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win-win: Proverbs 17

June 14, 2015 by David Baer

Family dynamics are not so hard to figure out, according to biblical wisdom: more love and respect make everyone better, inside the family and in the reverberations from family to community that are the primary motor of a flourishing society.

Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their parents. (Proverbs 17:6 NRSV)

The proverb concedes to grandparents the status of royalty. Their chief crown is the young ones, not seen as competition for resources but as the best thing in the life of the aged. The inter-generational dynamic pulses with the joy of interacting with those who will outlast us. We teach them, they entertain us. We tell them we love them, they give us their hugs. We patiently instruct them in the craft we know best, they make our vocation their hobby, then their work, then their specialty. Continue Reading »

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no wanderer too far: Acts 9

June 13, 2015 by David Baer

It is not only the New Testament’s explanation of grace that presses home the counterintuitive reality that no human being is beyond the reach of God’s grace. It is also its story.

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. (Acts 9:1–2 ESV)

The Jesus’ movement’s archetypal apostle to the nations casts a long shadow over its pages. Paul—or Saul, as he is here identified by his Hebrew name—travels extensively, writes expansively, ponders well beyond conventional boundaries, shapes the Christian mind as no other New Testament author. If Peter, James, and John leave their fingerprints across the New Testament corpus, Paul pushes a large foot and a broad hand into its wet cement. Continue Reading »

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strong and beautiful: Proverbs 16

June 11, 2015 by David Baer

Shout it from the rooftops!: Things are not as they appear.

Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.

One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and one whose temper is controlled than one who captures a city. (Proverbs 16:31–32 NRSV)

The infirmity of old age, the stumble, the lapsed memory are to be neither denied nor desired. Continue Reading »

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misunderstanding: Acts 7

June 9, 2015 by David Baer

When Stephen, on behalf of the early Jesus movement, delivers the speech that would cost him his life, he reaches back twelve centuries or so to the experience of Israel’s undisputed lawgiver.

And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. (Acts 7:22–24 ESV)

Because the New Testament Book of Acts necessarily abbreviates such speeches, it is curious which details of Stephen’s summarized grand narrative survive the cut.

He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. (Acts 7:25 ESV)

The biblical witness demonstrates great affection for selfless and principled leadership. Indeed, one of the strongest commendations that the biblical literature allows a person is that he has shepherded YHWH’s flock. One of its severest condemnations is that he has been a ‘bad shepherd’. Continue Reading »

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not to be overly dramatic, but … : Acts 5

June 7, 2015 by David Baer

Our skeptical Zeitgeist makes it easy for us to recoil from awkward metaphysical talk.

We prefer to live our lives, without comment upon the Greater Wars that may surround us, within narrow and convenient parameters.

‘Live and let live’, we say.

‘This shop serves everybody.’ Continue Reading »

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Why me?: Acts 13

June 5, 2015 by David Baer

From wartime survivor’s guilt to thanksgiving prayer before a table laden with food—or graced with just enough of it for the day’s demand—the question ‘Why me and not some other guy?’ rises to the mind and lips of the fortunate.

The answer is never obvious. Continue Reading »

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stiffing the economic imperative: Proverbs 16

June 2, 2015 by David Baer

I feel the economic imperative, even as I sit here by a gorgeous Northern Wisconsin lake on an ostensible vacation that circumstances back at the office have turned into a telecommuting workweek.

Maximize the economics, it demands! Prioritize the financial! Practice the modern-day reductionism that insists on following only the money. Push the rest to the margins.

Biblical wisdom dissents, and so—haltingly—do I. Continue Reading »

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grief’s terrible family: John 19

May 31, 2015 by David Baer

Though we would never willingly hire its services, grief is an accomplished unifier.

One of the ways that Jesus’ experience takes in that of pained humanity is his acquaintance with grief, and of its adoptive requirements.

But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:25–27 ESV)

The ‘disciple whom Jesus loved’ is likely a humble self-depiction of the Fourth Gospel’s author. Some strength of friendship, very close to sibling affection, linked Jesus and this man in an almost family way. Among Jesus’ dying words from the cross comes this formalizing of family, produced not by biology’s traceable accidents but rather by the unforeseen sinews of friendship that link friends more closely than brothers, and occasionally draw a weeping mother into its awesome web. Continue Reading »

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skin in the game: John 10

May 18, 2015 by David Baer

Jesus’ claims the ultimate solidarity with those whom he calls ‘my sheep’.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. (John 10:11–13 ESV)

It is possible to imagine that even the most responsible hired hand would practice the craft of shepherding with excellence.

But not at the cost of his life. Continue Reading »

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minor league stuff: Proverbs 15

May 15, 2015 by David Baer

We find it convenient to hide behind our supposed complexity, our nuance, our shades of gray.

There exists a genuine sophistication, and it is entirely worthy of admiration. Yet we so easily fall prey to its diminutive imposter: my complexity as my refusal to give an answer to those who matter most. To stake a claim. To declare who I am and commit to remaining that person, growing as that person, becoming strong and wise as that person.

We prefer to keep all our convenient options open. Continue Reading »

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