Ok. I admit it. I am a nerd. A nerd of nerds. I like science fiction in its various forms. I love immersing myself in fantastical worlds, floating in the fantasy for a bit, before emerging back to this world. And I loved the movie ‘Minority Report’.
In the movie, Tom Cruise is an officer of the Precrime Police Force. This division is created to stop crimes before they happen. The evidence the division uses are the predictions of three humans with precognitive abilities. They can tell that a crime will happen before it does. And then the division intervenes and stops the crime before it happens. Normally, the three precogs predict unanimously. But there are times when one of them predicts something different – a minority report – which is then discarded.
As I was reading for today’s message, I realized once again that we Christians have a difficulty admitting that our faith is based on a minority report. For example, while interpreting Luke’s statement “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” one commentator concluded “The key to understanding the Bible is to see Jesus Christ on every page.”
I don’t know about this. I could point to the first 8 chapters of 1 Chronicles, where we just have lists of names and ask the commentator to show me Jesus in these pages. The expectation of seeing Jesus in every page of scripture is what I would call eisegesis – reading into the text – rather than exegesis – reading out from the text.
The former approach of reading into scripture leads to proof texting. We try to make our point by indicating a passage here or there, often out of context. A classic example is the use of Revelation 3.20. Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.” And this has been used to evangelize people. But the text was addressed to a church – a group of Christians, a group of people who had already responded positively to evangelism!
Our passage for today is full of humor and irony. Jesus is the topic of discussion of the two disciples. Unrecognized by them, but known to us, he comes alongside and asks, “What are you discussing?” Did he secretly smile? Did he chuckle silently? Luke does not tell us. Then he asks them, “What things?” He is the center of what they are discussing and he feigns ignorance.
This gives the disciples the opportunity to tell him their perspective of things – of the great expectations they had of him and of how these expectations had been shattered. They had hoped he was the one who would redeem Israel. We had hoped. With what sadness did Cleopas say these words of hopelessness?
But not just that. With their hopes dashed, at the very least they should have been allowed to mourn. But no! The women came along and muddied the waters by claiming that their vision was reality. And despite trying to check on their story no one had seen Jesus. Dejected. Despondent. Despairing.
They had gone through unexpected loss but were not even allowed to mourn. How cruel could life be?
Jesus then gives his perspective without revealing himself to them. Pure logic his question is. Two kinds of prophecies exist in the scriptures about the Messiah. One kind, the majority report if you will, predicted glory and everlasting peace. The other kind, the minority report, predicted rejection and death.
If this is your scripture, then you cannot pick and choose. You need to accept all of it or not call it scripture. But logically, if the Messiah’s reign of peace was to be everlasting, then the rejection and death had to precede it! Otherwise, where would you fit the rejection and death? If you want glory and everlasting peace first, then it means you are rejecting some parts of scripture that speak about suffering.
Jesus was not going page by page, indicating to them which verses pointed to him. Rather, he was showing them that the only way the two strands of prophecy could be from the same loving God was if they accepted both suffering and glory with suffering preceding glory. Jesus was showing them and us that if we call this book our scriptures, then we must accept it all, struggle with the difficult parts, and not simply use a few proof texts to validate the points we make.
The problem is that we are also like the two disciples. We also have hopes that we project onto Jesus. We know he will return victoriously. But we want him to display the victory in our terms. Just take a look at various popular Christian novels about the end times and you will see this to be true. We want him to do at his second coming everything he resolutely refused to do at his first.
But Luke corrects us in this thinking as well. And often we miss the point. Luke tells us that the disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread.
What do we conclude? That the act of breaking bread was somehow unique to Jesus? That is absurd. If you have to share a loaf of bread with others, the logical way is to break bread.
Some interpreters take this to be communion. But there is no mention of wine or of blessing. So this is not communion. In fact, it cannot be communion because Jesus at the Last Supper clearly stated that he would not have communion till he returned. So if this breaking of bread is not communion, how did the disciples recognize him?
The explanation is the simplest one, but it is mundane, probably the reason why we don’t hear of it often. We want esoteric explanations for our faith. But here the explanation is simple.
It is when Jesus broke bread and offered it to them that his sleeves rode up his forearms and they were able to see his wounds. And it was the wounds that told them that this person was Jesus.
Luke tells us this because Jesus’ character is unchanging. He will always be the Lamb who was slain. He will always be recognized by his wounds. Even after this passage, when Jesus enters the room, he shows them his wounds.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul mentions the triad – faith, hope and love. At the risk of being very crude, we could say that faith deals with what happened in the past, love with how we live in the present and hope with what we expect in the future.
Our creeds and our hymns and songs lay heavy emphasis on Jesus’ crucifixion. There is hardly a song we sing that does not mention Jesus’ death. We talk of his obedience, his humility, his sacrifice, his forgiveness, his healing, his love. But when it comes to the future – to what we hope for – it is different.
One person writes, “When Jesus returns to earth, the gloves will be off: no longer will he practice nonviolence or pacifism.” This person, writing about the peace that Jesus will bring says, “there will be peace for the simple reason that there will be nobody left to fight, all opponents having been slaughtered or subdued.”
Another person, writing about Jesus’ reign says, “There will be only ONE RELIGION during the Millennium. Those who refuse to worship Christ will be punished.”
A third writes, “If you were to read Revelation 19 starting with verse 11, you would find that the one who rides the horse is Jesus. Because of His great wrath all the wicked are slain and no one is left on the earth.”
Many more such hopes are there. Jesus, the one who refused to resort to violence in the past, is suddenly transformed to the greatest of warriors in the future.
Scripture surely tells us that Jesus will be victorious. But scripture does not tell us how. It is we humans who try to fill in the gaps by projecting our hopes and dreams. Just as the Jews of Jesus’ day could not see that the minority report had to precede the majority report, so also we today cannot envision Jesus’ victory in a manner that does not include violence.
But Luke tells us that Jesus was known when he broke the bread, when the disciples saw the wounds. Luke is telling us that, as long as we hope for a violent resolution to the problems of the earth, we will not be able to recognize Jesus. As long as we think that Jesus will be victorious by inflicting violence on this world, we will be blind to his ways.
Then we will be like the two disciples – in the presence of Jesus, but unable to recognize it, hearts burning but unable to put a finger on it. And then all we will have will be the words, “We had hoped.”
It is funny how growing up changes things. When I was in school, I hated biology. I cannot draw to save my life and so my paramecium did not only look like it was slipper shaped, it actually was a slipper, I think. I did not like having to memorize random Latin words used to classify various species, nor assorted facts about each plant or animal. But now, though I still do not love biology as a whole, I love the field of genetics. I love reading up on it and gaining knowledge. But I still do not like memorizing facts.
Perhaps, this is why I also hated history. Facts, facts, facts. There is only so much one can stand. But, as George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” History is all important if we do not wish to repeat the errors of previous generations.
And this is crucial for the passage we are dealing with today. Very early in the history of the church we somehow forgot the history of the books we call scripture. The idea of timeless truths crept into our way of thinking about scripture. And we then forgot also what these books were trying to tell us. And so we think that Jesus’ words to Thomas, “Stop doubting and believe” characterize this disciple as the doubting Thomas, even though all the disciples doubted.
This passage does speak of Thomas’ doubt. No doubt about that. However, this is not the reason for its inclusion by John through the Spirit. If you do a simple word search for Thomas in the New Testament, you will come up with 12 occurrences. There is one in each of the other three Gospels and one in Acts.
In all these four passages, he is simply listed along with the other disciples. He does nothing in the other Gospels or in Acts, is not even a bystander for the events of Jesus’ life.
But there are 8 verses in John’s Gospel that mention Thomas. These are in 4 stories. The first is in John 11.16, where, in response to Jesus’ declaration that Lazarus was dead and his intention to go to Jerusalem, Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Keep this in mind. We will return to it shortly.
The second story is in John 14. The chapter starts with Jesus saying, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” To this, Thomas asks, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Keep this also in mind for a bit.
The third story is our passage for today, the passage that, over the centuries, has unfortunately characterized Thomas as a doubter. The last mention of Thomas is in chapter 21, where he is fishing with the other disciples. He is only mentioned here and does not participate in the story.
But the main thrust of the passage for today is not Thomas’ doubt, but something else. To understand this something else, we need a chronology of the New Testament books. The 5 books penned by John are probably the last of the books to be written, very likely in the last decade of the first century AD, closely following each other.
And in 1 John 4 we read, “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”
Unlike some groups of Christians that like to think of the Antichrist as some individual who will terrorize the world prior to Jesus’ return, John tells us that the characteristic of the antichrist is not terror, but denial that Jesus was fully human. Looking at it from a historical perspective we can conclude that, at the time John was writing, there must have been reason for him to write this.
And there was. Early strands of Gnosticism had sprouted in the early church toward the end of the first century AD. You have heard the term Gnosticism before from Uncle Ken and from me.
What were some of the characteristic beliefs of Gnosticism? First, a hatred of the physical body. The goal of every human, according to the Gnostics, was to escape this evil, deceptive shell so that one’s spirit could return to the realm of the spirit.
Second, according to the Gnostics, Jesus only appeared to die on the cross. According to them, Jesus was not a human, but the manifestation of a divine spirit, who appeared to be human to those around him. And at the cross Jesus’ spirit returned to the realm of the spirit, thereby stopping the appearance of his being human.
Third, the Gnostics believed in secret knowledge to those who were initiated. This is where they get their name, for the Greek word γνῶσις (gnosis) means knowledge. The Gnostics believed that outsiders could not understand the gospel because it was special revelation given only to the insiders.
Fourth, the Gnostics believed that Thomas, and not Peter, James or John, was the foremost of the disciples and that Jesus gave him this secret knowledge just before doing his magic trick at Calvary.
So four beliefs – hatred of the physical body, Jesus only appearing to be human, special knowledge and primacy of Thomas.
To understand scripture, we need to remember that the books of scripture were not written in a vacuum. Rather, scripture directly addresses issues that were relevant at the time of writing. The Gospel of John tackles all four Gnostic beliefs specifically through its portrayal of Thomas. John, through the Spirit, recalls and includes episodes in Thomas’ life that directly confront and demolish the key beliefs of the Gnostics.
First, Thomas, far from being the foremost of the disciples is shown to have been missing on the day when Jesus met the other disciples. Thomas was not there and Jesus still met the others despite Thomas’ not being there.
Second, Thomas is shown to not possess any special knowledge. He asks, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” He has no secret knowledge of the things Jesus was telling them about. Rather, he is as ignorant as the others.
Third, in chapter 11, Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Thomas did not believe or expect Jesus’ death to be fake. He did not believe that Jesus was simply a manifestation of a divine spirit, but rather a full human being. He expected Jesus to die and invites the other disciples to join him in a suicide mission.
Fourth, Thomas, far from expecting Jesus’ spirit to be liberated from his body, states clearly that he wanted to touch Jesus and his crucifixion wounds.
Thomas, unlike the Gnostics, was not expecting some non-corporeal existence but a fully corporeal one in which Jesus would bear his scars physically.
But why does Thomas want such a proof? Is he simply a skeptic, as many have argued? Is he just a doubter with no way for us to explain his doubt? From many sermons and studies of Thomas you would think that there is no more to his doubt, no explanation and that he was just a person riddled with doubts and skepticism, unable to accept the resurrection.
But John goes to great lengths to tell us that this is not true, that there is something else behind Thomas’ skepticism. Three times he refers to Thomas with the additional clause “also known as Didymus” or “also known as the twin.”
As I read for today’s message I came across so many theories about why Thomas has this nickname. Each theory was wilder than the next.
What I could not find was the simplest of explanations, the one that explains his doubt as well. It seemed as though everyone writing about Thomas was determined not to see what John was telling us to see.
Thomas was a twin. Thomas, being a twin, was probably used to being mistaken for his twin. Very likely people would have claimed to have seen him somewhere when they had actually seen his twin. And vice versa.
And so this Thomas, subject to mistaken identity for all his life, was keenly aware that if you hope to see someone, you could easily see another person but assume it is the person you want to see.
Now Jesus very likely had a lookalike. That is why the Jewish leaders needed a close associate like Judas to identify him with confidence despite the fact that Jesus spoke openly in the temple.
And so Thomas wondered if the others had seen this lookalike and mistaken him for Jesus. How could he be sure? What would distinguish the two if they looked alike? Nothing short of the wounds inflicted on Jesus when he was crucified. Jesus would have the wounds and the scars, once again challenging the Gnostic belief that the goal is to escape this physical body. But the lookalike would not have had any scars.
This encounter between Jesus and Thomas demolishes the Gnostic beliefs and restores the orthodox belief in the bodily, physical resurrection of Jesus.
At the end of the encounter between Jesus and Thomas, Jesus looks ahead to us. We are those who have not seen him physically. We are those he blesses. We are those who have not had the opportunity to touch his wounds. We are those who could be tempted to think that the resurrection of Jesus simply means that his spirit is alive and well. We are those who, however, believe that Jesus has been raised bodily and can be touched. And we are those who daily yearn for and wait for that touch.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures” goes the aphorism. When a person finds himself backed against a wall, with no way of escape, he might do things he would otherwise never consider doing. We must keep this in mind as we consider the involvement of Caiaphas and his father-in-law Annas in the crucifixion of Jesus.
We Christians have had a tendency of portraying these two men as evil or weak or vengeful, people who target Jesus because they were jealous of his increasing popularity. And as a result, even non-Christians who know something about Caiaphas think of him as someone keenly concerned about his popularity ratings.
In the words of the song ‘This Jesus Must Die’ from the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Webber: ‘How can we stop him? His glamour increases by leaps every minute, he’s top of the polls.”
But if we stick to what scripture tells us about Caiaphas we will find a different picture. First, we must understand that Caiaphas was not a common Jew who happened to be in an influential position. He was the High Priest, which at every point since Aaron became the first High Priest was not just a religious position. It was a thoroughly political position.
This does not mean that the High Priest indulged in what we nowadays disparagingly call ‘politics’ – or perhaps even ‘dirty politics’. If the position was a political position, he would automatically be involved in politics!
This simply means that, unlike the decisions made by a commoner, the decisions made by Caiaphas affected the lives of all the Jews in Ancient Palestine.
Moreover, under Roman occupation, the High Priest, as the head of the ruling body, known as the Sanhedrin, was responsible for keeping the volatile Jews under check.
In the passage we read we see this concern at the forefront of the arguments made by the group headed by Caiaphas. They say, “Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”
They agree that Jesus is performing signs, meaning that he is doing something genuine, things that point beyond themselves. If this continues, they argue, too many will get convinced about what Jesus was saying. They do not object to this in principle. What they have a problem with is what would happen if Jesus gained too large a following.
Their final argument is ‘the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.’ Entrusted with the welfare of the Jewish people and the symbols of Jewish religious life, primarily the temple, the group headed by Caiaphas display exactly those concerns. They are not against Jesus as a matter of principle, but because of what his increasing popularity might imply for the Jewish nation.
Once we understand this we can understand also why Caiaphas allowed Jesus to be tried illegally. There are many aspects of illegality in Jesus’ trial but we need not go there. It is just that Caiaphas found himself backed against a wall. These were desperate times for him. And so he accepted desperate measures.
So what was it that Caiaphas feared Jesus might do? Look where John places the passage we just read. It is right after Jesus raises Lazarus. And in chapter 12 we read that the chief priest, Caiaphas presumably one of them, wanted to get rid of Lazarus so that there would be no evidence that someone had been raised from the dead.
Something about the raising of Lazarus had pushed Caiaphas against the wall, forcing him to resort to desperate measures.
Caiaphas believed that Jesus could do something that would bring the Romans into Jerusalem in force and make them drive the Jews out.
It is no coincidence that Jesus was crucified during the Passover festival. The Passover was the prime time for Jewish rebellions. And in an attempt to dissuade the Jews from rebelling, the Romans scheduled a lot of crucifixions during the festival. This was their way of showing the Jews who was in charge. Obviously, at least from the Roman perspective, the Romans were in charge because they wielded the power of death over the Jews.
But what if….
But what if Jesus decided to repeat what he had done with Lazarus? Remember, this is the third recorded occasion on which Jesus raised someone from the dead – Jairus’ daughter and the Nain widow’s son being the other two. This meant that raising people from the dead was no fluke as far as Jesus was concerned. He could do it on a whim.
But what if his whim led him to raise people who had received the death sentence at the hands of the Romans? Remember, he had among his disciples Simon the Zealot and Judas, a member of the Sicarii, both violent revolutionary groups. Perhaps Jesus was sympathetic to their causes. Many Zealots and Sicarii had been crucified by the Romans.
What if Jesus went around raising all of them? The Romans would not have taken that lying down. They would have crushed the Jewish nation, destroying their temple and dispersing the Jews throughout the empire. And if they did that, Caiaphas would have failed at his task of protecting the Jewish people.
And so Caiaphas says, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” Caiaphas wants to protect and safeguard the Jewish people.
And the irony is that in order to stop a potential epidemic of raising people from the dead he decides to put to death the one responsible for raising people.
In other words, from Caiaphas’ perspective, Jesus’ death removed the threat of destruction to the Jewish nation. This actually does come to pass.
But God had a deeper purpose and even in death Jesus proved to be the author of life as experienced by millions of people down the centuries, including us today.
The word ‘Armageddon’ has captured the imagination of many people around the world. Commonly taken to refer to a war of unbelievable magnitude, Movie Flavor reports that there are 29 movies that have the word ‘Armageddon’ in their titles. They have overcounted, but the point still stands. And the question must be asked: What is it about this word that has scriptwriters, directors and producers reaching out for it?
The word ‘Armageddon’ appears only once in the bible, in Revelation 16.16, where we read, “And the demonic spirits assembled the kings at the place that in Hebrew is called Harmagedon.” Here note that the word ‘harmegedon’ is a transliteration of the Greek in Revelation 16.16. Most English translations, following the King James Version, render it as ‘Armageddon’. Since the most common usage of the word in English is ‘Armageddon’ and since nothing significant is lost by using this rendition, I will follow suit in this post.
The most common interpretation of the significance of Armageddon is that it will be the location of the final battle between the returning Jesus and all his enemies. However, is this actually borne out in the text of Revelation? In order to answer that question, we need to determine the place of this solitary mention of Armageddon in the narrative of the book and interpret is carefully from within that context.
The book of Revelation is famously characterized by references to or sequences of sevens. The reference to Armageddon comes in the sequence of the seven bowls of the wrath of God. As usual, interpreting any part of the bible (or any text for that matter) should take into account as much of the context as possible. Since the whole set of seven bowls comprises one single movement in the narrative, it is unhelpful to interpret any of the bowls apart from the others. Hence, I ask the reader to indulge me as I quote the entire 16th chapter.
The Seven Bowls
Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.”
So the first angel went and poured his bowl on the earth, and a foul and painful sore came on those who had the brand of the beast and who worshiped its image.
The second angel poured his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing in the sea died.
The third angel poured his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters say, “You are just, O Holy One, who are and were, for you have judged these things; because they shed the blood of saints and prophets, you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!” And I heard the altar respond, “Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, your judgments are true and just!”
The fourth angel poured his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire; they were scorched by the fierce heat, but they cursed the name of God, who had authority over these plagues, and they did not repent and give him glory.
The fifth angel poured his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness; people gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and sores, and they did not repent of their deeds.
The sixth angel poured his bowl on the great River Euphrates, and its water was dried up in order to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw three foul spirits like frogs coming from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet. These are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.(“See, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and is clothed, not going about naked and exposed to shame.”) And the demonic spirits assembled the kings at the place that in Hebrew is called Harmagedon.
The seventh angel poured his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a violent earthquake, such as had not occurred since people were upon the earth, so violent was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. God remembered great Babylon and gave her the wine cup of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found, and huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, dropped from heaven on people, until they cursed God for the plague of the hail, so fearful was that plague.
The Theme of the Bowls
If there is a theme to the seven bowls it is that God’s wrath is poured out on those who are allied with the beast with the intention of rendering them unable to function. Bowl 1: Painful sores would incapacitate them. Bowls 2 and 3: Blood in the seas and the rivers would affect their water supply. Bowl 4: Hot sunlight would scorch them and make them unable to function. Bowl 5: Darkness would place them in an environment deprived of light. Bowl 7: Lightning, thunder and earthquakes would threaten their lives. In other words the six bowls other than the sixth are all about frustrating the plans of those who have decided to rally against God and the Lamb. This must be the governing principle which should guide our interpretation of the sixth bowl.
In other words, any attempt to interpret the sixth bowl without looking at the overarching theme of the cycle of bowls itself is misguided at best and intentionally misleading at worst. Of course, there are many examples of the latter approach, primarily from preachers in the affluent Western countries who erroneously think that their affluence automatically places them on God’s side. And many of them are so committed to militarism that I seriously wonder if they are reading the same book as I am!
Coming back to the bowls, each of them makes it difficult or impossible for the humans who have sided with the forces of evil to function adequately. While the language used does describe some damage being brought upon the earth, the focus is not on this environmental damage but on how this damage adversely affects those who have declared themselves to be God’s enemies. It is this, then, that must guide us as we attempt to understand the sixth bowl and the role of Armageddon in the narrative.
However, before we proceed to look more closely at the sixth bowl, let us take a brief excursus as look at the last part of Revelation 19, where most people think the battle of Armageddon takes place because what we will discover there will help us in our interpretation of the sixth bowl.
The Non-Battle of Armageddon
In Revelation 19.19-21 we read, “Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to wage war against the rider on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed in its presence the signs by which he deceived those who had received the brand of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were killed by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.”
Did you see it? Did you see the great description of the battle? We read that the beast and the armies of the kings of the earth were gathered to wage war. The next thing we read is, “And the beast was captured.” Where is the battle? We read only of a gathering to wage war and then of the capture. What is conspicuous by its absence is any mention of any actual warfare.
This is a common strategy in Revelation. John builds the tension and anticipation of the reader with indications to look here or see something. But when John actually looks he sees something completely different. The pre-eminent case of this is in chapter 5, where John is asked to look at the Lion of the tribe of Judah only to find the Lion conspicuously absent and only the slaughtered Lamb present.
In chapter 19 too, ever since chapter 16 and the mention of Armageddon, the reader is expecting there to be a great showdown between the Lamb and the beast with each of them having their armies alongside. The interlude in chapters 17 and 18 describing the fall of Babylon only increases the anticipation with the destruction of one of the lesser, though not inconsequential, actors. When the rider on the white horse shows up in the middle of Revelation 19, the reader would surely be thinking that the battle, which was put off for the interlude concerning Babylon, would now be the focus of the narrative.
However, if that was what the reader was expecting, she would be sorely disappointed because John only tells us about the capture of the beast and the false prophet without even one word about the actual battle? I know I am speculating here, but I can imagine that those who first heard the book being read aloud would have asked the reader to do a double take here to confirm that there was no description of this greatly anticipated battle. And I’m sure they would have been confused about this seemingly unacceptable omission. However, if they had the opportunity to go back to chapter 16 they would have been able to understand that, from what John has written in chapter 16, we should not have had any expectation of a battle!
The Non-Place of the Non-Battle
As mentioned earlier, John tells us in chapter 16 that the demonic spirits assembled the armies at a place called Armageddon in Hebrew. Most often this is taken to mean ‘mountain of Megiddo’. However, Michael Heiser objects to this in The Naked Bible Podcastepisode 392. Since his argument is quite involved, indulge me while I quote a large chuck from the episode. Heiser says, “Har Magedon means ‘mount of’ something. And it can’t be Megiddo, because there is no mountain there. Anyone who’s been to the site, the first question should be to your tour guide, ‘Where is the mountain?’ Because there isn’t any. It’s a plain. So Kline thought, ‘What if we’re not dealing with Hebrew M-G-D (the first three consonants of Megiddo)?’ What if instead we have har and then mem, ’ayin (the other Hebrew consonant that has that G sound). Like Gomorrah is actually not spelled with Hebrew G (gimel); it’s spelled with ’ayin (’amorah). It has that back of the throat G sound. So Kline’s like, ‘Well, what if we have mem ’ayin daleth? And we have har mōʿed?’ And as soon as he came to that observation, the whole thing opened up. Because har mōʿed is the mount of assembly from Isaiah 14. This is where God rules. It’s Zion. It’s Jerusalem.”
The last claim, however, is patently false! Isaiah 14 does mention a ‘mount of assembly’. However, the parallel in v. 13 is with Mount Zaphon and not Mount Zion. And Mount Zaphon was on the eastern side of the Jordan between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee, in other words, nowhere even near Jerusalem. This kind of misleading of readers or listeners to make a point is really sad and I have to admit that I have lost quite a bit of respect for Kline and Heiser because of this. Unfortunately, there are so many sites online that seem to have not bothered to check either the text of Isaiah or the geography of the region and who have bought hook, line, and sinker into what Kline and Heiser have proposed. It’s time we stop being gullible consumers!
Anyway, since Heiser is speaking off the cuff here, the sentences are all broken and disjointed and not entirely coherent. So let me explain his point. He recognizes that there is no mountain in Megiddo because it’s a plain. So he concludes that it cannot refer to Megiddo. What then could it refer to? He picks up an argument from Meredith G. Kline, which goes as follows. There are two Hebrew letters that could have the ‘g’ sound. One is obviously the gimel. The other is the ‘ayin. Kline observes that the place name ‘Gomorrah’ is spelled with a leading ‘ayin in Hebrew but is pronounced with a leading ‘g’ sound as indicated by the word itself, i.e. Gomorrah. Hence, Kline suggests that when John writes ‘harmagedon’ and refers to a Hebrew place name, he intends us to understand that the first three consonants are not mem (‘m’), gimel (hard ‘g’) and daleth (‘d’) but mem (‘m’), ‘ayin (guttural ‘g’) and daleth (‘d’). Kline then proposes that this indicates the Hebrew word har mo’ed, which means ‘mount of assembly’. He then claims that this is a reference to Jerusalem, a point that I have strongly disputed above.
Granted that Greek has no way of rendering the Hebrew ‘ayin, the above argument about ‘har mo’ed’ might make sense, except for three glaring reasons that both Kline and Heiser fail to observe, even though these points are glaringly obvious. First, the Hebrew text during the first century did not have any vowel pointing. Hence, any reference in the Old Testament to the assembly would have read ‘mw’d’. Note, that I have added a ‘w’ to indicate the ‘waw’ that always appears in the Hebrew and indicates the initial ‘o’ vowel sound. However, if John intended magedon to refer to assembly in Hebrew, why did he not write mogedon, with an initial ‘o’ vowel sound? After all, Greek has the letters omicron and omega that could provide an ‘o’ sound. Yet, John chose to write magedon, with the first vowel being an alpha rather than either an omicron or an omega, strongly suggesting he was not thinking of ‘mo’ed’.
Second, relying on the leading consonant in Gomorrah is worse than circular reasoning. We have already admitted that Greek has no way of rendering the ‘ayin sound. Hence, any alphabetic rendering of it must be ad hoc in nature rather than universal, especially since ‘ayin itself was known to have multiple sounds. We ourselves know that ‘g’, for example, can have a hard sound as in ‘gut’ or a soft sound as in ‘giraffe’. Finding that it has a hard sound in any particular word does not tell us anything about how it should be pronounced in another word. In fact, this view is further undermined by the fact that ‘mo’ed’ is pronounced without the guttural sound! (See this video and pay attention to the reading of v.14. at the 3:58 mark.) In other words, even if ‘ayin is sometimes pronounced with a ‘g’ sound, it is not in the word ‘mo’ed’, which is the only word that matters for this argument. So this seems to be a reasoning from absolutely nothing!
Third, John was writing to Greek speaking people, most of whom were probably Gentiles. The book is already quite cryptic and would have required the hearers to spend quite a bit of time trying to understand it just as twenty centuries later we are still attempting the same. Which is more likely, that he expected them to know obscure idiosyncrasies of Hebrew pronunciation, which are accessible only to native speakers of the language, or that he expected them to know or get to know the topography of a well known place in the Jezreel Valley? I submit it is the latter because the former stretches all bounds of imagination.
Proof by Contradiction
Suppose, however, that Kline and Heiser are right. Maybe they are seeing something that eludes me. How would that fit in with the rest of the bowl cycle? We have the first five bowls, all introducing some kind of obstacle or difficult situation for those who are against God. And we end with a grand earthquake, which would hinder any plans the forces of evil would have. Just before this we are told that the demonic spirits assemble the armies at Jerusalem (according to the view of Kline and Heiser). How is this a hindrance to these forces? According to the book, Jerusalem is already under the control of the forces of evil. These armies would be gathering at their headquarters. This is not a hindrance of any sort.
To the contrary, if we say that the armies would gather at Jerusalem, we are saying that they already have a preferred base of operations and are gathering there. Their plan would then be to launch their assault against God and the Lamb from this base of operations. Far from being a hindrance of any sort, this would actually align exactly with their plans. In that case, we have to ask ourselves how this sixth bowl actually fits into the bowl cycle. If the first five and the seventh bowls all present a case in which the forces against God are hindered or thwarted, how would the sixth fit into that scheme when it does exactly the opposite?
It is quite clear then that any suggestion that Armageddon refers to Jerusalem is based not on anything inside the text but on some quite esoteric considerations from outside the text. While taking cues from outside the text is not necessarily poor hermeneutics, when this goes against the thrust of what is in the text, it should be a warning about these external considerations. This warning is amplified when the considerations themselves are so esoteric that they require, in this case, the implausible expectation that Gentile Christians would know the variability of pronunciation of Hebrew consonants when the vowels themselves do not point in that direction! It is for these reasons that I think Kline’s and Heiser’s proposal actually carries very little water.
An Alternate and Subversive Interpretation
Now, we saw that Heiser admits that there is no mountain in Megiddo. He concludes then that this must mean that John did not intend to refer to Megiddo. But what if we take it the other way around? Megiddo was a well known place in the Jezreel Valley and had been the site of many battles. In the imagination of the Old Testament, Megiddo played a significant role because it was where the last ‘good’ king, Josiah, was killed in 609 BC. Since Josiah was the last king who was not a vassal of any foreign kingdom, it is technically with his death that the independent kingdom of Judah ceased to exist. Hence, the place of his death, Megiddo, carried enormous significance in the imagination of the exilic and post-exilic Judeans. Because of its significance, the terrain of Megiddo was also well known. Everyone knew or could easily get to know that there was no mountain there.
I can imagine a scenario where the scroll of Revelation was being read out to the first recipients. When the reader got to Revelation 16.16 and mentioned Armageddon, someone may have asked, “I thought Megiddo was a plain. Are you sure John wrote Armageddon?” When the reader checked and responded in the affirmative, someone may have asked, “But then where is this mountain?” The reader may have then checked with the courier who had brought the scroll from Patmos. He might have been carefully instructed by John concerning some of the more gnarly parts of the narrative.
“Where is this mountain?” the reader would have asked the courier. And the courier, with a wry, knowing smile and a carefully timed wink, would have replied, “Precisely!”
Just like the conspicuously absent lion of chapter 5, a conspicuousness that we have done our very best to forget through art and song, the mountain of Megiddo is also not something that actually exists. In other words, when the demonic spirits are assembling the kings of the earth at Armageddon, they are assembling at a ‘non-place’. What this means is that these spirits will do their very best to assemble their forces but will never find a suitable place where they can take their stand against the truth speaking white rider. This fits perfectly with the idea of hindrance or obstacle that characterizes the other six bowls. What could be a greater hindrance or obstacle to an army than that it cannot find a place at which to organize itself for a battle? What could be more devastating to an army than the truth that, in the face of God’s wrath on them, they will never be able to extricate themselves from chaos and achieve even the slightest bit of organization that a headquarters could facilitate?
What we have seen is that, not only will there not be any actual battle between the Lamb and the forces of evil, but also there is no place at which the forces of evil can make muster! Hence, contrary to being the scene of the most cataclysmic battle in history, Armageddon is actually a word that spells the final defeat of evil precisely when evil is shown to be powerless even to organize itself against the truth speaking white rider. Armageddon, then, is not something that the people of God need to fear. It is not the site of some upcoming battle that we should hope God would spare us from, as expected by those who adhere to the odious doctrine of the Rapture. Rather, it is the non-site of the upcoming non-battle between the Lamb and God’s enemies, who cannot even find a place from which to attack the Lamb.
We should have expected this if we took the book of Revelation seriously. The book was written to seven churches in first century Asia Minor. These churches were facing different levels of opposition and the book was written to demonstrate that the slaughtered Lamb is still in control despite the opposition that the people of God were facing. It was a book written to comfort and reassure Christians who were increasingly pressured to think that the opposition they were facing meant that the Lamb was no longer in charge of putting God’s plans into effect.
But Revelation was also written to convince those persecuted Christians that violence is the tool of the dragon, utilized by the beast, and sacralized by the false prophet. That is why there is no Lion in the book of Revelation. God does not work through a Lion but only through a Lamb. And that is why there is no place called Armageddon for the dragon, beast, and false prophet cannot even take a stand against the truth speaking white rider.
If this second purpose was not crucial to Revelation, John could well have portrayed the white rider wielding a sword in his hand rather than in his mouth. He could have described a Lion with a luxuriant, flowing mane instead of a Lamb standing with its throat slit. It is precisely because of these features of the book that we should reject all views that give violence a divine imprimatur. Of course, Revelation is a book that contains a lot of violence. However, the elusive-because-illusive Lion and the non-site of the non-battle of Armageddon should be the interpretive lenses through which we interpret even those passages that describe violent action, especially violent action purportedly committed by God.
It seems clear to me that it is our consistent refusal to accept the way of the Lamb that makes many of us salivate for a final bloody battle between Jesus and the dragon’s forces. I would go so far as to say that those Christian teachers who actually teach that there will be such a battle are the antichrists of our time, causing the great apostasy that Jesus did warn would precede his return. But if you have reached here, you have no excuse. You can no longer rely on an empty hope.
Call me Ishmael. Almost to this very day ten years ago happened the things about which I now tell you. A bright day it was, warm and sunny. I had gotten up early in order to go to Jerusalem for the festival, the great Passover.
Now, by my name you would probably realize that I am not a descendent of Isaac. Rather, his elder brother Ishmael, from whom I take my name, is my ancestor. Why, then would I want to celebrate the Passover? For many years I have been what you might call a proselyte.
And a critical role in my journey was played by a famous text from the prophet Isaiah—a text that showed me that, despite some trends among the Jews to restrict the Holy One’s blessings to the Jews, the Lord was eager for all to worship him—even one like myself a hated descendent of Ishmael, who even bears that despised name.
And that text became a kind of life verse for me. And, like every day since my becoming a proselyte, I began that day ten years ago by reading that very text.
Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”… the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
What a glorious text! What a vision! And for many years, I had started every day with those words that promised me acceptance before the God of Jacob. And finally, after many years, I was about to go myself to the mountain of the Lord to offer my sacrifice.
How I had waited, eagerly, expectantly, for this day. And as I thought of these things, I heard the sweet music of the pilgrims pass outside the inn. And they were singing, “Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of our God… And the law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
When I heard those lilting sounds, how could I not go outside and join the holy procession?
And so I too began to sing, raising my voice and joining in the fanfare. The procession was much larger than I had imagined and it kept getting bigger and bigger for at every house, every inn, and every crossroad more people streamed in and joined in the festivities. I had timed my entry correctly for I was just about thirty yards from the head of the procession. And behind me the throngs extended as far as the eye could see.
At the head of the procession I could see a man, quite stately, riding a horse. He looked regal, to say the least. The people around him were waving palm branches and throwing the branches or their own robes on the road in front of him. What a sight! And soon the song changed. Now they sang another of the traditional processional songs, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Who was the man at the head of the procession? I had to know. So I tapped the man in front of me on the shoulder. He turned, singing the song with every ounce of his being. “Who is the man riding on the animal?” He looked at me bewildered at my ignorance. “Do you not know?” he replied. “This is Jesus the one who is going to deliver us from the Romans.” I was taken aback. “You mean he is the Messiah?” I asked the man. “Yes,” he said, “The Lord has finally heard our cries for deliverance. As in the days of Moses and Joshua and Judas Maccabaeus he will set us free with a mighty hand.”
We were speaking quite loudly in order to hear ourselves over the singing. Jesus, it seemed, heard us speaking, for he turned and looked in our direction. Yes, he did look so regal. And so commanding was his look that the man and I stopped our conversation and once again joined in the singing.
A few minutes later I heard, over the singing, a faint voice. “Could someone please help me? Please take my hand and lead me to the temple.”
I looked in the direction of the voice and saw a frail old man. He was blind and I wondered why no one would help him. I wondered why Jesus would not stop or at least tell his disciples to help the old man. But I realized that the singing was so loud that Jesus probably could not hear the whispered shout. Not wanting to bring the whole procession to a halt or to disrupt the celebration, I left the procession. I just had to help the man.
I walked over to him. “Here, father, let me assist you. Take my hand and we will go together to the temple.”
He turned in my direction and ran his hand over my head, felt the coarseness of my yamaka and then ran his fingers through my beard. “Ah! My son,” he said, “I am so glad you are a son of Abraham. Yes, take me to the temple.”
I knew what he meant. He had taken me for a Jew. And though I was not a descendent of Jacob, I shared in his faith. So I did not think it necessary to correct him. “Yes, father,” I replied. “Let us both go to the house of the Lord.”
When we rejoined the procession we were quite far behind Jesus. And as we hobbled along singing the festival psalms, we were passed by another extremely large group of people waving palm branches and singing, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” In the midst of them was a man riding a donkey. He was deep in thought. “Stragglers,” I thought to myself. But anyway, it was good company to have for the rest of the journey. This group was processing much slower than the group headed by Jesus. And their pace was perfectly suited to the blind man whom I was leading.
In a couple of hours the blind man, the large group of stragglers, and I entered the gates of Jerusalem. “Ah!” I thought to myself, “I am finally here in the great city. Soon I will also enter the gates of the holy temple and offer my sacrifice.”
As we processed toward the temple a few men, who I later realized were an odd mix of Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, halted the group of stragglers. They were having an argument about something. Since the blind man and I were not part of that group, we did not bother to wait with them.
Here we were, a blind man and his guide. Neither of us knew the way to the temple—I having never before been to the city, the blind man having never seen anything in his life. Yet I decided to follow the teeming hordes of people. Where else could they be going except the temple itself? And sure enough, in a few minutes I could see the temple. It was marvelous, built of huge stones and reaching up to the sky, its height apparently increasing as one drew nearer and felt dwarfed in its presence. This truly was the house of God.
When we entered the gates of the temple we once again heard the beautiful song, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” I wanted to sing but my eyes were drawn to a magnificent figure in the temple courts. It was Jesus, who I had seen riding on a horse. And he was addressing the huge crowd gathered in the court. Both the blind man and I wanted to get closer so we could hear what Jesus was saying. After all, if he were the Messiah, we could do no better than to listen to his words.
“Make way,” I said, “I am with a blind man and we want to hear the words of Jesus.” No one seemed to hear me. So I raised my voice and shouted, “Please let us through. I am with a blind man. We want to hear the words of Jesus.”
My words were heard and by none other than Jesus himself. He turned to me. My heart became light with expectancy. And he spoke: “No blind man may enter the temple and no one who is lame or deaf or in any way unwhole. This is a sacred assembly and no one impure may enter.” Then he fixed his eyes on me and said, “But you, you are whole. You may enter the assembly.”
“But,” I protested, “I cannot leave the blind man now. Not after having been with him so long.”
“Go on, my son,” said the blind man. “It is enough for me that I have reached the temple. Go on without me.”
Reluctantly I went on ahead. As I was about to enter the court I heard someone call my name.
“Ishmael? Is that you?”
I turned toward the voice and saw the man responsible for my becoming a proselyte. “Samuel!” I exclaimed. “Yes it is I. It is so good to see you after so long. Come with me into the temple courts.”
“What!?” I heard Jesus say and turned toward him. “Your name is Ishmael!? Then you are not a Jew. You cannot enter the courts for you too, like the blind man, are impure.”
I had, by now, stepped into the courts. Jesus’ eyes burned with anger. He charged toward me reaching for the sword in his belt. He would have killed me I think had Samuel not pushed me.
The sword struck my right leg. I felt a piercing pain shoot through the entire right side of my body and I fell to the floor. I grasped my leg and covered the gaping wound. Samuel came to my aid and tied a piece of cloth around my thigh. That would stop the bleeding for a while.
What was happening? Why could the blind man and I not enter the temple? Was Isaiah wrong about God’s graciousness?
Was my birth as Ishmael, the descendent of Ishmael, to be held against me forever? Was my faith in the God of Jacob not enough? Was there no salvation for me?
All these questions welled up inside my heart. But I had no time to ponder them for a big commotion had started in the courts. The man I had seen riding a donkey came into the courts and began to overturn the tables of the moneychangers and set free the animals that were there to be sacrificed.
“Who is this?” I asked Samuel. “This is Jesus,” he answered.
“Jesus?” I replied quite confused. “But isn’t the man who attacked me Jesus?”
“Oh yes” said Samuel. “Both are named Jesus. The one who attacked you is Jesus Barabbas. The man now disrupting the temple activities is Jesus from Nazareth.”
“And,” I exclaimed, “both of them are doing things so I will never be able to make my offering. The one refuses me entry into the temple courts. The other is doing away with the sacrifice itself. Where then is there hope for me?”
Jesus of Nazareth had finished setting free the animals. Then, glowering at Jesus Barabbas and at the temple authorities who stood motionless, he said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples, but you have made it into a den of inhumane nationalists.’” Jesus Barabbas and the temple authorities slunk away arguing among themselves. Though I could not hear what they were saying I presumed that they wanted a way to get rid of Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus of Nazareth came toward the entrance to the courts where I was lying. He passed me and went to the gates. The blind man had made his way to the gates.
Jesus addressed him, “Come into the courts, old man.” The blind man came in. Jesus asked him, “What do you want most?” “That I might see,” he replied.
“Then go,” Jesus said, placing his thumbs over the blind man’s eyes, “you can now see.” He removed his thumbs from the man’s eyes.
“Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!” exclaimed the man. “I can see! I can see! I am no longer blind. I can see!” And continuing to shout, he left the temple precincts.
“See,” said Samuel. “Jesus of Nazareth is compassionate.”
“Sure,” I muttered to Samuel, “and his words sounded great. He, unlike Jesus Barabbas, would let me enter the temple. But, after his disruptive actions, how could I make the sacrifice?”
Jesus heard my words. He turned toward me and said, “What is it you want most?” “I came here to offer a sacrifice,” I answered, “but you have stopped all sacrifice.” “Then go,” he said, “there is nothing for you here.”
I was amazed at his sharp words. But his words rang true – there was nothing for me here anymore. I tried to get up, but couldn’t feel my right leg. I tried again to no avail.
Jesus stood towering over me. “Well,” he said. “Why are you waiting? Don’t you see there is nothing for you here?”
“I cannot get up,” I replied. “My right leg is paralyzed. Heal me like you healed the blind man and I will leave.”
“Is that what you want me to do?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I said, “I want to be able to walk again.”
“And you believe that I can do this?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I believe.”
“Then,” he said bending down and taking hold of my right hand, “arise! Your faith has healed you.” He pulled me to my feet and I realized that I could feel my right leg. Jesus went down on his knees and unwrapped the piece of cloth around my thigh. The bleeding had stopped. Moreover, there was no sign of the wound either.
“Then I will leave,” I said to Jesus.
He looked at me, his eyes filled with compassion and said, “As you go remember that your faith is accepted as the appropriate sacrifice.”
I left with thanks. The temple in which I wanted to make my sacrifice could no longer accept it. But, in some strange way, I had, nonetheless, made a sacrifice and it had been accepted. A sacrifice, not of animals, but of faith, accepted, not by the temple, but by Jesus.
Today is Palm Sunday. And you have just heard a dramatic presentation of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and his actions in the temple as recorded by Matthew. Jesus’ actions on Palm Sunday constitute probably the most misunderstood part of his ministry. Having said that, please turn to Matthew 21:1-17.
At the time of Jesus, part of the Passover celebrations involved joyful processions into Jerusalem that ended with sacrifice at the temple. So we should not think that what sets Jesus apart is his procession. That was quite normal.
Also, Jesus was not the only person who claimed to be Messiah. Quite a number of Jews did that and the most opportune time for them to assert their right to rule was during the Passover celebrations. In the same year that Jesus rode into Jerusalem there might have been a few others who also did the same.
In fact, the first century Jewish historian Josephus indicates that around the early 30s one Jesus Barabbas proclaimed himself Messiah only to be summarily thwarted by the Romans. It is quite probable that this happened the same year that Jesus was crucified.
One thing that set Jesus apart from the false Messiahs was the fact that he rode on a donkey and not on a horse. Matthew indicates that this was to fulfill the prophecy in Zechariah. The lowliness of the Messiah was something that the other messianic claimants were not willing to display. And this was one reason why the Jewish establishment felt threatened by Jesus. But there is another more incisive reason.
Now as I said the Passover processions normally ended with a sacrifice in the temple. This is another way in which Jesus differs. Rather than offer a sacrifice, he puts an end to sacrifice. In the story I reported that Jesus said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples, but you have made it into a den of inhumane nationalists.’”
You will have noticed one major difference in this from most translations. Most translations would have “den of thieves” instead of “den of inhumane nationalists” and I believe the translations are wrong. In the passage Matthew uses the Greek word λῃστής (lays-tays), which in common Greek referred to violent nationalists who financed their revolutionary activities through banditry.
In other words, the primary characteristic of a λῃστής is violent insurrection with thieving being only a secondary quality. The same word is used to describe Barabbas and the two men who were crucified with Jesus. And crucifixion was not the Roman penalty for thieving but for revolt.
That Jesus has violent nationalism in mind is evident when we realize that he has merged Isaiah 56:7 with Jeremiah 7:11. In Jeremiah God asks, “Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?”
The Hebrew word translated “robbers” is פְּרִיצּ (preetz) which means violent person. In Jeremiah’s day the temple had become a symbol of Jewish nationalism and the same was true in Jesus’ day. Because of this the prophecy of Isaiah could not be fulfilled. Isaiah had announced that Gentiles would also worship God in the temple.
However, because the temple had become a symbol of Jewish nationalism, Gentiles were automatically excluded from worshipping there. And that is why Jesus announces the destruction of the temple in Matthew 24. And here in Matthew 21 Jesus announces that the temple had gone so far in its nationalism that it could not be the place where Isaiah’s prophecy would be fulfilled. Because of this he puts an end to the entire sacrificial system.
It is for this reason that the Jewish authorities decide to kill Jesus. While they cherished their temple worship to the point of excluding the Gentiles, Jesus valued worshipping Gentiles more than the temple sacrifice. According to the Jewish leaders, Jesus had wrong priorities that resulted in his blaspheming the temple of God by stopping sacrifice. And the due punishment for this was death.
Now Jesus could not just stop such an important part of Jewish life without offering a replacement. The main task of the temple was to accept sacrifices and to pronounce healing. Having stopped these two important functions, Jesus takes them on himself. It will be he who will become the one accepted sacrifice. And he himself heals others.
It is in this context that we need to understand the New Testament metaphor of our being the temple of God. While it is certainly correct that this implies that God dwells in us, it also means that we are now the place at which God accepts sacrifices of praise and faith and where God heals people in every way.
And since it is we who are the new temple of God, it means that worship of God does not happen in supposedly holy places but where at least two Christians meet in the name of Jesus.
For good or for ill, some parts of the bible have infiltrated many cultures and many languages. Many people would perhaps know that the Ten Commandments are from the bible, though most of them would probably not be able to tell you even one of the ten. Our passage for today has contributed three idioms to the English language, each based on one of the situations Jesus mentions. However, in all three cases, the meaning of the idiom is contrary to what Jesus was saying.
Jesus begins with a quote from Exodus 21.24, which is the lex talionis, or law of retaliation. This limitation on retaliation is not unique to the bible. The Code of Hammurabi, which predates the Old Testament, also has a similar law of limitation where the punishment could not exceed the crime. This is Jesus’ starting point.
Then Jesus mentions three situations, each of which has given rise to an idiom in English. I am sure you have heard of the idioms ‘to turn the other cheek’ and of ‘give the shirt off my back’ and of ‘go the extra mile.’ Yes? Of course you have.
But each of these means something quite different to what Jesus meant. And so, while Jesus is actually giving us strategies for non-violent action, most people conclude that he is simply advocating a submissive attitude, an attitude in which his followers welcome abuse and become doormats. But this is not what Jesus meant. So let us see what he actually meant.
So to the first. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek. This is a culture in which one did not use the left hand in public. Being left handed, I find such norms quite ridiculous and oppressive.
Nonetheless, this was a culture in which one did not use the left hand in public. So one would use the right hand. If I used my right hand, how would I slap someone on the right cheek? Would I twist my arm around and slap him? Ridiculous! I would become the laugh of the town!
The only way to accomplish this is to slap with the back of the hand. But the back handed slap was an insult in that culture. If I slapped you with the back of my hand, then the cultural norms required that you be a slave. I was not permitted to slap a free person with the back of my hand. If I did, then I was insulting you.
So how does Jesus tell us to respond? Show the left cheek he says. Now I am in a quandary. With your left cheek facing me, I can no longer slap you with the back of my right hand. And I cannot use my left hand.
So I have only two options. I either refrain from slapping you further or I slap you with the palm of my right hand. In the first case, you have stopped my violence against you. In the second case, you have forced me to accept you as my equal. In both cases, you have reclaimed your dignity without retaliating. Is that ingenious or what?
So to the second situation. Jesus is referring to the situation in Exodus 22.26-27. “If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it by sunset because that cloak is the only covering your neighbor has. What else can they sleep in?” This was a peasant culture. A person would have an inner garment in which he would work and an outer garment which he would use to keep warm when he slept.
So if I took your outer garment as pledge, it could only be while you worked. At sunset, I had to return it to you so you could be warm.
Because of this restriction, people turned the spirit of the law upside down. They argued, I cannot keep the outer garment during the night. So I will keep the inner. So I would force you to come to me and give me your inner garments during the night while I returned the outer garments to you for the night. And presumably there was a judge also who would say that I was doing the right thing by the law.
So what does Jesus suggest we do? He says that if they are going to ridicule the spirit of the law, then give them both garments. So now you would be standing naked in front of me and the judge.
And in that culture, this brought shame not to the naked person, but to the person who saw another person naked. Remember the case of Ham? He sees Noah naked and does nothing about it. And so he and his descendents are cursed because of this.
Jesus is telling us to act proactively in order to expose a system of injustice. Bring shame on them in a shame based culture. Act in such a drastic way that they have two options. They could either keep the clothes and invite a God’s curse and people’s shame on them. Or they could return the clothes. In either case, the wronged person has retained his or her dignity without resorting to violence.
And finally to the third situation. If someone forces you to go one mile. Why one mile? To us distanced from Jesus’ context, this seems contrived, arbitrary. But in that context it was a real situation.
In order to maintain a bloated empire consisting of conquered peoples, Rome had to recruit locals to be soldiers. They were not given all the privileges that a Roman legionary would get – retirement benefits, housing, vacations, etc. Instead they were paid well and given some benefits of a different sort. A soldier was allowed to force a civilian to carry his load for a maximum of one mile.
This was a great benefit when one considered that a soldier had equipment that exceeded 30 kg in weight. That is a lot to carry for an entire day. And so any reprieve would be more than welcome.
The soldiers used this benefit regularly, as you might expect. After all, if I can get you to carry my 30 kg for one mile, why would I not do it?
So what does Jesus tell us to do? He tells us to carry it another mile. Now one mile was the maximum distance a soldier could force another person to carry his load. And in order to keep the conquered people from revolting, the Romans were very strict about this limitation. Soldiers who violated the limitation were punished severely.
So imagine the situation. I am a soldier. I see you across the street and tell you to carry my load. You come over willingly and carry it. At the end of the mile, I ask you to give it back to me, but you tell me you will go another mile.
My centurion is somewhere close by. What does he see? He sees us talking, but cannot really hear us. But he sees you carrying the load beyond the maximum. He cannot conclude that you did this willingly. Who would do this willingly? So he can only conclude that I have forced you beyond the maximum.
I know this. And so what do I do? I beg you to return my load to me. Not because I care about you. But because if you do not do this, I will be severely punished. A soldier begging? Not quite dignified right? But once again the dignity of the oppressed party is intact.
In all three cases, Jesus tells us to be proactive and creative. To act in a non-violent way so as to force the oppressor to treat us with dignity. To turn the tables on the oppressor so that we are calling the shots and not the oppressor.
Many times I have stressed the importance of context. Not just textual, but also chronological, geographical, historical, cultural and linguistic. The bible is not a book dropped from heaven but a collection of books written within specific contexts to address specific issues faced by specific people. If we ignore these contexts we will have an interpretation of our scriptures that is at odds with the original intent.
Our passage shows this very clearly. Ignoring the contexts within which Jesus was speaking we have portrayed him as being one who promoted docility, passivity and a resigned attitude. However, when we read his words in context we see that he was promoting creative non-violent action that oppressed people could use as a means of recovering the initiative from the oppressor.
But in the hands of those in power, these threatening words become toothless and lose their edge. And then they can be used to make Jesus the one who supports oppression.
I have spoken before about how Friedrich Nietzsche rejected Christianity because he thought it was a religion of slaves. And with the normal interpretation of today’s passage who would say it wasn’t? If you are just turning the other cheek or giving the shirt off your back or going the extra mile, then you would never end up on a cross. But Jesus did! The person who spoke these words ended on a cross because words like these are threatening to those in power. And we must retain their edge and see that they remain threatening. For only then are we faithful to the one whose speaking of such words took him to the cross.
Among the many traditions of Christian faith, I have great admiration for those in the traditions known as the Radical Reformation. The denominations like the Amish, Mennonites, Quakers and Plymouth Brethren – collectively known as Anabaptists – fall in this group of traditions. Two of the professors at Fuller Seminary with whom I interacted with a lot were David Augsburger and Nancey Murphy – both Mennonites – and my appreciation for this often misunderstood group of Christians developed mainly through my interactions with them. I disappointed both of them by becoming a pastor and then returning to India rather than pursuing a Ph.D. in Theology.
One of the key traits of the Anabaptist groups is a very strict, almost literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.
Whereas most mainline Christian denominations will tip their theological hats to the Sermon on the Mount and then dismiss Jesus’ words in favor of some passage in the Old Testament or in Paul’s letters, the Anabaptists believe – and I think rightly so – that since Jesus began his teachings with the Sermon on the Mount, so should we. And since this is the first lesson, it must be lessons such as those taught to children – literal, plain, unadorned, undecorated, simple and to be taken at face value.
And so while most Christians would not shy away from taking an oath in a courtroom by placing their hand on a bible, an Anabaptist would refuse to do so. Instead they would make a solemn affirmation.
However, I do wonder what the real difference between an oath and a solemn affirmation is. Is there any difference?
From a literal standpoint perhaps there is a difference. But we want to uncover the meaning and intent of Jesus’ teachings. Mind you, I am intentionally not saying the spirit of Jesus’ teachings lest we end by spiritualizing them and rendering them meaningless in our lives – as we unfortunately do, unfortunately too often.
So we want to uncover the meaning and intent of Jesus’ teachings. Now I have often said, and hopefully have been able to show, that Jesus was a remarkable teacher. Two Sundays back we saw that a single word was filled with meaning and purpose for both women and men. Last Sunday we saw that a phrase added as commentary on the institution of marriage actually changed the meaning of a passage often considered to be about divorce.
The placement of today’s passage shows us Jesus’ real meaning. He places it after the passage about marriage. Mind you, the early passage is not about divorce but about marriage.
And a wedding ceremony in Jesus’ day was much like the one Alice and I had. We said very little. In fact, I don’t remember saying anything! But Jesus was clear in last week’s passage that a marriage, as God intended it, was to last till the death of either spouse. Why so binding when neither party had made any verbal commitments? Because, as far as Jesus is concerned, if you showed up at the altar on your wedding day, that was an expression of commitment. You did not have to say anything. If you were there, you were making a commitment to the other person – a commitment that had the longest possible tenure – a lifetime.
So having dealt with marriage, Jesus moves on to oaths. Mind you, he is not talking about conversational swearing. I have heard many well-meaning Christians say that one should not say ‘what the hell’ or ‘O my God’ as exclamations while speaking. And they point to this passage. Whether or not we should use such phrases while speaking is one thing. But this passage is not talking about it. This passage is talking about giving testimony or providing evidence or making a verbal commitment.
This is like the time when Jesus is on trial. He was silent until the High Priest placed him under oath with the words, “I charge you under oath by the living God.” Once placed under oath – even if it were actually illegal – Jesus spoke.
But note his words there. He does not say, “By the living God I testify that I am the Messiah.” Rather, he simply says, “You have said it.” He stays true to his words in the Sermon on the Mount! And the remarkable thing is that, though Jesus does not utter the words of oath taking, the High Priest takes his testimony as valid. His ‘yes’ was enough to incriminate him!
The final words in today’s passage, “anything beyond this comes from the evil one” is something many of us might have experience with. Perhaps when we were growing up and on the playground? Someone cheats. Maybe the ball actually bounced and he claimed a catch. Maybe the bat did not cross the crease and it was a short run. In the absence of the third umpire, what do we do? “God promise, yar!” “I swear on my mother!” “I swear on the big mole on my left forearm!”
Or whatever. And you know – we knew – intuitively we knew that the more vociferous the claims were, the more likely they were to be false.
A friend of mine at seminary habitually did not lock his car. And he had a high end stereo installed in the car as well. Mind you, we were in Pasadena, just a few miles from Los Angeles. Theft of car accessories was high in the area. Yet, he kept his car unlocked. His rationale was that, if someone were intent on stealing his car stereo, they would do it anyway, even if the car were locked. Strange reasoning, I know. And I think he came around when he realized that the insurance would not cover any damages if the car were routinely left unlocked.
But my friend’s curiosity does hit at exactly what Jesus is telling us here. A person who needs to be put on oath in order to tell the truth will lie if needed while on oath. This is precisely why there is the crime of perjury! It recognizes that placing someone under oath is not a foolproof process. So, if you are not sure if a person is telling the truth and you think you can gain certainty by placing him or her under oath, think again.
So here Jesus seems to be saying we should never take oaths. But look at Matthew 23.16-22:
“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?
You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it.And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.”
So what do we make of it? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus seems to speak clearly against taking oaths. However, in Matthew 23, he seems to be saying there is a place for taking oaths. Are these two different contexts that he is speaking to – one in which we should not take oaths and one in which we are allowed to?
Since in neither passage Jesus mentions a context, we can conclude that he is giving us instructions that do not depend on the context. So is he contradicting himself? But a Jesus who contradicts himself is not someone you or I would be comfortable following for without consistency of the teacher there can be no meaningful discipleship. We would never know when we are following him and when we are not.
So it must mean that Jesus is not contradicting himself. Most commentators recognize this. However, most commentators, not being Anabaptists, resolve this issue by giving primacy to the passage in Matthew 23. This is something I have mentioned before. When in a quandary, we are quick to jettison Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount because they do not seem too practical.
The great French Reformation theologian Jean Calvin – or English, John Calvin – in his magnum opus Institutes of the Christian Religion, has this to say about our passage for today:
“[Christ’s] purpose was, neither to relax nor to curtail the Law, but to restore the true and genuine meaning, which had been greatly corrupted by the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees. If we attend to this we shall not suppose that Christ condemned all oaths but those only which transgressed the rule of the Law. It is evident, from the oaths themselves, that the people were accustomed to think it enough if they avoided perjury, whereas the Law prohibits not perjury merely, but also vain and superfluous oaths.
“Therefore our Lord, who is the best interpreter of the Law, reminds them that there is a sin not only in perjury, but in swearing. How in swearing? Namely, by swearing vainly. Those oaths, however, which are authorized by the Law, he leaves safe and free.”
Much as I admire Calvin, I cannot but see special pleading in his argument here. Jesus never once in our passage speaks of oaths authorized by the Law. Yet, in order to make both passages conform, he brings in the idea of ‘swearing vainly’ and of oaths ‘authorized by the Law.’
A lot of commentators, not in the Anabaptist tradition, resort to this sort of argument, giving the later passage primacy and using an interpretive scheme that allows them in the end to say that our passage for today fits well with the later teaching in which Jesus presumably permits oath taking.
But does Jesus really permit oath taking in the later passage? Certainly not! Jesus is simply correcting the erroneous teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. They told people that taking an oath on the temple itself was not binding, but that taking an oath on the gold of the temple was binding. Jesus is merely pointing out that it is the temple that makes the gold sacred and that, therefore, oaths taken on the temple were more binding than oaths taken on the gold of the temple.
Jesus is pointing out how the teachings of the religious leaders actually profaned what is sacred – here the temple and the altar. He is telling people, “If you take an oath on the gold of the temple you are taking an oath on the temple itself.” But then we are supposed to be reminded by the earlier teaching in our passage and conclude, “If that is the case, I cannot take an oath on the gold of the temple.”
Jesus is correcting our tendency for sidestepping discipleship with carefully nuanced mumbo jumbo. “I swore on the gold of the temple. It is binding. But I did not profane the temple itself!”
Remember in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is telling us the characteristics that his people should have. We have many jokes about the character traits of groups of people. Sardars, we are told, are slow witted. Sindhis, we say, are stingy. Etc. etc. What is the trait that should characterize Christians?
According to the Anabaptists it is that Christians should not take oaths. According to Calvin and most other commentators it is that Christians should not take oaths in a frivolous manner.
But Jesus is not speaking to non-converts. He is speaking to his people. And he ends with the words “all you need to say.” All I need! I do not need to be placed under oath. And neither do I need to refuse to be placed under oath. All I need is for my yes to mean yes and my no to mean no. All I need, as the disciple of the incarnate Word, is to be a man of my word. In other words, can it be said of Christians that our defining trait is truth telling? I wonder.
(This sermon was preached on 21 January 2001 at North University Park Church in Los Angeles.)
Soli Deo Gloria! To God alone be the glory. That was what Johann Sebastian Bach inscribed at the top of every piece of music he wrote. Though he died in the mid eighteenth century, his music—especially his church music—lives on to this day while numerous other composers have become passé. He had learnt what our text for today intends to teach us.
Two Sundays back we dealt with serving God faithfully as a means of entering into the joy that Jesus has for NUPC. The passage we learned from was Matthew 24.45-51. We saw then that Jesus defended his practice of associating with people who were otherwise considered to be beyond God’s blessing. He ate and drank with gluttons and drunkards, tax collectors and prostitutes. We saw that the task for NUPC as we move to a new place further from the University and inside the community is to be the bearers of God’s love and grace to various groups in the community who we are told are beyond God’s love and grace—the poor, the homeless, single parents, pregnant teenagers, gangs members, drug addicts, pushers, prostitutes, people with AIDS, drunks, gays.
Then last Sunday we learned from Matthew 25.1-13 how to serve God expectantly. We saw that Jesus urged his disciples to be in a state of relentless anticipation—a state in which there are no easy answers. We saw that, as NUPC is poised for wonderful things, we should make plans—plans both to disciple the Christians at NUPC and to reach the community with God’s love. And we should expect God to revise our plans.
Today we will learn from Matthew 25.14-30. On the Tuesday before he was betrayed, Jesus and his disciples went to the temple. As they were leaving, his disciples brought to his notice the wonderful buildings of the temple. In response to this Jesus pronounced a curse on the temple. Surprised at this, his disciples asked him, “When will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” These words form three questions: 1. When will this be—that is, when will the temple be destroyed; 2. What will be the sign of your coming; and 3. What will be the sign of the end of the age? Please stand to hear part of Jesus’ answer to these three questions.
[Here read Matthew 24.36-25.30] Please be seated.
The passage we are dealing with today is a parable. In the parable a wealthy man entrusts three of his servants with money and leaves on a trip. Now Jesus is careful to add the words “to each according to his ability.” The servants receive different amounts of money not because the master shows favoritism. Rather, the master recognizes the abilities of the servants. He probably bases this on their past endeavors for later in the parable the two servants who are called faithful are given greater responsibilities based on their performance. So what sets the servants apart is not how much they are given but what they do with what they are given.
The third servant did not put his money to work for two reasons. First, he was afraid of reporting to the master with less than what was given him. So he took his single talent and buried it in the ground. This, according to some commentators, was considered the best way to guard against theft. We can picture him stealthily making his way to a remote part of his master’s property at night, under the cover of darkness, when the other two servants were busy working. There, as silently as possible, he dug a hole in the ground, probably cursing every time the shovel rang against a rock for someone might hear him. The hole dug, he quietly placed the money into the womb of the earth and covered it. This servant was not concerned with putting the money to use.
For, he was motivated by fear, as he himself says. Why else would he hide the money in the ground? And how many sleepless nights did he have wondering whether someone would inadvertently dig up the money? Driven by fear that paralyzed him, he was able to take only the solitary act of burying the talent. He did not want it stolen. But it did not occur to him that he could use it. He was probably counting the days till the master returned so he could get this burdensome treasure off his chest. He was short sighted. Much like the old member in a church who objected to the proposal to buy a plot of land adjoining the church yard to increase burial space. “I have measured the yard,” said he, “and have counted all our members, and find there is just enough room left to bury all our members without buying more land.” But what about new members? This man had a sure fire plan the kill the church!
Now the third servant had one thing right. He knew that his master would return someday. And he knew he would have to account for what had been given him. But he saw the master as a harsh man. His master would ask him to give an account for the talent that had been entrusted to him. If he was not able to produce it, the master would be furious. He could not risk having to come before the master empty handed. After all, a talent would have amounted to fifteen years worth of wages! It was as though the master had given him a million dollars. He had hit the jackpot without even playing the lottery! But he knew the money was not his. Paralyzed by fear he was like the person in the Yiddish proverb who can’t dance but complains that the band can’t play.
Since he was afraid of having less than what had been given him when the master returned, he decided to play it safe. Much like Dan Bricklin. Do not be surprised if you haven’t heard the name. I hadn’t heard of him either till I read an article about him in the US News and World Report. So all my information about him is from the article. It so happens that this man is a genius. He invented the first computerized spreadsheet. Today we can hardly do any job without resorting to some sort of number crunching on a spreadsheet. All thanks to Dan Bricklin. But when his contemporary Bill Gates dropped out of college to concentrate on Microsoft, Bricklin decided to play it safe and complete his M.B.A at Harvard. After all, a Harvard M.B.A almost spells job security. But today Gates is a household name, even if a notorious one. But hardly anyone has heard of Bricklin. For he played it safe.
Why did the third servant play it safe when the other two servants did not? What gave rise to the paralyzing fear he himself said he experienced? See what he says to the master: “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid.” There it is! He was afraid because he saw the master as a harsh man. If that were the case, if the master were indeed a harsh man, reaping where he did not sow, and gathering where he did not scatter seed, the servant should have at least made a safe investment in the bank. That is what the master tells him in response. Certainly he could have found a reasonably stable bank which would have ensured that he would receive a fair amount of interest by the time the master returned.
Yet, for some reason, he chose to bury the money in a barren hole in the earth. What could this reason be? Let us probe his words a little more. He ends his words to the master with, “Here you have what is yours.” Now when the master had entrusted the three servants with money, he had given them what was his. But the first two servants manage to double what was given to them. Technically, the first servant possessed five talents that belonged to the master and five talents that were the product of his own hard work. Similarly, the second servant had two talents belonging to the master and two that were the fruit of his own labor.
“Here you have what is yours,” says the third servant. What does he imply? Is he not saying, “Master, you gave me one talent, which rightly belongs to you. Had I put it to work, you would expect me to give you even what my hard labor has produced, much like you have with these two servants whom you have commended. Since the product of my sweat should belong to me, and since you insist on having even that, I decided not to put the money to work. So here you have what is technically yours. I’m sure you can’t fault me for this.”
You see, the third servant not only did not want to go before the master with less than he had been given. The second reason why he did not put the money to work was that he also did not want to go there with more! For he was unwilling to let the master have possession of what he had earned. This is the second way in which he stands in stark contrast to the other two servants. They willingly give the master even what they had earned along with what they had been given. They realize that they would not have been able to earn anything had the master not given them something in the first place. The first two servants seem to have the view that whatever they earn with the master’s money should belong to the master. But the third servant is different. He believed that the master owned only the principal. He thought that the earnings on the money should belong to him. He knew that the master would expect all the money returned. His own selfishness and greed made him see the master as a cruel and harsh man for having such expectations. The way we are, the kind of people we are shapes the way in which we view others.
In his book Virtuous Passions, Father G. Simon Harak narrates the following story. Three students decided to go to the movies. One of them was a former Marine sergeant. The second had studied karate for a number of years. The third had no such training in violence in his background. After buying their tickets they regrouped in the lobby. The former Marine addressed the other two, “Did you see that guy on the other side of the ticket booth?” “Yes,” replied the former karate student, “He sure was cruisin’ for a bruisin’, wasn’t he?” “You know,” said the former Marine, “the look on his face…I was just waiting for him to try something.” Saying that, the former Marine thumped one fist into the other palm. The former karate student started to say, “If he had made a move, I would’ve…” but the third student interrupted them by saying, “What guy?”
The two students who were trained in violence were disposed to taking things in a certain way. They were, in every sense, looking for trouble. But the third student was not. His background of nonviolence made him expect nonviolent behavior from others. He might have indeed perceived the belligerent man but did not perceive him as belligerent.
In the same way the three servants in our parable had the same master. There is nothing to indicate that the master used to treat them differently. Sure he gave them different amounts of money. But he rewards the first and second servants in exactly the same way with exactly the same words. Though the master used to treat all three in the same way, the third servant had a decidedly different picture of the master. He saw the master as an exacting, cruel man. So he treated the master in the same way. He saw the master as a miser, so he gave the master miserably in both his work and his repayment. He did not work and he gave the master exactly what had initially been given to him. But the first two servants recognized the master’s generosity. They worked generously and gave back to the master in a generous manner.
How we view God will determine how we treat God and the gifts he has given us. If we view God as a miser, we will give him miserable work and use our gifts in a miserly fashion. If we see him as harsh, we will address him harshly. If, on the other hand, we view God as generous, we will give him generous work and use our gifts generously. If we see him as gracious, we will address him graciously.
Now, the way the three servants viewed their master had consequences. The parable does not end with the servants giving back to the master. Rather, it ends with the master giving again to the servants. To the first two he gives dominion over many things. To the third servant he metes out punishment.
In a sense, all three servants get something at the end of the parable. Quite a few of you have probably heard of the computer-speak word WYSIWYG. What You See Is What You Get. For all practical purposes, the experiences of the three servants are like that. The first two servants see the master as gracious and generous. The third sees him as miserly and harsh. All three work for him in accordance with their perception of the master’s character. And in doing so, their characters are changed. The first two become more like the master. The third becomes more unlike the master. And at the end the master rewards them all with what they saw in him because they have become like their perception of the master. The first two are rewarded with grace because, in seeing the master as gracious, they had become gracious. The third is rewarded with harshness because, in seeing the master as harsh, he had become harsh.
This is revealed in the way in which the master addresses the third servant. “You wicked and lazy slave!” he says. Note the order. The first charge is that the slave is wicked. He is wicked because his view of the master reveals him to be wicked for only a wicked person could accuse so gracious a master of being harsh. And his wickedness leads to his laziness. He fails to work because he does not want to work for the master. And he does not want to work for the master for, on account of his own miserable character, he sees the master as a miser.
So what does all this have to do with NUPC? Why have we labored three weeks through this greatly misunderstood portion of Jesus’ teachings?
God has placed us in a place of tremendous opportunity. We have members from all over the world. And we are moving right into the heart of possibly the most diverse community in the world. Are we going to shrug off the responsibility to which God is calling us? Or are we going to be faithful like Jesus the faithful slave par excellence?
Let us not be reticent in fulfilling this responsibility. God is waiting for us, to meet us in the midst of our fulfilling the tasks to which he has called us. We may not read his timing or ways infallibly. But have no doubt that he is eager to take us where we can scarcely dream of going. Are we ready to serve him with expectancy? Will we serve with each moment charged with anticipation that God would reveal himself to us?
And let us not think that we are small and have but little to offer. It does not matter how large a church we are. What matter is the largeness of heart with which we serve this gracious God who has, of his incredible generosity, called us to be partners in and heirs of his kingdom. Will we respond by serving him generously? And will we serve him with an attitude that does not grudge him the glory he rightly deserves?
If we serve him in this manner—faithfully, expectantly, and generously—have no doubts that we will be entering into the joy that Jesus has for us in the near future. And it will be a sweet foretaste of that greater joy for which we eagerly wait when he will at last be revealed to all the world in his magnificent glory.
(Publishing this just 8 months after Alice passed away is very painful. Nevertheless, I did preach this and my beliefs about these two verses have not changed.)
I, Deepak, take you Alice, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.
I have been married 17 years now, but I have never said those words. Alice and I had our wedding in a Mar Thoma church and the bride and groom had very little to do. Well, other than not running away!
It would have been nice to have said those words for I did enter into this with exactly those commitments. But I have never said and will never say those words. I fully intend this marriage to last till one of us dies and if I am the one to survive, I fully plan to reach the grave as a widower, unless Jesus has other plans and returns before that!
In the couple of verses we are focusing on today, Jesus deals with the matter of the end of a marriage – divorce. Two short verses and it seems that Jesus is quite clear about his teaching here. No divorce except on grounds of adultery. Moreover, a divorced woman may not get remarried.
Plain and simple, it would seem. It would seem. But once again, if we draw that conclusion, we have not looked at the verses carefully enough and we have not bothered about the context.
Some points to observe. First, notice the phrase, “Anyone who divorces his wife.” Does nothing strike you as being out of place? Why not, “Anyone who divorces her husband”? Why is the luxury of initiating a divorce restricted to the husband? Is it always the woman who is at fault?
Second, observe the phrase ‘”except for sexual immorality.” Whose immorality is Jesus referring to – the husband’s or the wife’s? Once again we can conclude that if the husband is initiating divorce proceedings, he would have found fault with his wife. Certainly it could not have been the husband’s errant ways that Jesus was talking of. So we can conclude that Jesus was speaking of the wife’s infidelity. Why not the husband’s? Do men not fail in this manner?
As mentioned last Sunday, Jesus lived in an oppressively patriarchal society and yet manages to speak to redeem it. Here Jesus takes as his starting point Deuteronomy 24.1-4. Allow me to read it:
If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord. Do not bring sin upon the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.
Notice a few things that reveal that Deuteronomy pronounces legislation from a thoroughly male perspective. It is patriarchal through and through. First, the phrase “who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her.” Is it not possible for the husband to be displeasing to the wife? Is it not possible for the husband to do indecent things? Why does Deuteronomy not mention this?
Second, observe the phrase “after she has been defiled.” Does remarriage defile only the woman and not the man who is marrying her? Is it okay for a man to remarry and, if so, does he remain undefiled?
The passage in Deuteronomy and Jesus’ words have often been taken in an oppressive way to impose patriarchal limitations on women. Hence, it might come as a surprise then to know that both Deuteronomy and Jesus are actually challenging the patriarchal position about gender relations within marriage. How so?
In order to understand this, we must divest ourselves of the modern notions about marriage. Today, most people in India would classify marriages under two categories – arranged marriage and love marriage.
However, in the world in which Jesus lived, a world of thoroughgoing patriarchy, marriage served two very specific purposes – one for the man and one for the woman. For the man, it provided a way by which he could have heirs and have the family name continue.
For the woman, it was a means by which she was supported and provided for. In her childhood, she was provided for by her father. In marriage she would be provided for by her husband. And should her husband have died before she did, she would hopefully have borne a son who would provide for her in her widowhood.
It is to this perspective on marriage that Deuteronomy and Jesus are speaking. Both are addressing the first husband of the woman. They are telling him to be very very careful while thinking of divorcing his wife. Once divorced, she cannot be yours again. Do not be shallow while making the decision to divorce your wife for that decision is irreversible.
Deuteronomy uses the language of defiling because that would have resonated with a patriarchal male. Yeah, she slept with another man! She is impure! That is how the patriarchal male would have thought. This is the genius of scripture – that it uses the language of the oppressor to undermine the oppressor.
Jesus uses the language of adultery to hammer home his point. If you divorce your wife, he says, you automatically become a person who supports adultery. No patriarchal male would have liked that charge, for it would have meant his helping to damage another man’s property.
Both Deuteronomy and Jesus are protecting women in a patriarchal society in which they had few rights, if any, and in which most often even those specious rights were often trampled upon.
That was then. This is now. The world looks different today than it did twenty centuries ago. Things are not as good for women yet as they should be, but certainly not as bad as they were. Mind you, I am not justifying any of the horrors women still have to endure. Certainly not! But there were horrors then that aren’t as common now.
Now Jesus’ words – and the words of Deuteronomy – are fear based. They play on the fears of the patriarchal male – the fear of losing honor in the eyes of one’s peers and the fear of being shamed in public. Where those fears genuinely exist today, Jesus’ words remain the same. Patriarchy may consider the wife to be the property of the husband, but the husband must view her in a qualitatively different way than he does his other possessions.
But what would Jesus say to those who do not live with these fears? Today, it is very likely that both husband and wife bring home a paycheck. So the wife is not totally at the mercy of the husband. The wife also is able now to initiate divorce proceedings. This is no longer the prerogative only of the husband. So what would Jesus say today?
To understand this, we need to go to the other passage in Matthew that deals with divorce – Matthew 19.2-9. There, after quoting from Genesis, Jesus adds, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together let no one separate.”
This raises many questions. Does God bless child marriage? Or a forced marriage? Does God unilaterally bless a marriage in which one spouse is abusing the other? Does God bless a marriage solemnized in the name of some other deity?
Does God permit a man to have multiple wives and does he bless the second and third and fourth marriages?
You see there are many ways in which humans have devised aberrations in God’s plans. Do we think that Jesus was blessing marriages of all sorts? I don’t think so and I am sure you do not either. Surely all of us have reservations about child marriage. What would we do if a ten year old girl were married to a man? Would we then simply say, “Well, there has been no sexual immorality. And hence let no one separate”? We would be sentencing the girl to abuse of all sorts at least for the first years of her marriage.
So we would act, knowing that God does not bless such abuse. But then, what abuse does he bless? Is he okay with a husband beating his wife, or with a wife beating her husband?
Is an abusive relationship a marriage simply because a priest or pastor solemnized it or because a judge or magistrate approved it? Is an abusive relationship a marriage simply because the wedding was in a church? Surely it is not the humans involved nor the place that is important. And it is not!
Note what Jesus is saying, “What God has joined together.” We treat the Sermon on the Mount as a legal document, when it is nothing of the sort. And then we find it oppressive. We think Jesus is forcing on us some unachievable ideal and we then discount his teachings.
What is Jesus doing here? He is not telling us the conditions under which divorce can be taken – that is, if one spouse proves to be unfaithful.
Rather, Jesus is challenging his people with God’s original intent and asking husbands and wives to work on their marriages with such great devotion and faithfulness that it will truly be that their marriage is “what God has joined together.”
He is telling us what makes a marriage rather than what breaks it! What makes a marriage is God’s presence in it. What makes a marriage is two fallible people resolved to stick together through thick and thin. What makes a marriage is two individuals realizing that they are on a journey together, that yes they could live without the other, but that they made a commitment to the other and so will live up to that commitment.
It is in marriage that the greatest strain on one’s commitments are to be found. This other person bugs you day in and day out, invading your space, requiring you to change. Where is the last straw? And Jesus tells us, “You were thoroughly unfaithful to me. Yet I was faithful. I am faithful. I have not let go of you. I am here to bug you day in and day out. And so, in like manner, husbands and wives should be faithful, should forgive unfaithfulness, should remain together, should bug each other day in and day out. Because, where what God has joined together is concerned, there is no last straw.”
(This sermon was preached on 14 January 2001 at North University Park Church in Los Angeles. When I preached this sermon, Alice and I had just become parents, Prayerna having been born on 16 October 2000. Alice was in the congregation on that day and I embarrassed her with the opening and closing of the sermon. I find myself now in a similar situation as I described in the sermon. Read on!)
Be vigilant therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
In December 1995 I left India to come to Fuller. A few months earlier, I had fallen in love with this most incredible woman. When we had told each other how we felt and that we wanted to get married, we were immediately faced with a problem. I was headed for Pasadena to start a program that would take three years at the very least. I knew that three years was a long time to be away from the woman I loved. And I knew that it would be difficult for her too. So I warned her that she might probably see me only after three years. “Alice,” I told her, “you know that I might not be able to visit India till I complete my studies at Fuller. This will be a long wait.” I went on and on, painting the gloomiest picture I could. Though my words were directed toward her, I was warning myself as much as I was warning her. I left India for Fuller. And then began the period of relentless anticipation.
Last Sunday we dealt with serving God faithfully as a means of entering into the joy that Jesus has for NUPC. The passage we learned from was Matthew 24.45-51. We saw then that Jesus defended his practice of associating with people who were otherwise considered to be beyond God’s blessing. He ate and drank with gluttons and drunkards, tax collectors and prostitutes. We saw that the task for NUPC as we move to a new place further from the University and inside the community is to be the bearers of God’s love and grace to various groups in the community who we are told are beyond God’s love and grace—the poor, the homeless, single parents, pregnant teenagers, gangs members, drug addicts, pushers, prostitutes, people with AIDS, drunks, gays. That was what we learned last Sunday.
Today we will deal with Matthew 25.1-13 and next Sunday we will learn from Matthew 25.14-30. When I mentioned today’s sermon last Sunday I said, and I quote, “Next Sunday I will preach from Matthew 25.1-13, unless Jesus returns in less than a week.” The reason I did this was that today’s passage teaches us that we are in a state of relentless anticipation.
Relentless anticipation. What does that mean? It means two things. First, it means that we should anticipate the fulfillment of a promise at any moment. To fail in this would give rise to complacency. Second, it means that we should relentlessly hold on to the promise if any given moment does not prove to be the moment of fulfillment. To fail in this would result in disillusionment.
The Jews realized this slowly and painfully. If my eighteen month wait was torture, just think how painful their wait had been at the time of Jesus. Some scholars place Abraham in the eighteenth century BC. At the time of Jesus, the Jews had waited eighteen centuries from the time of their founding promises. Sure Abraham had been warned that his descendants would be slaves in Egypt for four hundred years. But that did not make their enslavement in Egypt any more endurable. Rather, they grew restless. For the promise of redemption had also been made to Abraham. How could they live restfully as slaves when exodus had been promised them? To live between promise and fulfillment is to live in a state of relentless anticipation.
And in the time of Jesus, the Jews were living in the promised land for sure. But they were subservient to the Romans. In the minds of many Jews, they were still in exile. Something drastic had to happen if God’s promises to them would prove true. God had to send a deliverer. And SOON! They were primed to respond to just about any person with messianic claims. God had promised them freedom. But they were prisoners in the promised land. How could they live restfully as the jailbirds of the Jordan when liberation had been promised them? To live between promise and fulfillment is to live in a state of relentless anticipation.
Into such a situation Jesus came announcing the arrival of the kingdom of God. He knew that the hope for God’s kingdom was a good one but that the shape it took in many minds would have to be altered. So he presented the kingdom to his hearers in the form of parables and miracles. When he began his ministry he painted word pictures to enable his disciples to recognize the activity of the kingdom. However, toward the end of his ministry, his parables took on a different flavor.
On the Tuesday before he was crucified, Jesus and his disciples were leaving the temple. At that time, his disciples brought to his notice the magnificent buildings of the temple that Herod was building. In response to that Jesus pronounces a curse on the temple. Then the disciples ask him “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” If you are able, please stand for the hearing of part of Jesus’ answer.
[Here read Matthew 24.36-25.30]
Please be seated.
There are some things to keep in mind. First, the disciples ask Jesus three questions: 1. When will this be—that is, when will the temple be destroyed; 2. What will be the sign of your coming; and 3. What will be the sign of the end of the age? Second, Matthew 24.36-25.30, which I just read, is part—and only part—of Jesus’ answer. Third, Matthew 25.1-13, the text we are learning from today, is a parable. We should avoid forcing meaning on every aspect of the parable.
What, then, is the parable about? One thing I really appreciate about Jesus’ teaching methods is that he often follows a lengthy discourse or parable with a short saying that captures the essence of what he was trying to teach. Here we have the statement, “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
However, no sooner have we read this than we are faced with a problem. For in the parable all the bridesmaids sleep! It is best, therefore, to translate the last sentence “Be vigilant therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Be vigilant, be alert, be ready, be expectant.
Another problem arises when we try to identify elements of the parable. For instance, what is the oil? We might be tempted to say that it is the Holy Spirit. Or since the bridegroom answers, “I do not know you” we might say that the oil signifies a personal relationship with Jesus. However, that is not what the parable says. At the end of the parable the foolish bridesmaids return to the reception hall. Would they have returned without oil? Quite unlikely!
The key to understanding why the foolish bridesmaids are denied entrance is to see how Jesus tells the parable. When the parable begins the bridesmaids are divided into two groups. The foolish ones take no oil with them. The wise ones take oil with them. Toward the end of the parable, the bridesmaids are again divided into two groups. The ones who were ready gain entrance into the wedding banquet. The “others”—the ones who were not ready—are denied entrance. So in some way taking oil with them qualified the wise bridesmaids as being ready. And that is the key. The ones who participate in the banquet are those who were ready.
What does it mean, though, that one group was ready? Does this mean that they alone were eager for the bridegroom to come? Hardly! All the bridesmaids were eager to receive the bridegroom. They wanted him to come. They wanted the festivities to begin. That is why they all trimmed their wicks when the bridegroom came. The foolish bridesmaids were not accused of a lack of enthusiasm. Oh they were eager to put on a great show when the bridegroom came. They wanted their lamps to shine brightly. They wanted to be part of the procession that accompanied the bridegroom into the banquet hall. They were not guilty of lack of zeal. Rather, they were found wanting in foresight. They were not wise. They were foolish.
What earned them this label? Why can they be called foolish? The only indication the parable gives us is that they did not take oil. Sure they managed to get oil later. But they were meant to welcome the bridegroom and participate in the procession. They had taken their lamps with the full intention of setting the night sky ablaze. But they had a time schedule in mind. Their lamps were lit and they expected the bridegroom to arrive before the lamps smoldered and died. While that expectancy in itself is good, they had not questioned their time frame. They had not entertained the possibility that the bridegroom might be late. They were foolish enough to think that they could dictate the time frame which the bridegroom should observe.
This calls to mind some of the end times cults and the books that accompany them. “Eighty eight reasons why the world will end in 1988.” “Eighty nine reasons why the world will end in 1989.” Both titles of books. Both proved wrong by history. Both proved foolish by Jesus’ parable. For it is foolish to try and dictate terms to God. We should approach every moment as the moment in which God might fulfill his promises but not attempt to imprison God’s purposes within it. To live between promise and fulfillment is to live in a state of relentless anticipation. It is a state of tension in which there are no easy answers.
But the foolish bridesmaids believed they had the answer. The bridegroom was sure to arrive before their lamps went out. Surely he was eager to meet his bride! How, then, could he delay? Ah, yes! The foolish bridesmaids had the answers. They did not consider the possibility of their being wrong. Even though the festivities belonged to the bridegroom and his bride they presumed to think that they controlled events.
“What? The bridegroom delay? You must be kidding! He will come well before our lamps go out. What’s more,” they probably say to the wise bridesmaids, “the five of you will be distracted with having to dispose your excess oil. After all, we are all environmentally conscious!” Yes, they believed they knew when the procession would begin. And they did not think it wise to stock up on oil.
But that is precisely why the wise bridesmaids are called wise. They thought ahead. “What if the bridegroom delayed? Our lamps would die an ugly death. But this wedding procession should be the best one ever. We want to put the stars to shame with the brilliance of our lamps. Therefore, we must take more oil.” The wise bridesmaids identified the issue correctly. The bridegroom might be late. And they were wise to plan for that possibility.
Both groups were anticipating the arrival of the bridegroom. Both groups expected to participate in the wedding festivities. When they first lit their lamps both groups were ready for the bridegroom to come. But the wise ones were ready when the bridegroom chose to come. By that time the foolish one were quite unprepared. They had to run here and there to get oil. And even when they did, it was too late. When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, time shall indeed be no more. There will then be no time to make amends.
Now if this parable is about the imminence of Jesus’ return, how do we apply it to our present situation at NUPC? Though it is about Jesus’ return, the difference between the two groups of bridesmaids is that the foolish ones presumed to dictate the agenda whereas the wise ones recognized that it is the bridegroom who dictates the agenda.
The Hebrew prophets looked forward to a day when God would act and deliver his people. They expected the deliverance to come imminently. However, they had to wait centuries. When John the Baptizer came along and repeated words from Isaiah, many Jews may have thought this was another instance of a prophet announcing imminent deliverance when there would be no deliverance. Only a few who were ready for the deliverance when it came—and, for that matter, the manner in which it came.
In the same way, we at NUPC are poised this year for wonderful things. We are moving to a new facility that will enable us to make a concerted effort to bring God’s love to the community. We will begin writing discipleship materials in about two months and begin one-on-one discipleship shortly thereafter. We have LIGHThouses in which brothers and sisters are maturing.
How soon do we see all of this come to fulfillment? I have given Mark, Steve, and Persida quite a detailed plan for all of this. However, what if God decides to act slower? Would we get disillusioned and just give up on all these wonderful things? And what if God acts faster? Would we hinder his work because he caught us unawares?
We need certainly to make plans prayerfully. But we must never set our plans in stone. We need to hold them lightly, always being ready for God to revise them. In fact, we should expect God’s hand to constantly mold our plans for we still see through a glass dimly.
When I warned Alice, I expected the warning to make the wait easier to bear. But in retrospect I realize that waiting is never easy. Just knowing that there was a promise waiting to be fulfilled was enough to give rise to a restless longing for fulfillment that gnawed at me every moment of the eighteen months that I was away from Alice. How could I live restfully as a bachelor when Alice had been promised me? To live between promise and fulfillment is to live in a state of relentless anticipation.
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