FORGIVENESS: or, Brother and Sister Miner get Piggy [5.20.12]

[6:14] For if you forgive others

their trespasses, your heavenly

Father will also forgive you;

[6:15] but if you do not forgive

others, neither will your Father

forgive your trespasses.”

         ~ Matthew 6:14f NRSV

Brother and Sister Miner (not their real name) actually were husband and wife, a ministry team serving a dilapidated Pentecostal church somewhere along the Mississippi River about a generation ago.

Brother Miner reminded me of the Dalai Lama, what with his wide-eyed puzzlement behind big-lensed glasses.  Sister Miner reminded me of a dried apple with severely gray mold for hair.  Puzzlement and severity aside, they were a delightful couple.

One day Brother Miner confessed to being quite angry with someone.  He shared a few details, tried hard to snarl about it – snarling was something neither Brother nor Sister really knew how to do, but he gave it a decent shot – and then he said:

“Of course, I have to forgive so-and-so.  The Word says that if you don’t forgive, you won’t be forgiven, and that means you’ll end up in the lake of fire!  And I sure don’t want to end up in the lake of fire!  So I’m working hard on forgiving so-and-so!”

Give Brother Miner a few due liberties in what texts he was paraphrasing, and how he paraphrased it: nevertheless, these words of Jesus (Matthew 6:14f et al, above) are hard to hear, tough to accept, sobering to try to live with.

But as hard as Jesus’ teaching is to hear, forgiving someone is immeasurably harder for most of us, and few of us really know what it is we’re trying to do when we try to do it.

What is forgiveness?

And what exactly are you doing, when you forgive someone?

The short answer is: Brother and Sister Miner, in order really to forgive someone, have to get PIGGY … but that’s getting way ahead of the discussion at this point.  So, you can flag that answer if you want, but it’s really for later.

That’s partly because there are more questions to ask.

For example, and maybe it’s the most unsettling example of them all in this particular discussion: aren’t there times when it’s just plain naive and maybe dangerous to forgive someone?  Doesn’t that create a “safe space” for them to come back at you next time? … to go on doing whatever they did the first time, walking all over you, taking advantage of what turns out to be your naivete?

Substitute Al Qaida for the meanie who ticked off Brother and Sister Miner, and the President of the United States for Brother and Sister Miner, and you’ll get a glimpse of why that last question was – is – such a kicker.  What would have happened if President Bush just went all nice on us, and forgave Al Quaida?  (That's a hypothetical question, and not directed at whether you agree with the Bush Administration's actions.)

Let’s look at two words in the Matthew passage, and see if they can help:

First, “trespasses” – what are they?  What specifically is Jesus talking about?

Second, “forgive” – what is it?  What’s this thing He (Jesus) wants us to do?

“TRESPASSES”

The Greek in which the New Testament was written could be sophisticated in the number of words available to the speaker or writer, but in this case – “trespasses” -- it uses just one.

This one word is used 9 times, three of which are in our two verses.

It literally means “to fall down alongside or in the vicinity of.”

In this case, one’s trespasses are where one fell down in the vicinity of … well, me (or, of course, you).  This “trespass” presumably was “against” me, or you, although the word “against” doesn't appear in either verse we’re considering here.

So "to forgive" means primarily to forgive others their downfalls in your vicinity.  And, as you'll see, it doesn't necessarily imply any particular "guilt" or "wrongness" about the downfall either.  Its core, bald meaning simply is that it -- the downfall -- just happened.

“FORGIVE”

In this case, the New Testament uses at least three Greek words for “forgive,” and the shades of meaning in each are critical.

One word is used just one time, and it means to untie or loosen forcefully.  It gets translated into English as, among other similar words, “loosen, melt, destroy.”  In each of these, the underlying idea is that the basic nature or structure of something is changed by an outside agency (you or me, in this case).

Another word is used just three times in the New Testament, and it carries the meaning of doing something as a favor.  The underlying idea is that it didn’t have to be done, but the fact that it was done made it especially nice.

The third word is used 22 times in the New Testament, four of which are in our verses here.  It means to send away.  Nothing in the person or event is changed by being sent away; the act of sending away isn’t being done as a special favor.  The person or event is just sent away.

There are nuances to the metaphor of being “sent away”.

Obviously the person or event – I’m just going to say “person” from here on, but remember it can be a situation, a circumstance, a “happening,” an event too – no longer is in your immediate presence, your immediate field of view.  You are not perceiving or dealing with him or her.

More specifically, it’s kind of like saying, “out of sight, out of mind,” except that here you’re working first on putting her/him “out of mind.”  You’re sending her/him away from your thoughts.  You’re sending him/her “out of mind.”

You’re just not thinking about him, or her, or them, any longer.

PUT IT ALL TOGETHER, AND YOU GET …

The person you’re “forgiving” is someone who has fallen down in your vicinity. The fall "involves" you, presumably, more than it would if the person(s) had fallen somewhere else, somewhere farther away.  But as to how it involves you, the word itself says nothing -- and that is really important.

Maybe the fall was an accident.  It could have been due to the person's clumsiness.  It could be your fault, as in, you “bumped” or “tripped” them somehow.

The Greek word for “forgive” just doesn’t say.  Apparently the nature of the fall is irrelevant to the process of forgiving.

Or maybe the person you’re “forgiving,” by falling down in your vicinity,  fell so close to your “vicinity” that they banged into you.  Maybe you fell down in turn.  Maybe you dropped your Ming vase and it shattered.  Maybe you have a bruise or three.  Maybe their fall cost you the race.  Maybe it just generally overall made you look bad.

The word doesn’t say and so, again, apparently it’s irrelevant.

It could be that the person you’re “forgiving” had no relationship to you or your activities whatsoever.  Maybe they just fell down not too far away, you caught a glimpse of them dropping like a stone beneath your “radar,” it didn’t change anything you were doing or planning or hoping or dreading, it only may (or may not) merit a comment over dinner that night.  “Gee, I saw this person go down like Curly the Stooge in a some weird pratfall …,” and that’s it.

The word doesn’t say.

It only says this person fell down in your general vicinity.  Period.

And here’s the response required of you no matter how the fall affected you (or didn't): dismiss that person from your thoughts.

“Send them away” by leaving them alone in your thoughts.

You have “forgiven” them when you do. 

Now, that’s easy if their fall had nothing to do with you, and had absolutely zero affect on you.  You’re hardly going to think about them again; so “forgiveness” is something that – as they say – comes rather naturally.

It’s a little less easy if the person made an ass of themselves by the way they fell.  You may want to bring it up over dinner that night, entertain your family and friends, get a good laugh at this person’s expense.  But no, you must forgive them; you must send them away … from your thoughts.  Don't make fun of them.  Don't ridicule anyone.

(If their fall was heroic and saved a child’s life, it’s hard to see how they’d need “forgiving,” so I rather suspect Jesus would encourage you to keep them in your thoughts, and to hold them up to family and friends as an example.)

It’s increasingly difficult to send them away in your thoughts, if it’s someone you don’t like in the first place … and their fall was clumsy, or somehow interfered with you, your plans, your life, your person, your possessions.  You want to joke about how stupid they looked.  (Yes you do! I love it when an “enemy” does something stupid.  Just watch me around Tea Party advocates and right-wingers in general.)  Or you want to "get even."

The word does have something to say now: it says, send them away in your thoughts. Forget them.  Leave them alone.  Don't enjoy an "enemy" looking stupid and awkward ... don't fantasize (let alone act on) getting even.

It bears repeating just how hard it is if their downfall banged into you … made you drop and break something … gave you a few bumps and bruises … wrecked your own plans … let you down … even cost you the whole race.

Now you’re angry.  Now you do not want to let them out of your thoughts.

And it’s right here that an especially tenacious fantasy sets in, too: If I don’t deal with this, point it out, expose it, even stop it from ever happening again, it will happen again, maybe worse next time, so I just cannot and will not, in all responsibility as a good citizen and a reliable human being, let this thing go.

And the word says: send them away in your thoughts, regardless.

But they owe me an apology!

Send them away in your thoughts.

But they have it coming!

Send them away in your thoughts.

But … but … but …but …

No buts about it.  Send the fallen-down person away in your thoughts.  Let go of them.  Turn them loose.

It’s not up to you to change their nature, the structure of their mind, their emotions, their soul – it’s up to God.

It’s not up to you to do them any special favors – that only feeds you with a new illusion, namely that now they owe you one.

Besides, this is no “special favor.” This is Torah.  This is Law.  This is, for crying outloud, Dharma!  This is Tao!

This is a structural reality at the Ground of the universe.  (The poet and peace activist monk, Fr. Thomas Merton, in a letter once referred to this ultimate level of Reality as “the hidden Ground of Love.”  It only makes sense that, if the ultimate [even if hidden] Ground is Love, then mercy, kindness and above all forgiveness is rooted precisely There.)

This is the Word of God coursing through all things, and any act that interferes with Its free coursing through all things, distorts and – in some instances – even wrecks all things.

Just send that person or group away in your thoughts.  Let go of them.  Period.  End of story.

Now this is complicated enough, without the added complexity that there may be some increased possibility, now, that they’ll do it again, only worse.  Especially if they take your forgiveness as a sign you’re weak, you’re a sucker, you don’t really mean business.  So take this paragraph, and the next three, as an aside.  There are three things to consider about your fears, or anyone’s fears, about some possible harmful outcome to all of this. 

[1] You can send this person away in your thoughts and still plan for what harm they might do next.  Send them away … and get busy planning against possible harm.  It takes long experience and considerable wisdom to separate the individual(s) from the possible danger, and deal with just the possible danger; but that’s your job.  And it can be done, especially if the beginning of this kind of wisdom is fear of acting alone – and so you surround yourself with wise counselsors, with sisters and brothers in the Spirit.

[2] This teaching in Matthew 6 comes with divine authority.  It’s how the universe works when God is allowed to be in control.  Anxiety about some possible harmful outcome, and future, is a sign – and symptom, for all that metaphor suggests – that we’re not about to give up control.  Dig hard and deep enough, and chances are pretty good you’ll find out you’re not really worried about what they’ll do next … chances are at least 50/50, maybe higher, you’re just antsy about having given up control, and so what is that beast Reality going to sneak up behind you and do next?

Deal with your/our own anxiety about loss of control, and keep sending the rest of it, consequences above all, to God.  “Let go, and let God,” is a more familiar way of saying the same thing.

[3] To drag 9/11 into the conversation – or for that matter, any large-scale tragedy – is a “category error.”  It is to confuse rather mundane interpersonal issues, with colossal public and political issues. President Bush’s “agenda” – regardless of what one may think of it, of how one might evaluate it – had to be on a public and political scale, not an interpersonal scale.  This “category error” does not invalidate the first two considerations above, but it does intensify their location on the interpersonal level of things, not the public and political level of things.  The Bible does not approach these public matters in the same way it approaches interpersonal matters; and, in fact, it will offer strikingly different – albeit no less counterintuitive – “visions” of how to go about rectifying large-scale, historic wrongs.

TIME TO GET PIGGY

How is this “sending away in our thoughts” done?

Brother and Sister Miner – and you, and I too – have to get PIGGY.

“PIG” here is an acronym:

P = Pinch

I = Ignore

G = Go on ignoring.

PINCH … thoughts like these (involving someone who has fallen down in your vicinity for whatever reasons) begin, not as full-blown thoughts, but as faintly aggravating little pinches.

They sting.  They annoy.  They are like a buzzing mosquito – there's hardly anything for you to focus on except that damn buzzing.

And that’s how they get your attention – not by presenting your mind with a full-blown memory, but by a pinch. A full-blown memory would be like a movie – a full-color, sound-enhanced replay of the incident that needs forgiving.  This is just a pinch … probably not even the first “frame” of the memory, the movie.  Just a pinch, an annoying little reminder of … of … of … oh yeah, of that thing. That incident.

It takes time and practice to recognize that snotty little pinch before it grows any larger, before it announces itself, declares to you exactly what it is and what it’s doing pinching you.  Right now, it's just that nasty little pinch-with-no-content-except-how-pinches-sting.

In fact, looking ahead for just a moment, that’s why “PIG” ends in that “G”  -- a reminder that this is a practice that takes practice, often years, decades, generations of practice … and accordingly, it takes time and patience.  But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Learn to recognize the pinches for what they are.  Each one is associated with specific memories trying to get your attention, but that’s “TMI” – too much information.  You don’t need to know which memory is pinching you for attention – that’s completely irrelevant.  You just need to know that a pinching in your mind is something trying to get your attention … and its character (that of a nasty memory) is completely embodied in the fact it is a stinging annoying nasty little pinch and not something with the scent of a rose and the nudge of a lover.

Take time … practice … learn to spot the pinches the instant they arise.

IGNORE … don’t talk to the pinch!  Ignore it!  It will keep nagging you, keep stinging you, pinching you, annoying you – you just keep on ignoring it.

The instant you say,”What? What are you saying?” … or, more likely, “Who?  Who is this?” … you’re in trouble.  Let me say that again:

You’re in trouble.

Because it – the pinch – will answer you.  The instant you so much as look at it, it will unfold into a picture of what it is … of what happened that now needs forgiving … and you’re in trouble.

Because pictures attract.

And that picture will draw you in.  It will have just enough of an emotional aura around it – negative emotions, mind you (and there’s no surprise there since it began as a nasty little pinch) – to really really hook you.

And it will turn into a movie, complete with 3-D visual qualities and digital stereo surround-sound.

And who ever resisted a movie staring themselves?  Not I … and, I’ll bet, not you either.

Do not talk to the pinch or it will morph instantly into a picture … and it will be ten times harder not to talk to the picture … and the instant you do, it morphs instantly into a movie.  And rare indeed is the soul disinterested enough to walk away from a motion picture starring them … even if everone knows, sadly, how it ends.  Again.  (These things can go on forever.  Ever notice that? Forever.  Unchanged.)

And now you are replaying the incident itself, on the surface looking for new ways to resolve it (in your favor, of course), but beneath the surface also just hating the hell out of the person or group who did you this wrong.

Ignore the pinch … if you failed at that, ignore the picture, although that’s going to be a lot harder to do … and if you failed at that, get on your knees and pray like mad because few are the souls who can ignore the movie that follows.

What’s worse: this movie rapidly is becoming a habit.  And before you know it – which is easy to understand, because already this has taken place without your full knowledge – you will be watching that movie all the time, replaying it endlessly, and pretty soon it will begin to harm your emotional and mental health.

Ignore the pinch … or you are in trouble.

Go on Ignoring… because it, this nasty little emotional pinch, is going to go on pinching.

Plan on learning to forgive as being a practice that will take you the rest of your life.

There are three reasons for you to plan on going-on-ignoring.  One is practical ... one is ego ... and the other is, well, ego.

[1] Practical

You will never, in this life, get so “good” at it that you don’t have to worry about forgiving any longer.

In the next Age, yes.  At the final Transfiguration of All Things, yes.  But we’re not there yet, and while we were told to stop our damn fool guessing about when and where that new Age will break in (Acts 1:7 et al), I’m still going to hazard a guess it’s not going to happen later today.  So I just have to go on practicing, and being patient with myself, and allowing for seemingly endless time needed for seemingly endless growth.

And so do you.

And so did Brother and Sister Miner (about whom, by the way, I have not the slightest worry in terms of the “lake of fire,” which, in my read of biblical metaphors, simply means a somewhat involuntary refining process in which the un-PIGGY parts of us are burned out until we are healed, well, and whole.)

[2] Ego

Remember the other two words for "forgive"?  Remember how one of them meant to change the nature of a person or thing?  To change his or her or its structure?

Sometimes we forgive, under the fantasy -- or hope -- that by forgiving that person or group, they'll change.

That's ego on our part.  They might change; more often than not, they won't change; and regardless of the outcome, that's not forgiving.  That's flexing our magical powers, hoping to conclude this particular fantasy by riding into Heaven (or at least our own living room, with doting family and friends awaiting our approach) on a white charger, the Eternal Good Guy or Gal who saved someone's soul.

Forget it.  Whether anyone is changed or not, we "forgive" -- we "send away and out of our thoughts" because Jesus said so ... and His saying so is consistent with His nature, God's nature.  And that's all we're after: to reclaim a little bit of creation for God's reign.  Not for a display of our magically transforming powers.

[3] ... and More Ego

Remember the other word for "forgive"?  Remember how it meant to decide to grant someone a wonderful favor?

That's ego again.  Behind it lies the fantasy that we're just the nicest, most grace-filled person you'll ever know.  And so occasionally -- it's always only just occasionally, you may have noticed -- occasionally we hand out a boon.  How magnificent of us to do so!

But once again, that's just our ego preening and hoping -- even assuming -- someone is watching, and that someone will just melt into sighs of wonderment at the size of our heart!

Forget it.  Whether our "forgiving" is perceived as a boon, or, more likely, as a bone-headed bleeding-heart blunder, is entirely irrelevant.  We forgive -- we send someone's fall out of our thoughts -- because Jesus said so ... and this saying-so is consistent with His boundless heart of compassion ... with God's boundless heart of mercy ... not ours.

Forgive … and go on forgiving.  Jesus said for at least 70 times seven times (variant reading of Luke 17:3-4), which, in the mathematics of Eternity, means forever.

That’s big PIGGY, but even at that, it’s not as great as God’s own love for we who need it so desperately ourselves.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful to me, a sinner.  Amen.

THE MIGHTY BOLD & GUTSY MIGHTY MIGHTY MEEK [5.5.12]

“Blessed are the

meek, for they shall

inherit the earth.”

[Matthew 5:5 TNIV]

Once upon a time I went around apologizing for anything and everything. It was a doe-eyed and breathy “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry,” that was meant to sound like I was the nicest and meekest guy in the world.

Now, though, I know better. Now I go around apologizing for anything and everything, usually with a doe-eyed and breathy “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry” because I just have this damned habit, see. I know it’s not because I’m the nicest guy anywhere, and I know it’s not meekness.

Of course, that’s what many, maybe most folks think “meekness” is – apologizing like you have an apology gene on steroids.

Of course, I would love it (I think) if people like that did inherit the earth – and run it too – although in my better, less door-matty mind I know I’d soon go crazy with all of that seemingly uncaused niceness that really is just a cheapo cover-up for something actually not so nice.

But maybe someday we can chat about what that “something … not so nice” really is. Today, let’s chat about what the Bible does – and doesn’t – mean by being meek.

A clue lies in the English word often used to translate the Greek word for “meek” which is italicized and underlined in the words of Matthew 5:5, quoted above.

(“TNIV”, by the way, means “Today’s New International Version of the Bible.” It is the old NIV reworked in nicely gender-inclusive language, along with a few other scholarly changes. Sadly, it seems not to have caught on among evangelical Protestants, for whom it was especially intended – rather like winning pennants seems never to have caught on with the Chicago Cubs.)

And that English word often used instead of “meek” is humble.

The English word “humble” is rooted (no pun intended, but it would be a good one if intended!) in the Latin word from which we get our English word humus.  It suggests soil, earth, earthy again.

The “meek” are the humus of the earth, the earth people, the earthy people. Of course, this could have "Green" undertones; but first and foremost, it just has earthy undertones.  These are the down-to-earth people. They literally are grounded – something usually seen as a virtue by usually the same folks who often deride Christian meekness.

Now, the Christian New Testament was written in a version of Greek that was in use around the eastern end of the Mediterranean during the first century of the Common Era. And so whether our English version of the New Testament reads “Blessed are the meek…” or “Blessed are the humble,” it’s just one Greek word being translated.

And that one Greek word means gentle or mild or … humble.

Blessed are the rooted, grounded, down-to-earth folks, for they will inherit the earth.

Here's one more Greek word from Matthew 5:5, and it, too, is important: the one translated here as “earth” -- it means soil. Earth.

It can be used metaphorically to refer to a region or district, a province or entire country … but basically it, too, means dirth, earth.

Putting it all together, Matthew 5:5 says this:

“Blessed are the grounded, rooted, down-to-earth

folks, for they shall inherit that same earth.”

Which, when you think about it, makes sense: they were close to that earth to begin with. They know it intimately. They know it better than most of the rest of us, so, who better to run that earth when the Time comes? (“Time” spelled deliberately with a capitol “T” … in reference to the coming “Great and Terrible Day of the Lord,” the Restoration of All Things, the inbreaking of Eternity-time [God’s] into Ordinary-time [the universe’s], the Great Transfiguration, and/or whatever you in your own faith tradition may say to refer to the coming of God’s Final Reign.)

Everything I have said thus far is intended largely to demonstrate one thing: the meek, the humble, do not go around apologizing all the time for everything.

They are not doormats. They are not pushovers. They most definitely are not the wimps of the world.

Before we say what they are – or at least what they might be – let’s look at one person specifically called “meek” in the Bible. Let’s look at Moses, who, we are told, …

“… was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.” [Numbers 12:3 TNIV]

The Hebrew Bible (Christian “Old Testament,” but remember that for Jesus and all other Jewish people this was their Bible) was written in Hebrew. And the word translated here as “humble” is the only word used this way in the entire Hebrew Bible, and basically it means gentle (state of mind and emotions) and/or lowly, poor (circumstances).

Moses was a gentle man … Moses was a lowly (as in poor) man.

Now before we go on, I'll throw a curve here. For a very long time in the ancient world, the majority of the Jewish people lived in exile, outside of the site of ancient Israel although mostly still in the general area of the Mediterranean. The exile was known as the "Diaspora."

In fact, Diaspora Jews tended to live mostly in what once had been the Greek Empire.

Living outside of the homeland, they began to speak the language of the nations in which they lived; and over the course of a few generations, they largely forgot how to speak and read Hebrew.

So the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, since Greek was the language of diplomacy and commerce just about everywhere in the former Greek Empire.

This translation was known as the “Septuagint” and actually was the one still in use at the time of Jesus, and in fact used by almost all (maybe all) of the New Testament writers. If a New Testament writer quotes from, let’s say, a Psalm or a prophet … and that quotation differs from what you see in your Bible (in English)… that’s because the writer is quoting from the Septuagint, which did vary somewhat from the Hebrew version at a few points.

So: in the Septuagint (Greek) of Numbers 12:3, what is the word used to describe Moses?

The Greek word is the same – and again it's translated gentle or mild or humble. The only difference is that, at Numbers 12:3, there is an additional word, an adjective that is translated as "exceedingly" ... as in, Moses was exceedingly grounded.  Moses was super-extra down-to-earth … gentle, humble, mild, lowly, poor.

And this is important because Moses was anything but a doormat and a chronic apologizer.


He killed an Egyptian who was abusing his people (Exodus 2:12).


He fled into, and survived, the Wilderness east of Egypt


He returned to Egypt, faced down Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s court spin doctors (magicians -- what else does a magician do but make things different by just saying they are? and what else is that but "spin-doctoring"?)


He led his people by the thousands out of Egypt while chased by the military on a night flight that ranks among as dramatic as any in recorded history (in fiction too, for that matter)


He led them through, and himself survived and outlived most of them in, the Wilderness for 40 years


He put down rebellions, settled disputes and such “lawsuits” as they might have had prior to the giving of Hebrew Torah (“law”). 


And when Torah was given by Yahweh God to the people (Exodus 20) – and later given again (Exodus 34) – it was Moses alone who had the guts to brave what probably was an active volcano (see Exodus 19:16ff) to let God speak through otherwise pure natural fury and terror … to blow away any and all tattered filaments and ripped-up threads of his former way of life, his former mind and “world view,” by its (the volcano's) inconceivable and raw, unfiltered sheer power … so that in the “raw meat” of what was left of his consciousness, a new mind and understanding might be placed … engraved in flesh as if on tablets of stone … and in turn relayed faithfully to these folks now gone wild back in the valley below … this absolutely dreadful, fearful encounter with Yahweh God, face-to-face … in order to come away dramatically changed but not, surprisingly, annihilated … with this new understanding of what would be required for life together in this new and scarred and intense community one day to be known as the Nation of Israel.

No doormats do that. No doormats will do that. No doormats can do that. No, these extraordinarily bold and gutsy things are done by the humble.  They are done by those who ordinarily have nothing left to lose ... or, if they do have something left to lose, nevertheless have managed to live as though they don't.  And ordinarily that means the poor (Luke 6:20) ... or at least those who have adopted and internalized the "world view" and values of the poor (Matthew 5:3).

Moses was a bold, an incredibly gutsy and brave guy. He was the meekest, most humble man they ever knew, and he did not go around apologizing for anything!

Interestingly, Moses also later was remembered as a prophet – those uncanny and infuriating poets who told the truth to raw political power and escaped, if they did, with their lives only barely: the Elijahs and Elishas, the Jeremiahs and Amoses and Micahs and Jonahs, even if some of them (like Jonah) existed primarily in the form of parable … each and every one of whom risked everything to tell the powerful what they did not want to hear.

They were incredibly gutsy and brave women (yes, there were female prophets) and men, and not a single one of them was a doormat. Had they gone around apologizing for anything, they would have been spewed out by Yahweh God as some kind of tepid and tasteless water (see Revelation 3:15-17, a letter written to a church that had failed precisely in its prophetic function).

That Jesus Himself – who modeled His ministry specifically along the lines of Moses (c.f. the Gospel of Matthew) and the prophets (Jeremiah in particular is a constant allusion throughout the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke); who had assassins and death squads after him almost from the git-go (c.f. Mark 3:6 and from then on); who was arrested, beaten up, subjected to a show trial, abandoned by just about all of His followers (and He saw that coming and went through with everything anyway), scourged (whipped just one blow short of the last and lethal one), put to death by the mode considered the most shameful of them all and therefore reserved for thieves and revolutionaries (which is what the placard atop the Cross, saying “This is the King of the Jews” in three languages was all about: charges of sedition, of conspiracy against the state, of terrorism to borrow a word), good decent Roman citizens need not apply; dying in one of the most hideous ways in the Roman repertoire of hideous ways – this Jesus Himself most certainly was not a doormat, not an apologizer of any sort.

He definitely was a humble Man, a meek Man, in all the ways described above.

And He definitely was a poor man, One with no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20).  He definitely was grounded -- each night, by the time of His ministry described in Matthew 8:20, He had to lay His head on the ground to sleep.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So where does this study leave us?

I only wanted to dismantle the common notion that “meekness” and “humbleness” are wimp-words, so will not dwell much on where this leaves us next.

They (the words meek and humble) are anything but wimp-words.

It takes a bold and gutsy, mighty mighty person – inside,, where all begins, where it counts – to be meek.

A central truth in all of this – perhaps the central truth – is that there is a “class” of people whom are meek, in the eyes of the Bible, Hebrew and Christian Testaments alike:

The Poor.

They are the ones who are rooted and grounded in the earth through no choice of their own.

They are the great great majority.

All political cant and rhetoric aside, they are the 99% ... now, and throughout history.

If you are reading this at all (meaning, you can read) – let alone on a computer – you almost certainly are not part of the 99% … and I say that with full respect and support for the “Occupy Wall Street” movement around the world. But rhetoric is rhetoric, and few if any of us are really part of the world’s vast majority, the real 99%


(That doesn't mean we don't have our own prophetic calling to challenge the 1%. We do.)

They, the poor, are close to the earth because there’s nowhere else to go. You have seen the barrios and favelas of the world, haven't you? In pictures at least? They are as close to raw earth as anything you'll ever seen, ever find, short maybe of grass or a tree.  And at the risk of getting carried away here with the overplus of metaphors: was the Cross itself not a Tree? (C.f. the vast hymnology, poetry and other literature that "works" that specific image of Cross as Tree.)

Throughout the Bible, the poor seem to be the special focus of Yahweh God’s special passion and concern, and ultimately of Yahweh’s Great and Final Day, Yahweh’s ultimate Great Reversal of all things. It is no joke that the “last shall be first” (see e.g. Matthew 19:30 among many others)


Jesus was, and is, One of them. If we want to find Him, Jesus, it is to them that we must go, and it is they whom we must serve (Matthew 25:31ff).


We must learn to be like them inside ourselves – in such nether-regions as our thoughts, emotions, world-views, values, ultimate passions and goals (Matthew 5:3, just two verses prior to our text here.

That’s scary and damn sobering business.

To shut our eyes to it, will result -- on that Day -- in our going around apologizing about anything and everything, and to keep on doing so just about forever (whatever "forever" means in terms of God’s time; the only possible “good news” in the word is that it is God time, not our smaller and conceited versions thereof).

What Matthew 5:5, and that squirmy word meek, all mean is: get busy getting down low, with the wretched of the earth, so at the End there will be no need for any of us to apologize … to the One and the only One before whom any of this ultimately will matter.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen.

JOURNAL 9/28/11 -- Is "Class Warfare" a Biblical Concept?

PRECIS: first, “class warfare” was a biblical concept thousands of years before it became a term in political discourse; second, therefore, those who are flinging the term around as a form of attack today are on shaky ground.

“When the ungodly behave

arrogantly, the poor are set;

let them be caught in the

counsels they ponder. … They

lie in ambush with the wealthy;

they kill the innocent in hidden

places; their eyes look intently

at the poor; they lie in ambush

in a hiding place like a lion in

his den; they lie in wait to seize

the poor, to seize the poor to drag

them away. They will humble the

poor in their snare; but they will

bend down and fall when they rule

over the poor. For they said in their

heart, ‘God forgets; God has turned

God’s face so as never to see it’.”

[Psalm 9:23, 29-32 LXX,

Orthodox Study Bible]

[FIRST]

Psalm 9 – which I am using as the text above primarily because it “just happens” a part of my biblical meditation this week -- has verses within it which, in my opinion, represent the plurality of the biblical texts and tradition on “class warfare.”

It’s a “plurality” because there exist considerably more than just one “theology” in the Bible, each represented by their own group of texts. But, in my considered opinion, this “theology” is represented by the largest single group of text, even if that those texts don’t make up quite half of all texts. That’s what a “plurality” is. (Although in my reading of the Bible over the years, and done without counting verses in this matter, my sense is that this group of texts, and therefore this theology, makes up far more than half.)

“Theology,” by the way, simply means “words about God.” Our human “theologies” are those words we use about God, and about ourselves in relationship with God, based on our encounters with God. In the Christian tradition, the “Word about God” is Jesus Himself; all other words are human words about the Word.

On to the words of Psalm 9 …

Psalms 9 and 10, in the Hebrew Bible (“Old Testament” to Christians), originally was one psalm. There are many reasons for saying that; but, for purposes of this particular blog post, it takes us too far afield to go into those reasons. But unless you’re using a version of the Hebrew Bible known as the “Septuagint” (“sep-TOO-a-gent”) – see next paragraphs – you will see the original Psalm 9 as two consecutive Psalms, 9 and then 10.

The Eastern Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible. Originally, it was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. When someone quotes from the Septuagint – as I did above – it is noted by adding the letters “LXX” at the end of the reference, as I did above. LXX is “70” in Roman numerals, and refers to the legend that the Septuagint was the work of 72 scholars working for 72 days (later, the legendary number somehow dropped to 70, or LXX).

What’s important about that is, the Septuagint was the most commontranslation of the Hebrew Bible throughout much if not most of Palestine, and all the Mediterranean world, at the time of Jesus. It is the translation used by Paul and almost every other New Testament writer, including the Gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

So that version of Psalm 9 –quoted above in English – is what just about any New Testament person would have known just from hearing it read. If they knew how to read – which most people in first century Palestine did not – they would almost certainly have read from the LXX too.)

(Jesus Himself, while growing up, probably heard – and ultimately memorized – an Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Bible known as a “Targum.” But that, too, is a long story that would take us outside the focus of this blog post.)

In these verses, the “ungodly” – often translated as “wicked” – are those who beat up on the poor.

And they are in cahoots with – they “lie in ambush with” – the “wealthy,” thepower élite of ancient Hebrew society. And their target is “the innocent,” “the poor.”

That is biblical “class warfare.”

It does not mean that all the wealthy are bullies who oppress the poor.

And it certainly does not mean all the poor are innocent.

But it does mean just what 1 Timothy 6:10 tells us: "The love of money is the root of all evil." Greed for money -- greed of any kind, for anything -- is worship of an idol (Ephesians 5:5). The former thief is enjoined to work with his/her hands, "... that s/he may have something to give to the one who has need" (Ephesians 4:28) ... and there is no evidence the former thief wasn't a rich person who stole. The Bible is full of examples of the rich whodid steal, Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1ff) being an important example, and the prophets of the Hebrew Bible using as all of their examples of societal wrongs the examples of rich and powerful who stole land, money, and even rights.

The poor likewise are sinners, and are equally able to rob, plunder, destroy. But they lack the capacity to do so on the scale of the rich and powerful. Therefore they are guilty, but not nearly as responsible.

In any event, and on any read, you just have to come to terms with this fact in this, the “plurality” theology of the Hebrew Bible: those who beat up on the poor are the “wealthy,” and the “arrogant” and “wicked” who lie in ambush with the wealthy.

And you have to come to terms with a fact of Hebrew poetry (all the Psalms, along with bunches and bunches and bunches of other Bible texts, are poetry): it “rhymes” by repeating ideas, not necessarily sounds … a “rhyming” known as “parallelism.” In these verses, wicked and arrogant and wealthy are in parallel; they “rhyme”; they mean essentially the same thing.

And furthermore, in these verses innocent and poor “rhyme.” They mean the same thing.

That too is biblical “class warfare” – the wealthy do violence to the poor, and in so doing identify themselves as the “arrogant” and “wicked,” and at the same time the poor in these circumstancesbecome the “innocent.”

It started with a God who is known as the one who “hears the cries of the poor” (Exodus 3:14 et al) … a God who hears and then acts.

And lest we think that’s only for the ancient Hebrews in what later became the nation of Israel, we have the prophets to remind us otherwise. Amos (chapter 1) is pretty blunt in detailing how YHWH’s bias for the poor weighs on, and if necessary against, any nation. All nations. That’s just the way this YHWH is.

And if that doesn’t convince, we have this same Amos bracketing, book-ending, as it were, his own writings with the affirmation than YHWH is in charge of an Exodus wherever needed, not just in ancient Israel oppressed by ancient Egypt (Amos 9:7).

That is biblical “class warfare.”

Now, where it differs from modern notions of “class warfare” is in this: YHWH is Himself the warrior. The oldest written passage of the Hebrew Bible is thought to be Exodus 15:21, the “Song of Miriam,” where Miriam (the sister of Moses) sings that it was YHWH who slammed Pharaoh’s army into the sea.

From that ancient moment onwards, consistently enough to claim at least aplurality of biblical texts on the topic, Hebrew Bible and New Testament alike (and I have no trouble claiming most of texts), YHWH God is clearly revealed as the One who hears the cries of the poor – those beaten up by the rich and powerful, those without any “social safety net” and without any protector or advocate – and becomes their Protector, their Advocate.

That is biblical “class warfare,” and it is the God of the Bible who is the warrior.

And that is solid biblical theology, too.

[SECOND]

For any political party or “movement” to cry “Class warfare!” as a protestagainst any and all efforts to rein in the power of the wealthy and powerful – and to shore up the rights of the weakest and most vulnerable among us – is at bestto go strolling out on ice fragile enough to crack under a serious question mark.

“Class warfare” originated, not with Marxists, not with socialists, not with any of their economic or political progenitors. It originated with the God of the Bible.

(I first wrote that it “originated in the West” with the God of the Bible … but in fact, this isn’t a Western notion at all. It’s at least Middle Eastern, Ancient Near Eastern specifically. And it’s not at all impossible it came there, several thousands of years ago, from even further away from the “Western world.”)

And it is God who works against these inequities … or, more honesty against this political and economic pornography.

Here’s why I say that:

The essence of pornography is to see and react to only the surface features of a body, based entirely on one’s lust for personal gratification (which isn’t necessarily “just sexual” either.) It is, accordingly, to refuse to acknowledge theperson beneath those surface features. And so pornographic acts are those which relate to the largely impersonal surfaces entirely for one’s personal, private satisfactions.

The refusal to take human beings, with their needs and sufferings, into account – into the bottom-line accounting rules of either government or, more commonly throughout the world today, corporate “free market” capitalism – is corporate pornography.

But the main point of Psalm 9 – and of this at least plurality of biblical texts and the theology that grows naturally out of them – is that God works in opposition to that suffering and wrong. God is anti-governmental and –corporatepornography when governments and economic powers begin to ignore – to not see – the face of the poor.

In fact, if God took human nature into the Godhead – which Orthodox teachings about the Incarnation as well as Ascension insist is precisely what happened in Jesus of Nazareth – then God entered our human dimensionality through a Poor Man.

What I call “the demographics of the Incarnation” show without doubt, that God elected to show God’s own nature most fully by becoming an itinerant poor Man, without even a place to lay His head, in the backwaters of the Roman Empire, among the outcasts of the political Empire (Rome) as well as the Religious empire (the élite of 1^st Century Palestinian Judaism).

That – among the poor and hungry, the overlooked and despised – is whereGod’s nature was, and is, revealed … where God was, and is, located (Matthew 25:31-46).

God’s “class warfare” does not take the form of violence, stories in the Hebrew Bible notwithstanding. The fall of the wealthy and powerful – as Psalm 9 (LXX) makes clear – is into the traps they themselves have set. God subtly withdraws uncreated energies from this person, that group, those circumstances … all at the prompting of our own human activity, individual and corporate … and relocates them in other people, groups, circumstances … all likewise at the prompting of our own human activity, individual and corporate.

It is what I call “Christic karma.” We set in motion the ripples that, in time, solidify into habit … and our hearts, like Pharaoh’s, become (self-)hardened … and ultimately we end up trapped in the circumstances of our own making. We choke off saving grace by our own poor choices, compounded in their effect by further poor choices until we have created a provincial hell (as opposed to the ultimate hell) on earth. And our freedom of choice and maneuver, long ago self-strangulated, is gone … and the trap we set has us, whether now or at some indiscernible time in the future.

God’s “class warfare” is to let us go with the momentum of rich and powerful against poor and helpless, until we fall.

Or as Psalm 9:31 (LXX) puts it:

“… [the wicked, the wealthy]

will bend down and fall when

they rule over the poor.”

Better – infinitely, eternally better – to see Christ Himself in and among the poor and hungry (Matthew 25:31ff), and choose instead to join the Father in loving and the Son. There, where He said we'll find Him.

Class love, or else class warfare.

And then the fall, and great will be the fall of it.

The choice is ours. The outcome ultimately is God’s.

JOURNAL 9/22/11 -- Tony Davis

“Put them in fear,

O Lord; let the nations

know that they are

only human” [Psalm 9:20 NRSV]

Around 10 p.m. yesterday -- Wednesday, September 21, about an hour before Troy Davis was executed in Georgia -- I tweeted the words: “Memory Eternal, brother in this Exile,” followed by Psalm 9:20.

[NOTE: for those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, a “tweet” is a short message sent over the Internet through a website known as Twitter. It is just 140 characters long, so is actually even shorter than a text message on your cell phone. If you aren’t familiar with text messages, it’s sort of like passing notes in school, except you pass these electronically by means of a telephone keypad instead of a typewriter keyboard. If I get a “tweet” from someone that I really like, I can “forward” it to others, in which case it’s called a “retweet.”]

Just why I tweeted that message is the source of three very hard questions the pending execution forced on me during the following hour … as well as the remainder of the night, and thus far into the present day. They are detailed as part of what follows.

None of them have to do with the guilt or innocence of Mr. Davis, I might add. He may have been completely innocent of the crime with which he was charged, or he may have been guilty as sin. The point of all of this activity – as a lot of people and organizations on Twitter repeated endlessly last night – is that there now was serious doubt about the verdict, easily enough doubt to justify a new hearing on the evidence if not a new trial altogether. Nothing last night or in what follows involves the guilt or innocence of Mr. Davis.

Over the next hour, until Mr. Davis’ death was announced at 11:08 p.m. EST, I did my small but fair share of retweeting – “forwarding” on Twitter – numerous news stories and sometimes poignant, sometimes pithy, almost (but not quite) always indignant quotes about the pending execution.

But this flurry of activity on my part was odd, frankly. Uncharacteristic of me in some ways. And that is how it became was the source of the three Ivery hard questions with which these past hours have left me.

I was a “Johnny [or Jeremiah?]-come-mighty-lately” to the campaign to grant Mr. Davis a reprieve and an “evidentiary hearing” (hearing to give a close careful review to the new evidence) and possibly a new trial. In fact, last night was just my third day of giving the whole issue any attention at all.

Troy Davis had been on death row in the Georgia State Penitentiary for much of the past 22 years, ever since he was convicted of killing a Savannah, Georgia police officer.

His execution came after considerable evidence had emerged that cast doubt on the original verdict. A global campaign to grant him a new trial, if not free him altogether, included organizations such as Amnesty International and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and notable figures including Pope Benedict XVI, former President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, former Director of the FBI William Sessions, and a long list of others.

It was, frankly, the name of the former FBI Director, William Sessions, that somehow caught my attention. I don’t really know why, since, of all the organizations and individuals, ordinarily I would have been most impressed to see Archbishop Tutu’s name. But catch my attention it – or he – did, some three days before. And from then on I began to poke around in the story and, finally, signed an online Amnesty International petition as well as Emailed a county judge in Georgia who, late in day yesterday, was said to be the last person with power to grant a stay.

And then there came my uncharacteristic volleying of tweets and retweets. And then 11:08 was announced … and then suddenly everything else on Twitter seemed trivial and utterly irrelevant … and I gave it up and went to bed.

In the middle of the volleying of tweets and retweets, two things happened that raised the first two very hard questions.

First, someone tweeted a different verse from the Bible (Romans 13:3-4) which would appear to “permit” capital punishment from a Christian perspective. The message stung me, annoyed me; and I barely caught myself in time to keep myself from saying something sarcastic in response.

So the first hard question of the night was: why did this get to me that way? How come I got so defensive, and wanted to hit back? And in particular: am I just as guilty of Bible “proof-texting” as I was muttering, rather loudly, this otherwise unknown Christian brother on Twitter clearly was? (Who, I hasten to say, manifestly did not direct that tweet at me.)

Second, I kept imagining how Mr. Davis would have felt during that final hour – in fact, during all of that final day. It was my own version of things, of course, which means I really was just imagining how I would feel on my last day, during my last hour. And it made me feel almost unbearably sad … and unaccountablyempty. As empty, as void and metallic, as a tin rain barrel. And that is a wretched, an awful feeling, at least my personal “inside me” version of it is.

So, the second hard question of the night was: am I just projecting my own emotions onto Mr. Davis? Projecting them in such a way that I really am not “opposed to the death penalty,” at least in circumstances like these (where there is an apparent deluge of new evidence)?

All the situation in and of itself clearly asked for – and on this point I was and still am adamant – was a new hearing, possibly a new trial. The situation in and of itself did not require me to announce – as I did, above all with Psalm 9:20 – that I was opposed to the death penalty.

And that last sentence by itself raised the final question:

Third, am I really opposed to the death penalty?

Or is this merely a part of my “liberal internal Parent”? My internal “authority figures” derived uncritically from various real-life figures (persons, books, institutions etc.) from over the past thirty-or-so years? Go back more than 30 years, and my internal “authority figures” were quite conservative, even if I never called them, or me, by that name.

And so the third hard question is just that: is my current ethical, political and (maybe above all) religious liberalism just as unexamined, just as “artificial,” as my former conservatism was? Do I just do public knee-jerks when I say what I believe, what I stand for, what I trust the faith is all about?

Let me tell you, those three questions make for one very hard night of tossing and turning and downright bizarre dreams.

I can’t say that today, not quite 24 hours later, I have any “answers.” I’d like to say I have some “directions,” some “directional” sense of where my own personal provisional conclusions might lie. That least my own mental, emotional and spiritual compasses have more/less swung to True North, so that from there I can begin on a journey that isn’t completely random and haphazard.

I’d like to say that ... but I’m not even certain about that. Yet.

Nevertheless, this is what last night’s events and upsets have begun to teach me … or at least to hint about where True North might be located, so at least when I start into the next step I won’t quite fall off the edge of the world. Yet.

[1^ST HARD QUESTION]

There was another Christian who tweeted her own annoyance at statements being made that that were entirely too broad, too unnuanced, and unsubstantiated. I seriously doubt this was referring to me. But in recent months, I have been far more “brazen” than usual in voicing my own opinions all over the place. And so last night I also was growing “paranoid” to to a certain degree, as my string of tweets grew longer and longer. I'm still just not good at this speaking-my-mind business. I would have made a lousy prophet.

Of the three questions, however, this one has stopped ringing around my head the most – ringing as though someone was beating on that tin rain barrel with a sledge hammer. Of my “direction” here, if not my final “answer,” I am increasingly certain today, the day after.

Here's one thing: you just can’t make complex arguments on Twitter – 140 characters will hardly fill out a Hallmark Card birthday greeting.

A second thing is, I know why I chose Psalm 9:20. There just wasn't enough room to say.

I did it for two reasons, other than the fact it, among dozens of similar verses in the Book of Psalms, happened to be part of my own daily Bible reading that morning.

I did it because it is a way of chanting my argument, much in the way aprokeimenon is chanted during Liturgy (and often is just a short selection from a given Psalm) … it summarizes the reading, or in my case the “argument,” to follow. It’s a deliberate pointer; it’s a not-so-subtle hint about what’s to come.

And I did it because I know what that verse means. I know how it picks up previous verses and their themes in Psalm 9 (and anticipates others in Psalm 10, the two psalms originally having been just one psalm, now artificially divided). For that matter, it is a common theme throughout not only the psalter, but the entire Hebrew Bible (“Old Testament”).

I also know, by the way, what Romans 13 means ... but more about that towards the end here.

And that them in the Psalms and elsewhere is: from the biblical perspective, all the nations continue the endlessly repeated “Fall” of the “Adams” and “Eves” of all generations, the folks who populate the nations. And that "Fall" we all go on repeating, individually and corporately (nationally in this case) is to give in to the temptation to be like God (Genesis 3:5). In this case, to bestowdeath (last night, execution by lethal injection) as a curse for actions (murder of a police officer in this case) pertaining to the Fall. It is usurp the right that belongs to God, and only to God, namely to take vengeance (Deuteronomy 32:35 et al.)

Now, interestingly, Paul quotes this Deuteronomy verse at Romans 12:19 and extends its implications to verse 20 – just before the chapter from which the Christian tweeter tweeted. In other words, the state's right to wield "the sword" is prefaced by -- arguably limited by -- a prior, previous injunction against taking vengeance. The key word, "context," is much heeded in these discussions -- but unfortunately, at 140 characters Twitter doesn't allow much of that.

But there is no wiggle-room. It doesn’t matter whether Mr. Davis, or any “Mr. Davis,” also gave in to the temptation to be “like God.” That judgment is strictlybetween God and Mr. Davis.

[NOTE: the Hebrew Bible (“Old Testament”) includes Torah that calls for executions. It also describes in unsettling detail the command of God to devastate and destroy entire villages, inhabitants, livestock. That needs to be the topic of another blog, but in short my reply is: there are “theologies,” plural, in the Bible. Which one qualifies, if not eliminates entirely, parts or all of the others, and under what circumstances, is a complicated answer to a tough question. For me, Jesus is the “Filter” through which everything must flow. Whatever doesn’t get past the Life and Teachings of Jesus, amounts to a series of human scratches on the Divine DVD, the “divine recording.” I will argue forever that Jesus never authorizes taking human life; and that “filters out” Torah and narrative to the contrary.]

A third thing is, I learned long long ago that Romans 13 always has to be balanced with Revelation 13. Sometimes the good and God-fearing state is in fact the Beast. And then one resists. Then one says a loud resounding No! andSTOP IT!

Our nation is only human. We are not deity, are not deities. But we succumb to the temptation to act like deity more and more and more. We have set ourselves up for an approaching Fear, a la Psalm 9:20 ... but that's for yet another blog. Someday.

And that was why I chose that verse for my “prokeimenon,” as it were.

[2^nd HARD QUESTION]

If I have a “direction” – a way to set out exploring this question, as opposed to a firm and forever “answer” – and I do, it is this:

My own feelings and experiences of empty dread are the only way I have of bridging the “gap” between my life and that of another … at least until Jesus hascompletely transfigured me in the Age to Come, and I have His heart entirely suffused through mine.

My experiences, from years past, of a long and empty day, with a dreadful conclusion, are the only way I have – initially – to “imagine my way into” that long and empty day and its dreadful conclusion for Mr. Davis.

Actually that is true for any of us, as we struggle to imagine our way into someone else's situation ... to "walk a mile in their shoes," so to speak. We can only go back to our own miles and remember what they were like.

Jesus, as I am rendered more and more “like Him” through the Mysteries – not to mention the Red Dirt Mystery of the execution of Troy Davis last night – Jesus suffers. And He will continue to suffer in the suffering of humankind, whether it is “innocent” or “guilty” suffering in any given instance, until the End which is the Beginning. I can trust Him to transform my limited (and usually not all that righteous) suffering into His during my pilgrimage of faith, in this Exile away from my true Home; and to the degree that happens, my suffering also will be transformed into the suffering of Mr. Davis, and the Mr. Davises of the world.

But my springboard now is simply to use who I am and what I have, because out of that, aided and strengthened and taught and guided by the Holy Spirit, I will connect in the limited ways I am able at this point of the journey with that of a man about to be executed.

One reason I am a Christian, Orthodox or not, is: God takes human being seriously, God takes history seriously, God suffers.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. Until I am one day, one Age, “mature inChrist,” my suffering will have to do as the starting point, as the springboard.

[3^rd HARD QUESTION]

As the “groundwork” going on in my own soul since last night shows – meaning, what I have said above (and more like it) – I am opposed to the death penalty because of Jesus of Nazareth.

This is not a “right” given to human beings. Statistics argue, not unimportantly, it's not even an effective usurpation of God's right. We are not God.

We may be on our eternal (everlasting, unending) way to participation in the divine nature – our theosis, our divinization – a la 2 Peter 1:4.

But that God is seen most fully in Jesus of Nazareth.

That God loves and seeks out sinners. He does not kill them.

That God washes feet. He does not chop them off, nor the bodies attached to them.

That God gives life, and in setting life and death before us all, begs us to choose life. He does not countenance our choices of death. Death, indeed, whether delivered by a criminal or by the state, is the handout of the Powers of Darkness.

The State of Georgia last night acted on behalf of the Liar and Father of Lies, the one who (not so ironically?) is Murderer from the very beginning (John 8:44). That the case against Mr. Davis contains lies (some now recanted, some not) is, perhaps, on this reading of Scripture, not altogether surprising.

Jesus came to give Life, which He has in Himself.

He has nothing to do with Death. That is our choice, prompted by the Satan, a name that ironically (perhaps? perhaps not!) means “the accuser.”

Memory Eternal, Tony Davis, brother in this Exile.

I am opposed to the death penalty because of Jesus of Nazareth.