A Light to the Nations: Recent Episodes
The Ephesus School
In Scripture, function supersedes both individuals and personalities. The purpose of the biblical story is to teach, and it does that by introducing us to characters not as individuals, but rather according to the function of their roles. Sometimes different characters with the same name can function in similar ways. A striking example of this is how the Church, when teaching about Jesus’ mother, directs our attention to a different person with the same name. it’s as if we are expected to understand Jesus’ mother through the narrative of Mary, the sister of Martha. Join me in a discussion of Luke 10:38-42.
Intro and outro music - “Rumeta” performed by 3rd Eye Girl.
When we read the Bible, we often do so looking to find some kind of hope. Then we stumble upon the words of our Lord saying, “whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but upon whomever it falls, it will grind him like powder.” That doesn’t sound very hopeful. Isn’t there a third option, Jesus? We are frustrated by Scripture because we expect it to tell us that there is hope in us; that we can do something to make a positive difference. Don’t want to be ground like powder? Do you prefer “scattered like dust”? Whichever way you hear the wording, one thing is certain: this is the Lord’s doing. Unless our hope is in the life that is provided by God in his instruction in Scripture, and not in anything we make with our hands or devise in our heads, we will continue to be hopeless. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus uses strong words of condemnation against the chief priests and elders of the people because they are more interested in their position of authority than in following the teaching of Scripture. Join me and Noël Neff as we discuss the parable in Matthew chapter 21, verses 33 through 44.
Intro and outro music - “A Couple of Miles” and “Run Amok” - performed by The Flesh.
In the Gospel of Matthew, we hear a literary tension between heavenly bread and earthly bread, and also between the open wilderness, where the former is to be found, and cities built by the hand of men, which provide the latter. This double contrast is most striking in Chapter 14. In the passage of the feeding of the multitudes, Jesus’ disciples push for sending the multitudes back to the cities and villages to buy bread. He is about to show them that they already have what is necessary to feed them. Join me in a discussion of Matthew 14:13-21.
For the characters in the Bible, there is no freedom from the will of the Scriptural God. He always gets His way in spite of the failings of the human beings. Likewise with us. As hearers of the Bible, we must pay close attention to the details in the story and make connections with other parts of the Bible. When we do that, we see that God’s will always controls the narrative. Like a shepherd with His flock, the Lord leads us, as hearers, to where He wants us to be: kept alive and fed with the bread of His instruction. Join me, Fr. Fred Shaheen, and my guest, Noël Neff, as we explore Genesis 44:1-13 in Episode 19 of A Light to the Nations.
The Sermon on the Mount encompasses the entirety of chapters 5, 6 and 7 of the Gospel of Matthew. In both its content and delivery, it is meant to recall Moses and the giving of the law, but with some differences. Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel of Matthew may be the same in content to that of the Old Testament, but in the context of this sermon, we hear things we didn’t before. Although the old law remains, in Matthew, the requirement is even more stringent, and the urgency to submit to it is intensified. Join me as I talk about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount like an audiophile hipster. Could it be a “remastered edition” of the Torah?
Let’s face it: the biblical teaching is hard to accept. As much as we don’t like it, scripture teaches that God gives us the law to show that we can’t keep it. In modern parlance, God is setting us up to fail, something we find totally unacceptable. God is also the one who bestows the free gift, which is grace. I am responsible for my sins, and the condemnation that results, but the free gift of reconciliation which leads to justification and being declared righteous, is solely under the aegis of God. From a human perspective, having no say in the outcome is also hard to accept. Put between a rock and a hard teaching, what are we to do? As much as we’d like to, we can never master the biblical teaching. We can only hear it and submit. Join Noël Neff and I as we work through the post-Pentecost lectionary of the Orthodox Church. On this episode, we discuss St. Paul’s teaching on the Law and grace in Romans 5:17-6:2.
In the gospels we often treat Jesus like a magician. We want to dazzled, wowed and amazed by what he offers and we expect others to be as well. But don’t be fooled: real life-giving instruction is not in the spectacle and fireworks, but rather in boring, repetitive words written in a scroll and offered to us. It is to that bread we must submit.
In the synoptic Gospels - Matthew Mark and Luke - the use of parables to teach is widespread. In comparison, the Gospel of John, in which Jesus doesn’t teach in parables per se, can be more difficult to grasp. On the surface, just hearing the story we might think we can tell what’s going on, but often the real meat of the teaching is found in the small details that draw us in. What’s going on in John 22:1-14? And what does it mean when the text tell us that exactly 153 fish were caught?
We all love to quote Scripture to show other people that we know it. We like to seem educated and knowledgeable about the words of God…until those very words come back to bite us. This episode we take a look at John 3:16 in light of the overall scriptural teaching.
The death of John the Forerunner appears in Chapter 6 of Mark interrupting a narrative about Jesus sending out the twelve apostles. It’s intentional insertion at this point underscores John not only as the one who comes before the Christ, but the one who - in contradiction to Jesus’ twelve - perfectly accomplishes his apostolic work by becoming an image of his master.
How can I preach when I’m not permitted to speak?
“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).
Hello and welcome to episode 5 of A Light to the Nations. I’m your host, Fr. Fred Shaheen.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapters 5-7 constitute a teaching that is commonly referred to as the sermon on the Mountain. In that section of the gospel, Jesus ascends a mountain, he is seated, and his disciples come to him. Then, he opens his mouth and begins to teach them. The detail that Jesus is seated, in the position of the teacher, and delivering the words to his disciples from a mountain, à la Moses, is significant. There is a direct corollary in fact between Moses receiving instruction from the Lord on Mount Sinai in and delivering it to the Israelites, and Jesus opening his mouth and teaching his disciples here in Matthew. In both cases, the instruction is one of a covenant arrangement. Notice how in Matthew, the sermon is addressed to Jesus’ disciples, of whom it says they came to him, and not to the crowds. Just as in Exodus, the Torah (or words of instruction) are given by God to Moses to deliver to the sons of Israel. In both instances, what is taught are words of instruction to a people who belong to God, who are on the receiving end of His saving activity; for both groups, it is obedience to that instruction that defines them as belonging to God; and also what allows them to continue in the state of being graceful recipients of the gift; in Exodus, it’s the deliverance from a life of servitude under pharaoh in Egypt and the gift of inheritance of the earth of promise in Canaan; in Matthew, it is reconciliation to God through the forgiveness of sins and, ultimately, victory over even death. In both cases - Moses and Jesus - the teacher lays out the terms of the covenant. If you believe you are saved from slavery in Egypt by the hand of the Lord your God, then this is how you are to behave. And we get the Torah, beginning with the Ten Commandments. If you believe your sins are forgiven and you are being freed from the tyranny of death - then this is how you, my disciples, are to behave in the world. And we get Jesus’ sermon on the mountain, beginning with the Beatitudes.
So the purpose of Jesus’ sermon in Matthew is to teach his disciples how they ought to act if they in fact are his disciples. In the middle of Jesus’ discourse, he gives instructions on how to give alms, how to pray and how to fast. In his teaching on prayer, Jesus tells the disciples that they are to address God as father; to expect the coming of his kingdom and submit everything to the doing of his will. This doing of his will - “Thy will be done” as it is worded in the Lord’s Prayer - is key. It is only in the hearing and doing the will of God that the disciples of Jesus can be called sons of God, that they can even dare to address him as “father.” Literarily, the Lord’s Prayer occupies an important place in the sermon on the mountain. It’s in the exact middle of the discourse that covers chapters 5-7, what biblical scholars like to call the chiastic center.
Just as the Lord’s prayer is given a prominent place in the center of the teaching, similarly Jesus’ teaching on almsgiving (or doing charitable deeds) is given its own priority in chapter 6, in that it is addressed first, before both prayer and fasting.
“But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly (Matthew 6:3-4).
In all three, almsgiving, prayer and fasting, the basic rule is the same - don’t do it for show, don’t do it to look pious in front of men, but do it privately and with sincerity before God.
“But you, when you pray, (A)go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you [a]openly.” (6:6)
“But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you [f]openly.” (17-18)
Unlike prayer and fasting, almsgiving isn’t a matter exclusively between the doer of the deed and God. More specifically, it involves the relationship of the doer with God as expressed in concrete behavior toward others.
There’s a story about a Saint who used to keep money on hand to give to the poor in a purse in different denominations - singles, 5s, 10s and 20s in random order. When he would reach into the purse to give to someone, without looking he couldn’t tell what he was grabbing. So when he gave, his left hand literally didn’t know - nor did he himself - what the right hand was doing. He thus acted with complete trust, not in his own discernment or assessment of the need, but that God himself would provide the thing needed for the person through his concrete act of obedience to the commandment.
Oftentimes we have difficulty reconciling this aspect of Jesus’ instruction about almsgiving with his words which appear earlier in the sermon, “let your light so shine before men that men see your good works and glorify your father in heaven” (5:16). We sometimes only focus on the discretion of our charity - don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing - so that we end up doing nothing out of concern that it somehow become known; we might end up eliminating all matters concerning giving money and doing acts of charity in, for example, a parish setting, because we think no one is supposed to know about it! This is absurd to say the least, and stems from a misunderstanding of the scriptural teaching.
How is one to reconcile the teaching to “let your light so shine before men” in Matthew 5:16 with the instruction to do your acts of charity in secret in 6:4?
I want to use a real-life example to illustrate how to understand the totality of the biblical teaching on charitable acts, particularly as it is given in this part of the New Testament. Shortly after the musician Prince died in 2016, a news story was published about his philanthropy. During his lifetime, the Minneapolis native received countless professional accolades. But few people knew much about Prince the person. This article revealed not only that Prince gave often and generously, but that his practice of giving adhered strictly to three principles:
- No strings. Prince’s support was unrestricted (and potentially continuous). There were no requirements attached to his giving. No reports required, no requirement that buildings be named after him, no expectation that he have a seat on the board or suddenly direct the course of action.
- No red tape. Recipients of his charity didn’t have to slog through applications, proposals or budget considerations.
- No accolades, no ego. Prince was apparently so adamant about this last one that to work for him, you had to agree to a gag order. If someone in his organization talked to the press about his giving or decided to make it public, they knew the consequence: they wouldn’t be his employee for long.
A few years ago, while I was writing for a blog, I had the opportunity to interview one of Prince’s musical protégées and write her story. I asked her what was the one thing she would want people to know about her former mentor. And without hesitation, she said, his philanthropy. Since Prince was known as both an unparalleled genius in the studio and an exhilarating performer on stage, this response surprised me. Taja Sevelle told me that Prince took the biblical teaching of Matthew 6:4 -do not do your charitable deeds before men - so seriously that he didn’t want anything made public during his lifetime. But, she said, now that he was gone, she thought people needed to know because it might inspire others to do the same. In my story, I acknowledged the reason for Prince’s giving in secret with a reference to Matthew 6:4; I also supported Taja’s conviction that “people needed to know” by quoting the teaching in Matthew 5:16: “Let your light so shine before men that they see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.” When the story was published on the blog, Taja, herself a student of biblical teaching, told me how pleased she was that I made the connection between the two verses in Matthew.
In Matthew 5:16, Jesus is elaborating on his instruction to the disciples to be light in the world. When we hear the Bible in its totality, there is no contradiction between Matthew 5:16 and 6:4. Interestingly, it is in John, the other gospel that refers to itself in the text specifically as a book, that we hear, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life.” That’s chapter 8:12. As his students, the disciples are expected to follow Jesus; they are to, like him, seek first the kingdom of Heaven and fully submit to the will of God; in doing so they are allowed to call God father just as Jesus himself does. And so accordingly, they must become as light in the world, and they must let that light shine in the world so that men see it. But the outcome is not for glory of the disciples, just as it wasn’t for the glory of Prince Rogers Nelson, but for the glory of God alone: “Let your light so shine before men, (V)that they may see your good works and…here comes the punchline…glorify your Father in heaven.”
So if one is to the follow the commandments of the scriptural God given in the scriptural teaching, the heart of which is to love God with your whole heart, soul and strength; and to love your neighbor as yourself - on these two hang all the law and the prophets, according to Jesus in Matthew 22:40 - then charitable deeds must be done, and they must be done in secret, that is, not for the praise of men. But at the same time as light before men for the glory of God.
This sounds like a conundrum. How am I supposed to be a light if I have to do my deeds in secret? It’s only a conundrum if we letting our light shine should be fine for a self-serving purpose rather than for the glory of God; if we do acts of charity to outwardly appear before men as a person who does acts of charity. But, if we act only according to the commandment in Scripture to love God with our whole heart, soul and strength; and enact that through love of the needy neighbor without boundaries, conditions and without sounding a trumpet before men - without, in a manner of speaking, the left hand knowing what the right hand is doing - then we are not only allowed to be light and let it shine, we are commanded to do so!
My professor of Scripture has repeatedly warned his students against teaching others through their notes on his lectures. Write down exactly what I said and just repeat it verbatim! he bellows. And he means it. Do not filter it through your own understanding of it, through your own mind which, alas, is not scriptural. And yet, in another breath that same professor promotes the teaching and preaching of scripture, encouraging even the publication of this podcast. Once again, does this present a conundrum? I mean, How am I supposed to preach if I’m not allowed to speak? It’s only a conundrum if I understand teaching and preaching as saying whatever I want to say. But as a teacher and preacher of Scripture, I am not permitted to do that. Indeed, it would be better for me not to speak than to open my mouth and just say whatever I want to say. As the classic example of this, we have the prophets in the Old Testament. Notice this gradation we hear among the latter prophets: while Isaiah worries about what he is going to say, Jeremiah is given the exact words to say by God himself; and by the time we get to Ezekiel, God doesn’t allow him to even speak except for his words that he himself puts into his mouth via the written scroll which he gives the prophet to eat! It’s phenomenal. Hear Ezekiel chapter 2 verses 9 and 10:
9 Now when I looked, there was (O)a hand stretched out to me; and behold, (P)a scroll of a book was in it. 10 Then He spread it before me; and there was writing on the inside and on the outside, and written on it were lamentations and mourning and woe.”
And in the beginning of chapter 3 we hear this:
3 Moreover He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; (A)eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” 2 So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that scroll. (3:3-4)
And later in the same chapter, God reinforces the necessity of Ezekiel only speaking exactly what God says; and only when God commands that it be spoken:
“And you, O son of man, surely (AB)they will put ropes on you and bind you with them, so that you cannot go out among them. 26 (AC)I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be mute and (AD)not be [c]one to rebuke them, (AE)for they are a rebellious house. 27 (AF)But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, (AG)‘Thus says the Lord God.’ He who hears, let him hear; and he who refuses, let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.” (Ezekiel 3:25-27).
Significantly, the Spirit of God addresses Ezekiel as “Son of Man;” and in the gospels, Jesus applies this same title to himself. Just as Ezekiel ate the scroll containing the words of God and regurgitated them to the house of Israel, Jesus recapitulates what was written beforehand in the Law of Moses and in the prophets in his teaching in the sermon on the mountain.
17 (X)“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-19).
So in order to be disciples of Jesus, we must hear and obey the teaching in the sermon on the mountain. Right after he tells them to be light and to let their light shine before men, Jesus says that greatness in the kingdom of Heaven entails first doing what Scripture commands and then teaching the same to others. Notice the priority here: doing first, and then teaching.
I want to relate another anecdote related to Prince coming from the perspective of a fan. In the summer 2012, Prince was scheduled to play 3 shows in Chicago; it was billed as the Welcome 2 Chicago Tour. But the trek never went beyond those 3 concerts, which was very odd. At the time, I and other fans voiced our criticism saying Prince really needs a good manager to handle his business. To many people it appeared like he just got bored with the idea and dropped the tour after 3 shows. I mean, who schedules a tour and plays three nights during the week - Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - all in the same city and then…nothing? Years later I realized that the Welcome 2 Chicago residency was simply a front to raise money for Rebuild the Dream, a cause that his friend Van Jones alerted him to and that he decided to get behind. So Prince had three nights booked at the United Center in Chicago and sold out 22,000 seats each night at premium ticket prices. He basically generated a ton of money by doing what he loved to do - playing music - and then quietly gave it away to benefit inner city youth in Chicago. What looked like indecisiveness and poor planning from a fan’s perspective was in reality a spontaneous gesture of philanthropy of the highest order; and in conformity to the biblical teaching, in which the left hand has no clue as to what the right is doing.
If there ever was a conundrum, it is solved. Now let us get on with the business of hearing what scripture says so that we may go and do.
Links to articles referenced:
https://thewhitmaninstitute.org/twi-blog/no-strings-no-accolades-no-nonsense-princes-five-lessons-fuss-free-philanthropy/#.V0xNRl_AHSI.twitter
https://prnalumni.org/members/spotlight/spotlight-taja-sevelle/
When we hear the biblical story, we should remember that what we are hearing is, first and foremost, a story. Its purpose is to teach, and the teaching is communicated through the words themselves. Any attempt on our part to historicize the text is problematic because it impairs our ability to actually hear the story in the way it was intended to be heard - as a story. When we make the biblical narrative secondary to anything - history, geography, civilization, culture, even religion - our chances of hearing it and learning from it are diminished. Because, instead of submitting to the scriptural text, we make the text submit to what we already know, or what we think we already know. And doing that hinders our ability to hear, it makes understanding practically impossible. How are we going to actually do what scripture teaches if we can’t understand it? And how are we to understand it if we’re not really hearing what it wants to say?
Examples of Scripture that demonstrate functionality of words and names are given from Matthew 4, Matthew 23, Luke 24 and Joshua 7.
In this episode we compare key details
in the marriage stories of Isaac and Jacob in Genesis. Jacob leaves home, works hard to get exactly what he wants and it results in slavery. Isaac, on today other hand, stays at home, does nothing and receives grace. His cycle, a story “about nothing”,” parallels the episode in Genesis 22 in which Abraham’s faith is tested. He responds by doing nothing, except obey the will of the Lord. Which is everything.
In the Gospel of Mark with the so-called shorter ending, the hearer is taken from Jesus’ death on the cross to the expectation of his coming in glory, with little or nothing happening in between. That’s how the narrative moves, and it moves that way intentionally. We might hear the shorter ending and think we are being cheated out of something because it doesn’t depict Jesus alive after his crucifixion. However the value of going from crucifixion to return is that the hearer stays grounded on what is expected of him. Paul in 1 Corinthians speaks abundantly about the cross and how our submission to it though baptism controls the way we act. Significantly, any discussion of the resurrection in that letter is deferred till chapter 15, the penultimate chapter. He does this on purpose, since there is little to teach about resurrection (other than de facto accepting it), but there is much to teach about how to conduct oneself in the world now as a slave of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of man who was both crucified in submission to the will of God, and who will come again “in the glory of his father with the holy angels.” We see, then, in Mark’s gospel, that Jesus’ death on the cross is the preamble to his return in glory.
In Scripture, no one gets to be exceptional or special. If you are special at all, it is only as an example used for the edification of others. To put it another way, you become the example of what not to do. In spite of your wandering astray, God can and does use your punishment and correction to achieve His purpose according to His will. Your screwing it up becomes a blessing to those on the outside. In this way, it fulfills what God told Abram in Genesis 22:18 when He told him that, “in your seed will all the nations of the earth be blessed.” This mechanism is key to understanding the Scriptural story as a whole; and particularly how we understand Israel being called “a light to the nations.” Join us as we look at examples from both the Old and New Testaments of how this phrase, which is used as the name of this podcast, can express a double-edged meaning; whether we hear it as positive or negative, it’s always according to the will of the Scriptural God.