Month: March 2018

The Apocrypha in Lent – 9 March

If this is your first visit, please see my introduction to these Lenten readings.

9 March. Ecclesiasticus chapters 1-4

This book, the longest of the Apocrypha, is another book of wisdom sayings.  Wisdom in the biblical sense, of course, is closely connected with obedience to God and faith in Him.

As this weekend includes Mothering Sunday, I will look at the several references in chapter 3 to mothers (there are a similar number about fathers, too).  Some of them are positive:

“He who honours his mother is like someone amassing a fortune”; “He who sets his mother at ease is showing obedience to the Lord”.

Some sayings seem rather archaic – “The Lord upholds the rights of a mother over her sons”

Some are even negative, acknowledging that in real life some families are dysfunctional: “A mother’s curse tears up the foundations of the houses of her children”; “Whoever angers his mother is accursed of the Lord”.  Only recently  I saw a middle-aged man shouting aggressively at an old woman in a wheelchair who turned out to be his mother, and he turned angrily on me when I attempted to placate them.  There is a real need to both educate people in good relationships, and to pray for those who are caught up in bad ones.

The final reference compares mothers and God himself, both renowned for their unceasing love. “Be like a father to orphans, and as good as a husband to widows, and you will be like a son to the Most High, whose love for you will surpass your mother’s” (4:10-11)

 

The Apocrypha in Lent – 8 March

If this is your first visit, please see my introduction to these Lenten readings.

8 March. Wisdom chapters 16-19

These four chapters concluding the book are all about the Plagues of Eqypt and the beginning of the Exodus.  The story is re-told in vivid poetic language as the writer imagines what it was like for the Egyptians to feel God’s displeasure and suffer the many effects of the plagues, while the people of Israel were unaffected.  Indeed they were particularly blessed: protected from the venom of snakes by the bronze serpent on a pole (later understood as representing the healing power of Christ); protected from the destroying angel (here identified as the Word of God, 18:15, again a name for Christ); given a pillar of fire to lead them while the Egyptians had been terrified by darkness; and fed manna and quail in the desert while the Egyptians went hungry.

Interestingly, the writer imagines not so much physical suffering as psychological trauma, as they become terrified of the darkness by day, and mourn for their firstborn sons and the drowned army.  When disaster strikes and the natural reaction is fear, he says, it quickly becomes apparent who is trusting in God (and can therefore face these things calmly) and who does not (and quickly panics when their means of psychological support is taken away) – “Fear is nothing other than the abandonment of reason; the less you rely within yourself on these, the more alarming it is not to know the cause of your suffering” (17:11-12).

Of course nothing is so clear-cut in real life: some people with strong faith in God may still be of a nervous disposition, and vice-versa.  But one of the themes running through the Bible, and this book in particular, is that God is the rock, the fortress, the solid and dependable support in all circumstan

The apocrypha in a Year – 7 March

If this is your first visit, please see my introduction to these Lenten readings.

7 March. Wisdom chapters 13-15

Chapters 13-15 are devoted (no pun intended) to the condemnation of idolatry.  Of all the sins found in the Old Testament, this seems to have been considered the worst.  The commandments concerning behaviour towards other people – honour parents, but do not steal, kill, commit adultery, bear false witness, or be covetous – were and are routinely broken in both small and large ways, but that does not prevent God from maintaining an active relationship with those who profess to follow him.  Such sins can be forgiven, and anyone who believes in God and admits their guilt can be reconciled to him (15:1-2).

Idolatry, though – believing something other than the true God to be in control of the world (or some aspect of it) and worthy of worship – is a different matter.  If you believe in a false God, no amount of prayer to him/her/it will either direct you in the way you should go, help you keep to it, or forgive and restore you when you fail. That is why it is the most serious of sins.

The writer makes a sensible distinction, though, between nature-worship and the worship of man-made idols.  He can understand (though not excuse) why the people of his or previous generations might worship the sun, stars or animals, for they seem to possess power and (apparent) movement.  Even primitive farmers knew the sun and rain were essential for crop growth, so praying to them may have seemed like a good idea.  But the writer’s argument here is that if you are intelligent enough to work out the ways nature works, you should be able to deduce that someone has planned it that way, and it is that someone who is more worthy of worship.  This is what we would now call “intelligent design” – a step in the right direction towards faith compared with fatalistic atheism or nature-worship.

For the makers and devotees of idols of human making, though, he shows only ridicule.  How can someone who has made an image himself from wood or pottery, or bought it in the market, consider it to have any power or influence over him?  How can anyone be so foolish as to base their life’s decisions on the “answers” that such “beings” give – perhaps by throwing dice in their presence, or some such practice?

We may well laugh at such behaviour, but are those who put their hope in winning a lottery jackpot any wiser?  Or those who trust in horoscopes (which is a form of nature worship as described above)? Or those who have faith in such human constructs as “the economy” or “free trade” or “the Party”?

The conclusion is that “to acknowledge [God] is indeed perfect virtue; to know [God’s] power is the root of all immortality” (15:3).  That is the way that the wise king who is supposed to have written this lived his life, and a path to be followed.

The Apocrypha in Lent – 6 March

If this is your first visit, please see my introduction to these Lenten readings.

6 March. Wisdom chapters 9-12

So far, wisdom has been presented in an abstract way, but now in chapters 10-12 she is related specifically to Israel’s history.  How the Jews love to look back at their history – it means so much to them that God had made himself known to their ancestors, rescued them from slavery and oppression, performed miracles whenever the survival of the race was at stake.    But three times in this passage the author acknowledges that God showed “forbearance” not only towards them but also to their enemies – Egyptians and Canaanites.   For God’s mercy is always seen to triumph over judgement, as St James puts it.

This, again, is where God’s Wisdom differs, say from human concepts such as “common sense” or “natural justice”. Not that those are bad ideas, but Wisdom takes us beyond that, into the heart of God’s loving purposes.  No wonder that Christians have often identified Wisdom either with Jesus or the Holy Spirit, the two ways in which God makes himself known among us.

The Apocrypha in a Year – 5 March

If this is your first visit, please see my introduction to these Lenten readings.

5 March. Wisdom chapters 5-8

This book of Wisdom is traditionally read as if written by King Solomon (although it is widely acknowledged to have been written many centuries later). It is therefore in the voice of a king that other rulers are encouraged to be acknowledge God and rule justly (6:1-12).  The Bible does not put forward any one form of government as inherently better than others.  In its pages we find God’s people led by hereditary kings, high priests, judges (both male and female), military rulers, puppet governors of foreign empires, even reluctant shepherds who have greatness thrust upon them.  Just about anything except a democratically elected president, in fact.  But what matters to God is not how someone comes to be in leadership, nor whether they are free-marketeers or socialists, but whether they realise that God himself is greater than any human might and a higher legal authority than any judge.  The good leader is a woman or man who knows their limitations, accepts that they have no more human rights than anyone else, and listens to wise counsel wherever it may be found.

The next couple of chapters consider the nature of wisdom before moving towards Solomon’s decision to make it (or her) his only guide.  The consistent use of feminine language and personal pronouns for Wisdom throughout the book are a healthy balance against the tendency both to think of God as only masculine, and to limit “wisdom” to impersonal knowledge.  In today’s “big data” society we need to be reminded more than ever that true wisdom is far removed from mere “information”, even “understanding”  or “knowledge” in a limited scientific sense.  Wisdom is personified as female because it is found in relationships not power, humility not strength,  beauty not wealth – and these are traditionally thought of as feminine qualities.

The Apocrypha in Lent – 4 March

If this is your first visit, please see my introduction to these Lenten readings.

4 March. Wisdom chapters 1-4

After the last couple of weeks’ readings in Maccabees with all the glory and gore of warfare, coming to the book of Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon as it is sometimes known) is a blessed relief.  Here, instead of violent struggle in the name of God as the way to please him, we find that a holy and peaceful life is the better way.  These opening chapters contrast the virtuous person who places their trust in God and in the resurrection, with the “ungodly” who live amoral or even immoral lives with no thought for the spiritual consequences.  Several errors are highlighted that the “ungodly” make:

Firstly they do not realise that God, represented as Wisdom, is all-present and all-knowing, aware of our every thought, word and deed (1:6-11).  That in itself should make us stop short when we are tempted to become angry, to hurt someone else, tell lies, or sin in any other way.  But of course we quickly forget that in the heat of the moment.  That is why wisdom is paired with discipline (3:11) – it requires the discipline of frequent prayer to remember constantly that God is with us and aware of everything we do.  And I will be the first to hold my hand up and say that does not yet describe me.

Secondly, by not believing in the afterlife, they think that sins committed in this life have no consequences (chapter 2).  Rather, the wise person is willing to accept hardship or even martyrdom for the sake of God’s favour in the life to come (2:1-9, 4:7-19).

Thirdly, they think wrongly that hardship in this life, particularly in the matter of bearing children (who were very much seen in those days as a sign of God’s blessing) means a person has displeased God. In fact the opposite is true – a woman faithful to one husband but without children is more pleasing to God than someone who has slept around, perhaps in the vain hope of bearing a child by anyone; and the eunuch (perhaps meaning anyone who is sexually different from the majority) will be treated with special favour, again as long as they do not sin (3:10-4:6).  By contrast, the godless person who has many children will suffer God’s displeasure – and so (according to this text) will their children. Jesus contradicted this belief by assuring people that non-one is judged by God for their parent’s sins.

These black-and-white morals may look rather simplistic in our complicated multicultural world with its many different faiths and views on what is acceptable behaviour.  But the first of them, I would argue, is certainly worth thinking about – if you believe in a God who is ever present, that will affect everything you do and how you relate to other people.

 

 

The Apocrypha in Lent – 3 March

If this is your first visit, please see my introduction to these Lenten readings.

3 March. 2 Maccabees  chapters 12-15

These last chapters of the second book of Maccabees summarise the whole of the struggles of Judas and Simon against the Syrian armies, to the point where after the defeat of the Syrian general Nicanor “the city has remained in possession of the Hebrews” (15:37).  The whole period, so reminiscent of the present fighting in Syria with its multiple factions fired by religious and political zeal, does not make pleasant reading, even if tales of the destruction of tens or hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians are exaggerating the figures.  Just a couple of points stand out as worth a mention:

One is the frequency with which political agreements and military truces are broken and the lack of trust between opponents.  Many times in the course of these books, enemy leaders hold peace talks – usually because one side or the other has suffered a heavy defeat and realises that they dare not risk another confrontation in the short term – but nearly every time the peace is broken, often very quickly.  We see this in today’s Syria too, where only last week a short truce intended to bring humanitarian aid to Ghouta failed almost before it had begun, and before any aid could be delivered.  The human spirit, especially in times of war, is inclined to mistrust those who have been opposed to us, and only with the aid of the Spirit of God can true peace be established.

It seems a chance had been missed by Nicanor in chapter 14, when he did maintain an agreed truce for long enough for his opponent Judas Maccabeus to lay down his arms, get married and settle down (so presumably years rather than months).  But he made the mistake of listening to one man – Lacimus, a former high priest in Jerusalem who had an axe to grind – and started treating Judas badly, thereby prompting a renewal of hostilities that led to his own defeat and death in battle.  One of the commonest cries of prayer to God recorded in battle is “How long, O Lord?” – usually meaning “how long until war stops and there will be peace in our land?” But the answer to the prayer lies in the hands of men as much as with God.

The other point concerns devotion to the Temple.  We read that in the final battle, “Their concern for their wives and children, their brothers and relatives, had shrunk to minute importance; their chief and greatest fear was for the consecrated Temple.” (15:18).  That, perhaps, was their greatest mistake – by these last centuries before Christ, the Temple which had twice been rebuilt had become not merely the centre of religious worship but a focus of adoration in itself – in a word, Idolatry.  They did not realise that they were breaking not only the commandment to worship nothing other than God himself, but also the ones about loving one’s neighbours and honouring one’s parents.

It is not surprising, then, that in the Gospel reading for today [4 March when I am actually writing this] Jesus condemns those who have turned the Temple into a market place, reminding them that its purpose is a place of prayer.  He then says to the Temple authorities “Destroy this temple” [probably pointing to himself], “and in three days I will raise it up.” Their reply, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?”, shows that they fail to understand his point, that as God in human flesh he, and not the building, should be the focus of their worship from now on.  If the Maccabees and their zealous followers had paid more attention to their wives and children instead of arming themselves to fight to the death for the sake of the Temple, how would Jewish – or world- history have turned out differently?

 

The Apocrypha in Lent – 2 March

If this is your first visit, please see my introduction to these Lenten readings.

2 March. 2 Maccabees  chapters 8-11

The beginning of chapter 8 marks a division in the book, which in the Jerusalem Bible translation is headed “The Victory of Judaism”. Elsewhere in this book there are references to the “Jewish race” or “Jewish people”.  That is very significant.   The Old Testament proper known nothing of this identity but rather tells of the twelve tribes of Israel – of which Judah became dominant, separating itself from the rest of “Israel”.  But from this time (about 150 years before Jesus of Nazareth) onwards, the identity of the worshippers of the God of Abraham identified themselves by one badge as “Jews” (though the name does derive from that of Judah).

Anyway, following the Greek empire’s attacks on Jerusalem and their torturing of innocent people, Judas Maccabeus raises a mercenary army to resist them on the principle of “we’ve had enough of this – even if we die fighting it’s better than letting ourselves be subjected to persecution”.  But God, it seems, was with them, and if these accounts are to be believed, on several occasions there were apparitions of angelic horsemen fighting for them.  Their appearance both encouraged the Jews, and frightened their enemy, to the extent that the battle in each case was turned in their favour.

That tallies with the Jewish/Christian understanding of there being a “heavenly host” of angels, always around us and influencing events, nearly always unseen.  When angels become visible, it is in times of great distress or danger, as if the veil that separates their plane of existence and ours gets torn by the distress in the world so that they can intervene and be seen doing so.   Sometimes, as noted above, the mere visible presence of an angel can make all the difference; on other occasions they seem to take a more physical form and can actually affect the things of this world – according to anecdote, deflecting bullets and removing danger out of people’s way. There are still people in the world today who tell of seeing angels at times of danger. Perhaps we ought to pay more attention to them.

 

The Apocrypha in Lent – 1 March

If this is your first visit, please see my introduction to these Lenten readings.

1 March. 2 Maccabees  chapters 5-7

Chapter 5 repeats the story of the defeat of Jason and the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, also told in the opening chapter of 1 Maccabees, and leads up to Judas and his sons escaping to the wilderness.  Chapter 6 tells how the Jews and Samaritans alike were persecuted by the Greek overlords, force-fed “unclean” food and prevented on pain of death from exercising their religious rituals. When “a man might not admit even to being a Jew” (6:6) the outlook seems terrible indeed for the Jewish faith.

The second part of that chapter tells of the martyrdom of the aged Eleazar, and chapter 7 of the martyrdom of seven unnamed brothers, tortured in the presence of their mother, who retains a remarkable faith in God  as she encourages them to be brave in accepting torture to death.

It is not only in this willingness to be martyred that we see signs of faith; indeed as we see in radicalised young people in Syria today, such a willingness does not necessarily stem from a peaceful and holy life, but more often from a violent one fed by extremist propaganda.  Eleazar however faces death peacefully in his old age rather than play a simple con trick to preserve his life by fooling his captors into thinking he was complying with their demands (6:18-28).  Also, in 5:19-20 and 6:12-17 the author/editor sees God’s will being done even in the disasters the Jews are facing, as the necessary discipline of a loving parent rather than a punishment.