The Luck of Roaring Camp

I was looking for illustrations for a Christmas sermon and I came across a lot of little jewels. This is one of the best of them.

Did you ever read Bret Harte's story The Luck of Roaring Camp? Roaring Camp was supposed to be, according to the story, the meanest, toughest mining town in all of the West. More murders, more thefts--it was a terrible place inhabited entirely by men, and one woman who tried to serve them all. Her name was Cherokee Sal. She died while giving birth to a baby.

Well, the men took the baby, and they put her in a box with some old rags under her. When they looked at her, they decided that didn't look right, so they sent one of the men eighty miles to buy a rosewood cradle. He brought it back, and they put the rags and the baby in the rosewood cradle. And the rags didn't look right there. So they sent another of their number to Sacramento, and he came back with some beautiful silk and lace blankets. And they put the baby, wrapped around with those blankets, in the rosewood cradle.

It looked fine until someone happened to notice that the floor was so filthy. So these hardened, tough men got down on their hands and knees, and with their hardened and horny hands they scrubbed that floor until it was very clean. Of course, what that did was to make the walls and the ceiling and the dirty windows without curtains look absolutely terrible. So they washed down the walls and the ceiling, and they put curtains at the windows. And now things were beginning to look as they thought they should look. But of course, they had to give up a lot of their fighting, because the baby slept a lot, and babies can't sleep during a brawl.

So the whole temperature of Roaring Camp seemed to go down. They used to take her out and set her by the entrance to the mine in her rosewood cradle so they could see her when they came up. Then somebody noticed what a dirty place that was, so they planted flowers, and they made a very nice garden there. It looked quite beautiful. And they would bring her, oh, shiny little stones and things that they would find in the mine. But when they would put their hands down next to hers, their hands looked so dirty. Pretty soon the general store was all sold out of soap and shaving gear and perfume and those kinds ...

... the baby changed everything.

With Eyes Fixed on God: 2. Facing Huge Difficulties

Jehoshaphat was one of the kings who ruled Judah, and from all accounts (see 2 Chronicles 17-21), he was one of the better rulers the country had. There came a time during his reign that his nation faced a disaster. Three huge armies set out to make war on him. Not surprisingly, Jehoshapat was alarmed, but in a notable departure from the regular, he sought the counsel of God in the matter. His prayer ended with these words: "For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you" (2 Chronicles 20:12).

God told him not to worry: "Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s" (2 Chr 20:15). Jehoshaphat took the advice to heart, as well as other advice that he received to do nothing but praise God. So while the invading armies prepared to annihilate Jehoshaphat, the king sent his own army with instructions to "sing to the Lord and to praise him ... as they went out at the head or the army, saying: "Give thanks to the Lord for his love endures forever.""

A sure recipe for disaster you might think, but think again. As they began to sing and praise, the Lord sowed confusion and discord among the invading armies who, instead of attacking and destroying Judah, attacked and destroyed each other leaving the battlefield empty. The battle was, indeed, the Lord's.

We, too, in our lives, are sometimes faced with mighty adversities that seem overwhelming. And overwhelm us, they will, unless we turn to God in faith and prayer like this king did. It might seem silly what this king did, but the victory he achieved is an indication of how powerful prayer and faith in tandem can be.

A lady came to me a me a week ago telling me she was half a million dirhams in debt. That's about US$ 136,000. That was a staggering debt to pay off for any salaried person. She told me that she was praying, but God was not doing anything to clear her debt. I had to explain that God wasn't going to send somebody with a check for half a million — we have to suffer the consequences of our folly — but what God would do was to help her repay the debt IF she focussed on him. If she kept her eyes on him. Otherwise, she would drive her car into a brick wall, like she told me she wanted to.

I have had people facing similar situations in the past testifying as to how God took them through when they relied on him. He did this in far less time and with much greater ease than they had ever imagined. So I know that this is not just a story in the Bible to give people hope; it works! And it's not only with looming financial catastophes that God helps us, but he's there to assist us in every difficult situation we face in our lives. It takes humility, however, and a certain amount of courage to be able to go to God and say to him, just as Jehoshaphat did: "Lord, I have no power to combat the obstacles in my life. I don't know what to do. But I got my eyes upon you!"

Get your eyes fixed on him for the victory that you seek, the deliverance that you need, the freedom that you desire. It's all it really takes.

Next: With Eyes Fixed on God: 3. In the Middle of a Storm

With Eyes Fixed on God: 1. Snakes in the Desert

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

I've always loved the movies and among the many movies I have watched, I have really enjoyed the Indiana Jones series. I guess it appeals to the child in me. There is one scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark that was memorable. Indy falls into a dark pit and it seems to him that the ground under his feet is moving. He strikes a match and to his horror he finds the floor crawling with hundreds of snakes. "I hate snakes," he says, his fear of them very evident in his eyes.

I suspect that most of us hate them as well, and it isn't very surprising when we think of the painful death they can cause when they bite us. This is what the Israelites suffered during their travels through the desert. Scripture says that "the Lord sent venomous snakes among them" but as we are learning, we can't take everything in the Bible literally. What the writers probably meant is that the Lord withdrew his hand of protection over the Israelites and let the snakes bite them. But why would he do this? To teach them a lesson perhaps. Let's see what happened just prior to this.

One, the Israelites grew impatient along the way. We may be inclined to feel a little sympathetic towards them considering that they were on the road for a long time until we understand that it is this impatience that kept them on the road for so long. The journey from Egypt to the Promised Land was barely a few weeks, but it took them forty years to make it!!!

God puts us through situations in our lives to teach us patience, to teach us to wait upon him, and the quicker we learn these lessons, the quicker we get out of the situations. Unfortunately, like the Israelites we too get impatient, and then we too wander around, sometimes for years, until we get to where we want to be.

Two, they spoke against God and against Moses, which is never a good idea, because when you speak against someone you are, in effect, rebelling against them. What do you want God to make of rebellion?

I know of people who are constantly speaking against God, sometimes even cursing him because they aren't happy with the way he is working in their lives. I'm no Moses, but they speak against me too, sometimes for the strangest possible reasons.

Three, they whined and moaned, asking God why he brought them up out of Egypt? Obviously, they had forgotten that they had begged and pleaded with him to get them out, fed up with the years of suffering they had underwent at the hands of the Egyptians.

We, too, make prayers of God, sometimes perhaps not realizing that God does answer prayers, but in his own fashion. Unable to deal with this, we question God in a similar manner, presuming we know better than he does.

Four, they exhibited a tragic lack of faith when they spoke of dying in the desert, indicating that they had also forgotten everything that God had done to ensure they were safe. He got them out of Egypt without so much as a scar, gave them safe passage through the Red Sea when a blood thirsty army chased after them, kept their clothes, foot wear and health intact over the years, and they implied, by this question, that he was now incapable of keeping them alive.

I am sure that this, too, is familiar to us. We receive blessing after blessing — and we only have to take a cursory glance at our lives to see how true this is — but the moment we face something that is a little difficult, we believe God has abandoned us and we're headed for defeat and destruction.

Five, they complained that there was no bread or water, and in a shocking display of ingratitude, whinged about how they detested the manna God was giving them — given at no cost, without toil or labor!

Again, they didn't do anything we don't do.

I figure God must have decided if they really wanted to complain, he'd give them reason to, and when they came across a patch of desert sand infested with snakes, he withdrew his hand of protection, leaving them to ponder the consequence of a life without him to help them.

They began to get bitten and die painfully and not knowing what to do they turned to the same person they spoke against — Moses — to ask for help from the same God they spoke against — the mighty I AM. Fortunately for them, Moses was not one to hold grudges and he interceded with God, who also didn't hold grudges. He told Moses to "make a snake and put it up on a pole and get the people who were bitten to look at it for healing."

It seems here that God is breaking one of his own commandments about not fashioning any graven images (Exodus 20:4-5, 32:31), something that he appears to do again when he gives instructions on building the ark of the convenant (1 Chronicles 28:18-19), orders the carving of statues of angels (Exodus 25:18-20), and commanding that Aaron's priestly robes have pomegranates on them! (Exodus 28:31-34), but obviously there are circumstances in which God is okay with such things. (We are not going to talk about idol worship here; to understand more about this may I refer you to an article by Patrick Madrid).

So why is God doing this? To point people the way to salvation by making them aware of their sins and its consequences! What would the people who were bitten by the snake see when they saw an image of it nailed to the cross? They would see how their sins were causing them a painful death and repent of whatever they had done. This repentance would bring healing.

Do you recollect another instance when something was nailed to a cross? Of course you do. Many years later Jesus would say, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life" (John 3:14).

The serpent is not a representation of Jesus, but of the sin that Jesus took upon himself when he was crucified on the cross. If we want to stop sinning all we really need to do is to look at Jesus on the cross, understanding how much he suffered because of the things that we did. Most of us have looked at the cross and found forgiveness of our sins, but we tend to treat this as an event that took place two thousand years ago in another time and place, not realizing that it is a lifetime process of looking, and repenting.

I have reproduced a still from Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ here. It is a particularly bloody picture of Jesus on the cross. Take a good look at it. Everytime we give into temptation, giving into thoughts that are sinful, it is as though we are piercing a new thorn into Christ's head. Everytime we give into temptation, doing things that are wrong, it is as though we are piercing a nail anew into his hands and feet. I don't know about you, but it makes me never wanna sin again.

What else do we find when we look at Jesus on the cross? Freedom! Romans 6:1-14 says this. It is a little long, but worth reading carefully.

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

With eyes fixed on God, we get victory over sin and temptation, but that's not the only thing looking at God does to us. It gives us victory over overwhelming odds! Coming up next.

Interpreting Scripture - 2: Moses and the Burning Bush

As we saw in my introductory article on the subject of interpreting Scripture, there are four senses of Scripture that we can use to get a better understanding of what God is trying to say to us: the literal sense, the allegorical sense, the moral sense and the anagogical sense. To see how these senses are used, let us look at the story of Moses and the Burning Bush (Exodus 3).

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” (Exodus 3:1-14)

The best way to begin trying to understand what is happening in this passage is by asking a series of questions: Where? Who? Why? What? When?

Where is this passage from? The Book of Exodus. It's the second book of the Bible following Genesis. The two books, together with Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, form the Pentateuch (Torah to the Jews).

Who wrote it? A great deal of it has been written by Moses, but it cannot have been written entirely by him, as often suggested, because many portions tell the story of his life in the third person. It also describes his death. The literary form also varies considerably through the text.

Why was it written? To record the events of Israel's deliverance from Egypt and development as a nation.

What was the setting? Egypt. God's people who were once favored in the land were now slaves. God is about to set them free.

When was it written? Modern biblical scholarship places its final textual form in the mid 5th century. When did the events that are described in it happen? From about 1700 BC to 1280 BC.

Once these questions are answered, we need to see how the passage fits into the overall story. The book of Genesis ends with the death of Joseph. The book of Exodus begins about four hundred years later. Things have dramatically changed. The Israelites no longer enjoy the favor that Joseph enjoyed with the Egyptians. On the contrary, they have been made slaves for fear that their rapidly increasing numbers might make them a threat to the Egyptians. Seeing that this scheme of keeping their numbers down didn't work, Pharoah decrees that the midwives kill every baby boy at birth, but when his doesn't work either, he orders that "every boy that is born must be thrown into the Nile" (Exodus 1:22).

One mother decides to save her son but putting him in a basket and floating it on the Nile. When Pharoah's daughter went to bathe she discovered the baby and decided to adopt him for her own. The boy, named Moses, thus grew up as prince of Egypt. As he grew up, however, he began to identify with the Israelites, getting angry at the way they were treated.

One day, when he was about forty years old, he witnessed an Egyptian striking an Israelite. He lost his temper and struck down the Egyptian, killing him. (Here's a question to ask yourself: How do we know Moses was forty years old when this happened? There is no reference to this in the book of Exodus. Or in the Pentateuch. Or in the entire Old Testament for that matter! Answer: Stephen mentions his age in his speech to the Sanhedrin where he was on trial for his life - see Acts 7:23. But how did Stephen know this if it wasn't mentioned anywhere else in Scripture? That's a question for you to chew on. I'll provide the answer another time, but here is a clue to get you going. Is Sola Scriptura truly legit?)

After slaying the Egyptian, Moses now "thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not" (Acts 7:25). They had different ideas. "Who made you ruler and judge over us?" they asked (Ex 2:14). (What do you learn from this? Moses was trying to exercise authority that hadn't been given to him).

Rejected by the Israelites and on the run from the Egyptians — Pharoah discovered his crime — Moses fled to Midian. There he meets Zipporah to whom he gets married. He soon becomes a daddy (good thing that; if he stayed on to rule in Egypt he would have become a mummy). He also becomes a shepherd, tending flocks for his father-in-law Jethro. And he continues doing this for forty years, until one day he sees a bush burning .... which brings us to our story here.

The Allegorical Sense

We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ. In this passage, the God of the Burning Bush is generally considered to be a preconfiguration of Jesus, who would, himself, use the words I AM to describe himself many times, especially in the Gospel of John. Consider these statements:

"I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." (John 6:35)

"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12)

"I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture." (John 10:9)

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." (John 10:11)

"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies." (John 11:25)

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener." (John 15:1)

But perhaps most telling was his remark to the Pharisees who sneered at him when he told them that Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing him.

“You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:57-58)

The Moral Sense

The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction".

Here we see God commissioning Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. God gives us a similar commission. In Matthew 28:18-20 we see him saying:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

(Notice what Jesus says at the end. Just as God said to Moses, "I will be with you," Jesus says the same.) Like Moses, we make excuses, but we need to fulfill this commission to make disciples of all nations. We can't do that, however, unless we become disciples ourselves. And that takes some doing!

The Anagogical Sense

We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland, which is heaven.

From this passage (and subsequent chapters in Exodus) we see how important obedience is to fulfill God's plan in our lives. We often don't realize how important this obedience is when it comes to our eternal salvation. Jesus was particularly stern when he told the people:

"Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’"

All the "Hallelujas" we say, and all the mighty deeds we do for God, are no substitute for obedience. which is a prime requisite for entry into heaven. Faith in Christ Jesus gets the gates open, but we still need to walk through them.

Next: Interpreting Scripture - 3: Abraham and the Sacrifice of Isaac

Interpreting Scripture

Soon after my conversion, I started reading the Bible with fresh earnestness, eager to find out more about the Lord whom I had given my life to. I remember going through the gospel of Matthew, utterly fascinated by what I was reading, but coming to a shocked stop when I reached the end of Chapter 12 where it spoke about Jesus's mother and brothers.

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” (Matthew 12:46-47)

Brothers? Even though I had been an atheist for most of my life, I had been born a Catholic and the influence of my early years remained with me as did the memories of some of the things I had learned back then, including the virgin birth and Mary's perpetual virginity. What was this, then, about Jesus having brothers?

My confusion increased as I found more refences to the "brothers" of Jesus is the gospels of Mark and John (Mark 6:3, John 7:5) and also in the Book of Acts (Acts 1:14), and my first reaction was that the Church had fed everybody with a lot of fiction about Mary.

But then I thought a little more about it and I wondered how the Church could have possibly fooled millions of people for 2,000 years. Surely there would have been at least a few intelligent men through the years who would have questioned this. The Church must have its reasons to claim what they did.

I figured it might be wise to find out what theose reasons were and what I discovered quite astonished me. In the original text of the Gospel, we find the Greek word adelphos, meaning "brother," used. However, adelphos does not just mean blood brothers born of the same parents, but used to describe a variety of relationships including half-brothers, step-brothers, cousins and even uncles!

While this did not prove that Jesus didn't have brothers, it certainly threw the door wide open for more questions. Like: Why wasn't there any reference to Jesus's brothers in Luke 2:41-42 when Jesus was lost at the temple? Surely, if there was any place where they would have been mentioned it was here. But this was still not very conclusive. I dug deeper and discovered a lot of other things indicating that Jesus may not have brothers, but what sealed it for me was John's narrative of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (John 19:25-27)

If Jesus had brothers, he would have left his mother with them, not with John, regardless of how favored a disciple he was. Besides, if they existed, they would have been there while Jesus was being crucified, wouldn't they?

Now that I realized the Church was not as manipulative as I had briefly imagined, I began to look to it for answers to the more difficult questions that I had, not surprised any more than not only did they have them, but in almost every single instance they were very rational, very logical, and very Scriptural!

Take this for an example. After reading the New Testament, I began reading the Old Testament and I had a lot of questions crop up in my mind as I read the book of Genesis. One of them was this: Adam and Eve had a number of children including Cain, Abel and Seth (cf. Genesis 4:1-2; 5:3-4). For these children to have reproduced, they would have had to marry each other. Is this what happened? Might there be another explanation? I thought I got the answer one evening when a preacher I was listening to suggested that after God created Adam and Eve, he may have created other people around the world. It seemed a reasonable explanation that would also account for the different races we find on the earth. There was also nothing in Genesis to contradict this viewpoint, but I decided to check what the Church taught on the subject. A little digging uncovered this from Pope Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis:

... the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own (HG37).

And what did Scripture (the "sources of revealed truth" mentioned above) have to say? I took encouragement from Luke's words in Acts 17:11 where he said that "the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true" to verify what the Holy Father said. Here is what is in the Bible:

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. (Acts 17:26)
 
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— (Romans 5:12)
 
Wow! Theories may be interesting, but they need not necessarily be the truth!

The Church also had guidelines to interpreting Scripture that I found remarkably useful and this article hopes to pass on some of what I learnt. Although it cannot possibly be as comprehensive as I might like it to be, I hope the few pointers I share will help you in your own study of Scripture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) offers some sterling advice in paragraphs 112-114..

The Second Vatican Council indicates three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit who inspired it.

1. Be especially attentive "to the content and unity of the whole Scripture". Different as the books which compose it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God's plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since his Passover (cf. Luke 24:25-27, 44-46).

2. Read the Scripture within "the living Tradition of the whole Church". According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church's heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God's Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (". . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church").

3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith. By "analogy of faith" we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation (cf. Romans 12:6).

The Senses of Scripture

The CCC also suggests we take into account the two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual. The spiritual sense is further divided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses. Don't let the words throw you; it's all simpler than you may think and a few examples will make it all clear. But let me first quote the definitions from the CCC itself.

The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal." (Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text).

The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

- The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism.

- The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction".

- The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, "leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.

As I said before, this may sound intimidating, but it isn't really. A couple of illustrations will help us to understand how to interpret Scripture using these four senses.

Next: Interpreting "The Sacrifice of Isaac" and "The Burning Bush"

The Truth Teller

I have a weighing scale in my bathroom that I’ve been deliberately avoiding for the past couple of months because I was sure I wouldn’t like what I saw if I stood on it. On the first of June, I finally did, and although I wasn’t really surprised by what I saw, it still shocked me. The display read 89 kilos, the most I have ever weighed, putting me at least 15 kilos over what my weight should be. It triggered all kinds of bells in my head.

The reason I got on that scale, however, was because of a little note I received from a young girl the previous evening. A Filipino, she is part of one of our communities. Her note said: "Brother Aneel, you need to watch what you eat and look after your health because we need you around for a lot longer." What I read between the lines was this: You’re getting fat! Watch your weight!

I think of this young girl as a Truth Teller.

We all need Truth Tellers to point out things that might be going wrong in our lives, or make us aware of blind spots in them that we can’t see unless they are told to us, or neglecting things that we should be paying more attention to. The Bible has many stories of Truth Tellers, one of the most famous being Nathan who spoke the truth to King David (see 2 Samuel 11-12). Here is the story in brief.

King David was the second king of Israel. He followed Saul to the throne and was a much admired, much respected ruler. He, however, had one weakness: women. Despite the number of wives and concubines he had, his lust was insatiable, and one day, when he spied a woman bathing from his terrace, his desire was stirred again.

He sent a servant to find out about the woman. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” (2 Sam 11:3). Rarely in Scripture, is the geneology of a woman mentioned, and it is highly relevant that in this case, not only is mention made of her father, but also of her husband. The servant, a Truth Teller if anything, was gently pointing out to the king: this girl is somebody’s daughter and somebody’s husband. Think about what you are doing.

Lust is blinding and the king ignored the warning. He sent for Bathsheba and consummated his desire for her. Satisfied, temporarily anyway, he sent her away, believing it to be the end of yet another little adventure, but this was to turn into a misadventure, because the woman became pregnant with his child.

Worried about the reaction of her husband, Uriah, a popular soldier in David’s army, the king immediately became to think of ways to cover up the discovery. Finally, he sent for Uriah, who was currently fighting a war, ostensibly on the excuse of finding out what was happening on the battlefield, and once the conversation was over, he sent the husband home, thinking he would sleep with his wife and believe the baby born was his.

Uriah, however, did not think it was right to go home to his wife when his fellow soldiers were out fighting a war so he went and spent the night in the barracks.

Alarmed, but undaunted that his first Cover Up Plan didn’t work, David sets Plan #2 in motion. He sends for the soldier again, this time plying him with alcohol, believing that drunk, Uriah would go home to his wife. Yet again, however, Uriah showed that he had more morals than this now dissolute king and spent the night in the barracks.

Unnerved, but determined that Uriah should never discover the truth, the king thinks up Plan #3, and what a plan it is. He sends for Uriah once more and this time gives him a letter to take to his army commander Joab. In the letter is written this: “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.” (2 Sam 11:15)

Uriah died in battle.

David waited for what he thought was a decent time, then made Bathsheba his wife and now, with everything satisfactorily resolved, undoubtedly believed that life would continue as usual. Fortunately, for him, it didn’t.

I want us to pause here for a moment and look at the state of David’s soul at this moment in time. Anybody who has experienced the passions of lust, knows how self destructive it is. And how consuming it is. I had told a story in an article I had written about lust some time ago of how an Eskimo kills a wolf. The account is grisly, but it offers an insight into the all consuming, self-destructive nature of lust. "First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood.

Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade in the arctic night.

So great becomes his craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue, nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his OWN warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more—until the dawn finds him dead in the snow!"

Though the Bible doesn’t say so, I’m pretty sure that David had become like this wolf who had tasted frozen blood, with murder, after the initial guilt pangs, only whetting his appetite. He was heading for certain destruction until God decides to send a prophet called Nathan to tell the king some hard truths.

It isn’t an easy job. The king has already murdered once. What was there to stop him murdering again? Nathan decides not to confront the king directly. He tells him a story of two men, one a rich man with a large number of sheet and cattle; the other a poor man with nothing by a small little ewe lamb that he loved like a child. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. One day a traveler came to the rich man. Rather than take an animal from his huge flock to prepare a meal for the traveler, the rich man took the poor man’s ewe and slaughtered it.

David burned with anger and said to Nathan, "The man who did this deserves to die."

Nathan says to David, "You are the man.”

This scene would be a movie director’s delight, I imagine. Two men, frozen, eyes fixed on each other. Both trembling. One out of rage. The other out of fear.

I can almost hear the thoughts running through both men’s minds. David thinking, “How dare you come before your king with a story like that?” Nathan thinking, “Please Lord, let this not end with my death.”

The king’s hand drops to his sword. He thinks, “Okay. So I gotta kill this guy too. Big deal.” And Nathan, “Oh dear, here it comes.”

But then a long pause as memories fill David’s head. Of a shepherd boy being plucked out of obscurity to be anointed as king of Israel. Of slaying a mighty giant with one smooth stone and instantly ending a war. Of dancing in joy before the Ark of the Covenant as he brings it back to Israel. Of the wonderful relationship that he used to have with God.

David's hand drops. Tears roll down his cheeks. He repents. (And Nathan, I imagine, starts breathing again.)

What if God hadn’t sent Nathan to David? I believe this story would have had a totally different ending. David needed a truth teller to understand the evil of what he had done (and was possibly still doing). All of us need a Truth Teller in our lives. Find one in your life today.

And then act upon the truth that you are told.

Ever since I realized that I needed to lose weight, I have started going out for walks again. It was a little problem finding the time for it because I wake up at 5.30 and sleep at 12.30, and other than a short nap in the afternoon, all the time is spent in work, study or prayer. (I could have skipped the nap, but with temperatures reaching 45 degrees at this time of the year, I wouldn’t be able to do much without getting a serious case of sunstroke.) I discovered, however, that if I skipped breakfast and reading the newspaper, with a few other adjustments, I could free up an entire hour in the morning. I use it to walk. And if I persist, I am sure the end of the month would see me leaner and fitter. And my dear Truth Teller can see me around for a few more years :)

Next: Other Truth Tellers in the Bible

The Restoration of Peter

Some time after Jesus rose from the dead, his apostles went fishing again. This wasn't for men, as Jesus had told them to do (Luke 5:10), but for fish. Scripture isn't clear about the reasons Peter and a few of the others did this — whether they wanted to return to their old way of life or were just providing for themselves — but they went fishing and didn't catch a thing!

When morning came, Jesus was by the shore. They didn't recognize him, which might have been understandable the first time he appeared to them, but not so easy to understand now. But never mind. Jesus asked them if they had caught anything. It's not a question fishermen like to hear when their nets are empty and I'm guessing their answer was a brusque, "No".

Jesus told them to cast their nets to the right side and this time they caught a net load. Deja vu. This has happened before (Luke 5:6) and John, comprehending, said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" Peter immediately plunged into the water (after putting his clothes on, thankfully) and waded towards Jesus, who already had a fire burning with a few fish roasting on the coals. "Breakfast," he said. (Have you ever eaten fried fish for breakfast?)

After they were done eating, he turned to Peter, and in front of everybody else had a decidedly strange conversation, that impacted Peter thoroughly.

“Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep." (John 21:15-17)
 
The three-fold repetition was a direct reference to Peter's three-fold denial of Jesus, and it is important that we look at some of the events that went down at the time because they are very relevant to these remarks made by Jesus and the transformational impact they had on Peter.
 
Soon after the Last Supper (Luke 22:7-30), Jesus singled Peter out and said to him, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
 
Jesus knows that Peter is going to betray him, but rather than pray that the apostle remain firm and courageous in the midst of strife, he prays instead that "his faith may not fail". Faith in what? And then Jesus goes on to tell Peter that after he has turned back, to strengthen his brothers.
 
Peter is either being dense, or not paying attention, because he says: “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.” (Luke 22:33-34).

That's exactly what happens. Jesus is arrested and beaten and seeing what is happening to his master throws Peter into a funk. He tries to hide in the crowd, but is recognized. He is challenged three times and all three times he denies knowing Jesus. Scripture describes what happens next, "The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter" (Luke 22:61)

I shudder to think of what went through Peter's mind when he looked into Jesus's eyes. Jesus's words to him must have flashed before his mind. His own brash reply. His betrayal. Utterly broken, he went out and wept bitterly. But through his tears of frustration, guilt, shame, agony and the million other feelings that went through his mind, feelings that must have made him want to die just like Judas had, one thought kept recurring to him: that Jesus still loved him.

This was the faith that Jesus prayed for Peter and it was a prayer that was answered. And now, with Jesus resurrected, it was time to help him understand what he needed to do with that faith: share the love that Jesus had for his brothers and sisters and strengthen them in turn.

We all fail. Repeatedly. Guilt often tortures us. Frustration makes many of us quit. But we need to remember what Peter remembered. That Jesus still loves us and is waiting to restore us. The only thing required is to go to him and confess our love for him.

It might help us to remember that not once did Jesus ask Peter if he was sorry. He didn't ask for any explanations. He didn't make him promise that he wouldn't do it again. He merely asked Peter if he loved him. That was all Jesus really wanted from Peter.

It is all he really wants from us.

But merely admitting that we love him isn't the end of the story. We need to serve him. And the best way is to tend the sheep that Jesus has left behind in the world. To care about them. To care for them. To love them.

A few additional notes before I conclude. It may help us to make note of some of the mistakes that Peter made that may have led to his betrayal of his Lord, so that we, in turn, can prevent making them ourselves.

One, he was overconfident. Overconfidence is always a result of pride. He might have very well intended to follow Jesus to jail and to death, but he didn't take into account his weakness.

Two, he wasn't in prayer. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked him to pray but sleep took precedence over prayer. Without the support of God through prayer we operate in our own strength.

Three, he didn't have Paul around to tell him that his struggle was not against flesh and blood but against forces in the heavenly realms (cf. Ephesias 6:12). A big mistake.

Four, he wasn't close to Jesus. In Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ we see Peter following Jesus from afar, almost as an observer. We need to be in Jesus and have him in us.

Five, when trying to hide, he chose the wrong company to hide with. If he had been with his fellow apostles, even though they too ran for their lives in the face of danger, he might have had a little support.

Jacob I Loved, But Esau I Hated

"Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" the LORD says. "Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals." (Malachi 1:2-3)

One of the most puzzling statements in the Bible is this one where God said that he loved Jacob, but hated his brother Esau. Would God really do such a thing—love one man and hate another? My attempts to understand this very disconcerting comment threw up answers to not one, but several questions I had often asked myself. As they pertain to issues that are vital to our understanding of God and other subjects like predestination, justice, mercy and fairness, I thought it a good idea to address some of them here, beginning with the question of why God chooses to bless some people while damning others, as he seemed to do with Jacob and Esau.

Jacob and Esau (as you undoubtedly know) were Isaac's sons, grandchildren of the great patriarch Abraham. Despite being twins, they were totally unlike each other, both in appearance and in temperament. Esau, the older of the two, loved the outdoors and became a skilled hunter, endearing himself to his father who liked the wild game the boy brought home to cook. Introverted Jacob preferred to stay indoors and help his mother Rebekah in the house, making himself beloved of her. If opposites attract, it didn't hold good in this instance as there was hardly any love lost between the twins. The enmity apparently began in the womb: Rebekah complained that they constantly kicked and fought inside her!

Esau cut a pretty sorry figure as a little story about him showed. He went out hunting on one occasion. He must have been gone for a few days and not had much luck in snaring anything, because when he returned he was empty handed and starving. As chance would have it, Jacob had just cooked a pot of stew. Eagerly Esau asked for a serving, but Jacob, a schemer if there ever was one, told him that he could have it only in exchange for his birthright. In a remarkable act of idiocy, Esau agreed to the trade, instantly damning himself in the eyes of God.

To understand why this act provoked God's intense displeasure, you have to understand how important the birthright was. The birthright—the inheritance of the firstborn—consisted of leadership in the family, a double portion of inheritance, and the title to the covenant blessing promised to Abraham. It was given by God himself. By "despising his birthright" as the Book of Genesis states he did, Esau effectively thumbed his nose at God. (Many Christians today are guilty of the same thing, selling their birthright thoughtlessly by trading eternal blessings for momentary pleasures.)

But if Esau was a miserable specimen of the human race, Jacob was not far better. If anything, all stories of him indicate he was a worse character than Esau. What sort of a person, after all, would make a trade of this sort with his own brother? His actions in later life were not very redeeming either. When his father was dying, he conspired with Rebekah to steal the blessings that were reserved for Esau. After he married Rachel, he engineered the payment of outstanding wages by her father Laban in an extraordinarily deceitful way. And then, coming across Esau when journeying back to his homeland and scared that his brother would kill him, he sent his wife ahead to negotiate a peace rather than go himself. Ever the wheeler-dealer, on one occasion he even negotiated with God!

Why then, would God love this man? The only answer is the correct one: God's sovereign grace. For reasons of His own, that had nothing to do with anything Jacob was or did or would do, God chose Jacob as an object of His love and simply showered him with an abundance of it. From the time he left his father's house, desperate to escape the wrath of an enraged brother cheated of an inheritance, up until the time he died, soon after conferring blessings upon Pharoah himself, God's mighty hand rested upon Jacob in love and protection.

Why didn't God favor Esau with his love too, then? Surely God could have overlooked Esau's little foolishness, like he seemed to overlook so many of Jacob's failings. Why, instead, did God hate him so? (In Semitic usage "hate" means to "love less" but regardless of whether you accept this translation, or take "hate" to mean what we usually take "hate" to mean, it is obvious God did not care much for Esau. He did permit Esau to become the father of Edom, but there is no trace of the house of Esau or of Esau himself in history.) God gave Moses the answer to that question a long time ago:

"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." (Exodus 33:19)

Many would say this smacks of injustice. If God was just, he would grant Esau the same clemency that he did Jacob, the same grace, the same love. Anything else would be unjust, surely. But would it? To answer this question we need to understand what justice is and what mercy is and I would like to take a brief diversion into my own life to illustrate both.

For twenty five years I wandered about in the atheistic wilderness, living a hedonistic, amoral existence [see The Return of the Prodigal]. In July 2002, God drew me to conversion, and I was saved. Did I deserve to be saved? No! I deserved to die, because sin is punishable by death! That I didn't was the mercy of God in action, exercised totally because he deigned to.

Let us go back again to July 2002, and consider briefly what might have happened if God had chosen not to draw me to conversion. I would have simply died out there in the desert, and spent the rest of eternity grinding and gnashing my teeth until they wore down to the roots. Could I have blamed God for this? Of course not, because this would have been justice! But God chose, instead, to have mercy on me. Is mercy justice? Not quite. But then it is not injustice either; it is simply nonjustice.

It is important that we understand this. It is also important that we understand that God's mercy is entirely at his own discretion. Most of us take it for granted, believing that His mercy is automatically forthcoming. When it isn't, we cry, "Foul!" We would do well to remember that God is never obligated to be merciful. It is the same with grace. God never owes grace. Both grace and mercy are gifts and we shouldn't expect either. The only thing we should expect is justice. For all of us who persist in sin, that translates as death.

Taming the Tongue: Slander

We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. (James 3:2-6)

Ever seen a forest fire? Every year, right across the globe, fires rage across forests, burning everything for miles and miles as they last for days, sometimes weeks. By the time they are spent whole acres are land are nothing by cinders. In many instances, these huge fires are caused by a smouldering matchstick or a cigarette butt that's been carelessly tossed away.

The tongue is like that match stick or cigarette butt. Tossed carelessly, it causes havoc that is often as bad as what we see after a forest fire, leaving reputations, honor and, very often, lives in ruins. Unfortunately, many of us don't realize that even as it destroys others, loose talk endangers our very salvation, as Jesus Himself warns. One day, speaking to the Pharisees (whose hypocrisy constantly kept his blood on the boil), he rasped:

You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matthew 12:34-37)

The advice to them holds good to us: We will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word we have spoken. For by our words we will be aquitted, and by our words we will be condemned.

Think about the last conversation you had with someone. What did you say? Did you, either out of anger and malice, or for sheer entertainment, slander somebody? Did you, for a moment, think about the consequences your words might have on that person? Did you think about the consequences they might have on yourself? Chances are you didn't, otherwise you probably would have been very judicious about the things you said. And because you didn't think about any of this, it might be good to do so now and ponder about the ramifications of your words. They could be deadly. Does this sound a little over dramatic? Let me tell you a little story. It's a true story that took place recently.

Caroline D'Souza is a member of the HSI Community in Borivili. She went for a seminar by Catholic apologist Steve Ray when he was in Bombay last month. While there she met a young man who, in conversation, asked her if she belonged to any prayer group. She said that she didn't belong to any prayer group as such, but was part of Holy Spirit Interactive. "Aneel Aranha's ministry?" he asked. She nodded, pleased that he seemed to know me, but in a few moments her pleasure turned to shock as he told her that I was a rebel preacher who worked in total disobedience to the Church, and other assorted nonsense. Caroline is an intelligent girl but such is the power of slander, especially persuasive slander, that it can really rattle people.

Fortunately, she shared this with me, asking if there was any substance to these allegations. Bemused, I asked her where the HSI meetings were held. She said they were held in a Church. I asked her if she thought it was possible for me to have my meetings in a Church without the permission of a parish priest and she agreed that it wasn't. I then asked her if it was possible for the parish priest to invite me to start a full fledged community in his parish without the blessings of the Bishop and, again, she agreed that it wasn't. I didn't need to say anymore. As I said earlier, Caroline is an intelligent girl.

Frankly, I don't care what this bloke, who doesn't know me from Adam, says about me. I never cared what people said about me when I was a bad guy; I care even less now that I'm a good guy. But I shudder when I think of the damage these people—mostly Christians—are doing to the Church that we are trying to grow. I could get to Caroline and explain things to her, but what about the thousands of people I will never have a chance to meet and explain. They will simply believe the lies being fed to them and feed them to others in turn, not even attempting to find out if this is the truth! Think of the destruction caused by the slander!

There was once a man who hated a rival so much, he decided to destroy him, and slander was the easiest, most effective way. He accused his nemesis of loose sexual morals, and as the slanderer doesn't have to prove anything—the burden of proof falls on the accused—he succeeded in destroying the poor fellow's reputation, along with his marriage and much else, completely.

Some time later this man was overcome by remorse (I figure he must have really discovered Christ) and made his way to the confessional. There he poured out his sins, promising that he would never repeat his mistake. The priest listened to him patiently, absolved him, but then instead of giving him a few Our Father's or Hail Mary's to say as his penance, told the penitent to go to the market and get him a chicken. "On the way back, I want you to pluck the chicken," the priest told the man as he left the confessional.

Notwithstanding this rather strange penance, the man went to the market as instructed where be picked up the plumpest bird he could lay his hands on. As he returned to the church, he plucked the features off the bird and tossed them away one by one. By the time he got to the priest, the chicken was plucked clean. "Here's your chicken," he told the man of the cloth.

"I want you to go back to the market," the priest told him, "and stick the features back on the bird."

"But that is impossible," the man cried. "They would all be swept away by the wind!"

"Yes," the priest said. "Just like your words. Nothing you do will ever bring them back."

This is a story we would all do well not to forget, understanding that once we have spoken ill about somebody there is nothing we can do to get our words back. I'm not going to beat you on the head with more about this, though I would like to leave you with something that Paul warned the Corinthians about:

... nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:10)

And as a final note, do read the previous post on the Triple Filter Test. It offers some invaluable advice on how to deal with slanderers—and how to make sure that we don't become slanderers ourselves.

The Triple Filter Test

In my talk on "Taming the Tongue" I narrated an anecdote about Socrates that you may find interesting—and useful, especially when it comes to dealing with gossipmongers.

Socrates, as you probably well know, was a Greek from yonks ago who was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?"

"Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to filter what you're going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, even though you're not certain it's true?"

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued. "You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really..."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?"

The man was defeated and ashamed.

Still Standing in Chile

Image credit AP/Gulf News

The End of the World - Part 2

For those who missed the last post here's the parable of the Ten Virgins retold. It's got a lot to do with the end of the world so you may wanna read it closely.

Ten women go with lamps to await the arrival of the bridegroom. Five of them are prepared with extra oil. Five of them however make no extra preparation. It is what makes them "foolish" for reasons we will soon discover. The bridegroom is delayed in his coming and, tiring of waiting for him, the women fall off to sleep. Suddenly at midnight the bridegroom’s arrival is announced. The women wake up and check their lamps, the ones without surplus oil realizing that their lamps are running dry. They plead with the other women to share their oil, but the women refuse, saying there is not enough to go around. As the women without oil go out to try to find some, the bridegroom comes and takes those who are prepared with him to the wedding banquet. When the foolish women arrive much later, they are not allowed in. "I do not know you," the bridegroom says.

We're the women in the story - Christians carrying the lamps of salvation. The oil is, of course, generally considered a symbol of the Holy Spirit (cf. Exodus 29.7, 27:20, Psalm 133:2, Mark 6:13, James 5:14, Leviticus 8), and some of us are filled with him! As a result, love overflows from our hearts. And joy. And peace. And patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (cf Galatians 5:22-23). That's what happens when your lamp is full. Others among us have just about enough to get us by.

Jesus is the bridegroom and he is a little late in coming (folks have been expecting him for nearly 2000 years!), and we get complacent. Then suddenly - you gotta picture this - you hear the rumble of excited noise and, then, a moment later somebody yells out that Jesus is around the corner and he is headed your way. You do a lamp check and discover that you're short of oil. Very little love. Hardly any peace. You're low on everything. Worse, you got unconfessed sin your life. You have unforgiveness in your heart. There are areas in your life that are unsurrendered. You go out looking to right whatever's wrong and while you are gone, Jesus comes in and takes whoever is ready.

Finally, you get everything sorted and you make your way to the wedding banquet, which is heaven in case you haven't figured it out already. The gates are closed and as you approach it you see a man knocking on it. Jesus comes out and the man says to him, "Jesus, let me in. I'm a believer. I went for mass every Sunday and went for prayer meetings every Friday." But Jesus says to him, "Sorry, buddy, but that won't do. Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (cf. Matthew 7:21).

As you watch, open mouthed, another man knocks on the gates and says to Jesus. "Lord, let me in. I drove out demons and healed the sick and did other assorted miracles, all in your name." But Jesus says to him, "But you didn't have any love in your heart. Sorry, but I don't know you. Away from me, you evildoer!' (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, Matthew 7:22-23).

You stand there frozen as yet another man approaches and asks Jesus to let him in. "I'm sorry, but I can't," Jesus replies. "I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' And the man answered, "Lord, when did I see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' And Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me" (see Matthew 25:31-46).

What do you think is going to happen to you? Are you going to be allowed in?

These things that I have spoken about are things that Jesus has said. He may have been speaking to the Jews, but His words are equally relevant to us. He constantly cautions us to be careful about how we lead our lives. Faith in Christ Jesus is the only thing we need to be saved, but once we are saved we can't continue to live like pagans. Paul and the other apostles also warn us repeatedly to be careful about this. See Paul's warning to the Galatians:

"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."

Paul was speaking to baptized Christians! As a Christian preacher I am duty bound to warn you too, despite the fact that it is an unpopular (and very scary!) message. A lot of people would have you believe that you have nothing to worry about and lulled into a false sense of complacency, you'd probably find yourself sleeping well at night. I would rather keep you awake a few nights here on earth, than have you spending an eternity of sleepless nights. I want to see you there at the wedding feast.

Which brings me to the important question? When is the feast gonna begin? Or, if you want to ask the question in a different way, when is the world going to end? I don't know. It could be five years from now; it could be fifty; it could be five hundred. But what I do know is that for YOU the world ends the day you die. And that could happen at any moment as the people in Indonesia discovered when the Tsunami came and swept them away. Or, more recently, as the people of Haiti found out when the ground swallowed them up; nearly 300,000 of them died in one single blow.

Are you ready?

The End of the World

In the third week of December 2007, while I was in prayer I had a strong sense of God speaking to me, telling me that I needed to speed up on things a little because time was running out on humankind. "I'm going to pour out my grace in great abundance for the next five years," he said. "So make the most of it."

"And after that, what, Lord?" I asked. "You're gonna pull the plug?"

There was no reply, except for a repetition of the same message again, that for the next five years he was going to pour his grace out like never before, but about what was going to happen after that nary a word. God can be pretty annoying with the way he communicates sometimes.

I shared this with a few people who were close to me, and after a lot of subsequent thought and prayer came to the conclusion that — assuming the message was legitimate — God was going to do his best to draw as many people as he could for the next five years after which he would, quite possibly, take a step back and let the pieces just fall where they would.

Fast forward to January last year. I got into a conversation with a neighbor who asked me if I had heard anything about the world coming to an end in December 2012. My first thought was that somebody had told him of the "message" I had received and was getting set to rag me about it, but then decided that he couldn't possibly have heard about it. None of my confidants had big mouths. I asked him what made him think the world was coming to an end. He grinned cryptically and asked me to Google it.

I went home and did as he suggested, my mouth dropping open at the number of links about December 2012 that popped up. It seemed that everybody from the Mayans and the Chinese to the New Agers and certain astronomers believed the world was going to end in that month! A few months later Roland Emmerich got into the act, releasing his extremely popular disaster film 2012 based on these beliefs, leading a lot of people who had seen the movie, especially youngsters, to ask me if the world was ending in two years. For some reason people think preachers have the answers to all questions. Some folks asked Jesus the same question too, but, unlike me, he does have the answers to all questions, so it's best we see what he says.

Jesus had been sitting on the Mount of Olives when his disciples approached him. "“Tell us,” they said, “what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3).

After a long sermon on the signs they could expect to see, Jesus said he couldn't tell them when he would return. "No one knows about that day or hour," he said, cautioning them to be alert, therefore, because when the day did come, he would come like a thief in the night (cf. Matthew 24:36, 42-44). He then went on to tell them three stories: one about a bunch of women who were invited to a wedding; another about a man who went on a journey leaving varying amounts of money with his servants; and the third about the sorting out of the righteous from the unrighteous after the return of a king. We'll look at all the stories, the first in some detail.

The Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13)
“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ “ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. “Later the others also came. ‘Sir! Sir!’ they said. ‘Open the door for us!’ “But he replied, ‘I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.’ “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

As with all the parables that Jesus told, this image is borrowed from the practices and customs of Jesus's times. Let's take a brief look at an Israelite wedding. In an Israelite wedding, the focus was not on the bride, as it is in our weddings. The focus was on the bridegroom.

When the time came for him to be married, he would leave his house, or his parents house, and make his way across town to the house in which all prospective brides waited. He would pick them all up and then make his way back to his house where the wedding celebrations would be held.

It could be pretty late when this happened, and night time in a first century Israelite village could get very dark. If you wanted to negotiate the darkness you needed a lamp, and you had to make sure that it stayed lit.

This is the setup for the story. And this is the story retold:
 
Ten women go with lamps to await the arrival of the bridegroom. Five of them are prepared with extra oil. Five of them however make no extra preparation. It is what makes them "foolish" for reasons we will soon discover. The bridegroom is delayed in his coming and, tiring of waiting for him, the women fall off to sleep. Suddenly at midnight the bridegroom’s arrival is announced. The women wake up and hastily trim their lamps. The ones without surplus oil realize that their lamps are running dry. They plead with the other women to share their oil, but the women refuse, saying there is not enough to go around. As the women without oil go out to try to find some, the bridegroom comes and takes those who are prepared with him to the wedding banquet. When the foolish women arrive much later, they are not allowed in. "I do not know you," the bridegroom says.
 
Next: So what does it all mean?

The Frogs

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything lately, but I've been busy talking to catechists, confirmation kids and assorted others over the past few days, I didn't have any time to write anything. But here is something I felt you may enjoy. It was sent to me by a friend this morning (thanks Julie!) and I found it charming.

A farmer came into town and asked the owner of a restaurant if he could use a million frog legs. The restaurant owner asked the man where he could possibly get so many legs.

The farmer replied, 'There is a pond near my house that is full of frogs - millions of them. They croak all night long and drive me crazy!'

So the restaurant owner and the farmer made a deal that the farmer would deliver frogs to the restaurant, five hundred at a time for the next several weeks.

The farmer returned to the restaurant a week later looking rather sheepish. He had with him with two scrawny little frogs. The restaurant owner asked him: 'Well? Where are all the frogs you promised me?'

The farmer replied, 'I was mistaken. There were only these two frogs in the pond. But they sure made a lot of noise!' 

Lesson: Next time you hear someone criticizing or making fun of you, remember, it's probably just a couple of noisy frogs with big mouths.

Also remember that problems always seem bigger in the dark. Have you ever laid in your bed at night worrying about things which seem almost overwhelming ... kinda like a million frogs croaking? Chances are pretty good that when the morning comes and you take a closer look, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.

Methods of Contemplative Prayer

Mother Nadine, founder of Bellwether, more famously known as the Intercessors of the Lamb (http://www.bellwetheromaha.org/), is a friend I made during a visit to Omaha a couple of years ago. She is a contemplative whose writings on the subject you may want to read. One of the methods she suggests is taking "an elevator ride from the mind down to the heart". I found this a useful technique that I adapted to suit my own needs, and I share it with you here.

Find a quiet place — a must for any contemplative prayer — and after a time of worship, imagine getting into an elevator that's stopped on the floor of your mind. You press the button to the heart, and very slowly the elevator begins to descend. It gets slower as it goes down, and quieter as well, until it finally stops at the heart. There you open the door and you find Jesus (or the Father/Holy Spirit) waiting for you. He takes your hand as you step out and leads you to a secluded spot where you begin to engage in contemplative dialog with him. Ask him a question. Wait for an answer. That may lead you to another question. Ask. Listen. But let these questions and answers be heart to heart, rather than mind to mind. When you are done, review the conversation in your mind and extract insights or lessons that you have obtained.

Another good method is Ignatian contemplation, which makes use of active imagination within a selected gospel text. It is a method I followed for years before I discovered that St Ignatius had already put his mark on it, though my method was more meditative than contemplative. Difference below.

Read a passage from the Bible and ponder over it for a few seconds, running the entire scene in your mind's eye. Read it once again to take in any details that you may have overlooked. Read it a third time if you feel the need to do so, then close the book—and your eyes—and put yourself in the scene. Identify with a person or situation in the narrative and re-live what the Bible describes happened. It can prove to be a fascinating exercise.

We followed a similar method a few days ago as we meditated on Jesus's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (see link) but meditation involves more of the mind, whereas contemplation involves more of the heart. Therefore, when contemplating the Agony, there is more passivity when you re-live the scene, with others controlling the events of the scene and you just going along, making no judgements or comparisons, or trying to arrive at intellectual conclusions.

After you are done contemplating, you go through what actually took place during the time you spent in contemplation, writing down what you felt, thought, etc.

It's a lot of fun, really, and if you do try it, let me know how it went for you. God bless.

The Pillars of Contemplation

Jesus prayed a lot. He understood that prayer was not merely about petitioning God for favors, it was also about seeking his will, and Jesus did so before every major undertaking in his life (and presumably every minor undertaking too). Look at this narrative from Luke as an example:

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. (Luke 6:12-16)

We can learn a lot about contemplation from this little passage.

Pillar 1: Solitude
One, we see he went to a mountainside. He often went to the mountainside to pray. Why? Mountains are places of solitude. When in solitude, we set ourselves apart from all human beings, so that we can spend time exclusively with God. This is what Jesus advises us to do when he says, "When you pray, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen" (Matthew 6:6:). Not only does this build our relationship with God, time thus spent has remarkable purgative benefits, because it is in times like these that we are often, tried, tested and found to be true. Immediately after his baptism in the River Jordan, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. When he came out, it was in power, ready to begin his mission.

Pillar 2: Silence
Mountains are also very quiet places. I am sitting in my study as I write this. It is a relatively quiet place, with just the occasional aircraft flying overhead and the main door opening and closing to disturb the peace. Yet, I am aware that there is a lot of noise that I cannot really hear because I have become so accustomed to it. I discovered this a month ago when we suddenly had a power cut and all the appliances in the house shut down. Only then did I realize how much noise these devices made. But that is not the only noise there is. There is a perpetual noise in our heads too, with thoughts chasing each other like a million bees. It is so hard to think, much less listen, with all this noise going on, and if we really want to hear the voice of God, we need to have silence all around us.

Pillar 3: Prayer
What was Jesus doing on the mountain? He was praying. Read that as communicating. He was talking to the Father, telling him about the disciples who were following him, and asking which of them he needed to select as his apostles. I imagine Jesus speaking first, telling the Father about each man in turn, and then keeping quiet and listening as the Father started speaking, showing him the men he was to choose, and telling him why he needed to choose them. I imagine the anguish Jesus felt as Judas was named as one of the twelve, knowing the nature of the man and what he was going to do. But, still in prayer, he is comforted and strengthened as his Father explains. This is the real fruit of contemplation: obtaining understanding along with comfort and strength.

Pillar 4: Penance
It was morning before Jesus left the mountain side, having spent the whole night there. I don't think he took a tent and sleeping bag with him, which meant he was probably awake the whole time. Choosing God and his will over everything else will always cause discomfort—and even pain—but with it comes immense blessings as we cooperate with God in fulfilling his plans for us in our lives. Jesus didn't begin carrying his cross the day he walked toward Calvary; it began the moment he began his mission, and it is the same for us. Jesus said, "Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:27). We often believe that carrying a cross means carrying the burdens of life, but in Jesus's time carrying a cross meant only one thing: it meant death. We need to die, too, not so much to our body as to ourselves, and contemplative penance is a way of preparing ourselves.

Next: Pathways to Contemplation

Christian Unity: Do We Really Want It?

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began in 1908 as the Octave of Christian Unity, and focused on prayer for church unity. The dates of the week were proposed by Father Paul Wattson, cofounder of the Graymoor Franciscan Friars. He conceived of the week beginning on the Feast of the Confession of Peter, the Protestant variant of the ancient Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, on 18 January, and concluding with the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul on 25 January. That's tomorrow.

Our parish has been making a prayer for Christian unity in all its masses and the entire congregation drops to its knees as one. Yet, as we pray, I can't help wondering if we really want it in our hearts, given the prejudices we harbor against our Christian brethren. I reproduce an article that I wrote a few years ago here and invite your comments.

Ending the Catholic Protestant Divide

King Solomon was the third King of Israel. He was famed for his wisdom, and many people came to him for justice from far and wide.

One day, two prostitutes came before King Solomon, each claiming that the child they brought before him was hers. They had both recently given birth to a child but during the night one of the prostitutes rolled over her child and killed it. She exchanged her dead baby with the live baby of the other prostitute while she slept. When the other prostitute awoke, she found her baby dead but realized, upon close examination, that the dead baby was not hers.

So who did the baby belong to?

King Solomon ordered that a sword be brought and the baby be sliced in two, with each woman given one half. One of the prostitutes nodded her assent, saying she believed that justice was being done. The second woman, however, screamed a protest saying that the other woman could have the baby, but not to kill it. Solomon promptly had the baby given to her.

I heard this story as a child and I don't remember being particularly impressed by it. What person, no matter how miserable he or she was, would have it in their heart to have a little baby cut into half, I wondered. But after I returned to the faith, I realized that not only did a lot of people have it in their heart to do so, they went about it with great enthusiasm. I refer, of course, to us Christians from all sides of the divide who use the sword, which is the Word of God, to cut the baby, which is the body of Christ, into little, little pieces!

It is not hard to see why. There is tremendous pleasure — and power — you get from wielding this particular sword, and the temptation to do so is often overpowering, even when you don't quite know how to use it. Or, perhaps, especially when you don't know how to use it. I must confess to being tempted to do so myself on several occasions. When I first started reading the Bible, for instance, I remember coming across several references to Jesus's brothers, which disturbed me greatly, because I knew that Catholic dogma stated that Jesus had none and here it seemed "obvious" that he did. I promptly went to Jesus and asked him outright, "Jesus, did you have brothers?"

"How does it matter?" he asked quietly. "Would you love me less if I did?"

The questions threw me entirely off balance. "No, I wouldn't," I answered finally. "I just wanted to know the truth."

Jesus merely smiled.

That smile shamed me. He knew it wasn't the truth I wanted. What I was really looking for was a sharpened blade to cut down my opponents. Which is what a lot of us Christians use the Word of God for. We ignore the prime commandments to love God and love our fellowmen and focus on things that will lead us to widen the rift between us and hate each other more. And we do it in the name of truth!

This isn't to say that truth is not important. It is. There are truths that I hold dear to me. And I will die for some of them because I believe that there are truths worth dying for. But I do not believe that there is any truth worth killing for. God's Word does not tell me otherwise. There is nothing in the Bible that says I should take you out into a dark alley and pound the truth — or what I believe the truth to be — into you so that you may be saved. Or that I should savage you in an argument, leaving you wondering if salvation requires erudition or faith in Jesus.

I rarely get argumentative on issues of theology; it tends to be unproductive. If asked what I believe to be true, I state my beliefs. If asked why I believe what I believe to be true, I explain the reasons for my beliefs. But only if the questions are asked with a desire for understanding, not confrontation. If the latter, I simply mumble something about how Matthew 7:6 makes for a good answer and walk away. I have enough forums to state my views if I am inclined to do so and it is then entirely up to the people who choose to read what I write, or listen to what I say, to accept what I say or reject it. I am happy if they do the former, and though I might be a trifle disappointed if they do the latter, I don't let myself get unduly upset; I see no reason why I don't have to get along with somebody because he happens to disagree with me.

Holy Spirit Interactive is one of the forums that I use to state my views and thus far has been a superb forum. It is Catholic and unashamedly so. So am I and so are most of the writers who write for it. We all write about issues related to our faith. But the reason we write is not to cut down our Protestant brothers (for whom we have the deepest affection), but merely to teach Catholics about their faith. Blind faith is not something God asks us to have and it is important to know why we do what we do and why we believe what we believe. This often has to be taught. If there is something that others can learn about our faith, they are welcome to find out about it here. It might give them more understanding of the immense body of knowledge and wisdom the Church has gathered over 2000 years, and also let them know that much of the prejudice that they have inherited is unwarranted and needless.

There is no shame in learning from us, just as there is no shame in us learning from them. I have learned a lot from my Protestant friends over the past several months and so, I am sure, has the Catholic Church over the years. We can learn a lot from one another if we can only stop the ungodly hatred that flows through our hearts and come together in love. We do not have to resolve all our differences to do this; we share enough in common for the differences not to matter. All we need to remember is that we are all one family, parts of this huge wonderful body of Christ, and there will be so much of healing that we can bring to the world if we can come together in love. It is simply doing what Jesus asked us to do, after all. Love one another, he said. And if we do, then the song we sing about them knowing we are Christians by our love will be more than a series of words strung together by a pretty tune. It will become a truth. A truth worth dying for.