Friday, March 29, 2019

From Esther to Easter: Confusing Images of God


The Jewish and Christian scriptures have different confusing images of God.  This confusion is similar to our present-day puzzlement as to, if and where and how God is at work in our world.  The people who wrote the Biblical texts also got up in the morning and asked themselves: Where did we come from?  Where are going?  Is there any meaning to our lives?  Is there really a God up there, out there, right here?


Examine the holidays of Purim, Easter and Passover.  They each picture God differently.  Purim celebrates the Jewish victory over the evil Haman.  God is not mentioned in the book leaving commentators and believers to debate whether there are times when God is not present or unable to stop catastrophe from happening.  The book celebrates human ingenuity in defeating evil.


Easter celebrates the Christian faith that God was and is incarnate in the world through Jesus.  This image tells us that while life may be crazy at times, we are accompanied by a God who loves us.  Through the resurrection of Jesus, believers are assured God is at work in their lives daily to bring resurrection out of death.  Of course, how this happens is inconsistent and unreliable.


Then there is Passover, a time to remember and trust that God is actively at work in history to achieve justice, though again we have God’s strange methodology and problematic timeline.  God delivers the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, brings them to the promised land but does so through a long circuitous route. 


Each of these three holidays establishes a certain faith but they are not all the same.  Purim points to the silence of God.  Easter points to the love and presence of God.  Passover celebrates God’s marriage to the Jewish people and God’s historical activity on behalf of justice. 


My point is: No matter how sure and certain some Biblical texts sounds, those writers were as unsure and puzzled about God as we are.  God has always been a puzzling, incomprehensible, mysterious actor in our world.   No one knows the will of God but God, and that will is inscrutable.  The Biblical stories offer us glimpses into the activity of this God.   But human beings have always been caught; trusting without knowing for sure.  The contemporary wonderment about God is as old as humans walking on the planet trying to stay sane from day to day.


Friday, March 22, 2019

Remembering Esther


This past week Jews celebrated the holiday of Purim. As you may know, this holiday derives from the strange biblical book of Esther. In this book a man named Haman plots to kill all the Jews.  Sadly, in our day, this does not surprise us.  It’s nothing new. The biblical stories relate how the Pharaoh tried to kill Jewish babies and in the New Testament Herod tries it as well.  In fact, there has not been a generation in the past two thousand years when someone was not trying to kill Jews.  How can we explain the tenacity of the killers and the tenaciousness of the survivors to keep on?


Why didn’t the Jewish people at one point say to God, “Listen, Master of the Universe, it is clear you don’t like us, other people don’t like us, wherever we go people hate us. Ok, we will quietly disappear into history.  And, good bye.”  But we didn’t do that, and I’m not sure why.


Maybe it’s because we remembered Esther.  We remembered Haman and the word “pur” which means lot.  Haman had concluded the Jews were different and a threat.  He cast lots to determine when he would order the murder of all Jews in the country.  As it turned out on that very day, Haman himself was hanged.  Because of the plotting and planning of Esther and Mordechai the mass murder of Jews did not happen in those days.  On Purim, we Jews remember this story because it happened then, and it happens now.


In the book of Esther there is no mention of God.  Some would say God was there and what happened was his will.  Maybe, I’m not so sure.  If the word God was omitted from an entire book, there must have been a reason.  Others assert, “Evil is from humans and must be fought by humans.”


If Jews have survived over the centuries it is because we have learned, “In memory lies redemption.”   If you remember and learn from what happened, you will not become lost.  We learned from Esther there will always be those who want to kill us.  We learned about the silence of God.  We learned to defend ourselves.  Maybe God is particularly present in the Jewish obsession with remembering.  Remembering Esther has indeed helped us survive.


Friday, March 15, 2019

The Lord's Prayer: A Jewish Perspective


There is a powerful prayer which Christians routinely pray when they get together to worship.  They bow their heads, close their eyes, and in respectful solemn hushed tones say the words they believe Jesus taught them to say.  It is perceived to be a Hebrew prayer which quietly petitions God for daily bread and forgiveness.  It is all that but much more.


Think about what the words of this prayer are saying.  The prayer begins by reminding God of God’s intimate familial relation to the community, “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”  The next verse is what the prayer is all about.  “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”  This is a prayer calling on God to act like God and bring in the long-awaited kingdom of God.  “On earth as it is in heaven” says the prayer.  Implied is the message: There is so much craziness in this world; You, God must act and act now!


There then begins a series of imperatives directed at the deity: “Give us this day our daily bread, forgive our trespasses, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil.”  These are imperatives directed at God encouraging God to act like God. 


The prayer concludes with a later added ending, reminding God “for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.”  That is, you, God have the power and the glory to bring in the kingdom.  Get to it and get to it now!!!


This is a prayer from people who are aware of the ambiguity, fragility and unpredictability of life.  This is a prayer from people who have experienced the silence of God.  The Lord’s prayer is indeed a respectful plea for God to act like God.  How such prayers effect God are beyond our ken.  But the prayer is intended for us more than for God.  It is intended to keep us sane in the midst.
  

Here is a prayer Jews and Christians can pray together, and together wonder if anyone is listening, trusting against trust someone is.

Friday, March 8, 2019

On the Shelf


I love my books.  I love being surrounded by my books at my office.  But, on occasion students will come into my office and marvel at all my books.  Then they ask that terrible question, “Have you read all of these?”   I answer, “Some of them twice.”


Academics collect books and they read some of them.  For me and maybe for you too, books can be aspirational.  I want to have read them and their being on my shelf speaks of their potential chance of being read. 


There are books on the shelf I have read.  There are books I want to read.  There are books I think I should read.  There are books I will never read but I want them there on the shelf like people I hope to call one day and see how they are doing.  On the shelf is a place of honor. 


The shelf is a special mysterious place.  Over the years there are thousands of books that have not been allowed to live on the shelf.   Some do not make it.  Over the years I have removed them from the shelf.  Having a limited shelf involves mulling and culling.


In the end, I suspect it has largely to do with literary triage.  What I think is most important right now gets read.  The rest are compelled to wait.  Most books sit there patiently waiting, day after day, hoping against hope they will be read someday soon.


If you, like me, have collected books on the shelf, be proud of your books.  Read what you can and forgive yourself for those you haven’t read.  There is only so much time.  Surround yourself with books and you will never be alone. The shelf is a holy sacred place where only a few get to wait.

Friday, March 1, 2019

The Five Seasons of Baseball


Judaism and Christianity have various holy days which occur during specific seasons of the year.  The purpose of these seasonal holidays is to cause people in their respective communities to remember, celebrate, and live out key events within the tradition.  These holy days remind us to be hopeful despite what is going on.  While Baseball is not a religion, it has its own seasons and functions in a similar manner.


In fact, Baseball has five seasons. We are presently living through the Spring Training season.  This is a distinct time when the various teams gather together either in Florida or Arizona to remember how to play the game.  Pitchers remember how to pitch and hitters hit, fielders field, catchers catch and everyone tries not to get hurt.  There is a long and cherished tradition of meeting in the Spring to examine young and up and coming players and for older players to get into shape for the next season.  Fans travel to these sites, surround the players with love and grace along with financial contributions or offerings.


The second season is what some have called “the regular season”, 163 games played over six months.  During this time teams or denominations compete against each other to see who can score the most runs.  Fans, mostly with grace, forgiveness along with copious amounts of sacramental beer and hot dogs, attend the games, sometimes in large number and sometimes as a small congregation.  As soon as they step into the other world of the holy stadiums, they immediately begin to relax.


The next season is where the best few teams compete in a short series of games in a conclave called the playoffs.  These short tense meetings, akin to synod conventions, do not necessarily prove which team is best, but which team has the best pitching and can be effective over a few games.  Some people are happy with the results.  Some are not. Some never will be.


The Fourth season is the World Series.  Even unbelievers in Baseball pay attention during these high holy days.  This is a best of seven game contest which ultimately crowns the World Champions of Baseball, the kings of kings and Lords of lords of the sport.


Finally, there is the off-season or sabbath where everyone rests a bit except for general managers who are always busy with money and personnel issues. 


Baseball is a game and a business, big business, sometimes too big.  But it is also a sacred and holy part of our culture. It is where we remember who we are, our imagined youth, our pretended innocence and our yearning for simplicity though there is nothing simple about Baseball.  


As the famous speech from “Field of Dreams” asserts, “And they’ll walk out to the bleachers and sit in shirt-sleaves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes.  And they’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as if they’d been dipped in magic waters.  The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.  This field, this game, it’s part of our past, Ray.  It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.”


The five seasons of Baseball allow us to yearn for simpler times, to hope against hope, to trust once again.   In that way, it is quite religious.