The Holy Innocents

Traditionally on this fourth day of Christmas the church has remembered the massacre of the infants of Bethlehem, which Matthew's Gospel reports after the story of the visit of the Magi:

After they were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Get up! Take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. For Herod is about to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and escaped to Egypt. He stayed there until Herod’s death, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: Out of Egypt I called my Son.

Then Herod, when he realised that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men. Then what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:

A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping, and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children;
and she refused to be consoled,
because they are no more.

I find this one of the most disturbing episodes in Holy Scripture.  Of course, the content is horrific - mass murder of babies and toddlers, driven by the king's paranoia and malice.  But it isn't just the content but the context.  This is the Christmas story, the story of the nativity of Christ.  It's a story full of light dawning, of salvation coming.  And yet right in the middle of the story is this darkest of episodes.

The way Matthew tells the story is striking.  The main perspective, if you like, tells the story of the deliverance of the infant Jesus from Herod's power.  It is primarily the story of God driving his salvific purpose despite the opposition of the wicked.  The flight into Egypt recalls the patriarchs journey to the same country - in their case not to escape persecution but to survive famine.  The main perspective is the thwarting of Herod's evil plan by God's providential care.  It's a story of the light continuing to shine against a terribly dark background.

But the citation from the prophet Jeremiah initially invites us to take a second perspective: that of the bereaved mothers of Bethlehem.  Herod's plan to murder the Christ is thwarted, but his malice is instead spent on unrelated children.  Taking this perspective is disturbing on two counts: firstly, could not the God who warned Joseph to flee also have preserved these other children? and second, was it not God's own salvation plan which led to this act of mass murder?  The text does not invite us to blame the evil on God, for it was Herod's sin which led to the massacre.  But if the Christ had not entered the world in Bethlehem, wouldn't the children have been safe from Herod?  They seem to have been collateral damage in the great war in the heavenlies, and that hardly seems acceptable.   I am reminded of Kirkegaard's question about Abraham: wouldn't it have been better for him not to be the chosen?  Would it not have been better for the little town of Bethlehem if the Christ had not been there?

The context of the Jeremiah quote points to a third perspective, to my mind even more challenging.  In its original setting, the first reference of this prophecy is to those bereaved by the catastrophe of the exile from Judah; and Jeremiah, on behalf of the Lord, promises comfort.  God's love for his children is still there, despite all appearance.  Indeed, the very exile is shown to be the work of his love, his discipline.  He will have a people for himself.  The best thing for them - the only true good - is to belong exclusively to him, and he will make it so, and in so doing he will turn their lament into joy.  Matthew, then, invites us to step back.  At the centre is the story of Christ, rescued and preserved.  On the periphery is the terrible story of the massacre and the suffering of Bethlehem.  But in the widest perspective, is there hope in the story?  Are we to see comfort for this grieving?  If so, for Matthew that comfort will come through the preserved child.

And here we perhaps hear another echo.  Long ago, another Joseph had been driven into Egypt by persecution.  And in time, that Joseph was able to say that although there had been evil intent on the part of the human actors, God had intended good through the evil.  We are invited, then, to see God's providence in the dark as well as the light in the story.  Not equally, not in the same way; not so that Herod is in any way absolved, not so that grief stops being grievous.  But that somehow, through this infant, even the evil will be turned to good and the darkness overwhelmed by the light.

The Potter and the Clay

We reached Jeremiah 18 on Sunday at CCC.  Various commentators find the chapter puzzling.  It starts with Jeremiah at the potter's house, observing how he shapes a vessel - and then, crucially, re-shapes it when it goes wrong.  The message conveyed by the image is one of sovereignty.  God is the potter, Israel/Judah is the clay.  God is able to (re-)shape his people just as easily as the potter is able to (re-)shape the clay.  The emphasis here is on ability: the potter can shape the clay, he has the power.  In other passages in Scripture where the potter/clay image occurs (Isaiah 29:16, Isaiah 45:9, Romans 9) the weight falls on the idea of right: the potter has the right to shape the clay, and the clay cannot reasonably question the outcome.

This is a high account of God's sovereignty: always free in relation to his creatures; always in the right in relation to his creatures.

What puzzles commentators is that the application in Jeremiah doesn't seem to fit this picture.  To be sure, in verses 7-10 the potter is still the one shaping and re-shaping nations.  But in doing so he is responding to their actions; he is conditioned by their prior response to his word.  If a sinful people show themselves penitent, God will 'relent' of the planned judgement; if a righteous people do good, God will 'relent' of his planned blessing.

How do we read passages like this, which show God responding to his creatures?  Particularly when they come in such close proximity to such clear statements of unqualified sovereignty?

One time-honoured way is to deny one half of the picture.  We can define God's sovereignty in such a way that he is not in fact sovereign; the potter can only do so much, at the end of the day, with the clay he's got.  This is the route taken by classical Arminian and (semi-)Pelagian theology (and I am aware that Arminians don't want to be lumped together with semi-Pelagians, but I can't for the life of me see the difference).  In these models, God is understood as exercising a great deal of power and grace, but with the final say in the outcome resting on human decision.  It's hard to see how this fits with the image: the potter must respect the autonomy and free-will of the clay?

Or we deny the other half, as various strands of (Hyper-)Calvinism have tended to do, and as is (I thnk) implicit in Classical Theism more generally.  God is sovereign.  He only appears to relent in response to human action and decision.  He condescends to appear as a responsive God, when in actual fact he remains absolutely unconditioned by human decision.  The potter makes what he's going to make, and the clay simply has no influence on what happens.  This seems better to preserve some of the use of the potter image (especially in Isaiah and Romans), but ultimately doesn't seem to fit with the use made of the image in Jeremiah.

As is often the case, I think we tie ourselves in knots by starting in the wrong place.  If we start with the Unmoved Mover, the god of Aristotle, the Unconditioned Absolute, a god in the abstract - well then, how can this god possibly 'relent'?  In this model, it seems to me, god pretends to be relational, pretends to be responding to his human creation, but really he's just absolutely still, being all absolute, behind the scenes.  Great.

If on the other hand we start with humanity per se, the Idea of the Human, the human in the abstract - well, the idea of the potter's power over the clay is humiliating.  It can't be accepted without significant qualification.  But the god who is leftover at the end of this process of thought doesn't seem like the potter at all - doesn't seem like a god, to be honest.  Just a god at the margins, a god who revolves around - well, me.  Great.

But if we ditch the abstraction, and read both God and humanity from the particular place where both are revealed - Jesus Christ - then whilst we don't get to jump over all the mystery of divine/human interaction, we do get an understanding of the dynamics involved.  What if the paradigm of potter/clay interaction is in fact the incarnation?  Consider the way the passion narratives are told.  Jesus is dragged around from here to there, and yet very clearly he is in control.  He responds to his people and their rejection of him, and yet this is exactly the eternal plan of his Father.  Is all this in appearance only?

When we start with Jesus, we can see that God is indeed absolute - but he is such as the loving, relational, immanent Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He does indeed respond to his people - but he does so as the sovereign Lord of Heaven and Earth.  We need him to be both.  He has revealed himself to be both.  This is not just a doctrinal knot to untangle; it's the very best news.

Free grace is costly grace

Preaching this past Sunday at CCC from Jeremiah 7, I couldn't avoid mentioning Dietrich Bonhoeffer's concept of cheap grace. In the chapter the prophet Jeremiah was sent by the Lord to preach outside the temple courts. The subject of his sermon, like almost all his sermons, was the sin of the people of Judah; in this particular case, the numerous sins are aggravated by the attitude of the people towards the temple itself. The temple represents their security. They'll be forgiven, of course they will. They'll get away with their worship of idols, naturally. They'll be preserved from foreign invasion and divine judgement, for sure. Because the temple. The house that bears God's name is just up the hill, and they go there all the time to celebrate their salvation.

Cheap grace.

"Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."

That's Bonhoeffer, in Discipleship.

It struck me that cheap grace may or may not seem cheap.  It might mean just praying the prayer and otherwise getting on with life.  But on the other hand it might mean a life of rigorous exertion.  In the case of the people of Judah, the sacrificial system was up and running, and that was work.  I bet it didn't seem cheap.  But what these two things - the sinner's prayer (as misunderstood and presumed upon) and the sacrificial system (as misunderstood and presumed upon) - have in common is that I give something or do something in exchange for grace.  'Grace' in this context might mean different things, but probably includes salvation, God's favour, maybe eternal life.  And it's when you start to think about what it includes that it seems cheap at the price, even if the price is a lifetime of sacrificial devotion.  Who wouldn't purchase eternal life at the cost of a lifetime of sacrifice and ritual - and if you can get it even cheaper, say just by 'believing in Jesus', then so much the better!  That is how many people understand the transition from Old to New Testament.

The other thing that the (misunderstood) sinner's prayer and the (misunderstood) sacrificial system have in common is that they both leave the rest of life untouched.  Once you've paid your dues for grace, you can carry on as you were.  Up you get from your prayer and get on with your life.  Out you go from the temple and return to - well, your abominations, says Jeremiah.  Cheap grace.

But God's grace is not cheap.  As Bonhoeffer points out, we should realise that by observing what it cost God himself.

God's grace is free.  There is nothing you have that you can exchange for God, for eternal life, for forgiveness and salvation.  You don't have anything that is worth that much, and everything you have you owe to God anyway as your Creator.  If you are going to receive those things, they will have to be given to you freely, gratis, and for nothing.  And so it, because Christ has paid for these things.

But then again, God's grace is costly.  To receive God, eternal life, forgiveness, is to lose everything you currently have and are.  Nothing can be held back.  It will take everything to be saved.  This is not a price-tag.  I'm not saying 'guys, God's grace isn't cheap; it's really, really expensive'.  I'm saying, God's grace is Jesus Christ, crucified for you and risen for you.  He has done it all.  Receiving what he has done does not require anything from you; there is nothing you can contribute.  But to receive Jesus Christ is to receive his cross.  It is grace that you lose everything you have and are, because that is the putting to death of your old sinful self at the cross of Christ, so that you might have bestowed on you the new identity of the resurrected and beloved.  It is grace that from now on your life in every single aspect is to be shaped entirely by Christ and his Spirit, because that is what eternal life looks like.

Free.  Costly.  But not cheap.

The prophetic voice

As we've just launched into a Lenten preaching series in Jeremiah, I've been thinking a good deal about prophets, and what it means to be prophetic.  There is no doubt in my mind that the church is called to a prophetic ministry, that the church must sometimes speak in the prophetic voice.  But what does that mean?  Jeremiah has been helping me to think it through.

Most fundamentally, before one can speak in the prophetic voice one must adopt (or be placed into) the prophetic posture.  This is basically the position of the humble listener.  What the prophet has to say must first be heard by the prophet.  God's words are put into Jeremiah's mouth; he is a recipient (and sometimes not a particularly enthusiastic one).  It is characteristic of the false prophets whom Jeremiah encounters that they speak without first hearing; they have not stood in the council of the Lord, they have not received his words.  The true prophet is first of all a humble listener, and for the church to speak in the prophetic voice it must first of all be a community which is devoted to the reception of God's word.  That means primarily devoted to Scripture as the one divinely commissioned and inspired witness to God's revelation in Christ.  A prophetic church is a biblical church.

A second thing that struck me about the role of the prophet in Jeremiah is what a vulnerable role it is.  The prophet is entirely without weapons (except the word of God), entirely without defences (except the word of God), and entirely without a solid place to stand (except the word of God).  The priest has his role in the temple, his ancestry, his legally-backed position in society; the prophet has nothing but the word of God.  To speak in the prophetic voice is a venture, a reach, a stretch - into the void, humanly speaking, but for the prophet a step onto the firm foundation of the word of God.  For the church to be prophetic it will need to understand the authority of God's word and have deep confidence in it, so that it can go out in the strength of that word alone, expecting and needing no other resources.  A prophetic church is a bold church.

Then again, one of the key characteristics of the true prophet as we see that role in Jeremiah is speaking unpopular truths.  The false prophet says everything will be fine.  But Jeremiah has to proclaim judgement on sin, the inevitability of the fall of Jerusalem.  He is even driven to call the people to surrender to the enemy, a stance which in time of war look distinctly treacherous.  Because the true prophet has heard God's word, and because he knows he can stand only on that word, he will speak, regardless of the consequences.  The prophetic voice in the church must surely include this aspect: saying what has to be said (and it has to be said not because we think it is important, but because we heard it from the Lord) regardless of the unpopularity of the message.  I think something for me and churches like mine to look out for is a faux-prophetic stance which criticises sins which none of us are particularly guilty of, or only makes those denunciations which will play well in the group to which we belong.  (It is easy for me to critique materialism and greed in the pulpit; the liberal-ish world around us also denounces those things.  What about if I speak against sexual immorality?  Might one test of the prophetic voice be: would this get me thrown into a cistern?)  A prophetic church is a counter-cultural church.

All of which leaves me thinking we have a long way to go.  But...

Most fundamentally a prophetic church is one which looks to Christ, who is in his person the fulfilment and sum of all prophecy, and expects from him the Holy Spirit.  In other words, the prophetic church is empty, and recognises that it cannot possibly be the prophetic church, but needs God to move if anything worthwhile is to happen.

So perhaps we're on the starting block at least.

The unique sorrow

When Israel lamented the destruction of Jerusalem, that terrible event was portrayed as incomparable.  "Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow..."  "What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter of Zion?  What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you..?"

Is this just grief-stricken hyperbole?  From what I know of the ancient world, the fate of Jerusalem was far from unique; from what I read in the news, much the same is happening around the world today.  It could, of course, be hyperbole.  The authors of Holy Scripture were men fully caught up in the national life of Israel and Judah, and felt keenly the national grief at the loss of Zion.  It would be no surprise if they gave vent to that grief in their writings.  But I think there is more behind it.  The suffering of Jerusalem is unique because two unique circumstances stand behind it.

The first is that the sin of Jerusalem is unique.  Jeremiah writes:

For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see, or send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has been such a thing.
Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory
for that which does not profit.

 No other nation has so rejected its gods - and those gods were just their own inventions, which could easily be changed at will!  But Israel has uniquely turned away from God, the Living God.  The sin is unique.

And the second circumstance stands behind that one.  Israel was a people uniquely privileged with knowledge of God, uniquely party to a gracious covenant with him.  "Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?"  "He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his rules."  Israel's unique relationship with God means that their rejection of God is a unique sin, and their suffering is the unique punishment of God on that unique sin.  No matter the historical resemblances to other situations, the internal logic is utterly different.

When one man died on a cross, his historical circumstances were far from unique; indeed, two other crucifixions occurred on either side.  But this man was unique, because he uniquely bore the guilt of all human sin.  And he was unique because he only stood in total unity with God, as God the Son incarnate.

Is there any sorrow like his sorrow?

Cast me not away from your presence

We've just started preaching through Leviticus at CCC for Lent - last week: many sacrifices, much blood.  Some of the keenest vegetarians in the church were absent, I assume not deliberately.

I take it that the whole of Leviticus is the answer to Exodus 33:1-3.  The setting is the foot of Sinai, after the incident with the golden calf.  Having relented from his initial threat to destroy Israel, God responds to the intercession of Moses by declaring that he will send the people up to Canaan - but he himself will not go with them.  They are just too sinful.  If God were in their midst, he would destroy them.  For Israel, this is a disastrous word, and Moses gets back on his knees: if your presence won't come, don't send us at all!  Better to be without the promised land than to be without God's presence.

So Leviticus is the answer: the formation of a strict world of symbol and sacrifice which is designed to keep Israel God-centred and holy.  The sacrificial system, in particular, is geared towards ensuring that Israel's sin is acknowledged and then (symbolically) dealt with, so that God can be with them without breaking out against them in judgement.

But I guess it's not hard to see how this could be misunderstood.  As soon as the focus stops being on God and his presence, the sacrificial system - with the rest of the Levitical code - could become just a treadmill of self-righteousness.  It becomes about dealing with my guilty conscience, or demonstrating that I am in the right.  Look at all the sacrifices I made!

Reading Jeremiah 7 this morning, I'm struck by another way it could and did go wrong.  When the people forget that God's presence is problematic for them - or rather, when they forget that their sin is problematic in the presence of God! - they assume that the temple-presence of God is just automatic.  They can sin and sin, and it will still be okay because God's temple is right there.  He will surely rescue them, even if they basically ignore him and his word.

Either way, God's presence is not prized.  In the one case, God's presence becomes a theoretical side-issue in a quest for personal righteousness and security; in the other, God's presence becomes a tool to secure a safe and happy life.  In both cases, you imagine people would jump at the chance of going to the promised land without God!