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centrifugal goodness: Psalm 67

July 14, 2012 by David Baer

The knotty old words of the priestly blessing in the book of Numbers, chapter 6, were to be pronounced for uncounted generations over ‘the sons of Israel’.

Yet there is in biblical Israel’s shalom a marked potential for good that flows far beyond that little people’s boundaries. The patriarchal narratives of Genesis tell us, a little enigmatically, that all the nations of the earth shall find their blessing in Father Abraham.

The sixty-seventh psalm discerns in these two resilient threads of biblical tradition—blessing for Israel, blessing for the nations—authorization to unite the venerable words of the priestly blessing to a fervent hope that the whole earth might go giddy before the righteous judgements of Israel’s God. Shalom, for this poet, is open-ended. No zero-sum game, it is capable of embracing all who will come. Love need not love its first object less in order to expand the circle to seconds, thirds, and more. Continue Reading »

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through fire and water: Psalm 66

July 14, 2012 by David Baer

Because of the quality of the relationship that binds YHWH and the psalmist to each other, even the most excruciating suffering is rarely if ever distanced from YHWH’s hand.

The psalms’ theodicy—their attempt to make sense of God’s behavior—is complex rather than simple. The Psalter cannot bring itself to remove causality from the list of explanations that describe God’s involvement in our pain. In my pain. Continue Reading »

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discernimiento y valentía (29 Aniversario, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica)

June 14, 2012 by David Baer

Discernimiento y valentía: por qué nuestros pastores requieren una formación teológica.

Seminario ESEPA, 5 mayo 2012

Cuando recibí de parte de Sadrac Meza la invitación a dar una charla en este notable evento, comencé a identificar mis opciones.

  • Podría contar anécdotas y memorias de ESEPA de antaño.  ¿Quién de los que estuvieron no recuerda con aprecio a Alberto Barrientos, Juan Kessler, Guillermo Brown, el inolvidable Eugenio Green, Kevin Jezequel, Gaby Murillo, Juan Macadam, Dorothy Andrews, y tantos más. Pero para muchos en esta noche, semejantes memorias serían reliquias y semejantes personas seríamos reliquias.
  • Podría navegar las aguas de la exposición bíblica. Pero mañana es domingo y ustedes estarán en sus iglesias, recibiendo—por lo menos los afortunados—lo mismo.
  • Podría enviarles a sus casas con exhortaciones fervientes. Pero me falta suficiente presencia en este contexto para asegurar que mis exhortaciones sean alineadas con su realidad y su momento histórico.
  • Podría contar cuentos sobre la vida de Sadrac. Pero sólo tengo cuarenta minutos …

Al final del día, como entonaba un ex-rector de ESEPA con una memorable frecuencia, mis opciones reales se reducen a una: hablarles del corazón respecto a tesoro frágil que es un seminario … que es ESEPA … en un mundo que todavía no sabe como atesorarlo suficientemente, porque no le ha tocado vivir sin él. Continue Reading »

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my Father’s Day hopes for my sons

June 14, 2012 by David Baer

(This brief talk was prepared for a knot of men, mostly from Indianapolis’ Church at the Crossing, who refuse to stop meeting at a Perkins restaurant on Thursdays at the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m. for no discernible reason except to sing one song badly off-key, drink more coffee than is good for them, and hear talks like this one.)

*     *     *     *

This coming Sunday is Father’s Day and I’m a father, so I’m claiming this one.

I’ve not only got two sons, I’ve got two sons in uniform: ‘C’ is an infantry officer at Fort Benning, Georgia; ‘J’ a combat engineering officer at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Both will likely be deployed to a hot spot next year.

But my wife’s car now has four stars on the back of it. Her ‘T’ recently finished up his time in the Army and is re-entering civilian life. ‘R’ will be deployed to Afghanistan this year.

Together, we’ve got skin in the game, both as father and mother and in the geopolitical sense: we watch the news out of the world’s hot spots with a little more attention because of our connection with this country’s military through four sons who serve. Continue Reading »

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the capacity to bring down: Daniel 4

April 14, 2012 by David Baer

The biblical book of Daniel delights in narrating the temporary collapse of the Babylonian king who held the Judaean exiles in captivity. Simultaneously, its author asks the reader to learn from the royal demise. If this kind of thing can happen to a pagan king, we are urged to consider, it can happen to anyone.

While the words were still in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven: ‘O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: The kingdom has departed from you! You shall be driven away from human society, and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like oxen, and seven times shall pass over you, until you have learned that the Most High has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals and gives it to whom he will.’ Immediately the sentence was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven away from human society, ate grass like oxen, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers and his nails became like birds’ claws. (Daniel 4.31–33 NRSV)

The king goes animal before us. Continue Reading »

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wise and wiser (II): Daniel 2

April 6, 2012 by David Baer

The best way to become wiser is to be wise in the first place.

Wisdom is a progressive ordering of one’s life. It is cumulative. The more one learns, the more one can learn. In the context of that blending of wisdom and apocalyptic traditions that occurs in the book of Daniel, a key criterion for Daniel’s reception of divine revelation when failure would have meant death was to have become wise prior to the crisis. Continue Reading »

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wise and wiser (I): Daniel

April 5, 2012 by David Baer

It is not as though Daniel and his friends in the biblical book that bears his name lack credentials. The book’s introductory narrative places them among the cream of the Israelite exiles.

Then (the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar) commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace … (Daniel 1.3–4 ESV)

These men come from good stock and have made the most of the opportunities that good circumstance affords. They are scholar-athletes who have not apologized for the exertions required to discover wisdom and cultivate knowledge. Our populist ideology might fault them for having ‘pursued learning’. The text, by contrast, considers this to be evidence of their honorable nature. They are socially poised. Put these guys in any situation and they’ll know how to handle themselves.

Their shoes are shined. Continue Reading »

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heroism came later: Daniel 1

April 3, 2012 by David Baer

Daniel stands out in a superficial reading of the book that bears his name as a Golden Boy, a larger-than-life Man of Principle who was destined before time to stare down the powers and prove the superiority of Israel’s God in a pagan environment.

No reading undercuts the true nature of the text more easily than this facile understanding of heroism as a thing that simply had to be.

Real human beings never experience heroism as predetermined, an indelible script written into their days. After the glorious deed, the heroic figure is often more surprised than anyone that he turned out to be … well … a hero. Continue Reading »

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terra firma: Proverbs 12

April 2, 2012 by David Baer

The land is solid and unimaginative.

Meetings of farmers—men and women who work the land seldom sentimentalize it—are not hotbeds of speculation. Men and women of the soil are sensible folk with down-to-earth concerns and an eye on the bottom line.

You don’t debate the land. The land is what it is, a given.

Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense. (Proverbs 12:11 ESV)

Biblical wisdom, too, represents an existential terra firma. It is not given to flights of fancy, ruminations about the unseen, esoterica wrapped up in shiny paper. The wisdom tradition finds it hard to respect speculators. They are, at best, a distraction. At worst, they are fools. Continue Reading »

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Legion: Luke 8

March 29, 2012 by David Baer

It is difficult, absent the strong smells and hideous noises that cling to chaos and its victims, to read off the page the full horror of the scene:

When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.’ For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) (Luke 8:27–29 ESV)

Yet the deepest terror of the moment lurks neither in the sight nor in the sound of it. Rather, it comes to us in the single word with which this poor man responds to Jesus’ probing question:

Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Legion,’ for many demons had entered him. (Luke 8:30 ESV) Continue Reading »

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