THE EVE OF ALL THE HALLOWS

 Tomorrow is the glory of all the saints. The grand saints, who are known to millions: St Mary Magdalen, St Francis, St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, St Dominic, St Teresa of Avila, Ste Thérèse of Lisieux, and my beloved patron saint St John (Yochanan), the only disciple who didn’t skedaddle from Golgotha but stayed at the foot of the Cross.  But also the little saints whom nobody knows except their neighbours, their family members, or the customers of the store or restaurant or gas station where they serve, or the passengers of the taxi they drive. The people who are always there when you are ill and feeling down, who give you a smile on a grim day, who make you feel for a moment that life is not so bad after all. The people of whom you know that they feel your pain – and the knowing already calms it a little. 

            Tomorrow, then, is their feast. Worth celebrating hugely. Buy them a beer, or just lift your glass and think of them with love.

            But tonight: the Eve. What is the Eve? La veille, as the French say. And in that word is the verb veiller, to watch, to stay awake and alert. Because, said the ancients, on the Eve of such a feast, a feast of so much sheer goodness, the forces that cannot bear the goodness, that find it intolerable, will come out and torment. They will flly and slide and whisper around our houses; they will try to enter our minds and persuade us that the world is lost, that Evil has allready won, that there is no hope, and that we all are just killers without a gun. 

            And that – tell your children – that is why we carve pumpkins into grimaces, why we parody evil in silly costumes, why we celebrate goofy trick-or-treats, why we have drunken parties: to taunt the evil spirits, to show them that we are not afraid, because All the Saints are with us, and tomorrow we will celebrate them with dignity and style, and be thankful for their prayers and their protection. We are breadcrumbs on the skirt of the universe, but we are also children of God, and we are loved. We are never alone under a black sky; we are never delivered utterly unto hate; we are loved, and the Evil One cannot defeat our faith. 

Happy Hallowe’en!

IN THE BREACH

In reaction to the events in Israel, we feel intolerably weak, helpless, and uncomfortably near to despair. Yet, thinking of this in the small hours, I was drawn to contemplate the Carthusians. If we believe, as several Popes have said publicly, that the contemplative orders have an important part to play in the life of the Church, we must recognise that that function can only be based on the power of prayer. Their sole business is to pray for the world; given that fact, the combined force of 450 professional prayer generators (to count only the number of Carthusians at present in the world) must be enormous. And if we add to that all the other orders for whom prayer is their central occupation, we arrive at a vast concentration of power. Such power is of the utmost importance when the hounds of Hell are loosed upon the world. The media speak of counter-offensives upon the battlefields in Ukraine; in the chaos unleashed in the Middle East military and propaganda weapons cancel each other out and atrocities are joined and compounded by vengeance. At such times diplomacy is an indispensable component; but, like all adult acts of civilisation,  it is slow to start and almost imperceptible in its successes.

A Godless world has no more to offer and no other remedies to try. But faith has armies reason knows not. Legions of angels, to be sure; but while they are mentioned in Scripture, they have not often been perceived in earthly action. No; as St Teresa of Avila said, we need to remember that God has on earth no hands, no eyes, no ears other than ours. This may be enough for what is known as humanitarian aid; but there is more. For there is in this world a vast army that works and fights in alliance, in joint command, in communion, with the forces of Heaven: the immense, international, millions-strong army of prayer. And of this army, the contemplative orders are the commandos, the special forces, the shock troops. 

What can we do to support them? We are their reservists, their Territorials, their National Guard. We pray for them, we study them, we make them known, we help them, we do some recruiting for them: they do none for themselves. 

And finally, let us not forget that Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God, a God who singled out this tiny out-of-the-way planet in His vast creation for a special environment of shalom, salaam, peace, and a malkut, a kingdom, a reign, of love between Himself and the humanity He drew out of its oceans. A God Whom we, as a race, repeatedly drive to hot tears of near-despair; but a God Who never gives up on us as long as prayer – the language of love He taught us in our infancy – persists and thrives.  

  

 

A SECRET IMMENSITY

“Your life is hid with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3)

 

This saying is of measureless profundity. We live several lives simultaneously. Our daily life with its tasks and pleasures and frustrations and pains; our emotional life with its joys and griefs; our intellectual life with its searches and discoveries; and our religious life, our life as a child of God. This last is too often neglected as it does not, like daily life, obtrude and trip us up. But it is our absolute life, the breath of ultimate life, love, sin and death. And as we grow, in age but also in the questioning of our place in the scheme of things, it is of this life that the importance swells and increases. And it is there that one day we confront this saying, telling us that our life is hid with Christ in God. 

            At first sight it seems absolutely mysterious and incomprehensible. So, to understand it, let us turn to that Doctor Ecclesiæ, Josef Ratzinger, alias Benedict XVI. In the second volume of his Jesus of Nazareth, he explains the necessity and the immensity of Jesus’ Passion and of the Cross. In the Cross, he says, God opens himself completely to man, makes himself definitively accessible in an act of ultimate love. And this complete and utter gift that took place once, in real historical time and in a real geographical place, is still taking place: it is repeated in each Mass and Communion. 

            This is stupendous and very nearly beyond understanding, if we take it seriously and try to get our mind and soul around it. It explains that other saying, “I am with you till the end of time” (Matthew 28:20). And if we keep it in mind when we reread that saying in Colossians, we realise that this truth is true in both directions: he is with us till the end of time, but we are also with him. 

            After the interim period of his appearances following the Resurrection, he leaves the disciples, and is ‘taken up to Heaven’ in the cloud that always signals the presence of the Deity. He rejoins the Father, and sends the Holy Spirit; but he is still with them, with us, till the end of time. What Paul tells us in the letter to the Colossians is that through the gift of the Meshiach, and through the action of the Holy Spirit, we are united to Him even unto his presence in the Trinity. This, I think, is what it means that our life is hid with Christ in God. If we entrust ourselves completely to him, he draws us up to him within the Trinity, within the presence of God. And that life, then, is our ‘eternal life’, as Ratzinger explains it: a life no longer subject to time and death.

            The more you ponder this in meditation, the more immense and moving it becomes. It turns everything around. That touching verse, ‘If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him’ (John 14) now glows in both directions: for we are now also invited to make our home with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

            Finally, our life is hid – it is in the worldly sense a secret life, a hidden life. Although it may shine through our eyes, the world of humdrumlies mostly will not recognise it or comprehend it. So we should probably be ready at least to try to explain it, however difficult that may be. But in the meantime, let us taste and savour fully the mystery and the glory that is offered to us.

Image: the Holy Trinity, by Andrei Rublev (c. 1360 - c. 1430)

 

 

A TOAST AT A FEAST

At the feast in the house of Levi, we know what Yeshua said to the Pharisees, but what did he say to Levi and the other guests? (Luke 5:27-32)

            Note that Levi had just been called, and had got up and followed Yeshua, giving up his job and his booth as a Mokhes (a tax-farmer). Note also that there is no sign that he is giving up his house and his money – yet. Instead, he is giving a party for his new teacher. So I imagine him, toward the end of the meal, standing up, raising his glass or goblet, and making a speech, more or less as follows:

            “Yeshua Ben-Yosef, it is an honour to me and my family to receive you in my house. I am aware that by coming here you risk being hounded by the religious: I’m sure they are already gnashing their teeth outside. So it was extraordinarily kind of you to come under my roof and to eat and drink with us outcasts. I believe that you are a good man and a fine rabbi, and I should be grateful if you would accept me as your disciple.” (Loud – but in some cases ironic -- applause from all the mokheses present.) Then Yeshua gets up, smiles, and waits for the noise to die down.

            “Levi Ben-Levi, I thank you for your kindness in inviting me – indeed, in having called together this party in my honour. You and your friends are very good company, even if you are not approved of by – er – certain people of unblemished reputation. Some of you may have heard, just now, the reproachful words of that Pharisee. If you did, you may also have heard my answer to him – and you may not have been best pleased. After all, I told him that it was not the healthy who needed the doctor but the sick; and that implied that you, my hosts, were not in the best of health. 

            “Those of you who, like Levi here, have already heard me speak in public know pretty much what I‘m about. You know that I say a lot of dour and dire things as well as nice ones, and that, rather like Yochanan the Dipper, I sometimes tell people that they are in a bad way and need to turn their lives around. So, are you sick, and am I the doctor? And if both are true, what’s my diagnosis, and what’s my cure? As you know, I’ve nothing to give or to spend, except my teaching; so any good I can do you will have to come from that.

            “So, to begin: all right, yes, I think that in spite of your good nature you are not the healthiest or the happiest of folk. Many of you are mokheses, which is not a job to make you loved. And quite a few of you have not done that job in the kindest or most righteous way. There are a few other faces here that I’ve seen in bad places and in bad company. You may have got used to it, but deep down I think most of you would like to be in harmony, in shalom, with the world and with Adonai.

            “And this is where Doctor Yeshua comes in. Believe it or not, it can be done. You can get your moral virginity back. Some people find it depressing that I tell them they have to be more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees; and when I tell them that this can be done without conforming to the 648 ordinances in Scripture they think I’m selling snake-oil. But it’s true. There are only two commanments that matter. One: Adonai loves you, he is the Father of Love. So the first commandment that matters is to love him back, with every fibre of you. Then: Adonai loves every one of his children equally. So commandment no. 2: you love your neighbour just as much as yourself. And who’s your neighbour? Anyone.Anyone in trouble, sorrow, sickness or misery. X. Be there for X whenever you meet him or her. 

            “And you can condense that still further: follow the two commandments by telescoping them into one: Follow Me. I’m the one Adonai sent to help his children clear up the mess they’ve made. And right now we – you and I – are here;  the place is Here and the time is Now. If you respond, as Levi has done today, then you will not only make tov, make shalom, you will be shalom. You can forget the 648 ordinances, because you will already be what they were written to make you. 

            “So if you take up your account-books and follow me, we can all drink a toast to the terrific man who got us all here: Levi Ben-Levi, l’chaim !” 

image: The Feast at the House of Levi, detail (1573) by Paolo Veronese

 

TRIUMPH OF THE WILL?

 

Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer we say – with one of those mysterious optatives – “Thy will be done, in earth as it is in Heaven.” So that with each recital of the most famous Christian prayer, we brush up against one of faith’s most stubborn mysteries: the Will of God. We know that we ought to do God’s will; we know that our will ought to be aligned with God’s; but how do we know what God wills?

            When we are dealing with our own choices, the subject is not terribly hard. God the Father may be silent to our clumsy ears, but we know that “he who has seen me has seen the Father” and so, when faced with a choice or a decision, we can ask ourselves some version of the question WWJD --  What Would Jesus Do? The answer to that is not always simple, as there are many situations in an average life that did not present themselves to Yeshua when He walked the earth, or that the chroniclers of the Gospels did not see fit to include in their accounts. But still, we can often have an idea of the way we might usefully follow. 

            Where it get much more difficult is when it comes to distinguishing God’s will in the life and the world around us. Yeshua was not clear on the topic. He points out that when the tower of Siloam fell and killed a number of bystanders, those who died were not greater sinners that others (Luke 13:4-5); but he does not say whether or not God willed the tower’s fall or the people’s death. He says that not a sparrow falls “without your Father” (Matthew 10:29) but the Greek áneu “without” does not decide whether it is without the Father’s knowledge or without His will. And in both cases, the point he is making is different.

            Does God “will” all that occurs? There might be a case to be made to that effect: He is, after all, supposed to both all-knowing (omnisciens) and all-powerful (omnipotens); does it not follow that nothing occurs without His willing it? Thomas Aquinas, in the twelve articles on the Will of God in his Summa theologica, comes uncomfortably close to this position. And I say “uncomfortably” because when we consider such an explanation, we almost universally rebel. If (to take a recent happening in France) a madwoman tortures and murders a 12-year-old girl, did God will that? Does God will the suffering and death of the Ukrainian civilians in Boucha? Does God will the death of 600 people in a tsunami in Indonesia?

            This very proper revolt on our part leads some people to dismiss any idea of God’s existence: if such a God existed, they say, He would be a monster. But for those of us whose faith, though put to a severe test by this, subsists, it does so perhaps because of a third attribute we ascribe to God: not only all-powerful and all-knowing but all-good. This raises two questions: 1) how, then, do the events I described relate to His will? and 2) how, in view of a world in which such things occur, should we align our wills to His?

            I have previously written about the first question: the fact that His nature is love implies that He must of necessity allow us free will. Love’s very nature means that its reciprocity can never be forced or commanded. This, then, explains the occasional flourishing of human evil. He cannot command us to return His love: it is the only limit to omnipotence. The horrifying effects of natural phenomena, on the other hand, resist explanation. One can only assume that He, for reasons of His own, has decided not to micromanage His creation. (It is interesting that, even if we accept this, we still have an instinct for spontaneously giving thanks when we have a narrow escape.)

            The second question is the real purpose of this post. It assumes that we do not, and cannot, know whether anything that happens to us does so with, or because of, God’s will; and that He is much more concerned with our reaction to the happening than with the event itself. The point Yeshua was making about the sparrow was not whether the Father intended it to fall or not, but that if it falls, it does not do so at random and anonymously. And you, he said, are worth a lot more than a sparrow: hence, he did not say but did not need to, at the moment of any occurrence that involves you, you are surrounded by your Father’s loving attention. And hence, we may conclude, it is at that moment that we may or may not do His will. Where His infinite care for us operates, but cannot command us because of love and free will, is in relation to our reaction to the, to any, event. 

            He does not will that we shall win four million dollars in a lottery; but He pays close attention to what we think, feel, and do when we have won it. He did not will that such-and-such a young woman should die of breast cancer; but He surrounded her with His loving spirit during the ordeal (whether or not she recognised that spirit’s origin) and He attends with love and hope to the reactions of her family and friends. 

            At no time is discerning and/or doing His will easy. The crusaders who in 1096 AD went into battle shouting “Deus lo volt! Deus lo volt!” (“God wills it!” in Romance Latin) were perhaps, to our modern minds, rash if not painfully misguided; but are we sure we would feel as strongly if that phrase accompanied a Ukrainian counterattack? A special degree of caution is perhaps needed when trying to discern God’s will for human beings in the plural and collective; it would appear wise to practice humility in discernment and limit ourselves, as much as possible, to individual matters.

            Finally, we should not forget that Yeshua both taught and showed us the overwhelming and permanent need for prayer. Aligning our will to God’s can only be done after, and in, prayer. Perhaps this is a secondary meaning of the optative. We are not simply told “Do God’s will”; we are invited into a process that involves much more than our individual selves. “God’s will be done.” Amen.   

FURTHER TO THE KATHAROI

 

Makarioi hoi katharoi tèi kardiai, hoti autoi ton theon opsontai.

Fortunate are the clean in heart, because they shall see God.

I wrote a blog post on this as I did on the other Beatitudes, and thought at the time that the “seeing” was through the Spirit. This may be true, but another thought occurred to me. In John 14 (8), Philip the disciple says to Yeshua, ‘Show us the Father and that’s enough for us,’ and Yeshua replies, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still don’t know me? He who has seen me has seen the Father.’

This stunning reply should make us think, inter alia about the Beatitude. ‘No one has ever seen God’, true: but ‘Who has seen me, has seen the Father.’ Could it be, then, that whoever saw, and sees, Yeshua and believes, is pure in heart? For he, the Meshiach, the Anointed, is, then, the visible form of the Creator. And the cleanness, the purity, of heart that is required to see, really to see, is faith. Because it is the eye of faith that sees through the lean, tough, dark-haired, brown-skinned man, the Father of an infinite majesty, the God of endless, suffering love.

Tricky for Philip. Trickier for us, who do not see him face to face. There are, possibly, three ways through this enigma. 1) First, the icon. Not necessarily an Orthodox icon: it can be a painting or a sculpture, a Gospel scene, a Pietà, or a crucifix. Really to see such an icon, with the eye of faith, is perhaps to come close to seeing Him, and through Him, the Father. 2) Secondly, meditation. In the first part of an Ignatian meditation we are asked to take a Gospel scene and to recreate it as vividly as possible with our own mind, assigning ourselves the place of a minor character. If we do this with complete engagement, we may again, perhaps, come close to seeing Him, and seeing through Him. 3) And finally, we should remember that He also said that ‘‘whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Mt 25:40) If, then, we are to look on any man and see Yeshua, are we to look on any man and see the Father? The mind not only boggles but rebels. And yet. What does the eye of faith behold? It sees, in the beaten and wounded traveller, a neighbour. It sees, in the down-and-out begging for food, Yeshua. It sees, in the man Yeshua Bar-Yosef, the Father. What have they all in common? Suffering. 

If, now, we go to the end of this trail of learning, what do we find? A Father who suffers. A Father who is denied and rejected, a Father who continually sees his love thrown back in his face. Could it be that that is exactly what Yeshua meant us, through Philip, to learn? We see the Son on the Cross. We see the Father in the Son. How much discernment does it take to draw the conclusion? 

KIDDING?

 

We all know the Gospel story of Yeshua calling up a little child, pointing to it, and telling the disciples and passers-by that whoever is not ready to accept the Kingdom (read: kingship) of God like such a child cannot enter there. But what does he mean? Those who have small children love them desperately but in no way and at no time idealise them. They are adorable, selfish, slobby, brattish, quarrelsome and difficult at meals. Yeshua, as a 31-year-old bachelor, might have idealised the child in question; but as one who was Divine as well as very human, it’s doubtful. So, knowing everything about children, how could he say that that is what we should become to be citizens of the Kingdom?

            I think he was thinking first of all about a child’s simplicity. If a little girl is standing by the roadside with her father, waiting to cross, she sticks up her hand without looking, knowing that it will find the big strong secure hand beside her. A small boy who wants something from his parents asks for it. (He may or may not get it, but that doesn’t stop him asking.) Children, in relation to adults they trust, are simple and direct.

            Secondly, children naturally and necessarily experience love as a gift. They know that adults are powerful in ways that they themselves are not, and so they know that love is something they receive. Not necessarily in the form of concrete gifts, but in the form of hugs, comfort, bedtime stories, occasional treats, and Winnie-the-Pooh. If they are fortunate enough to have such love on a daily basis, they take it for granted. One day, if they meet other children who do not have it and are miserable, they will begin not to take it for granted. But meanwhile, they regard it as natural. And return it, naturally. 

            Thirdly, how do they love? First of all, it’s a love of belonging. My Daddy’s mine. My Mummy’s mine. Jackie is my brother. Lucy’s my sister. This is my house. Bingo is my dog. They all belong to me – this I know. What I don’t know, or can’t put into words,  is that I belong to them, and that thus we belong to each other.

 Then, it’s without question. Sometimes they hate Daddy, sometimes they love him, but they don’t doubt him. 

 

            Here, surely, there are lessons for those of us who wondered what the man across from us was talking about when pointing to the little kid. In relation to our Father (who is in heaven), be simple. Be direct. When you receive blessings in whatever form, recognise them as gifts from that large being who loves you. Give him a hug in return. Then go on with your day, and learn to live the  same way with those around you. If it moves, hug it. If it hits you, hit it back smartly and then hug it while you both cry. If you break something, confess and say you’re sorry (and mean it), and He will forgive you. Don’t be clever and doubt him; don’t be clever and try to outsmart him; if you want to be clever, find new ways of loving him and loving your neighbour. Channel your inner 7-year-old.

 

[What, a friend’s voice whispers in my mind, if you have never known this kind of loving happy childhood? If yours was miserable, violent, poor, and abusive? Well, I think that he would tell you a) to realise that you are now loved for real, b) that you can therefore know that trust is possible, and that c) you can therefore tell him all your past miseries, knowing that he will never tell anyone and that he will love you all the more for having told him.]

[And if you are handicapped or sick or in pain, tell him that and listen. You may hear him whisper that he knows what pain is like, he’s been there before you, and that he hopes you’ll remember what he said to the Good Thief on the cross next door. He may not be able to make it all go away, but he will give you without stint, give you strength and endless love.]

AND THOU CONTINUEST HOLY

 

Periodically, in or after my daily prayers, I think “This is all very well, but one can’t always be asking.” Well, there is the giving of thanks, too, and that is both joyful and healthy; but, something whispers, isn’t it still all about me? Not always – sometimes I give thanks for the healing of a friend or relative; but even that raises nagging questions about whether God micromanages His creation. What one would like is a prayer that isn’t about what happens to us. 

The Church teaches us that there is such a prayer: the prayer of adoration. Here, we do not ask for something; we do not give thanks for something; we simply adore God for what He is, for the fact that He is, for the ways in which He is. The prayer of adoration can fix itself upon an object, a monstrance with a consecrated wafer, or a crucifix, but it doesn’t have to do so: we can contemplate God in our heart and an outpouring of joy and delight can result. 

It is, of course, not the kind of prayer which, as children, we are taught; and so it can be hard at first to get used to it. First of all, it takes time and leisure. I’ve often thought that it would be good to have, as an acquaintance of mine with a château does, a small chapel in one’s house: one could retire there for half an hour at some point during the day or evening and shut out the world to concentrate. But lately I have found that the second part of the night, when sleep is intermittent and lighter, is a good time to point one’s mind to a certain kind of prayer and meditation. 

And in one such moment recently, a prayer of adoration suggested itself. I remembered the “map” of the Universe published by astronomers a few years ago and its immensity, and it made me think of the Creator of all that; and there swam into my mind the moving text from the terrible Psalm 22, the “crucifixion Psalm”: “and thou continuest holy”. In spite of what I may be going through; in spite of the pain in the world, “thou continuest holy”. In spite of our requests, our thanksgivings, “thou continuest holy”.

Putting these two things together, I try to imagine the Creator of that Universe: is He bigger than it? Smaller than it? Non-dimensional entirely and thus unimaginable? Whichever of those, “thou continuest holy”. And then I added the fact that His nature is Love, and imagined that within Himself, in other words, within the Trinity: as a permanent whirlwind of cosmic Love between Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And with that imagining, my prayer of adoration came as naturally as water from a spring. What glory!

“Thou continuest holy.”    

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

 

¹⁶ `And when you fast, be ye not as the hypocrites, of sour countenances, for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men fasting; verily I say to you, that they have their reward.

¹⁷ `But you, fasting, anoint your head, and wash your face,

¹⁸ that you may not appear to men fasting, but to your Father who [is] in secret, and your Father, who is seeing in secret, shall reward you.

¹⁹ `Treasure not up to yourselves treasures on the earth, where moth and rust disfigure, and where thieves break through and steal,

²⁰ but treasure up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth disfigure, and where thieves do not break through nor steal,

²¹ for where your treasure is, there will be also your heart.

 

This part of the new Torah is not hard to understand. Just as in prayer one should not show off one’s piety before the world, so in the ancient self-discipline of fasting one should not do so either. The disfiguring of the face may have been an application of mud or a smearing with dust: an outward and visible sign of repentance was the covering of head and face with dust and ashes. 

            It might be useful here to think briefly about fasting, especially as the year moves closer to Lent. Fasting exists as a discipline in many religions: the most visible in today’s Western countries is the Muslims’ Ramadan, which prohibits the taking of any form of food or drink between sunrise and sunset for thirty days, and which is observed far more widely than the forty-day Christian Lent, which mostly leaves the form and intensity of the fast to the individual believer. It is not, of course, practiced for the sake of health or bodily elegance, but to discipline the body in order to subject it more completely to the mind and the soul. It is easier for those whom grief and contrariety put off their feed than for those who eat when depressed and feast when content. The more rigorous and orthodox Christians often make fun of those who “give up chocolate for Lent”; yet they are wrong, because every discipline is an art, and every art needs practice and begins with simple steps. 

            What Yeshua is telling us here is that, whether we are giving up chocolate or living on bread and water like Carthusians, we should keep it to ourselves: it is between us and the Father, and since we are doing it to be closer to Him, keeping it between us and Him is “the way it should be”, i.e. part of shalom. Moreover, this injunction clearly is part of the completed Torah’s emphasis on inwardness: avoid the outward and visible sign and concentrate on the inward and spiritual grace. 

 

            The second part of this text is about treasure. Man is not just a creature that transforms the world – all “work” transforms the world – but a creature that attaches importance to security. True, there are La Fontaine’s grasshoppers, who give never a care for the morrow and thus tend to fall back on their neighbours; but most people try to put away a little nest-egg, an “apple for thirst” as the Dutch say, whether it is in case one loses one’s job, or to put one’s children through college, or against illness or old age. And this impulse can go far, and result in large fortunes passed on, and increased, from generation to generation.

            Yeshua warns against this. In a world where “treasure” was still what our childhood imagined, physically precious objects, whether fine silks, delicately-wrought metals, and gold coin, he reminds us that the silks can be disfigured by moth, the metals by the tinworm, and that the world is full of thieves cleverer than we are. Such treasures are vulnerable. In our modern world, treasure tends to be held either on the stock market or in real estate; yet a financial crash may wipe out the one, and fire and earthquake the other, while cybercriminals may easily make off with anyone’s bank or savings account. All earthly treasure is vulnerable. 

            So what does he suggest? Laying up treasure in heaven. We know this text so well that we often do not really think about it any more; and we feel superior to our medieval forefathers who took it very literally, for instance in the form of indulgences. Yet He speaks to us also; so we owe it to Him to think about it with what intelligence we can summon. How do we “lay up treasure in Heaven”? It displeases us to think of our spiritual life as a sort of divine bank-account; but let us try to think past the image. In contrast to devoting our surplus of time and effort (beyond our basic work in the world) to acquiring more money or objects, we should devote our surplus of time and effort to our life of faith: to our relation to the Father who loves and cherishes us, as much as we let Him. 

            And Yeshua finishes by at once giving us the reason for this injunction: where your treasure is, is where your heart is. And your heart is what matters. If I have a magnificent collection of classic cars, like Jay Leno’s or Ralph Lauren’s, I have to admit it would take up not only much of my time but much of what Keats called “the heart’s affections”; and each of us has only so much of those. If, on the other hand, I spend as much of my time and effort as I can, not on improving my virtue but on the loving bond I have with God and with my brothers and sisters, I may discover to my surprise that in strange and unexpected ways I have become richer, and freer from fear, than I ever thought possible.  

            Once again, I am taught the principle of this completed Torah: the heart is what matters. 

TOTALLY COUNTERINTUITIVE. IRRESISTIBLE.

 `You heard that it was said: Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth (Ex. 21:22-25); <sup>39</sup> but I -- I tell you not to resist the evil, but whoever shall slap thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other;<sup>40</sup> and whoever is willing to take you to law, and to take your tunic -- grant him also your cloak.<sup>41</sup> `And whoever shall impress you one mile, go with him two,⁴² to him who is asking of you be giving, and him who wants to borrow from you you may not turn away.

⁴³ `You heard that it was said: Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and shalt hate thine enemy;⁴⁴ but I -- I say to you, Love your enemies, bless those cursing you, do good to those hating you, and pray for those accusing you falsely, and persecuting you,⁴⁵ that you may be sons of your Father in the heavens, because His sun He doth cause to rise on evil and good, and He doth send rain on righteous and unrighteous.

⁴⁶ `For, if you love those loving you, what reward have you? do not also the tax-gatherers the same?⁴⁷ and if ye salute your brethren only, what does it profit you? do not also the tax-gatherers so?⁴⁸ you shall therefore be perfect, as your Father who [is] in the heavens is perfect.

 

This passage is, of course, another one we can’t avoid. Let’s take it in the two parts of the original text. First, the Lex Talionis. My first question is: would Yeshua’s audience have thought immediately of the Exodus passage, or would the concept already have migrated into a general consciousness, shedding its specific original context? Christians, certainly, are not commonly aware that the term originated in a passage about two men coming to blows in the vicinity of a pregnant woman and, by the collateral damage of hitting her, causing a premature birth. The rule is that if apart from the birth there is no serious injury, the hitter must pay what the woman’s husband demands and the court corroborates; if there is serious injury, retribution must be specific and appropriate: if she loses an eye, the hitter must lose an eye, etc. It has often been said that the purpose of this rule was to limit the retribution, which might otherwise degenerate into a vendetta; and this may well be true.

            In later years it may well have continued to guard against unlimited vengeance, and thus to be a reasonable law, especially in less painfully physical cases. However, Yeshua again begins, “But I – I tell you . . .“ And now he launches into what becomes a genuinely counter-intuitive response. In some ways, it reminds us of a famous tactic in Oriental martial arts: giving way in the face of a blow so that the adversary may find his momentum carrying him through to a fall. If someone hits you in a moment of anger (and see earlier for that topic), turn the other cheek to let him hit you again. Two questions: what will be the effect, and in what spirit is it suggested? The effect will depend upon the adversary, but there is at least a chance that he will be suddenly and completely disconcerted, and that your reaction will break through his bubble of rage and stop him in his tracks. 

            In what spirit is the advice offered? It might be thought that, as in judo, the suggested action is a tactic the better to defeat your enemy. Clearly, though, that is not what Yeshua is about. Once again, the pattern is that of a general statement – “resist not evil” – followed, in this case, by three examples: the slap, the lawsuit for an item of clothing, and the Roman soldier’s impressment. What do these last tell us? First of all, that the general statement applies to individuals only. It is not a principle for public policy or for geopolitics (although it may contain a hint against the Zealot resistance fighters). Secondly, that for individuals it does not apply only in purely private situations (the slap) but also in the context of a community (the lawsuit) and of society at large (the impressment). In each of the examples, the initial deed is characterised as “ponèros”, which is perhaps not quite “evil” but rather worthless, knavish, malicious or wicked: it lacks the metaphysical extreme that “evil” suggests. If you resist, the first possibility is that you will fail: the slapper may be stronger than you, the person who wants your chiton or tunic may have a better lawyer and so get your himation, your cloak or toga, also, and resisting a Roman soldier’s legal demand would certainly be foolish. The second possibility is that you may be more or less successful; but if you are, your resistance will stir up and/or keep alive a counter-animus that will draw the situation out and create more enmity, so that the only profit may be a brief surge of self-respect i.e. pride.

            Now, what happens if you follow the suggestion? True, you may get slapped again. But the counter-intuitive nature of your response, in all three cases, may well help to create the opposite of enmity – not friendship necessarily, but “peace”.

            At this point, it is necessary to parse the Hebrew word shalom. In its Biblical appearance, it is almost always translated as “peace”. But in fact it is a vast word, a huge word, a cosmic word. It means a state of wholeness and completeness, of equilibrium, of the way things ought to be. “Making shalom” is a characteristic of God, and is therefore enjoined upon human beings. (NB: this casts an even more important light on the Beatitude “blessed are the peacemakers”: the are the ones who make Shalom.) So the purpose of this article of the new Torah is just that: making shalom. Yeshua once again completes the old Torah (which will not be abolished) by a greater inwardness: instead of an act of resistance, which will maintain the inwardness of the ponèros by returning it, we should inwardly make shalom, the outward and visible sign of which will be our counter-intuitive and unexpected reaction.

            And when Yeshua goes on to the second part of our passage, he in fact does explain the general principle. Making shalom in an adversarial situation helps to make us more like the Father, who does not deprive the wicked of sunshine nor the unjust of rain. And I suspect his two clinching arguments of having been said with a smile: even if you only care about your own reputation, well, if you are only nice to those who are nice to you, in what way are you better than those collaborationist quislings you so despise? Hmmmm? Get a life! Shape up!

            And finally, the summing-up. To us it sounds like an outrageous demand. We are to be as perfect as God? Really? Well, once again it is worth looking at the Greek word, which is teleios. And teleios has in it the root of “completing”. So it is more like “perfected, completed, finished” (in the sense that a potter’s pot comes out of the workshop teleios, finished). So it reminds us that we are made in God’s image but that we are a bit out of true. Following the new Torah, which completes the old, will help to complete us, bring us back to what we were made to be: in the image of the Father. Just as shalom restores Creation to what it was created to be: whole and teleios, complete.

Shalom

Claude Lorrain: Port at Sunset

THE ONE WE CAN'T AVOID

 

Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in Noel Coward's "Brief Encounter" (1945)

`Ye heard that it was said: You shall not commit adultery;

²⁸ but I -- I say to you, that every one who is looking on a woman to long for her, did already commit adultery with her in his heart.

²⁹ `But, if your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away, for it is good for you that one of your members may perish, and not your whole body be thrown into the trash-dump fire.

³⁰ `And, if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away, for it is good for you that one of your members may perish, and not your whole body be thrown into the trash-dump fire.

³¹ `And it was said, That whoever may put away his wife, let him give to her a writing of divorce;

³² but I -- I say to you, that whoever may put away his wife, save for the matter of prostitution, makes her commit adultery; and whoever may marry her who has been put away commits adultery. (Matthew 5)

Yes, well. From Yeshua on Anger, we go to Yeshua on Marriage. No, not (as you might have thought) on sex; on marriage. The first thing one has to know is that in Yeshua’s world adultery could only be committed by and with a married woman: sex between a married man and an unmarried woman was not technically adultery.

Two points, then, are being made in this passage. First a point about inwardness: the old Torah’s prohibition on adultery is completed by Yeshua in the key of inwardness: just as he goes from murder, an act, to anger, a state of mind, so here he goes from adultery, an act, to desire, a state of mind. Since he uses the word “adultery” we may assume that the desire he mentions is for a woman married to another. And he hammers his argument home with two outrageous bits of hyperbole: if you have looked on your neighbour’s wife with desire, dig your eye out and throw it away; if you have touched her, as we say nowadays, “inappropriately”, cut off your hand and throw it away.

I have read many supposed explanations of this passage, but there is no getting around it: Yeshua is perfectly clear. Desire, lust, what you will, in any case for a married woman, is as bad as Anger. Many of us today do have a real problem with that. Why? we say. Desire is not evil: we may see the wife or husband of someone we know or have met and have a coup de foudre; eyes may meet across a crowded room; whoever loved, that loved not at first sight? And Cupid (whose name means Desire) is known to be lawless, so what are you going to do?

Blind yourself, says Yeshua, implacably. Better do that than have your whole body (and remember that Christianity does not believe in the immortality of the soul, but of the whole person, body and soul!) thrown on the Great Trash-Dump Fire.

We still rebel. Why is Desire so bad? Now I have to imagine what Yeshua would reply, because He didn’t specify. So I imagine him saying, Well, look at Anger. You must have been surprised when I said that Anger was as bad as Murder. But the reason it is is because it opens Pandora’s Box. And Desire, my children, does the same. Just as Anger can lead to Cain killing Abel, so Desire can lead to incest and to rape. If Desire is of the kind, and the strength, that it can consider trashing the bonds of marriage, there is no telling how far it can take you; because you are no longer in charge. As anger can turn into rage, Desire can turn into Lust. And at that point, we are very far down the rabbit hole. As Shakespeare knew:

 

Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame 

Is lust in action; and till action, lust 

Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame, 

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, 

Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight, 

Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had 

Past reason hated as a swallowed bait 

On purpose laid to make the taker mad; 

Mad in pursuit and in possession so, 

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; 

A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe; 

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. 

    All this the world well knows; yet none knows well 

    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

And since all this is about adultery, and thus about marriage, He gives (as he did with Anger) a specific image. Because someone might have said: OK, get her to be given a divorce. (A woman could not apply for a divorce, but could in some cases demand that her husband divorce her.) At this point we get into the very complex Jewish laws on marriage and divorce, notably the ketubah or marriage-contract and the list of reasons why a man could divorce a woman (the school of Rabbi Hillel held that he could do so if she broke his dishes); but, true to the values of the 1^st-century Middle East, the keys were virginity and sex. 

            But be that as it may, Yeshua relativises it all by going (in His manner) to inwardness again, and saying: if you divorce your wife for any reason other than her sexual act(s) with someone else, you are making her an adulteress. Because if, after such a divorce, she sleeps with or marries another, she is committing adultery. What he is saying is that, in the new completed Torah, divorce can only be valid at all in case of sexual infidelity on the part of the wife. IN NO OTHER CASE. Period. 

            And no, we can’t get around it. We can embroider as much as we like, and historicise till the cows come home, but that’s what He said, and that’s what He meant.

 

So, where does this leave us? Up to and including the 19^th and the first half of the 20^th century, churches tried to maintain this ruling while finding certain ways out, like annulment. And on the other hand, as attitudes on sexuality became stricter, they applied the prohibition to all sex outside marriage. Then, after two World Wars that relativised so much and the Fifties that managed temporarily to put some toothpaste back into the tube, came The Sixties or, as the French say, Soixante-huit. 

            Make Love, Not War. Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll. Some of us were there; some us are the children of those who were there; and most of us have absorbed a whole new culture of sexuality and marriage. And a permanent trouble in our relation to those words young Matthew the excise-man noted down in shorthand. Let’s be honest. Most of us can no longer follow straight-up what Yeshua says. But let’s be honest about ourselves also, and not repress a few questions – even if we don’t have easy answers. It is worth watching Brief Encounter. How many of us are comfortable about our divorces, even if things turned out well afterwards? How many of us are comfortable about the proportion of what we must now call “single-parent families” in our societies? The general feeling is that that train has left the station. But in the register of a Torah completed in inwardness, we cannot deny that the Pandora’s Box argument exists, and that in that respect at least the parallel with Anger is not fanciful. 

            The final word should, as always, be humility and prayer. Let us not proudly affirm our prejudices; let us pray for discernment and courage; and let us remember that God is, and creates, and maintains, Love. Make Love, not Lust. 

 

  

 

 

VERY, VERY DIFFICULT

 

I have written before about intercessory prayer. I have also upon occasion mentioned that in no church have I ever heard prayers for acknowledged enemies. These two issues are now coming to a head with the CoViD-19 hospitalisation of U.S. president Donald Trump, and the reactions to it reported in the news media. 

 

            For most people in the U.S.A. and in the Western world, Trump is an acknowledged enemy: someone who lies, cheats, bullies, and has done more than any previous holder of the presidency to degrade that office and to undermine the institutions of American democracy. Moreover, the position of his country in the world increases exponentially the effects of the damage he has inflicted on it. 

 

            So now that he is in hospital with an as yet unknown degree of the virus, the understandable reactions vary from a sense of almost Biblical tragedy – condign punishment specific to one of his many sins – via outright Schadenfreude to heartfelt and furiously-expressed wishes that he may not recover. Any good wishes or even prayers for his recovery seem to be limited strictly to his thick-and-thin supporters.

 

            So what should the reaction be for those of us who hate what he has done to the country, to politics generally, and to the world, but who are also reasonably devout if uncertain Christians (or, indeed, Jews)? He is our acknowledged enemy: can we bring ourselves to pray for him? This is a considerable test of our faith.  

 

            Reading the book by his niece, the psychiatrist Mary Trump, may help us to a greater understanding. The father of Donald and his brother was, by all accounts, a monster who taught his sons that the world was divided into killers and losers. Donald has clearly tried to be a killer, but as he isn’t a real killer (such as, for example, Erdogan in Turkey) he does his damage by flailing. His brother became an alcoholic and died at 42; Donald obviously has compensated for weakness and lack of self-confidence with sociopathic narcissism. There is in this a profound sadness: it shows us a damaged child lashing out at the world. 

 

            Naturally, such a child should not be let near an important function. That he was, through the ill-will of many professional politicians, the violence of their voters, and a seriously dysfunctional electoral system, is a tragedy. But beneath all that, we can perhaps still hear the cries of the damaged child. And we can, and should, perhaps remember that nothing is impossible to God except to deny Love.

 

            We should, then, perhaps pray earnestly for the damaged child Donald Trump, and beg the Lord to use this illness to bring about a change in his way of seeing the world and of living in it. Roger Cohen, the journalist, wrote that his experience with fairly serious CoViD-19 had made a deep impression on him. A loving Father might possibly use the same means to transform a damaged and dysfunctional President.