The Beth-Av

I’ve been home for two weeks now, and I’m sitting in my Father’s house watching the rain and wondering where on Earth I am. Rain was the biggest culture shock for me. I think the lack of pita and hummus is probably the second.

I have spent these two weeks laboring in the very, very wet weather and counting down the days until I get back to Covenant. I miss my friends from Israel and from school excruciatingly. I love being home and leading worship and eating my mom’s food and playing with my little brothers, but sometimes my heart feels like it is getting split into a million pieces and sent all over the world.

Our last day in Galilee, my class visited Korazim–one of the towns condemned by Jesus for their lack of faith–and stood inside a first-century home. As we marvelled over the number of rooms, our teacher explained that when a son wanted to get married, he would build another room onto the family house and bring his wife into his father’s house. The year of betrothal was time for him to build and prepare this home for his wife. As the sons married, the size of the house would expand into many rooms around an open courtyard.

Jn 14:1-3 Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.

I’ve always read this passage with the idea of Jesus building a mansion in heaven for everyone to live in. But Jesus is not talking logistically about housing; he’s proposing to a bride. I envision him on his knees before the Church, whispering, “marry me, and come live with me in my father’s house.”

I’ve written before about how terrible I am at saying goodbye. Watching Prince Caspian earlier in the summer was such an emotional experience for me, because at the end of the movie Peter and Susan have to say goodbye forever to Narnia. In the movie, as they made tearful partings and looked at Aslan for the last time, “The Call” by Regina Spektor started to play. This song has become a lifeline for me.

It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word
And then that word grew louder and louder
‘Til it was a battle cry
I’ll come back
When you call me
No need to say goodbye

Just because everything’s changing
Doesn’t mean it’s never
Been this way before
All you can do is try to know
Who your friends are
As you head off to the war
Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light
You’ll come back
When it’s over
No need to say good bye

Now we’re back to the beginning
It’s just a feeling and no one knows yet
But just because they can’t feel it too
Doesn’t mean that you have to forget
Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
‘Til they’re before your eyes
You’ll come back
When it’s over
No need to say goodbye

Right now, facing the death of a friend at Covenant, and knowing that right now many of the people I love the most I may never see again; I am hungering greatly for Home, for my Father’s house. But what captured my attention in this song was the line “all you can do is try to know who your friends are/as you head off to the war.” I’m engaged in a battle for this world, and now I know who my friends are. Not only are we all headed to the same destination–the wedding chamber in Heaven–but we’re still laboring together here on Earth, no matter how far apart we are. I have a friend pastoring a church in Hong Kong, and another teaching English in China, and another taking care of orphans in South Africa, and one loving a church in Maine, and another leading revivals in Nigeria. These are my friends, my fellow soldiers, building the kingdom with me. How thankful I am to have known them, even if the the next time I see them I’m in my Father’s house.

Home Safe

Except for a night spent at the Tel Aviv airport, my trip home was singularly uneventful; almost boring. Thank you, dear ones, for all your prayers and encouragement! I look forward to catching up soon.

As the Teacher taught

I’ve spent the last two weeks focusing my studies on the New Testament, and I’ve discovered something that I’ve never fully appreciated before: the parables.

Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho…”

Traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho on the Biblical road Ma’al Adummim, we once again hear this story. Except, now it’s different; we’ve seen the Mikvahodt (ritual purity baths) in Jerusalem and we know that a huge contingent of priests live in Jericho. Purity is how they are ushering in the kingdom. Touching a dead man would ruin all of that. Suddenly, the parable is less about false teachers and more about the contrast between purity and service.

“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?”

“Diligently” takes on a whole new meaning when I’m looking at a floor like this:

No wonder she had to check every crevice. God wants his people that much.

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?”

That sounds totally sweet and idyllic, until you lay eyes upon shepherd country, a wild, barren wilderness where the sheep have to keep moving and stay close to the shepherd, their only hope of survival.

“A sower went out to sow his seed…”

Sitting on the threshing floor at the Biblical nature reserve, we discussed the word of God and how we never know who it is going to reach. Farmers added their perspective: harvests are generally unpredictable. Sow liberally.

We also learned a lot by studying parables that were not of Jesus. In rabbinic literature, parables involving vineyards always identify the vineyard as Israel: making the “bad tenants” not the nation of Israel, but its leaders (no wonder the Pharisees and Sadducees got so angry!). My favorite was the story of a rebellious son who leaves home (rebellion being punishable by stoning), living sinfully, and finally being implored by a tutor or family friend sent by the father to return home. Overwhelmed with guilt, the son says he cannot, but the tutor pleads: “just take the first step and your father will do the rest.” The father, of course, is God; the wayward son disobedient Israel; the tutor or friend is the prophets. But when Christ tells the story:

“There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.”

This ”far country” was probably the pagan reigon of the Decapolis, around the Sea of Galillee, the only place where they raised pigs.

 ”‘I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 

…“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’

Two things differ greatly from the Rabbinic literature:

1. There are two brothers.

2. There is no tutor.

What is Jesus saying? Yes, the story of the prodigal son is a redemption narrative. But dig below the surface. What cultural messages are there that we miss? Why is there no tutor? Who is the second son?

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

So he told them this parable…

I’m Alive

Hey guys, the news coming out of Jerusalem is a little crazy right now, but I’m fine. I’ve been in the Dead Sea area all day so I wasn’t anywhere near the accident. Apparently some crazy guy with a bulldozer knocked over a bus and a few people died. He was some sort of criminal, but this was not a mass terrorist attack or anything to worry about, just crime. I am not even nervous, so be at ease. Love you all!

KT

Broken Bread

I’m back from a four-day trip to Galilee and I’m trying to figure out what on earth to say. I visited Jesus’ hometown. I took a boat on the Sea of Galilee. I hiked a mount and read the Beatitudes. This is all so terribly cool–but what is Jesus teaching me?

I think it happened at Capernaum. You know why all of the stories about Jesus begin with “and Jesus went back to Capernaum”? Because his adult home was probably there. So was Peter’s, which then turned into a house church and I saw it. Like, hello, PETER LIVED HERE. Jesus probably spent the night.

So pulling the boat (yes, BOAT!) up at the dock in Capernaum, I wondered if Jesus felt about this spot the way I do about the familiar landmarks in my life: like that exit onto John Young that means home, or the place where 75 turns into 24 and I see the city lights of Chatty spread beneath me, or the pine-needle covered sign that reads “enter his gates with thanksgiving” when the van pulls into Bonclarken. Jesus felt that way about this corner of the Sea of Galilee.

They’ve excavated a lot, and we got to see Peter’s house (which was later turned into a house church), a synagogue built upon the first century one, and more than one mill. Capernaum was apparently a breadbasket city for the Galilee area, and it is currently home to several millstones.

Another favorite was a little village only a few miles away. As we stood under the pine trees that were being stirred by a delicious breeze–a refreshing break on a hot day, and an abundance of green after days of hard, white rock–Dr. Mullins explained to us that this national park was once the village of Ber’am. It was a national park now because they had unearthed a 4th-century Jewish synagogue on the property, but before the 1948 war it was home to Palestinian Christians. Elias Chacour wrote the book “Blood Brothers” telling the story of what happened here. The Christians in the village welcomed Jewish soldiers, took them into their homes and cared for them, and were then betrayed by these men who lured them away from the village and never let them return. We climbed over the ruins of their homes and rang the bell in their abandoned church. There was a spirit of reverence I haven’t felt in any of the churches we’ve visited. All of us were silent–the burden on my heart was too great for me to speak. It broke my heart to think of the love and forgiveness shown by these Palestinian brothers and sisters–who continue to hold no hatred in their hearts in spite of the betrayal they have seen.

Finally, we visited the Jordan River and baptized one of the members of our group. As he told his testimony of watching his abusive father come to Christ, we wept with him. It was an emotional moment as we saw the Jesus we were studying touching lives even today.

 

I don’t think I really put all this together until I sat down to write this, but when I learned that Jesus gave his “bread of life” discourse at Capernaum, things started to come together. There, at the city that ground the grain and made the bread, Jesus called himself the living bread.

This has been a year of a lot of brokenness. I just finished writing an email to a friend who has cancer, struggling to say something encouraging. I told her my insights about the Wilderness of Sin and how God fed the Israelites daily so they would have to depend on him. Now I’m sitting here looking at John 6 and just being awed. We study these stories in Sunday School and never realize how connected they are. The chapter starts out with Jesus feeding the 5,000 and then when his disciples head back to Capernaum, he walks on water to meet them. When the hungry crowd finds him again, he tells them to stop looking for wonders, but what they really need is him. They can’t hear it–they want free bread.

6:29-31 Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.” They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

(35) Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

So I’m sitting here, wondering at the brokenness I’ve seen and having to face my own sinfulness again and again. I’m not holy and I’m satisfied with Christ. I’m just like those crowds who stood before the living God and asked for a meal. And I’m thinking about that abandoned church at Ber’am and the people who were devastated there, yet continued to forgive. And I’m thinking about Joosung’s father and the restoration Christ brought into both of their lives. And I’m thinking it’s because Christ was their bread. And he too was broken.

Jn 6:59 He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.