Jesus and His Bible, Part 20

Jesus Asserts His Messiahship

To remind ourselves, after referring to himself as the shepherd, Jesus and his followers (except Judas) went to the Mount of Olives, where Jesus prayed and his disciples slept. Judas arrived with an armed crowd and identified Jesus by a kiss. One of the followers drew a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave, but Jesus healed it. Jesus pointed out that they had many times before when they could have arrested him. His followers fled, and some followed at a distance.

Jesus was put on trial before the Sanhedrin, with several testifying against him, but their stories were inconsistent.  Eventually, the high priest asked him directly, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus responded, “I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). With this statement Jesus invoked not only scriptures from his Bible, but also reminded the leaders of what he has said publicly in the past that they have not appreciated or believed.

It is possible, as we saw in Part 12, that by using “I am,” Jesus reminded his hearers of the words of God to Moses, “I AM has sent you.” This time Jesus applied the “I am” to himself, and those who recalled his earlier discourse would have been infuriated.

The second part of Jesus’s reply again alludes to David’s Psalm 110, with the invitation from God to the anointed one to sit at God’s right hand, the place of favor and authority (Psalm 110:1). Jesus repeated the offense he originally gave to the religious leaders by reminding them of the question they could not answer. This added fuel to the fire for those questioning him.  (See also the discussion of this Psalm in Part 14, for further reading.)

Jesus then quoted Daniel 7:13 once again to assert his being given authority and dominion by God, making public the words he shared with his followers about the destruction of the temple.  (See also Part 16 for extended discussion).

Jesus’s quotations from his scriptures function to remind his enemies of what he had said earlier. The leaders conducting this trial had already determined that Jesus was not the Messiah, so his claim to be Messiah could be labeled blasphemy. Of course, since he is who he says he is, it is not blasphemy at all but merely truth-telling.

Jesus and His Bible, Part 17

 Reconciliation and God’s Kingdom

Like the Prophets of his Testament, Jesus first called out the disobedience of Israel and their breaking of covenant with God. But also like the Prophets, Jesus then envisioned a future of reconciliation. Israel will serve him, and all exiles will come home, and their hearts will be devoted to loving God, as is evident in the allusion here in Mark 13:27 to Deuteronomy 30:4. In the context of that verse, God warns Israel that if they disobey and break covenant, he will scatter them among the nations. But if they return to the Lord and obey him with their whole heart and soul, then the Lord will restore them from captivity.

“If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back.” They will return to the land God has given them, and God will “circumcise your hearts to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live” (Deut. 30:4).

Like other prophets, Jesus also invoked a vision of a humanity reconciled in its entirety to God. He alludes also to the prophet Zachariah, who, during the reign of Darius the Mede, sees an angel going to measure Jerusalem, and the angel says that God will be the glory in the midst of Jerusalem, that it will not need walls to protect it, because God will be a wall of fire around her. God says to Israel to return home.

 “Flee from the land of the north, for I have dispersed you as the four winds of the heavens.” Zechariah goes on to say that God is coming to dwell in the midst of Zion and “many nations will join themselves to the Lord in that day and will become my people” (Zach. 2:6). This carries forward the vision of a humanity reconciled to God.

Jesus placed his vision in the tradition of the Prophets by invoking Isaiah and Zechariah. He brings in the books of Moses by quoting Deuteronomy (the last to be written down, often dated to the Babylonian exile). He also quoted from the book of Daniel, a book of conundrums, with its pinpoint accuracy about the history of the Middle East up to the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and its far flung predictions in the ending chapters that no one has yet seen fulfilled.  

Jesus referenced by these quotations the covenant of obedience between Israel and God, the breaking of which led to Israel’s exile and after their return to Jerusalem, the collusion of some of Israel with the Greek invaders to the profanation of their Temple. He also spoke of God’s judgment on the occupying powers. He stated that the Israel of his own time was again breaking the covenant, some colluding with the invaders, that they would therefore be dispersed and exiled, and that their own Temple would be profaned and destroyed. He warned his followers that because of their suffering, they would be vulnerable to claims by false messiahs, but reminded them that the work before them will still be to spread the good news of God’s kingdom and God’s Messiah Jesus while enduring unto death.

He asserted as well that the coming of the Son of Humanity will put an end to nations and armies (which was opposite to what Israel hoped for) and that His kingdom will include all humanity. We hope to see this literally true, but we remember as well that Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is among/within you.” This helps define our relationship to nations and armies in our present day. Our first loyalty is always to the Kingdom of God and the King God has chosen, namely Jesus.

Jesus and His Bible, Part 16

 Apocalypse and the Kingdom

Facing into his own oncoming murder by the Jewish and Roman authorities, Jesus continued his apocalyptic mood and prophecy. He predicted false Christs who would lead even the chosen ones astray, if that were possible. Then, as it seems to me, he spoke about the end of the world, as, perhaps, does Daniel. He reminded his hearers to remember the fig tree, and to learn to watch the signs as they watch for leaves and buds, so they can know that the end is near. He said that “this race” will not pass away before the end occurs, and that his words are eternal. He also said that no one knows the exact time, except his Father, so stay alert.  

“The sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken, and then they shall see the son of man coming in clouds, and he will gather together his chosen from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven” (Mark 13: 24-27).

Here Jesus alluded to the prophetic words of Isaiah: 

“Behold the day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation; and he will exterminate its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light; the sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon will not shed its light. Thus will I punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud, and abase the haughtiness of the ruthless” (Isaiah 13:10).

This passage in Isaiah is first to be understood as an oracle concerning Babylon, in which God calls his warriors to do battle against Babylon. Isaiah foresees that God will raise up the Medes against Babylon, destroying them completely. The fact that Jesus quoted a passage reminding his hearers of deliverance from captivity spoke to the crowd’s hope of deliverance from Rome, and must have made the leaders of the nation more uneasy, as they already feared retribution from Rome if anything like a political uprising occurred.  But Jesus also included the leaders of his own people among the wicked, arrogant, haughty, and ruthless. They might have called his diatribes against them to mind as he quoted Isaiah.

Next, Jesus referenced a prophecy where Isaiah names Edom (Isaiah 33) as a target for wrath, and prays for and celebrates Zion’s survival. Then Isaiah shifts to God’s indignation against all the nations, all their armies.

Isaiah 34:4 “And all the host of heaven will wear away, and the sky will be rolled up like a scroll; and their hosts will also wither away as a leaf withers from the vine, or as one withers from the fig tree.” 

When Jesus quoted from this passage, he put both Herod (who was Idumean, or of the Edomite people) and then all nations on notice that the time will come when all their military and political might will wither away.  Additionally, the fig tree and the vine specifically reminded his hearers of the frequent use of these plants to symbolize Israel itself.  There was nothing reassuring in any of this for his immediate hearers.

Still in an apocalyptic vein, Jesus invoked Daniel’s vision of “the Ancient of Days.” This vision is set within the reign of Belshazzar of Babylon. Daniel sees “The Ancient of Days” on a throne, surrounded by thousands and thousands, and the books were opened. The boasting beast is slain and thrown on the fire.

Daniel 7:13 “I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven one like a Son of Man was coming. And He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.” Daniel asks for an explanation, which is more of a reiteration of what he has seen than an explanation.

When Jesus quoted from this passage, it is easy to hear him repeating his self-identifying as the Son of Humanity to whom God will give everlasting dominion, whom all peoples, nations, and languages will serve. I think Jesus’s use of this passage underlies the Christian understanding that aspects of Daniel’s apocalypse point toward Jesus. 

The vision cited here in Daniel 7 foresees that all peoples will serve the Son of Humanity, and emphasizes the grace and inclusive nature of God's Kingdom even as the political powers and rulers of nations are defeated. This speaks against nationalism and political partisinship: our primary loyalty is to the kingdom where Jesus rules.

Jesus and His Bible, Part 15

 Jesus and the Temple, Actual and Symbolic

This post will repeat some of the content of earlier posts, but I’ve put that content in to address a central preoccupation of Mark 11-13, namely the Temple as the central symbol of the nation of Israel. 

Starting in Mark 11, Jesus arrived at the Temple, which formed the focus of his attention for the next three complete chapters of Mark, ending with his trial before the Sanhedrin.  The Temple was the holiest of sites for the Jewish nation, containing in its deepest recesses the Holy of Holies where the High Priest visited God once a year. Jesus had visited the Temple many times over his lifetime as a devout Jew, and this visit was his last.  

Embedded in the narrative are symbols relating to the nation of Israel. Jesus cursed the fig tree for being fruitless, reminding his followers of the traditional symbolism in which the fig tree represents Israel. This fig tree which has put all its energy into leaves rather than into buds that will fruit is a living parable. Its owners have not pruned it into fruitfulness (as per Sarah Ruden, The Gospels, 43, n.).  The next day, the dried up tree was a pointed warning to his followers about what was coming for Israel and the temple.

The allusion provided by the fig tree signifies in two directions. First, the ideal of human life is often referred to in the first Testament as sitting under one’s own vine and fig tree. National peace allows unmolested cultivation of crops, including those with some degree of luxury and pleasure.  This picture of peace is found throughout the Jewish scriptures.  Second, the prophets often target this picture and show its destruction as a sign of God’s displeasure and judgment. The prophet Joel depicts the judgment of the Lord as coming in a horde of locusts destroying the vines and fig trees, and the regeneration of Israel as productive vine and fig tree (1:7, 11; 2:22). The prophet Hosea, speaking for God: “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness, … as the first ripe in the fig tree…” but they followed after idols (9:10).  The prophet Amos identifies the diseased and worm-eaten vines and fig trees as the judgment of God, who says, “yet you have not returned to me” (4:9). It would be hard for people familiar with the prophets to miss this allusion.

In case this was too subtle an allusion, Jesus then told a pointed and provocative parable about a vineyard.  What immediately precedes this parable in Mark is the confrontation between the priests, etc., and Jesus over where his authority is from.  

“A man planted a vineyard, and put a wall around it, and dug a vat under the winepress, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey” (Mark 12:1). 

No one familiar with the Hebrew prophets would have missed this quotation from the prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah 5, the prophet writes: “Let me sing now for my well-beloved a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard.  My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. And he dug it all around, removed its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. And he built a tower in the middle of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; then he expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced only worthless ones. And now…I will lay it waste…For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his delightful plant. Thus he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress…Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil…Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and clever in their own sight.” The prophecy goes on to predict the defeat and downfall of the nation of Israel.

Jesus essentially said that the same conditions that provoked judgment before have occurred again, and even worse, and how can they hope to escape?  This had to be infuriating: Jesus tapped into the Jewish national fear that they would lose their holiest of places, the Temple,  which God inhabited, and that they would again be dispersed as exiles. And it confirmed their suspicion that Jesus’s message and person have political implications.  This suspicion became more intense as he continued.

The disciples pointed out the grandeur of the Temple, and Jesus said it would be torn down. They asked when, and he said, “Many will come in My name saying, ‘I am He!’ There will be wars, earthquakes, famines, the beginning as of birth pangs. You will be persecuted for My sake, and the Holy Spirit will give you the words to speak. Family members will deliver you to death, and all will hate you because of me. The one who endures will be saved. Then the Abomination of Desolation appears. Run for the hills, don’t stop to take your valuables. This will be the worst trouble since the beginning of creation, and no one will survive if the Lord does not shorten those days.  And do not believe any who say, ‘Here is the Christ.’” 

These are terrifying words, but for the Jewish hearers, the worst is yet to come.

“But when you see ‘the abomination of desolation’ standing where it should not be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Mark 13:14).

This famous phrase, “the abomination of desolation,” comes out of the book of Daniel. (I think the advice to the reader was interpolated by the gospel writer, knowing that his Gentile readers needed to do some research, rather than a direct quotation from Jesus.) 

The fact that Jesus quoted from the apocalyptic book of Daniel requires attention. I was brought up to read the whole Bible with an ingenuous understanding that the stories were written just after the events they narrate, sort of like a diary, that prophecies were about future events, and that events took place as literally as their representation in the text. I also shared with others like me an anxiety over any question that opened up the possibility that scripture included fiction or legend or even oral tradition that was written down much later than the events, or that prophecy could legitimately be insights about events current to the prophet. 

As I myself learned a dead language, Anglo-Saxon (Old English), and grappled with the trouble of translating it, and then investigated the questions arising from the relationship of the text to historical events (see Beowulf for an example), I became less anxious about the Bible as well. As a Christian, the Bible remains a measuring stick for my behavior and a source of my understanding of who God is and what Jesus came to do for us, my sacred text.  I have become more at ease with thinking of it also as a complex text with many kinds of literature in it. It could have as a motto “Let the reader understand” meaning “This is going to take some study and imagination on your part, reader.”

Also, as I grew in my experience of God’s love and my understanding of God’s character, the literal interpretation of events in the Bible became less crucial to my faith. I had existential experiences of God in my life that pointed me toward seeing the whole of the Bible as the record of others’ experiences of God. The religious communities who discerned what should be in the Bible seemed to me to have chosen a collection that requires reverent imagination to reconcile together. I also became convinced that we cannot read innocently, or in other words, without the pressures of our upbringing and our experience and our allegiances, and thus that before accepting any one reading, it must be tested against the whole Bible, and particularly against the character and teaching of Jesus.

For me, the book of Daniel presents all of the textual problems that previously I could barely acknowledge.  According to The Jewish Study Bible, it has two parts: legends of Daniel and other Jewish heroes in the royal courts and four apocalyptic visions. Complicating the matter is the fact that both Hebrew and Aramaic are used, but do not define the boundary between the two parts. The first part probably circulated orally in the 4^th to 2^nd centuries BCE, and the second part likely dates to the last year of the Maccabean revolt (164 BCE) (JSB, 1640). As with other apocalyptic literature, the scholarly understanding is that they are written after the facts they describe, a symbolic recounting of the history that gives credence to the prophecies about the future (JSB, 1642).  Robert Alter points out the similarities between Daniel and the Apocrypha apocalyptic texts, as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls, all written in the 2^nd century BCE (Writings, 747). 

Jewish commentary notes the occurrence for the first and only time in the Jewish Scriptures of the idea of personal resurrection in Daniel 12:2-3. There is also an emphasis on the faithful few, and a judgment separating those who deserve reward from those who deserve disgrace.  This resurrection was a tenet of faith for the Pharisees of Jesus’s time and persists in some Jewish sects to the present.

Jewish and Christian commentators see different things in this book. Christians have seen prefigurations of Christ; Jewish rabbis have seen the book as a symbolic description of the exilic past and present threats (1642). Thus, the Jewish Scriptures categorize Daniel with “The Writings,” while the Christian Scriptures place it among the prophetic books. This reflects how I understand what goes into the act of reading and understanding: we are unavoidably biased in how we interpret what we read, even when we try very hard to be neutral. So it interests me even more to see what Jesus emphasizes out of Daniel and how he appears to understand it.

So back to Jesus referencing “the Abomination of Desolation.” The first reference is in Daniel 9:27. During the first year of Darius, the Mede, Daniel prays for compassion on his people, repents on their behalf, reminds God of the despair of the chosen people.  While he is praying, Gabriel comes and gives him insight into the destiny of his people. They will have “70 weeks” to restrain transgression, seal up sins, make atonement, bring in everlasting righteousness and anoint the holy place. After 69 weeks, the Messiah will be cut off, and a foreign prince will come to destroy the city and the sanctuary. He will in the 70^th week stop the offerings, “and on the wing of abomination will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.”

Commentary in The Jewish Study Bible identifies the word Messiah, which means “anointed one,” with the high priest Onias III, killed in 171 BCE. The foreign prince is Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who placed new altar stones on the Temple altar and offered pagan sacrifices (JSB, 1660, n.). Scholars believe that a portion of the Jewish nation at the time collaborated with Antiochus. 

By referencing this history, Jesus invoked the understanding from the prophets that the Jewish people suffered invasion and exile because of their idolatry, but he also challenged the politics of his present day. The Sadducees, the priests, were willing to collaborate with Herod and Pilate, representatives of the Roman occupiers, in order to rid themselves of Jesus, fearing that Jesus himself would provoke an invasion by his talk of a kingdom. The Pharisees were willing to cooperate with the Sadducees, their religious opponents, in order to rid themselves of Jesus, who consistently provoked them by pointing out how their outward pious observances covered inward corruption and compromise. Jesus foresaw that their efforts to preserve the political and religious status quo would in the near future be desolated by invasion and ruin. Jesus also contributed  to the interpretation that the Messiah referenced in Daniel applied to him also as God’s anointed one. Death is the fate of God’s anointed ones who stand in the way of political and religious self-perpetuation and self-aggrandizement.

During the reign of Cyrus the Persian, Daniel previews (or reviews) the shifting empires of the area. A particularly evil king, a usurper of power, will lose a battle, and take his disappointment out on the people of the holy covenant. “And forces from him will arise, desecrate the sanctuary fortress, and do away with the regular sacrifice. And they will set up the abomination of desolation” (Daniel 11:31). And he will entice those irreligious away from the covenant but the people who know their God will display strength and take action.

This again details the rise and course of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (JSB, 1664), including the Jewish sympathizers who enable him to take over the Temple worship and the Maccabees who “take action” to avenge the desecration.

This next passage comes toward the end of Daniel, where the writing has moved from the symbolic review of history into apocalyptic prophecy. The shift occurs at Daniel 11:40, with the phrase, “At the time of the end.” The events described from here to the end of Daniel have no historical reference, making this a foretelling of the future, in which a major battle will occur in the area near Jerusalem. A time of great suffering will occur, the worst since there was a nation. Wickedness and goodness will be separated and appear in clarity. When the power of the holy people is shattered, the events are completed. Daniel does not understand, and asks what will be the final end. “Many will be purged, purified and refined; but the wicked will act wickedly, and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand. And from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1290 days” (Daniel 12:11).

Perhaps Jesus was foretelling the Roman invasion in 70 CE as a fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy. At the same time, Jesus’s quotation alludes to the historical abomination of desolation, the idolatrous profanation of the holy place by a political leader, supported in his despicable action by some of the chosen people. It is possible that Jesus used the historical (and possible future) profanation as a metaphor for the way he saw the religious establishment of his day profaning the Temple by making it a “den of thieves.” Perhaps also Jesus was thinking about how his own person would be violated and destroyed at the behest of Jewish leaders using the tools of the Romans. This possibility resonates with Jesus’s words as reported in other gospels, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” referring, as other gospel writers say, to his own body.

What should leaders pray for?

 How should leaders pray when they look out their windows and all they see are enemies to take them down?

How should leaders pray when they know their people have missed the mark--have refused to follow where God is leading?

How should leaders pray when their people are exiled from their home in God; how should leaders pray who long for the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth?

Jehoshaphat

2 Chronicles 20

The descendants of Lot, the Moabites and Ammonites and a few other tribes banded together against the kingdom of Judah while Jehoshaphat was king. Jehoshaphat was a good king, but when he looked out the window and saw the hostile armies he became afraid.  And here’s how he becomes an example for leaders whose people are surrounded by enemies.

He set himself to seek the Lord; he proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah and gathered people together from all the towns into Jerusalem to pray and seek the Lord together. This is what he said to God:

O Lord, God of our ancestors. Are you not the supreme God in heaven? Do you not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations? In your hand are power and might, so that no one is able to withstand you.  Did you not give this land to us, the descendants of Abraham.  We have lived here and built you a sanctuary, and promised that when disaster, the sword, judgment, pestilence, famine come upon us, we will stand before your house and cry to you in our distress and you will hear and save.  See now, people you protected from us as we left Egypt, kinfolk from ancient days, they reward us by attacking us and driving us out of the land you yourself gave us.  O our God, will you not execute judgment upon them? For we are powerless against this great multitude that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

King Jehoshaphat took the lead and spoke to God on his people’s behalf.  He began by celebrating the grandness of God, by reminding himself and his people of God’s omnipotence.  Then he rehearsed their history, which included the promise of the land to Abraham but also all kinds of hardships, some of them judgment for sin, and reminded all of them of the shared commitment to stand together before God, cry to God together, and invite God to hear and save them.  Then they asked God to intervene with justice between them and their enemies, ancient relatives, really, to set things straight.  They admitted their own powerlessness against the enormous threat, their ignorance of what to do next.  They affirmed at the end their faith that God would act.

If you know this story, you know that God responded through a prophet: “Do not be afraid or dismayed before this great threat. The battle is not yours but God’s. Tomorrow, go down to meet them, take your position, and stand still.  You will see that God wins this battle on your behalf.  Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow stand still before them and the Lord will be with you.”

And then Jehoshaphat led the people in a hymn of praise.  The next day, they did what God said, encouraged by Jehoshaphat, who said, “Believe in the Lord your God and you will be established. Believe the word of God through the prophet. “ They marched toward their enemies singing a song, and when they arrived, they found their enemies had destroyed each other. 

Leaders—and Quaker churches are full of leaders—when things arise that alarm your people and cause them to fear, remember Jehoshaphat.  

Gather together, rehearse the Lord’s faithfulness, make your request and listen to what God tells you. Then sing praise and do what you are told.

But what about when the threat is not external but internal? The people God has called you to lead will not go where God says to go. 

Moses

Numbers 14

When the Israelites had journeyed across the wilderness to the promised land, they sent in spies to see what they were up against.  The spies brought back word that the land was lovely and productive, but the inhabitants were giants.  Ten of twelve said there was no hope, and only two counseled going on into the land.  The congregation howled and wept and complained against Moses and Aaron.  “We wish we had died in the wilderness? Why has God brought us here to die by the sword, leaving behind our wives and children?  Let us go back to Egypt.  Better to be a live dog than a dead lion.” The few who wanted to follow God into the promised land were horrified and dismayed.  They pled with the congregation, “Do not rebel against the Lord; do not fear the people of the land. The Lord is with us, do not fear them.” But the congregation threatened to stone Moses and the few with him.

Then the Lord showed up in front of all Israel and said to Moses, “I have had it with this people.  They despise me, they refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs I have done to preserve them.  I will strike them with pestilence and start over with you. You will father a great nation.”

Interesting spot for Moses.  What would you do?  As a leader, what would you do if your followers all wanted to stone you and God said, “I’ll level them and make a fresh start with you.”

Well, here’s what Moses did.  He prayed: Oh Lord, if you destroy this people, the Egyptians will hear of it, and the Canaanites will hear of it.  You have been in the midst of this people, and the surrounding nations know this.  This people has seen you in person, and you led them by day and by night with a miraculous pillar of cloud or fire.  Now if you kill them all, the nations will say it is a failure for you, that you were unable to bring them into the land you promised them.  You will look bad.  So show your power instead by being slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression even though the sin of these people will have effects upon their children for generations. Forgive this people for their faithlessness according to your faithful love, just as you have done all along, from Egypt until now.”

And the Lord replied to Moses, “I do forgive, just as you have asked, but their faithlessness has this consequence.  They themselves will in fact die in the wilderness as they preferred.  They have tested me again and again, they have disobeyed me repeatedly, and they will not enter this land.  Only the few faithful will endure and enter the land I promised these people.

So leaders, when your people cannot believe in God’s ability to bring them through difficulty into the promised rest, what should you do?  Even when you know that God’s will is to move one direction and the people want to go another direction?  Even when they are prepared to get rid of you so that you won’t make them do what they fear to do?

Pray for them.  Intercede with God for them.  Remind God that whether or not people are faithful, God is faithful.  Remind God that underachievers are still his people, that if God abandons them, it will hurt God’s reputation with the onlookers.  Even though you know that their sin may cripple their children for several generations, pray for God to have mercy on them.  

Hard words, aren’t they.  Counter-intuitive.  As Jesus said, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, How often I have longed to gather you under my wings, but you would not.  And now, you will die in the ruts you preferred to me.

Finally, what if there is not so much a threat, as a sense of being trapped in an alien culture, a sense of exile and homelessness?

Daniel

Daniel 9

The royal prince, Daniel, was taken into captivity in Babylon.  As was the custom with captured royalty, it is likely he was made a eunuch with no hope for children, and certainly we have no record of him having any family.  Daniel served the Babylonian kings Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and then the Persian king Darius as advisor and seer.  He was a loyal and faithful minister who rose to the top in both Nebuchadnezzar’s and Darius’s administrations, despite the attempts of others to trap him because of his faithfulness to God. 

The Jews were taken into captivity, and Jeremiah wrote them there and told them to pray for the welfare of Babylon because they would be there 70 years, long enough to have children and grandchildren.  As Daniel got closer to 90 years old, he recognized that the 70 years was winding to an end, and he began to pray and ask God for an answer.  He fasted and wore burlap, and he began his prayer like this.

Ah, Lord, great and awesome God, you keep your covenant and love steadfastly those who love you and keep your commandments.  But we have sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, rebelled, and turned aside from your commandments and ordinances. We have not listened to your prophets to our ancestors, our princes, our kings, and all our people.

The most interesting thing about this, besides the comprehensive list of synonyms for sin, is the use of “we”—we have done this.  Daniel has, in fact, led a faithful and authentic life of dedication to God.  Yet, as a leader, he includes himself in the list of those who have done wrong. 

Righteousness is on your side, O Lord, but open shame falls on us, the people of Judah, Jerusalem, Israel, near and far away, dispersed to all the lands where you have driven us because of our treachery against you.  Open shame, O Lord, falls on us, our kings, our officials, our ancestors, because we have sinned against you.  We have rebelled against you, we have not obeyed your voice by following the laws you sent us through your prophets.  To you, to the Lord God belong mercy and forgiveness.

All of us have refused to obey you, and the consequences spelled out in the law of Moses, God’s servant, have fallen on us because of our sin against you.  The calamity of removal from our homeland, the city of Jerusalem has come upon us.  The Lord God is right in all he has done, for we disobeyed his voice.  We did not entreat the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and reflecting on his fidelity.

And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and great fame even to this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly.  O Lord, remember your righteous acts and let your anger and wrath, we pray turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain.  Our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors have disgraced us and our city Jerusalem among all our neighbors.

Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleading and for your own sake, Lord, let your face shine upon your desolated sanctuary.  Incline your year, O my God, and hear.  Open your eyes and look at our desolation and the city that bears your name. 

We do not plead before you on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of your great mercies.  O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, listen and act and do not delay! For your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people bear your name. 

And God answered Daniel and sent Gabriel to explain things to him.  And later, under King Cyrus, another messenger came from God.  Do not fear, Daniel greatly beloved.  For from the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. 

The message they brought Daniel said that God has a plan in history, that God is sovereign, and that Daniel himself will rise for his reward at the end of the days. 

The lesson for leaders is this:

Do we see that our people have been taken captive by a culture that is hostile to the Kingdom of God?  Do we hope for a return to our spiritual homeland?  For Quakers, has our American middle-class culture captured us and taken us into captivity?  Have we moved from praying for the welfare of our nation to participating in its sins and the structures of evil?  Quakers were called Friends because they obeyed Jesus, who said “You are my Friends if you do whatever I tell you to do.” Jesus gave us a unique vision of Christianity that reaches Seekers otherwise unreached.  How have we systematically ignored or violated what Jesus taught and is teaching us?

Let the leaders of the Quakers pray with Daniel.  O, our God, we have missed the mark and strayed from Truth.  We have turned our back on what it means to be Friends of Jesus while we have kept the title.  We have not lived up to the light that is in us.  We have put limits on the Spirit of God. We have become prosperous at the expense of the good news that Christ is present among us.

We share the prejudices of our nation and we let politics divide us and distract us from what is true and right, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save the world, that the will of God is that none should perish but that all should live eternally, that we are to share this good news with our neighbors and introduce them to the Son of God who can explain everything to them. 

We do not plead before you on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of your great mercies.  O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, listen and act and do not delay! For your own sake, O my God, because your people bear your name. 

Please pray for how NWYM Quakers and Quakers as a movement have missed the mark.

There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness in his justice, which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner, and more graces for the good;
There is mercy with the Savior; there is healing in his blood.

Human souls! why will ye scatter like a crowd of frightened sheep? Foolish hearts! why will ye wander from a love so true and deep?

It is God: His love looks mighty, but is mightier than it seems;

'Tis our Father: and His fondness goes far out beyond our dreams.

For the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind;
And the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful, we should take him at his word;
And our life would be thanksgiving for the goodness of the Lord.