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not as the scribes: Mark 1

February 15, 2009 by David Baer

Jesus’ emerges from his strange encounter with destitution, abandonment, and triumph over satanic manipulation to re-enter civilization as an extraordinarily empowered teacher. Clearly, something happened to him out there.

The heavenly voice of Jesus’ Father had expressed its satisfaction with his filial beloved, only to drive him into the desert for forty days. There he was to encounter, seemingly alone, the intelligent and articulate shrewdness of his worst enemy. Jesus, by Mark’s account, won that battle by persistent simplicity. He countered satanic sophistry with the simple declaration of the relevant truth. Only a man well acquainted with Scripture and its interpretation could have done so. Yet Jesus’ cut and thrust were not complex. He knew reality, articulated it in the face of other-worldly enmity, and let the chips fall where they may. Continue Reading »

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persistent doubt: Matthew 28

February 14, 2009 by David Baer

Contrary to widespread suspicion, In Christian experience doubt comingles persistently with belief. Doubt is only seldom faced down as an adversary, in contrast to, say, hardness of heart. Though well-armored hearts produce doubt with regularity, the condition should not be mistaken for the result. Doubt occurs for many more reasons than simply that obstinacy which opposes itself to all evidence that God may be about. Continue Reading »

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signposting contempt: Matthew 27

February 13, 2009 by David Baer

The narrative of Jesus’ judicial execution balloons with expressions of contempt. Even the sign placed above his head gets at its truth only by the prickly way of sarcasm:

Over his head they put the charge against him, which read, ‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.’

It seems every single protagonist of the tragic story manifests only derision for the crucified messiah. Continue Reading »

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finding life: Proverbs 8

February 11, 2009 by David Baer

Wisdom is not so much elusive as hard-won. She cries out in the street far more than she hides in a closet. She is more often mistaken for an unappealing passerby than undiscovered by desperate pursuers. Her beauty is washed out in the neon glare of cheaper glories.

Discovering the life that is in her requires concentration and industry. To the degree that the attention span of her would-be lover is short, she is inaccessible.

Her life and love are costly, demanding that degree of self-sacrifice of which casual paramours are by definition incapable. Continue Reading »

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skill sets: Exodus 31

February 11, 2009 by David Baer

A reader accustomed to the conventional distinction between the priestly and the political or the sacred and the secular struggles to find the proper calibration for a text like this:

The LORD spoke to Moses: ‘See, I have called by name Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: and I have filled him with divine spirit, with ability, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, in every kind of craft. Moreover, I have appointed with him Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and I have given skill to all the skillful, so that they may make all that I have commanded you.’

The vocabulary of ‘religious’ endowment both anchors and saturates the text. A craftsman named Bezalel is called by means of divine speech directed to Moses. A divine spirit fills him. One expects here a prophet, a priest, a denizen of temple, tabernacle, or festal tent. Instead one finds a craftsman, a hands-on shaper of the most earthy materials.

The liturgical climax of Exodus, as liberated Hebrew slaves are briefed on the doxological gravity of their vocation, would not occur without Bezalel’s talented hands in the mix.

Modern religious language traffics in the by now well-smoothed clauses of ‘filling with the spirit’, ‘calling’, and the like. Bezalel, bent over a stone that needs to be cut at a 16-degree gradation to perfect nature’s blunt work, merits every syllable of such expressions and much more.

The Divine Artist has found in the son of Uri a kindred spirit, a coworker, an agent. An instinct for beauty not unlike God’s own.

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the net that is hidden for me: Psalm 31

February 7, 2009 by David Baer

Life thrusts upon us a moment when we are alone with God. In the best variants of this crisis of solitude, family and friends stand by with loving hands extended willingly but to no immediate effect. There is nothing they can do.

One is alone with God. It is a moment of necessary, unavoidable singularity. One discovers, in some ways, who one is on that sparsely populated stage. One finds out who one is not. One encounters God as he can only be known when no one else is in the hall. Continue Reading »

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morning: Psalm 30

February 6, 2009 by David Baer

‘Can a miracle happen?’, we ask of this or that broken relationship. We linger over the corpse of what was once love and wonder whether there is resurrection or just a bucket of lime to take the edge off the stench.

A key link in the chain of trust and conduct that we call biblical spirituality is the cultivated ability to believe in miracles. To hope in the darkness is not, for the soul shaped by life with YHWH, a mere spitting into the wind. It is the substance of life, death, and the dynamics that link the two, as these things are experienced in that open system that, again, is life with YHWH. Continue Reading »

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caution’s limited virtue: Exodus 21, Matthew 24

February 5, 2009 by David Baer

Caution and precaution are not the central virtue. Yet they are necessary. Without them the life-giving properties of community drain away before time. In their absence, chaos thrives on a rich diet of naiveté, credulity, and unbridled risk.

Several of the example-casting treatises called ‘case law’ that we find in the book of Exodus illustrate the moral shape of caution. The intent of Israel’s legislators is not to lay down a comprehensive code of conduct but rather to employ hypothetical situations that might be found in real life to build a nation’s soul around preferences that are both joyful and responsible. Continue Reading »

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the terror of no answer: Psalm 28

February 4, 2009 by David Baer

We live in fear that the cry of our heart shall go unheard.

We could bear up better, perhaps, under mockery or derision than in the face of silence. The dread of no reply is no modern invention. It is bred into the circuitry of humanity’s deep need of conversation:

To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary. (Psalm 28:1–2 ESV)

It is the nature of our frailty that our principal capacity in distress is not to resolve the causes of our pain—they are too abundant and too formidable—but to cry out. We seldom need more room to swing our axe, more elbow grease, a little more time to beat down or outwit our assailants. These are the requirement of the strong, but we are weak. Continue Reading »

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no need to marry: Matthew 22

February 2, 2009 by David Baer

Jesus’ stunning rejoinder to the conundrum regarding a wife whose husbands seem to fall like raindrops hints at the liability of low expectations. A hostile delegation stages the scene of a serial widow’s multiple marriages and fairly taunts Jesus to resolve the dilemma of which of her husbands will accompany her ‘in the resurrection’. Continue Reading »

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