Malevojoy

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 1 Comment

The Book of Obadiah

By Chuck Griffin

The little prophetic book of Obadiah contains a description of an emotion so nasty that God promised to destroy those who felt it.

Oddly, as powerful an emotion as it is, we don’t have a word for it in English. The Germans call it schadenfreude. The Greeks call it epichairekakia.

It is the joy we sometimes feel when someone else experiences trouble. Usually, that someone else is a rival or enemy, and we are reminded in Obadiah that we can treat people quite close to us as rivals or enemies.

Obadiah, a prophet we know little about, described in 21 tight verses why God would destroy the Edomites. The Edomites, you may recall, were the descendants of Esau, twin brother of Jacob. Jacob, of course, was a progenitor of the Israelites.

In other words, the Israelites and the Edomites were cousins. They considered themselves the killing kind rather than the kissing kind, however, keeping alive some very old grudges going back to their twin forefathers.

While we don’t know the exact time frame for Obadiah, his prophecy clearly came after the Israelites had suffered terrible defeat and destruction. The Edomites were guilty not so much of committing violence, but of reveling in what they witnessed.

“You should not have gloated over your brother on the day of his misfortune; you should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah on the day of their ruin; you should not have boasted on the day of their distress,” God said to the Edomites through Obadiah.

The desire to grin at a rival’s pain is such a common emotion that I’m surprised we don’t have a word for it in English. Perhaps we need one; it’s hard to identify and repent from a sin when you cannot name it. “Malevojoy,” a fusion of “malevolence” and “joy,” might work.

We see such perverse emotion displayed again in the New Testament, as Jesus is hanging on the cross. The chief priests, scribes and elders watch their rival bleeding and dying and mock him, no doubt with grins on their faces.

“And the people stood by watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!'” (Luke 23:35.)

The potential result of their malevojoy seems much different in the New Testament, however. We are told in Luke how Jesus dealt with such people before they so much as spoke, knowing full well the judgment his enemies might face one day. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Even at his death, Jesus felt only love and pity for his rivals.

Dear Lord, forgive us for the nameless sins we commit. Amen.

Let Justice Roll Down

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Amos 5

By Chuck Griffin

The wisdom in Amos, much of which is about justice, has helped me to better understand tithing and other offerings, including our offerings of time.

Amos is famous for one verse in particular. The prophet says in chapter 5 that God no longer wants what the Jews would have considered “traditional worship,” music and animal sacrifices. Instead, he says, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).

In other words, the mark of a people truly in love with God is that justice is done in mighty and wonderful ways in their community. From that, we are left to ask, “What is justice?”

Scripture gives us a rich, clear answer. In fact, the answer is at the very core of Jesus’ message in the New Testament.

Just as Amos talks about a coming time of judgment, Jesus talks about judgment, too, and he tells us in Matthew 25 that our fate at the judgment will depend on whether we’ve brought justice into the world.

For Jesus, justice is a straightforward thing. It happens when those who have resources help those who aren’t so fortunate. The hungry need food, the thirsty need drink, strangers need welcoming, the poor need clothing, the sick need care, and the prisoners need visiting.

Help them, he says, and it is as if you did it for Jesus.

That brings me to tithes and offerings. Too often, we’re so caught up in operating budgets and building needs that we forget the primary reason we exist as a church. We are to inject God’s justice into a broken world.

Buildings are important and lights are important, but they’re just the basics, functioning as tools the church can use. Here’s a tough question every church needs to face: Have we failed to bring justice to those who need it simply because we lack resources?

To do a noteworthy job in bringing real justice to the world, it takes more money and time than most American Christians seem willing to give. Yes, the coming of Christ did away with legalism in giving. But frankly, the coming of Christ—the coming of “Kingdom of God” justice—calls us to do even more than our tithing Jewish forebears were ever required to do.

The next time the offering plate goes by, or a call for ministry volunteers goes out, remember that you’re being given the opportunity to participate in the greatest event in history, the remaking of the world by God.

Lord, reveal to us the best way to spend our time and money on behalf of your kingdom and in thanks for eternal life. Amen.

Trajectory

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Paul’s Letter to Philemon

By Chuck Griffin

A few years ago on television, there was a show where a fictional senator and president discussed their discomfort with Christianity. The senator, played by Alan Alda, said, “I couldn’t believe there was a God who had no penalty for slavery. The Bible has no problem with slavery at all.”

Like all good fiction, this show dealt with ideas that trouble real people. Why doesn’t God say in the Bible, “Followers of Christ, it is wrong to own another person!”

The Apostle Paul’s words to an early Christian named Philemon are worth examining if we’re concerned about how effectively the Bible influences society. Philemon was a slave owner. Onesimus, his slave, had run away to Paul, converting to Christianity in the process. Paul then sent Onesimus back to Philemon. 

Paul’s decision to send a slave back to his master hardly seems to condemn slavery. But Paul also gave Onesimus a letter to take to Philemon. And the content of that subtle letter is so powerful that we now call it a book of the Bible.

The official medallion of the British Anti-Slavery Society, 1795, Josiah Wedgwood.

Nowhere in the letter will you find Paul saying, “End slavery now!” There’s one obvious reason. Such a direct attack on a central feature of the society in which early Christians lived would have invited terrible punishment.

Instead, Paul uses gentle coercion to change the situation. First, he speaks lovingly of the slave owner’s faith, found under Paul’s pastoral guidance.

Then Paul speaks of the slave’s faith, calling him “my child” and asking the master to receive the slave as a brother. The implication is obvious—how do you enslave and punish a beloved brother or sister?

As the television senator noted, there is no outright rejection of slavery in the letter to Philemon or anywhere else in the Bible. But we must learn to think of the Bible as more than a rule book from ancient history. It often works like a launching pad for ideas, ideas that God has shot like rockets through time so people are changed.

Now, we do have to be careful; some people would take a concept like scriptural trajectory and use it to argue that the Bible says whatever they want it to say. We have to be certain that we go in the direction God first sent us. Otherwise, we will spin north, south, east and west until we finally hit the ground like an experimental missile.

God used Paul and his little letter to change the world dramatically over several centuries. Certainly, Paul wanted to free Onesimus from slavery. But more importantly, he wanted to free Philemon from any anger he might have been feeling toward his escaped slave and the wrongheaded notions that allowed the enslavement to occur.

If Paul had simply issued a rule for Philemon to follow, he never would have gotten to the heart of the matter. Was the Holy Spirit really changing Philemon? Could this slave owner find himself capable of loving Onesimus as a Christian brother?

And that brings us to the deepest lesson from the letter to Philemon. Christians change the world by changing hearts, not by rigorous rule making. Once hearts are changed, the rules for living become obvious and begin to fall in place.

Dear Lord, help us see the true trajectory of your great plan so we may conform ourselves to the holiness you offer your creation. Amen.

Video Devotion: A Remarkable Worship

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 1 Comment

This is, of course, a blog for traditional Methodists, people who believe Scripture is the revealed word of God. Today, I simply want to point you to a link. Twenty-five conservative churches from different denominations have come together in Blount County, Tennessee, to take a stand for scriptural Christianity. The link will take you to a recent worship service where people from those churches gathered as one.

If you don’t have time to watch the whole service, I would encourage you to move to 43:30 in the video and hear the Rev. Todd Chancey, pastor of First UMC in Alcoa, preach.

Awake 21

The Whole Heart

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2 Chronicles 25

By Chuck Griffin

Have you ever been in a spiritually good place, feeling “right with God,” and then suddenly found yourself sinning mightily?

Those who have experienced such behavior know the sudden turn can be shocking and confusing. The author of 2 Chronicles repeatedly tells us stories of leaders who make such sudden wrong turns.

In chapter 25, we find Amaziah presented as one of the more successful kings over Judah, at least to a point. Early in his reign, he seems to follow God’s law scrupulously. When he goes to war against the Edomites, God tells him to send home the mercenaries he has hired to supplement his army, assuring the king he will have victory without such unsavory assistance.

And victory is Amaziah’s. That’s what makes his next act so odd.

Rather than giving thanks to the God who has given him assurances through prophets and victory on the battlefield, he carries home the idols of his defeated enemy and begins to worship them.

God, of course, expresses anger, speaking through a prophet. But even then, Amaziah is unrepentant, threatening the prophet with death. Amaziah eventually falls into the hands of his enemies and dies as the result of a conspiracy, all a result of divine displeasure.

We do receive an early clue to Amaziah’s problem in 25:2. We’re told that Amaziah “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, yet not with a whole heart.”

In other words, while part of Amaziah loved and followed God, there were dark places where he had not allowed God to penetrate. Therein lay the problematic parts of his personality.

Self-righteous anger may have been one of Amaziah’s serious problems. On their way home, the mercenaries he had dismissed looted parts of Judah, doing a lot of damage.

Perhaps Amaziah blamed God for allowing such a thing to happen. If so, Amaziah failed to see that the mercenaries’ behavior was more evidence that they were not the kind of people to be aligned with a godly mission, and that he had made a serious mistake in hiring them.

It also was a tradition in the Ancient Near East to take home the gods of a defeated people, absorbing them into the conqueror’s religious traditions. It may be that Amaziah forgot the special nature of the God over Judah, the God who declared himself One and Only. If so, Amaziah is simply another example of the folly of blending worldliness with godliness.

We again see how the Old Testament points us toward the New Testament. Only one with a whole and holy heart, Jesus Christ, could make it possible for the darkest parts of the human heart to be filled with light.

Dear Lord,when we experience sudden, surprising failure like Amaziah’s, search us deeply and show us what we still keep hidden. And of course, help us to hear your guidance and make the changes we need to make. Amen.

God in Art: Jeremiah Laments

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Known as the “Weeping Prophet,” Jeremiah foretold the destruction of Jerusalem after the people had fallen into sin. Here is today’s reading from Jeremiah, Chapter 3, verses 1 through 5. It is a harsh condemnation issued on behalf of God, but we need to remember that thanks to the work of Christ on the cross, God will return for his church as a bridegroom for a bride.

Rembrandt van Rijn, “Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem,” circa 1630.

A Prayer of Faith

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Habakkuk 3:17-19
Though the fig tree should not blossom,
    nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
    and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
    and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the deer's;
    he makes me tread on my high places.

By Chuck Griffin

Monday, we looked at how the prophet Habakkuk wrestled with his era’s version of the problem of evil, the questions that arise about God when bad people seem to prosper. The context was very different from our own—God’s chosen people were overrun by brutal conquerors—but the frustration and confusion expressed by the prophet were similar to what we might experience today.

We stopped at Habakkuk 2:1, the point where the prophet took a stand, seemingly demanding answers.

And God answered. Rooting the vision he offered Habakkuk in a seemingly distant but certain end to the divine plan, God asserted that the “righteous shall live by faithfulness.” He also assured Habakkuk that our perception of right and wrong is correct. Those who build wealth out of their own strength and corruption, making idols of objects in this world, will fail, although the patience of the righteous will be required.

It was enough to launch Habakkuk into prayer. We might even say song, as the third chapter has embedded in it instructions that there be musical accompaniment.

Habakkuk shows us the right attitude to maintain, even when the answers aren’t at first satisfying. He declared the greatness of God, poetically recounting the actions of the one who is clearly over all creation.

And even in pain, with all around him seeming lost, the prophet made it clear that God would continue to be worthy of honor and worship. “I will take joy in the God of my salvation,” he said (3:18).

How blessed are we that we have seen so much of God’s great plan play out! With the coming of Christ, we see how the cross marks the end of sin and death, even if we must wait patiently for Christ’s work to come to full fruition.

We will tread the high places.

Dear Lord, when we experience our own times of woe, help us to have the faith and perseverance of Habakkuk, trusting in the end of your plan to come. Amen.

Finding Our Watchposts

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 1 Comment

Note: I’m going to try something a little different for at least a few months. Normally, I’ve developed devotions based on daily readings found in the lectionary, but I thought it would be enlightening (at least for me) to focus on Scripture I’ve tended to neglect. I’ve been writing for this blog for nearly two years, and by my count, there are 13 books of the Bible I have never even referenced, much less explored. Let’s begin by looking at a portion of Habakkuk.

Habakkuk 2:1
I will take my stand at my watchpost
    and station myself on the tower,
and look out to see what he will say to me,
    and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

By Chuck Griffin

The precise details about when Habakkuk made his prophetic statements, or who he was, are unclear. We can tell, however, that he lived in a woeful time. The people who were certain they were God’s Chosen were experiencing ongoing conquest and oppression, causing them great confusion.

Habakkuk opens with an expression of that confusion, and in the process the prophet points out a core problem we wrestle with today: How can a holy and loving God allow sin and violence to take hold so deeply that justice is perverted?

Habakkuk finds God’s initial answer unsatisfying. Essentially, God says he has raised up these invaders, clearly describing their efficiency in war and their ability to plunder at will.

While acknowledging God uses these brutal people to bring judgment and reproof on the disobedient, Habakkuk also wonders how God can tolerate ongoing evil, saying in verse 1:13, “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?”

It’s a question many all around the world ask today. Yes, we are imperfect, but must we continually suffer at the hands of people who are clearly evil?

Rather than moving on to the rest of Habakkuk, I want to stop where we hear today’s focus verse, which begins the second chapter. The prophet makes a declaration that some might find impudent: I will stand like a sentry, eyes forward, expecting more of an answer from the Lord.

I respect the prophet’s dutiful stance, and I have no doubt God wants to meet us and answer us in these moments. As evidence, I would note that the Holy Spirit-inspired Bible offers us several psalms that, when recited, allow us to loudly lodge a complaint. For example, Jesus quoted a portion of Psalm 22 from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

We will spend more time in Habakkuk this week, hearing more of God’s response, and what Habakkuk says from there. For now, let’s consider this: Where are we confused? Do we have the courage to climb dutifully onto our watchtower, that place of prayer that will be different for each of us?

From there, can we admit our inner turmoil to God, listening for his reply, regardless of what it might be?

Lord, make us brave enough to hear what you say so that your words change us, shaping us into the holy beings you would have us be. Amen.

God in Art: Man of Sorrows

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“Christ Carrying the Cross,” El Greco, circa 1580.

Having exited the Christmas season, let’s take a few moments to meditate on where the Christian story takes us as we move through winter and into spring. In between his birth and the moment depicted above, Jesus revealed much about God’s plan for humanity, including how the promise of salvation would be fulfilled.

Isaiah 53:3: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

Epiphany 2022

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Matthew 2:1-12 (NLT)

By Chuck Griffin

Gerard David, Adoration of the Kings, National Gallery, London, circa 1515

I hope I’m not overplaying the Epiphany by spending two days on the subject. To me, it seems appropriate. Throughout much of Christian history, the celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany was a much bigger deal than celebrating Christmas.

From that alone, we should assume the story associated with it, the story of the Wise Men, is important.  So what does the story tell us about God?

We receive little detail about these men chasing a “star” in search of a newborn king, a star no one else seems to have noticed. Tradition has led us to think of three wise men, but the Bible doesn’t give us an exact number.

Today, let’s simply consider some odd facts. As mentioned yesterday, an event in a tiny village was communicated via the stars and planets. We also should note that these wise men likely would not have understood God the way a Jew did, and yet God drew them into the story of his ultimate intervention in history.

It seems the big lesson God gives us in this story is how surprising he can be as he tries to shower us in grace and save us from sin. He not only will meet us where we are, he will work through our current practices to change us. (Methodists call this “prevenient grace,” the love God tries to show us even before we acknowledge who God is.)

When I think of the wise men seeing Christ’s birth registered in the sky, I also think of all the stories I’ve heard of nonbelievers discovering God in unlikely places: in bars, in prison, in dive hotels—any of those locations or moments where we might wrongly think God is not present.

The story peaks in a happy way. God led the wise men on from their visit with Herod, and there was the baby, just as promised. They gave Jesus gifts. What a joy that must have been, to give the Christ child a gift! And even better, they were able to kneel before him.

Was it worship? Translators debate how to deal with the word describing their act. We kneel in worship, but the wise men also would have been likely to kneel before a king.

We can say for certain that the moment marked a dawning awareness. These wise men would have understood God was working in the world in powerful ways, and that they had been drawn into the plan. They even would continue to hear from God in dreams, protecting the child and themselves in the process.

These wise men, these magi, were a foreshadowing of the purpose behind Jesus’ work on the cross decades later, and the church’s Holy Spirit-inspired work today. God truly calls to all people, regardless of their location or circumstances. After all, “For God so loved the world … .”

Lord, in 2022, may we with great joy worship the Christ. Thank you for the revelations about Jesus that we receive through Scripture and experience in our hearts. May we give him our gift of faithfulness, made possible by your Holy Spirit. Amen.