Herding Cats

Well, I'm to attend a called meeting of my Session tomorrow evening (that's Presbyterianspeak for the rest of the elders and I getting together to do church business). I was reminded when I saw this.

HT: Baylyblog

Desperate Measures in Genesis 38

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Tabletalk magazine? I have been a subscriber for a year now, have read it just about every day, and cannot recommend it too highly.

This week, several of the daily studies discuss Tamar's extreme efforts to conceive a son, in Genesis 38, and they certainly make the case that this story is worth understanding in depth. This incident in the history of the covenant family of Abraham falls just after Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery in Egypt, and just before Moses begins the long into-Egypt narrative. I discovered this week that there are good reasons for its inclusion in the history.

Jacob's large household has now settled in southern Canaan, away from the area of the disastrous events at Shechem (chapter 34). Yet his sons continue to fall to the temptation of intermarriage. Judah marries a Canaanite woman, and has three sons with her. When his firstborn Er comes of age, Judah finds another Canaanite for him to marry, the young woman Tamar. Yet Er is an evil man, and God takes his life. Judah responds in a proper manner by directing his second son Onan to take Tamar in levirate marriage.

Onan is as evil as his brother. He is only too happy to take Tamar for the physical pleasure she can provide, all the while refusing to give her a son to raise in his brother's name. Just as with Er, God judges Onan for his wickedness by taking his life. Tamar is now in a truly desperate situation. Women could inherit no property, and without a husband or a son to provide for her she would soon be destitute. Judah sends her to her pagan father's household until his third son Shelah is old enough to be given to her as a husband, but Judah's pledge is dishonest. He sees the deaths of his two sons not as divine judgment but as evidence that Tamar is some kind of bad juju, and delays the marriage until his true intent is obvious even to her.

In due time, Judah's wife dies. Judah mourns, and then departs to visit his sheepshearers. Tamar initiates a scheme she must have been planning for a number of years, and which takes Judah's character and proclivities into mind. Setting aside the distinctive clothing of widowhood that she has worn ever since the death of Onan, she veils herself as a prostitute and places herself along Judah's path. Failing to recognize her as his daughter in law, he approaches her and begins negotiations. Shrewdly, she demands a pledge of his signet ring, cord, and staff until the agreed-upon price (a young goat) is delivered.

Not lingering to exchange the pledge for payment, she returns home pregnant, and dresses again as a widow. Judah sends the young goat with a Canaanite friend, but the prostitute he has been sent to look for is nowhere to be found. Fearing he will be ridiculed, Judah decides to let the unknown prostitute keep the items of his pledge.

Three months later, Tamar's pregnancy is reported to Judah, and since her betrothal to Shelah is still technically binding, she is pronounced an adulteress and sentenced to death. Tamar then sends word to Judah that she is pregnant by the owner of the signet, cord, and staff that she now produces. Identifying them, Judah proclaims her more righteous than him, acknowledging his own refusal to give her his third son as husband. Her death averted, she apparently is allowed to rejoin Judah's household, although he is never sexually intimate with her again. She gives birth to twin sons, Perez and Zerah, and thus Judah's line (the line of David and David's Son) is preserved (an heir and a spare!) by a Canaanite woman desperate enough to engage in incest.

Our standard (and understandable) reaction to this account is horror at Tamar's degrading actions, but consider that Moses actually portrays her with sympathy. It is Judah who has openly rejected his father's and grandfather's examples of choosing godly wives, who has paid lip service to giving Abraham many descendants (cf. 15:1-6), who has gone after prostitutes, and who has of course treated Tamar shamefully in the matter of his son Shelah (38:14b). While Tamar is the one seducing Judah, it is Judah who first ties the millstone around her neck.

Consider also that Tamar's actions reveal a motivation beyond economic necessity: faith. Perhaps a contrast with another Canaanite woman in almost identical circumstances will help make the point. Ruth chapter one tells the story of Naomi of Bethlehem, who has been driven from her land and people by a famine, and who has settled in Moab with her husband and two sons. The two sons take Moabite wives, but neither they nor their father survive. Naomi has no sons to offer Orpah and Ruth in levirate marriage, and knows she will bear no more. She plans to return alone (to the land of Judah! coincidence?) and urges them to return to their fathers' households. Initially both Orpah and Ruth desire to come with her. We are all familiar with Ruth's faithful insistence, but Orpah does not deliberate long before taking Naomi's (tragic) advice to return to her father's household, to her people, and to her false gods (1:15). We never hear her name again. What a contrast to Tamar, who binds herself to the family of faith in Yahweh (this in spite of Judah's lack thereof) and will not let the deaths of two husbands, or Judah's treachery, keep her away. More faithful than her father-in-law to Abraham's mandate, she is determined to add to his offspring.

Moses' emphasis on Tamar's faith, however blemished and weak it may be, is not lost on later generations of Israelites. Notice how the people and elders of Bethlehem include her name alongside those of Rachel and Leah as they pronounce a blessing on Boaz's intention to marry Ruth (4:12). The central thing about saving faith is not its strength but its object.

God's calling on our lives today is both similar to and different from Tamar's situation. Of course we are not called upon to raise up physical offspring for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And it scarcely needs to be said that godly ends cannot be met by ungodly means. How much better it would have been had Tamar looked to God in faith for a son, even as Abraham and Sarah (finally!) did. Yet, her boldness to be obedient to God is worthy of following. Resisting the inertia of despair, of excuses, and of fear, she got moving. Right now, at this moment, what have you or I put off doing for Christ and His Kingdom that we know needs doing? Let's not delay any longer. Write that note of encouragement. Invite that neighbor to church. Reconcile that relationship. Talk to that son or daughter about the things of God. Bend those knees.

One more thing and I'm done. (Thanks to those who patiently read this whole post) This story, for all the discomfort it causes readers, is powerful evidence of God's faithfulness. The covenant family of Abraham is breaking down: they may have survived the aftermath of Shechem, but they are moving apart physically (38:1) and spiritually (chapter 37). They are compromising the faith, and letting pride and jealousy destroy their family. And yet, even as Joseph's brothers are selling him into slavery, God is sending him ahead of them to Egypt - with the purpose of securing a place for them (Goshen) where they will live apart from false religion once again. This episode also marks Judah's nadir: as despicable as he is here, a few chapters and many years later, he will be offering his own life as a substitute for his brother Benjamin's (44:16-34). The divine heart surgery has begun. No matter how bad we have been (and know that we have been very bad) our God is faithful. "None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned" (Psalm 34:22b).

Deus Ex Machina Goes to the Movies

Every now and then I just feel like writing about a silly subject, and today's the day.

The omnipresent Wikipedia defines (at least today!) Deus ex machina as "an unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot." Examples are offered like the timely appearance of a rat to chew off the rope that binds the hero's hands, or an angel suddenly appearing to resolve a difficulty.

Bad movies do this a lot. Sometimes even the writers of otherwise-good movies get themselves into corners and the only way they can write themselves out is with some lame plot device. I just love Mike Judge's Office Space, for instance, but [SPOILER ALERT] all the tension around Peter, Mike, and Samir getting caught at their little embezzlement scheme just goes up in smoke (Ha!) when Initech's corporate campus inexplicably burns to a crisp. The Deus Ex Machina (DEM): the whole plot turns on our buying the idea of a competent 1990s software development company that has never heard of offsite backup. Yeah. The flaming stapler scene is hilarious, of course, but I find myself unsuspending my willing suspension of disbelief whenever I watch it. And I do watch it, every chance I get.

But anyway, OS was still a pretty good comedy. Now for a bad one, which also has the honor of being my eight-year-old daughter HoneyGirl's current Favorite Film Ever in the History of Cinema and Don't You Knock It if You Know What's Good for You (FFEITHOCADYKIIYKWGFY): High School Musical. The plot, such as it is: WASPy jock Troy and brainy Latina-next-door Gabriella both secretly long to try out for the high school music-AL (as the snotty, arrogant music teacher Ms. Darbus pronounces it) but figure what's the use since snotty, arrogant sister-brother singing/dancing sensations Sharpay and Ryan have always headlined every music-AL ever. Now commence all the scenes of Troy's team and Gabriella's geeks trying to keep them away from the auditions and each other, and the tension just builds - BUILDS! I tell you - until the big showdown between our star-crossed singers and the Sharpay/Ryan juggernaut. S & R are scheming, scenery-chewing villains, of course, but what's also quite clear is that they are demonstrably better singers, dancers, and choreographers (and costumers, to boot) than the T & G Amateur Hour will ever shape up to be.

Which makes the denouement all the more ridiculous. Ms. Darbus suddenly switches her support from the champs to the chumps, this because a crowd of kids inexplicably descends on the audition hall and claps louder for the latter than the former.

The DEM, of course, is this: since when have the great, unwashed masses ever known a thing about art?! Ms. Darbus has spent every one of her scenes thus far sniffing at anyone who would dare critique anything related to how she's running her music-AL, and now we're supposed to believe she's come around, and gosh, that Troy and Gabriella just sing with so much heart that it would be crazy not to put their names in lights.

And it isn't just her. The epilogue song-and-dance sequence features the formerly snotty and arrogant Sharpay and Ryan (their lobotomy scars having healed, I guess) just dancin' and singin' and grinnin' ear to ear about their disgrace. They just couldn't be happier for the jock and the geek! They've learned their lesson! There's no I in TEAM! Right.

Finally, The Caine Mutiny. The movie, not the book. Even my blogger profile agrees that I love the book, which is why I was so disappointed by the film. Perhaps because Bogey decided he didn't want to play Captain Queeg as Captain Queeg, the movie portrays him much more sympathetically. Instead of turning the ship upside down over some missing strawberries, not noticing that he's navigating in circles while he's admonishing a sailor with a shirttail out, or systematically persecuting Petty Officer Stillwell, he actually comes to his wardroom officers with hat in hand, acknowledging his commmand failures and asking for their help. They refuse, and an entirely different spin is placed on his later mental breakdown.

This is a DEM of a different sort: resolving the tension before it even has a chance to develop, by replacing a paranoid petty tyrant with a bumbling-but-humble neurotic who just needs a little help.

Those are just three examples. To my loyal readers (both of them): now that you've got the idea, please send me some of your favorite DEM movie moments as comments.

When We Don't Know Our Real Needs

Listening to an archive from the White Horse Inn radio program, I was reminded today of a refrain I heard a bunch of times during my six years of pastoral ministry.

Folks tiring of my "too doctrinal" preaching sometimes hinted and sometimes were rather bold about how I should stick to "real world" subjects. Why did I never give sermons like the old pastor did - you know, stuff like how to improve their marriages or raise their children? Why on earth would I spend an entire year trudging through Romans when they already knew all that stuff? (Or so they claimed)

In this program, an interview and discussion with Rev. Dick Lucas of The Proclamation Trust, the group goes after the sad state of preaching in the UK and USA today - how moralism and moralizing have replaced the proclamation of Christ. It's an old interview (from 1995) but startlingly applicable to where our churches are today. While many evangelicals might nod their heads thinking these guys must have the mainline in mind, the fact is that the idea of preaching to felt needs has about as much currency in self-styled evangelical churches today as it does in the liberal mainline.

With that background, I especially appreciate a comment Rev. Lucas makes about the account in Matthew 9:1-8 of Jesus and the paralyzed man. We all know the scene: the man's four friends are determined to get him to Jesus so Jesus can heal him, crowd or no crowd, so they make a hole in the roof and lower their friend, bed and all, with ropes. And most of us are able to get the real point of the account: that Jesus is demonstrating his (invisible) authority to forgive sin by his (visible) authority over sickness and disease.

But look at Jesus' first words to the paralyzed man from the point of view of so many who have been raised in our churches on a steady diet of felt needs. Jesus says, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven." To which we might expect the man to reply, "Thanks for nothing! I'm PARALYZED, and I need to be healed. Don't talk to me about doctrine!"

When we don't know our first and greatest need, we'll prefer the temporal over the eternal every time. Jesus was well aware of the man's desire for healing (and of his four friends' faith that Jesus could make him well) but He refuses to deal with the felt need until the true need of a man dead in trespasses and sins is resolved.

Rev. Lucas continues, inviting us to consider what this saved man might say if he were to join the group in the recording studio after having spent the last two thousand years in the presence of Christ in heaven. It's worth thinking about. Yes, he was greatly blessed to be given the use of his legs. Yes, he was able to raise a family and provide for it. He was given twenty or twenty-five years more to live, with new purpose. These are not small things. Yet in comparison to the forgiveness of his sins, and his union with the Savior ...

Which brings us back to the sort of proclamation we settle for, as preachers or preached-to, in our churches. Whenever the mercies of God in Christ Jesus are not first and foremost (actually talked about! every week, in one aspect or another!) then we stand in danger of becoming like the child of the slums in C. S. Lewis' famous illustration, who prefers to go on making mud pies in the street gutter because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the seashore.

And what is terrifying, that we become hardened and complacent in our sin, preferring temporal help to eternal rescue, all the while the day of judgment looms.

The interview is worth a listen.

Shortcuts

Something I've been thinking about ever since coming across this basic idea in a Tabletalk devotional from May, 2007.

Proverbs 3:1-4
My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandents, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart.

Genesis 34 tells the depressing tale of Jacob's household returning from Paddan-Aram and resettling in Canaan. What seems a chance story detail in 33:18 - Jacob opting to settle in Shechem instead of continuing southward to Bethel, Hebron, or Beersheba - turns out to be the beginning of a disastrous series of events. He purchases enough land from Hamor, Shechem's king, to pitch his tents, and is no sooner settled than his daughter Dinah goes "out to see the women of the land" (34:1). King Hamor's son seizes her and rapes her. Yet afterward, his soul is drawn to her, and he urges his father to arrange a marriage.

Hamor approaches Jacob and his sons with a most attractive offer (vv. 8-12). In addition to agreeing beforehand to any bride price they would care to name, Hamor opens the land of Canaan to them. He encourages them to acquire land, build houses, and engage in commerce. In short, he offers them the very Promised Land they have sought since their grandfather and great-grandfather Abraham sojourned there - yet on the ungodly terms (verse nine) of intermarrying their sons and daughters with the inhabitants of the land.

God's intention, of course, is that the land they are being offered on such easy terms be theirs, but it is to be theirs by divine grace and not by their negotiations.

In Matthew 4:8-9, Jesus is tempted in the very same way. Taking him to a high mountain where he can see all the kingdoms of the world in their glory, the devil makes a similarly attractive offer. Everything that Jesus seeks - the kingship and allegiance of all the peoples of the world - may be his. With an end run around the path of suffering - and of utter dependance on the Father - Jesus may be the Prince of Peace to all the world immediately. All he has to do, really, is acknowledge Satan as the giver of this extraordinary gift. A slightly different route to the same godly end, that's all.

All of us His people are thankful, of course, that Jesus overcomes, utterly rejecting the devil's modest proposal. Through him, we too are made more than conquerors (Romans 8:37), given divine grace to say no to the devil's many tempting shortcuts.

Yet the challenge is ever before us. We're to wait for the Lord for the fulfillment of His good promises, rather than to rush in with whatever means are laid conveniently at our disposal. This is not indolence or apathy, but (as with the passage above) tying God's steadfast love and faithfulness around our necks, writing His teaching on our hearts, that we will find favor and good success in His sight and in the sight of man. It is acting rightly when seeking His good gifts.

Examples and applications abound everywhere in life. The ways in which we advance our careers, for instance: every seeking of success at someone else's expense is a compromise we cannot make. Or how about the ways in which we the Church carry out evangelism and missions? In what ways are we tempted to modify the message in order to broaden the gospel's appeal? And I believe every parent can agree that obedience and good behavior are godly goals for our children. Yet how easily we trade total reliance on the Holy Spirit's work in their hearts, for emphasis on external compliance.

King Hamor offered the sons of Jacob a direct and easy path to everything they wanted - everything, in fact, they knew God intended for them - at a surprisingly affordable price. Yet inking the deal would have proved disastrous. Let us keep our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, that we may seek God's good ends by His appointed, godly means.