whose land it really is. It turns out the land does not belong to them. The psalmist makes this clear as he declares, "You were favorable to your land" (v. 1).
Forgetting that the land belongs to God's is where most of our trouble begins. The moment we stop recognizing God as the author and sustainer of all life, selfishness, greed, violence, and idolatry will not be far behind. We experience alienation from God as individuals when we forget God's ownership, and we experience exile as a people when we forget that life itself is a gift from God.
But judgment, alienation, and exile are not the last things we hear from God. God's desire is not to punish us forever. The psalmist asks the question, "Will you be angry with us forever?" (v. 5). But the tone is not one of despair. He asks the question in the midst of a plea for forgiveness, "Restore us again, O God of our salvation" (v. 4).
Repentance means to turn, or in this instance to "return." As we return to a proper understanding of who owns what, and of who is in charge, the forgiveness that we need, and the blessing God wants to give will not be far behind.
