Sunday, August 4 - We Are the Evil
Fr. Marc reflects on the institutional and personal challenges of reconciling the biblical teaching with human attitudes and tendencies.
There’s a riddle I’ve been working out as a pastor for many years. I’ve accepted the biblical premise that the gospel is not about growing churches or building temples. I’ve observed the scandal it creates in meetings and discussions with mission boards, parish councils, and planning committees.
All of that makes sense as the institutional scandal of the crucifixion.
What has been most eye-opening, or perhaps better stated, “ear-opening” for me, has been how it plays out in pastoral relationships. It all goes back to the Parable of the Sower in Mark.
Everyone wants to be the plant that takes root and bears fruit. Unfortunately, all of us have to reconcile what it means scripturally to come face-to-face with a God who can’t be depicted. No matter how long it takes, the implications of this reconciliation are—in a very literal sense—life-shattering.
Our human tendency is to attempt to contextualize this reconciliation in terms of human community, relationships, or personal connection, which we naturally understand in terms of loyalty—in other words—the way we understand family. If we just stick together, we rationalize, we can survive.
But that’s not how it works in Scripture.
I was doing a Bible study this week with a friend from the Jesuit community, a poet and teacher. We were hearing the Gospel of Mark while studying Fr. Paul’s commentary and looking at lexicography.
I noticed something interesting in Mark with the use of the word “synagogue.” A similar pattern appears in Luke with respect to the problem of people gathering.
Humans gather for security, fellowship, even for celebration, when we should be on the move—moving outside of the city wherever the teaching moves, away from human control.
My daughter asked me this week if there was anyone I thought could be president of the United States who could stand up to the criticism of the Bible. I said, “no,” and quickly added, “I myself don’t stand up to this criticism.”
I established a small mission church in my hometown with people I knew. As with most humans, everyone involved, including me, had good intentions.
Still, like the government, it’s a human institution with all the same complications, difficulties, and corruption because it’s made up of human beings who want something other than what Jesus brings to the synagogue.
The reason people don’t like it when the gospel dismantles their idols is that if they can’t believe in something—a system, a program, a nation, an idea, a hero—they can’t believe in themselves. So as long as you’re defending something—anything you judge worthy of being redeemed—you will never be able to encounter the inexistant, undepictable, indescribable, and incomprehensible God of Scripture, whose pass of entry demands that you have no other gods before him—least of all and last of all, yourself.
I keep saying it, but none can hear it, because none are willing to believe it.
If I say it nicely, you will praise my humility—shutting yourself out of the Kingdom. If I act it out, you will see what I am and condemn me—and then there is hope for both of us: because all will see that we who have gathered at church are no different than the prostitute and the thief.
As Paul said, “because there is no difference; οὐ γάρ ἐστιν διαστολή” (Romans 3:22)
We are the evil Americans.
This week, I discuss Luke 6:6-7.
Show Notes:
ע-ד-ה (ʿAyin-Dalet-He)
The Hebrew root עֵדָה (ʿēdāh) generally refers to a “congregation,” (Exodus 12:3) “swarm,” (Judges 14:8) “flock” (Psalm 74:1-2), or “sacrifice,” (Leviticus 4:13-15).
ʿēdāh is derived from ע-ו-ד (ʿAyin-Waw-Dalet)
The Arabic cognate of ע-ו-ד (ʿAyin-Waw-Dalet), which generally means “to return” or “to repeat,” is the root ع-و-د (ʿAyn-Waw-Dal). In Arabic, this root forms words related to returning, repeating, or doing something again.
ع-و-د (ʿAyn-Waw-Dal) / ע-ו-ד (ʿAyin-Waw-Dalet)
The word عِيد “Eid” (ʿīd) is also derived from ع-و-د (ʿAyn-Waw-Dal) and carries the meanings of returning or repeating. “Eid” (عيد) translates to “festival,” “celebration,” or “holiday,” and connotes a gathering or assembly, as in the case of ʿēdāh, but with the specific aspect of recurring celebrations, or events return each year.
For example, عِيد الفِطْر (ʿīd al-fiṭr) is the festival celebrated at the end of Ramadan (fiṭr means to break or to split), and عِيد الأَضْحَى (ʿīd al-aḍḥā) is the feast of the sacrifice, referring to Abraham’s son.
ע-ד (ʿAyin-Dalet) in Biblical Hebrew functions as witness or testimony.
The True Knowledge of God
By Rev. Deacon Anthony
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We are the demoniacs who need to be healed of our demons.
We are the Israelites whom Paul begs and pleads with to come to the true knowledge of God in Scripture.
We, like the Gentiles, need our demons exorcised. We need to rid ourselves of the false teachings we hear:
From our government; From those around us; Even from fellow Orthodox;
Those who tell us “this is the way”:
The ideological way, the theological way, the way of false knowledge. They put stumbling blocks in front of us so that we cannot be healed.
We need Jesus to come heal us through his commandments, which we do not heed. We do not act upon what he tells us to do.
We are the Israelites whom Paul begs and pleads with to come to the true knowledge of God in Scripture.
If you have the true knowledge of God, and Christ is within you, and you trust in Christ—not in all the other distractions—then you can confess with your heart.
Again, we misread “heart.” It is not an emotional feeling; it involves our brains.
If you confess with your “heart” —by doing the actions he instructed you to do—it is a constant movement; It’s not a one-time deal, as our evangelical brothers and sisters like to tell us in their two-question diagram:
“Do you know if you're going to hell?” and,
“If not, do you know Jesus?”
I’m paraphrasing; it’s been a while since I’ve seen that pamphlet—since my door-knocking days.
It’s not magic. You can say, “Lord, Lord,” and Jesus can say, “I never knew you.” Actually, God the Father said that. Jesus, if we are trusting in him, is the one pleading on our behalf before the Father.
Jesus went to the ghetto. He went to foreigners and healed the bodies that came out from the tombs—the dead buildings that held dead people.
Like Father Marc said last night, our leaders raise up buildings and dedicate “days of mourning” for dead buildings.
We do not mourn dead buildings; we mourn people.
Paul mourns for the Israelites because when he goes to the Gentiles, the Gentiles produce fruit.
Unlike the Israelites, when the Gentiles come out to meet him—they all come out to meet him, as if giving tribute to Caesar or a king.
The whole city came out to meet him, similar to the shepherds in Luke who when they came out and saw the angels, went back amazed. Like the people in John who came out to hear him teach the woman. They came out to hear what he had to say. Once they heard what he had to say, they said, “Go, keep moving, keep preaching.” That’s why it very pointedly says:
“And he came back to his own city.”
He came back to his own city after preaching and cleansing the Gentile town. To his own family, his own people—the Israelites who refused to hear his message. The Israelites, who had no knowledge of what everyone else understood.
It was Paul, the chief among sinners, the persecutor of Christians, who was warned in a vision of the revelation of the teaching of Jesus Christ of Nazareth:
“Why are you persecuting me?”
Why are you murdering the people of Palestine? Why are you ignoring the genocide? Why are you selling arms to other nations? Why are you helping others kill more people?
“Why are you persecuting me?”
This is what Jesus will to say to all of us, who like Paul, without true knowledge of God through Jesus Christ, persecute others on behalf of our families.
So, when we confess that Jesus is Lord, what do we mean?
Are we giving lip service? Are we pretending? Are we going to leave this place and act like we’ve never heard the gospel before? Or are we going to study, keep the Word of God on our lips and in our minds, so that we can recite it and know what to do when someone tells us something that isn’t found in Scripture?
We have yet to confess Jesus Christ!
The only people who truly confessed Christ were the martyrs. Remember, every church that Paul ministered to, even the churches in Rome, faced martyrdom for their confession of Christ.
We are not martyrs.
We have to put effort behind our confession. We have to put our strength and thoughts into moving all of ourselves into our confession of Jesus Christ as Lord. Until we’ve done that—until we’ve shed blood—we have not confessed.
As I said before, slaves don’t have a choice. If we are a slave to righteousness, if we are a slave to God, then we will do the things that God commands us to do.
On the last day, we will find out if we have truly confessed Jesus Christ as Lord. Amen.
Date of Receipt, or “God Said”
“On August 25, 2023, on St. Paul’s West Side, on the corner of Clinton and Congress St. E., across the way from El Rio Vista, down by the Neighborhood House near the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center, where kids still play outside near Parque de Castillo, against the unforgiving edge of the colonial Melting Pot, international scholars from the Middle East (and other continents) gathered together to bear witness: The gospel of the Lord’s Christ to the poor was carried to the people of the West Side. Fr. Paul Nadim Tarazi delivered the paper:
“Multiple readings of the sacred text throughout history. Is it enrichment or a cause of conflict? Biblical criticism and date of receipt of the text.”
A lifetime of effort encoded in a but a sentence. An English translation of the original paper delivered in Arabic on March 15, 2023, before the Third Conference for the Sacred Texts: Controversies in Christianity and Islam. The conference was organized by the Saint Joseph University of Beirut and the Bible Society of Lebanon, in cooperation with the Institute for Abrahamic Relations.
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Dark Sayings, p. 206)
Sermons
Fr. Aaron Warwick
Fr. Aaron and Jason Ewertt host Teach Me Thy Statutes on the Ephesus School Network.
Fr. Fred Shaheen
Fr. Fred hosts A Light to the Nations on the Ephesus School Network.
Melchizedek and Psalm 23
By the Literary Liturgicist
I am an Orthodox Priest, and this is a personal blog. As the title says, the subject matter here is Scripture, Liturgy, and anything else that catches my attention. Thanks for visiting, and enjoy!
In the Bible, we are presented with two Davids. The one is a proprietor king, stealing a man’s wife and then having his life taken; a schemer in his own way, and someone corrupted by power.
But there is also the David of the Psalms, who glorifies God, is repentant, and sings poems to the heavenly Zion.
So, is Schrödinger’s David at play here? Are both David’s both here and there at the same time?
In the essay On a Limb, the following point was made:
Therefore, the path between the will of the flesh (i.e., our will) and that of God wholly resides with us. What direction will our life take? I think this is part of what Saint Paul was getting at. I also think he is saying that even the children of slavery can become free children, full members of the household of God. Your path is not predetermined. All it takes is to be born according to the Spirit, whoever you are, whatever your social status, and wherever you may live.
In Genesis 9, in the aftermath of the Flood, Noah pronounces a curse on Canaan, the son of Ham, and a blessing on Shem. In the Table of Nations from chapter 10, we have the territory of the sons of Canaan and that of the sons of Shem intersecting.
So, where Canaan begins and ends geographically. . . is tricky. The ambiguity is intentional, in that the land can become either a place filled with God’s blessing, or a curse, depending on human behavior.
In this sense, there is no one David. The David of the Bible can be either the one who glorifies God, or the one who harms the neighbor. Shem or Canaan.
What path will your life take?
No “is” and No “have” — A Lesson in Semitic Functionality
By Blaise Webster
A great video on a similar topic: Submit to Semitic Functionality, by Deacon Henok Elias.
During a Hebrew lesson with my mentor Fr. Paul Tarazi, a retired Greek Orthodox priest and biblical scholar from Palestine, he said something that struck me. It was the key to understanding human behavior, especially as it is presently unfolding in the Middle East; a testament of sorts to a perennial disunity between the Western and Arab worlds. It took me a long time to gather my thoughts for this article, but as per my sloppily written notes,
The two words that the NATO people use that are not found in the Semitic languages are the verbs (to have) and (to be). And those two are the downfall of Western civilization and an explanation for the current events in the news. It is crucial for understanding scripture. If you (are) nothing and you (have) nothing, you aren’t special.
Those of us who were nursed in Plato’s bosom from birth can’t help but be alienated by those words. In English, we use the verb “to be” all the time. He is my son. I am a doctor. They are my friends. There is a clear concept of “being” or to put it another way, of “essence” which is really “is-ence”. I invoked Plato’s name because this notion of “essence” comes to us in its most radical form from the reception of Hellenistic philosophical literature. The Greek word for essence is οὐσία ousia. Grammatically, it is the present participle of the verb εἰμί eimi — I am. There is simply no equivalent to this in Hebrew. The closest you get is the verb היה hayah which literally refers to something “happening” or “falling out”. The Arabic equivalent is هوى hawa with the same function. The famous “I AM” statement from Exodus is not properly translated as “I am” but rather “I shall be”.
In Hebrew, ehyeh asher ehyeh, is in the imperfect tense signifying an incomplete action. It would literally translate to “I shall be that I shall be”. Strictly speaking, there is nothing of a “present participle” here. There is no “is” or “being”. It is simply communicating that God will be present with Moses when he appeals to Pharaoh on God’s behalf. In other words, God will act “egregiously” through Moses.
The Septuagint version of Exodus 3:14 is tricky. In Greek it reads,
Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν
Rendered literally into English, it would say “I am the one who persists”. This is a fascinating translation. It is not a direct, word-for-word translation, but plays with a nuance found in Greek grammar. It could not have effectively rendered the Hebrew imperfect with the future active tense, which would be the most literal and direct translation. The reason is that Semitic languages are far less concerned with grammatical time associated with the indicative mood. Instead, the verbs either represent an ongoing action or an action that has already occurred. The nuances of “time” are indicated by context, rather than strict grammatical structure. So the use of the present active indicative εἰμι illustrates that incomplete action, as well as with the presence of the participle ὁ ὤν. The context is indicative of a future event, where God shall persist against the Pharaoh and his indignation for the Israelites. And yet, it refrains from using the future tense so as not to limit the scope of God’s authoritative statement. So even though the same root is used in Greek, this moment in Exodus says nothing about the philosophical divine ousia of future theologians but rather testifies to God’s immovability. No matter how much Pharaoh will fight against God, the response is simply ehyeh asher ehyeh. To impose an “is” onto God is an attempt to confine him. God is not contained, not in physical idols nor in the idol of the mind.
Another interesting feature is that only God is allowed to ehyeh asher ehyeh. Everyone else is a vanishing breath. Where God shall live for all time, every human being will cease to live and return to dust. We occupy space for a brief time. There is no room for any one of us to be arrogant or in any way self-aggrandizing. In the grave, rich and poor look exactly the same. This lack of the verb “to be” distinguishes scripture and the modern West where ego has completely taken us over. We are selfish consumers, obsessed with identity and validation. As consumers in the late stages of capitalism, we are also obsessed with positions. On top of having no concept of “being”, Semitic languages also lack the verb “to have”. Instead, the lamed preposition “ל” which means “to”, is used. So if one were to say “I have a book” the literal rendering would be “the book to me”. In other words, the language reflects occupation rather than possession. If something is “to me” then it is out of my grasp. It isn’t necessarily “mine” but it is momentarily in my purview. This runs deep throughout the Semitic languages, where even people’s children are still “to them” instead of “theirs”. That is because God is the only melek (owner/ proprietor) and human rulers are simply vassals. God is the landlord of the heavens and the earth. None of us actually owns real estate. God either allows or disallows people to occupy space. The human ego is the most destructive force in the world. It is so destructive because it reflects man trying to be God. Man is not God. Man’s days are numbered, but God is the first and the last.
لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ
There is no god but God.