The Little Friar

Seneca's Medea is a story that's been running through my mind the past few days.  In it, Medea murders her own children in order to inflict the maximum amount of pain on Jason, her husband, that she can -- despite the fact that killing them also deprives her of their love, something that, itself, is redemptive in the ways she needs, moreso than the pain she wants to inflict on Jason.  Punishment accomplished, she feels her dignity and self-respect restored. Medea's story is all too familiar.  Few betrayed spouses murder their children to hurt their betrayer, but many certainly aim to inflict pain, and these efforts often have heavy collateral damages.  Even when self-restraint prevents the enactment of anger's wishes, ill-will seethes, just hoping for some bad outcome for the wrongdoer and his new family.  And so often that ill-will sneaks out after all, in litigation, in subtle deflection of children's affections, or maybe only in an unwillingness to ...

I'm thinking a lot about forgiveness lately.  I'll spare you the details, but this passage, from John 20, keeps coming back to mind: On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!"  After he said this, he showed them his hands and side.  The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you!  As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."  And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven ". My Catholic brothers and sisters don't squirm when they read that.  But I do. I squirm because Jesus' audience here isn't just a few rag-tag group of disciples gathered around him.  No, his audience is wide.  As wide as the Ch...

Forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.  Forgiving ... is the only reaction which does not merely act but acts anew and unexpectedly, unconditioned by the act which provoked it and therefore freeing from its consequences both the one who forgives and the one who is forgiven. -- Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition , p. 241.

This morning I'm reminded of God's golden rule.  All my life, I've heard that the "golden rule" reduces to this:  "Treat others as I wish to be treated".   That version, though, is much calmer  than what Jesus has to say:  " Do not judge, and you will not be judged.  Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.  Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Give, and it will be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.  For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you" (Luke 6.37-38). And, just in case I might not have gotten that point, it's the same thing  Jesus says on multiple occasions.  "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins" (Matthew 6.14-15). "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the s...

Perhaps the one act that marks off being Christian  (more than any other) is forgiveness . In a very radical (as in the root ) way, Christians (both corporately and individually) are marked as forgiven and forgiving people.  At the beginning of Christian life, Baptism dramatically enacts God's forward-giving and -accepting of us into the very triune life.  The past is "washed away".  All our guilt and shame is removed.  Or, more appropriately, the past is drowned  and left behind, floating corpse-like in the water.  In that way, baptism does what we humans can't otherwise do:  It breaks the power  of the past.  So when we emerge from the water, there's a "new life", wholly open to a future with God's Kingdom.  Thing is, forgiveness isn't left in those waters.  Each day, every moment, we're sustained by that very forgiveness.  "Forgive us our debts!", the community prays at multiple points in the day.  That's because w...

I make a lot out of  Jesus' radical welcome and embrace of "tax collectors and sinners".  So inevitably someone will  try to throw some cold water by bringing up John 8.1-11.  This is the famous story of the woman caught in the act of adultery.  After challenging the men accusing the woman -- "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" -- causing them to drop their stones and walk off, Jesus turns to the woman: "Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you ..." So far, so good. Jesus doesn't condemn the women like the men have.  But that's not Jesus's final word.  His parting word is this: "Go and sin no more." The way John 8.1-11 rhetorically functions in many conversations is as evidence that Jesus had moral standards.  Jesus's embrace wasn't unconditional, it had strings attached.  That is, Jesus' welco...

I suppose every Christian has their favorite parable of Jesus:  The Parable of the Good Samaritan or the Parable of the Prodigal Sons would probably rank among the most popular is my guess.  I tend to feature the Parable of the Goats and Sheep from Matthew 25 quite heavily  in my theology.  But it isn't my favorite  parable.  My favorite  parable is the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds from Matthew 13.24-30.  Why?  First, here's the text of the parable : Here is another story Jesus told:  "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field.  But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away.  When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. The farmer's workers went to him and said, 'Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds!  Where did they come from?' 'An enemy has done this!' the farmer exclaimed. 'Shoul...

Today is September 11th.  In the national memory of Americans today there will be a lot of words about this day -- it was a Tuesday -- 12 years ago.  That national memory will be comprised of lots if words.  Because words are the one power we humans have in the face of murderous acts like that Tuesday.  In fact, there will be several different words written and spoken today.   So what's left for me to say?  What do I dare remember today? Do I remember September 11th, 2001?  Do I remember September 11th, 2007?  The detonation of "The Father of All Bombs" in Russia? Do I remember September 11th, 2012?  Something about violence in Libya?   Do I remember September 11th, 1973?  The murderous coup of Pinochet in Chile? What about September 11th, 1988?     The  St Jean Bosco massacre  took place in Haiti? What about September 11th, 1944?  The RAF's murderous bombing and murder of 11...

A couple of days ago, I made the argument that Jesus's response to Peter about forgiving "seventy times seven" was a reference to the Jubilee.  More specifically, the Jubilee of Jubilees. I'd like to extend that analysis by connecting Jesus's instruction on forgiveness to the very first reference of "seventy times seven" or "seventy seven" in the bible -- Lamech's Song of the Sword. The Song comes after the sin of Cain and Cain's exile.  From there the descendents of Cain are named and among them is Lamech.  In the middle of this, without any real context, Lamech gives what has been called the Song of the Sword (Genesis 4.23-24): Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times." Again, we don't know any of the background here.  We don...

Many think that in Jesus's first sermon he compares his life and ministry to the year of Jubilee. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.  He stood up to read,and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.  Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor." (Luke 4.16-19). Again, some think that the reference here in Isaiah to the "acceptable year of the Lord" -- where the oppressed are set free and freedom is proclaimed to the prisoners -- is an allusion to the year of Jubilee described in Leviticus 25. The Jubilee was to be the Sabbath year of Sabbath years.  Every seven days the Israelites were to cel...

I've been thinking a good deal lately about the satan.  A friend and I have been engaging in some conversation about her own life -- particularly, how the accusations and insults that were hurled at her throughout her life, have become the very things she deeply believe about herself.  And it's been an ongoing part of that conversation about the role that the satan plays in those sorts of accusations. I thought this morning of this passage from Luke 10. The seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name." Jesus replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." What might his passage mean? I think it's important to focus on the Hebrew word הַשָּׂטָן ( ha-satan ) -- accuser.  So what might it mean that our accuser has "fallen from heaven"? "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning", Jesus tells us. I think it's important to notice right off the bat that the satan isn...