Did the Twelve even Know her Name?

In the fourteenth chapter of his gospel, Mark presents his readers with two interesting stories sandwiched together. The Passover is approaching in Jerusalem, and many of the religious leaders of the Jewish people are plotting to kidnap Jesus, but away from the crowds to avoid a riot. Mark then quickly changes scenes to Simon the (former) Leper's house, where Jesus and his disciples are having dinner with their host and many others. A nameless woman comes in and extravagantly pours a whole jar of expensive perfume on his head. The guests (the disciples, from what we know from the other gospels) are not happy about this, and Jesus uses the situation as another opportunity to teach his disciples and give them a glimpse of why he is truly there. Mark then shifts the back to the original story as Judas meets with the chief priest to betray Jesus, perhaps dismayed by the woman and perfume, meets with the chief priests to portray Jesus. The whole passage seems to work together.

These first 11 verses of Mark 14 are significant. The first thing that catches my eye is how these two stories are put together. What can we learn by combining the priests and Judas' attempts to capture Jesus with the nameless woman who anoints Jesus? We can learn much. Obviously, the priests and Judas either did not understand who Jesus was or refused to believe it, which I believe is more likely in the cases of some of the priests. Despite having the purpose of leading the people of Israel to God, these priests are missing what God is doing. Personal standing and power in the community are more important, as well as the struggle with Rome, than God's redemption of Mankind and new covenant. Judas, despite living with and being taught by Jesus for 3 years, doesn't understand. Perhaps he is frustrated over money, such as the wasted perfume, or maybe because Jesus has not made any attempt to free Israel from Rome. Perhaps Judas really does start to understand Jesus' purpose, but freedom and redemption are not what he wants, at least in an eternal since. He wants to be free from the embarrassment of being subject to Rome, so he turns Jesus in when he realizes Jesus has no plans to free Israel from Rome in governmental sense.

In the middle of this story, we have Jesus and a nameless woman pouring perfume on his head. To start, Jesus is once again associating with outcasts by having dinner at a leper's house, perhaps one he had healed. This woman comes in and anoints Jesus for burial, but perhaps even more importantly, anoints him in the tradition of the Old Testament: as a king, a priest, or someone chosen by God to carry out God's work. I think all are combined here. This nameless woman, of who knows what background, who doesn't have near the education of the priests or the face time with Jesus that the disciples had, understood who Jesus was and what was about to happen. Mark has written a clever contrast here. The supposedly knowledgeable, the upstanding, the inner circle, do not understand, but the lowly ones of God do.

What has recently struck me is the absence of the woman's name. Mark gives us the name of the host, Simon the Leper, but perhaps the most important character in this narrative other than Jesus is unnamed. I spent a lot of time thinking about this this week. I came to a few conclusions, and one I consider pretty good. The Bible, including Mark, is obviously God's word, and God did this through Mark, but God at times uses the human limitations of the writer for his purposes for the growth of the Kingdom, and I think that is what is happening here with the absence of the woman's name: Did the twelve disciples (whom it's thought Mark got a lot of his gospel material from, especially Peter) even talk to this woman afterwards? Did they even get her name? They obviously talked and associated with Simon, the owner of the house. Of course they did, he is a man and in other gospels recognized as a priest (I think). But, even after Jesus rebukes and teaches them from this woman's actions, they still do not take the time to talk to her and even learn her name.

These are the people who God uses. The Christians who are lowly even in the eyes of other Christians.

The Secular Culture and Christianity

How involved should a Christian be in secular culture?

I like to read a lot, and when I say a lot I don't mean I read a lot of Christian books. I read Christian books, the good ones, the non-fluff ones that make me think, especially about the Bible and practically living my faith, but the majority of my reading is primarily of creative matter. I also really like the television shows Lost and the Office. I don't miss episodes. Lost makes me think and plays with my emotions and instincts. The Office makes me laugh hysterically and cringe painfully. Both shows are creative, original, and, I believe, not just repetitive, regurgitated content that so many popular culture objects are. Many books I read, like the Road by Cormac McCarthy, challenge many tenants of the teachings of Jesus and the Bible that I know are true. I constantly find interesting thoughts, ideas, themes, quirks, dilemmas, or conundrums in creative works that really cause me to think about and explore my faith in a way that non-artistic/creative/what have you outlets don't.

In the Road, a father and his young son are trying to survive in a world after some apocalyptic event has killed everything. The only life left alive is human life, and those left have to scavenge for old preserved food or turn on their fellow human beings. The father carries a gun with two bullets, partly for protection, but mostly to kill his son and himself if they are ever caught. He knows that if they are they will be tortured and eaten, and his son sexually abused. He can't let his son die this way. This calls into question, what is better, an ended life, or a life slowly ended through constant torture and abuse with no hope of escape? Of course the Bible tells me that suicide and murder are always wrong. If I were in this situation, what would I do? It is not right for my son to have to suffer this way, but it is not right for me to kill him or myself either. Giving in to murder and suicide show a lack of faith on my part. But what if God does not plan to intervene? What if this is part of his plan? What if some kind of good will come from this?

These are the questions that Wild at Heart will never force me to ask myself. These questions may be impractical and perhaps even senseless, but I like them. They force me to examine my faith in ways I never would, usually.

I laugh at jokes on the Office. It's a funny show. I laugh every time "That's what she said" is uttered. But here's the thing: Is that good for me? The Office may be an extreme case, as it is not an overly potty-humor type show like Family Guy, but it still has its moments. Are jokes like this planting an unhealthy sense of humor inside of me? Will this corrupt the sensibilities that God has blessed me with so that when I do encounter some kind of problem of this nature, my response will be affected? How am I different from the rest of the world, then? Others will question my effectiveness as a Christian and perhaps even the validity of my God if they see a life unchanged on the surface level.

The Bible says to focus on things that are "good," "true," and "excellent." (Philippians 4:8) I struggle to classify the Office or similar shows as "good." I don't feel like it changes or corrupts me, but I don't know if has a positive affect. Where do I draw the line?

Then there is the thought that God enjoys when I laugh or am entertained in a good way. When I laugh at the Office or am at the edge of my seat during an episode of Lost, perhaps God is enjoying them with me and is happy that I am enjoying a bit of life. However, there are several other options for humor and entertainment that do not even involve a television set.

This is a difficult question, and I'm rambling. At least I've given you and myself something to think about.

Being Employed by a College Christian Ministry

I have spent the past summer raising financial support for the next year. I applied for an internship with Campus Crusade for Christ, a college Christian ministry that I was heavily involved in when I was in college, and through which I saw immense growth in my faith and relationship with God. I enjoyed being a part of this ministry in college. I enjoyed talking to college students about important subjects, about subjects that we can't always see or know for certain through empirical means of this world, but subjects and thoughts and perspectives that we can only gain through belief, faith, and a force outside of ourselves. American college students are the most willing people in this world to talk about these things and to explore them, and I love that.

I have aspirations to be a teacher. My college degree was a BA in English. I love literature. I love writing. I love dissecting writing, even the bad kind. I love helping others learn how to communicate more effectively with the words they choose to speak and to write, and I love teaching others about the lessons, experience, warnings, and beauty about life that we can all learn from literature. I love teaching. I love forging relationships with young people, even when it's difficult, and I know it will be.

I have plans to go on to graduate school and obtain a Masters in Education, but I feel I'm called into this ministry for at least the next year. I suppose my long to teach and to do College ministry are intertwined somehow. Both do involve teaching and aiding to shape perspectives. Both involve creating relationships, even when it's difficult. Both involve spending time with people younger than me. Both involve being a major part of a young person's world. When I look at these things, these aspects of both jobs, that I love to do and that I feel that I am good at, I feel that it's no wonder God has called me into college ministry in the present and into teaching somewhere down the line. I am encouraged by this.

Faithfully Reaching the iGeneration: From an iGener's View

Recently I read an article on RelevantMagazine.com by a guy named Rex Miller called "The iGen Manifesto." It's an interesting article and contains a lot of insights on the radical differences and shifts that have occurred due to technology in my generation, mainly concerning how we all communicate, find/view/listen/experience media, and how we express ourselves creatively in ways that somehow involve technology, like posting videos on youtube, blogging, or podcasting, and how this is going to affect the world we are inheriting and the Church that we Christians are a part of. Miller views part of these technological forms of communication as a means of escapism from the world that his generation, the Baby Boomers, have left for us, full of war, environmental, and humanitarian problems.

From my perspective, I felt the article was somewhat pointing out the ineffectiveness that the masses have felt to change anything in the larger scale due to the boomer generation. I'm not being pessimistic about that generation, however, and I know for certain several members of that generation have done great things for this world and for more importantly, the Church, but when it comes to the politics of this world the boomer generation has seemingly made the masses feel pretty ineffective at changing anything on a global scale. Things are screwed up and many feel we can't change it, so the "igeneration" has resorted to blogs, online video games, and youtube to find another world where we can create works that actually contribute to something in someway.

Things started this way, but we've seen things change. These Web 2.0 applications, primarily used for entertainment, have in the past few years began to be used as instruments for social change. You can now watch a documentary on the crisis in Sudan on youtube, you can read the blog on the ONE website about firsthand experiences of poverty and crisis throughout the globe, and anyone can go to everystudent.com to read about what the gospel means to today's college student.

Now the iGeneration has come not only to use the interconnectivety and interactions of the internet to change the world now in a physical way, but also in a spiritual way. The gospel can be discovered online now, through simply reading the Bible online, reading a Christian's story about how Jesus changed her life, or watching a video online that examines a message from the Bible in a creative way. These videos are not only online, but used in church services and small group meetings all over. Interconnected social sites such as Myspace and Facebook have numerous ministry groups and events with new ones forming everyday.

So what does this mean for already formed, substantial ministries that are faced with the changes that our generation has enacted? The iGeneration wants involvement, we want things to be open sourced, like Firefox or Wikipedia. How do churches and ministries respond to this? Should they? Do the positives of Web 2.0 and open source in society transfer to ministry?

I don't know.

The prospect of being a part of a church service that has been touched in someway by large numbers of the congregation is exciting. Errors can be corrected. Nuances can be more easily added and smoothed over. But then, I don't really know how this could plausibly work, and I don't think it can peacefully happen.

The Bible clearly states that each Christian is given different gifts, and these gifts correspond to that brother or sister's role in the body. Preachers preach. Leaders lead. Teachers teach. Administrators administrate. Artists create. Writers write. Number crunchers number crunch. Thinkers think. This is how a ministry is run, correct?

I suppose what bothers me is the thought that ministries have to change to reach certain generations. I think this is true to an extent, but it also bothers me that these types of changes are so often forced onto ministries from the outside or from the dreaded problem of low numbers. Are these ministries not seeking the guidance of the Spirit? Do the ministries that change conforming to the world, or following the Spirit's direction to reach the world?

This is complicated.

Christianity and Divorce

My parents divorced when I was in junior high. My dad had been recently been to prison and my family had been through a few tumultuous years of moving, job hunting, new schools, and learning how to scrape by. My father had a lot of issues at the time, one being our family had lost our financial status that my father had attained through 17 hard years of working at the same job. He owned a nice house with a huge yard, a pool, a garage with a basketball hoop, a pool with a deck, and a swing set for his kids. That was all gone and was not attainable anytime in the near future. My father was working a job that was two hours away at the time and financially our family seemed to be getting nowhere. I think this got to my dad, he couldn't take it, and so he left. My parents divorced. My mom was left to raise and support us financially. She did a pretty darn good job. My brother and I are both in college, my sister is going to be soon, and we really never had want of anything.

My family became more serious about our Christian faith when I was in high school. By family, I mean my brother, sister, mother and myself. My father wasn't a huge part of the picture at this point. However, through seeing God's impact on my brother and I's lives, my dad became a Christian. My father, the man who I spent nights and nights praying to come around, the man who went to prison, who struggled with alcohol, was now a Christian. Incredible.

Ever since then I've constantly pondered divorce. My parents are both Christians, and this is what Jesus says about divorce:

"It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of
divorce.' But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for
marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who
marries the divorced woman commits adultery." (Matthew 5:31-32)

"I hate divorce, says the Lord God of Israel." Malachi 2:16a

My dad was unfaithful to my mother during their marriage, but that was before he became a Christian. Now he is remarried. Is he committing adultery every time he is with his new wife? Is this, in turn, causing her to commit adultery? If this is the case, it's hard to decide what is to be done about it. He is legally married to his new wife, so to stop this sin would mean to divorce her, but that also is a sin. It's just messy.

The dilemma of divorce brings to light the main message of the Bible: Forgiveness and reconciliation. Man sinned, God enacted a plan to reconcile and forgive man, man sinned some more, God punished them so his plan could come to fruition but also forgave them several times, and then God gave his only Son as a necessary sacrifice to destroy the gap between himself and man. God's plan throughout history has been to forgive us and reconcile us to himself through Jesus Christ. Divorce is the exact opposite of that in the marital context. Divorce happens when one or both parties feel the marriage is a failure, and no amount of forgiveness or grace can overcome the problems that exist. That's never true. Through Christ, all things are possible.

This is lofty talk, talk that is difficult, if seemingly impossible, to enact in real life. That's what's great about Jesus Christ. Of course these things are impossible. Of course it's impossible for us to always do the right thing or to always forgive those who do not do the right thing. That's where Christ comes in. His death and sacrifice ended our problems with those things forever. The Spirit we receive after believing in Him convicts us and drives us to do what is right. We experience freedom. We see the world for what it is. In essence, our hearts are completed in the way God designed them to be. Therefore we can strive to be sinless and we can strive to forgive, even if it means forgiving a spouse who lied, cheated, or was just a downright mean person. Even if we don't do these things always, we are forgiven, and we tell God we're sorry, and that love and kindness spurns us on to become better people.

Divorce is okay only after one of the parties has been unfaithful, but I think it's clear in the Bible that Christ still wants a husband or wife to forgive, no matter how grievous the adultery was. As we see time and time again, Christ creates a change in a heart attitude that leads to actual real world change, such as forgiving a spouse, even if that spouse has messed up him or herself.

No, I'm Not Okay

No, I'm not okay. Grow up, get over it, there are many people much worse off than you are and they are completely happy with their lives, so what's your problem? Just trust God. Focus on Him. What does that mean? Well, it means... focusing on God.

That is what I need to do, but it is taking me awhile to figure out what that means. I have realized that if I am pursuing the Lord, everything else is secondary. My fulfillment comes from my relationship with him. The hard part is actually doing that, it's actually not listening to lies I tell myself and the concerns the world says I should have.

Last night I relaxed and read all night. It was great. A few nights ago one of my best friends sat down and ate dinner with me. We didn't talk much. We just sat there, eating our cheeseburgers, watching the Simpsons, laughing every few minutes. He didn't ask me what was wrong, or what he could do, or tell me what I should do. He knows where I am right now and how low I feel, and all he could do was just be there. And it was good. I saw God's care for me in his friendship. He couldn't do anything to improve my mood and he knew that, so we just sat and watched Bart Simpson help Principal Skinner get his job back. It was a good time.

Sun, Cold, and Frost

I went outside today and it was cold. My body was confused because my face felt warmth from the sun. My limbs wanted me to shed the heavy outer layers I carried but my brain knew I couldn't. I felt the rays of the sun, but it was still winter and the temperature was near 40 degrees. My body told me that it would be fine, that it wanted to run and play, to throw and catch things with no hindering jacket or long pants on. My mind knew better. It told me the truth. I would do these things with no warmth for a few moments, but then my body would start to ache and cry for protection. I would then have to put my coat back on, and putting on the layers that I believed I was free from for another season would be too much. March is not winter, but not yet spring, either. I can wait.

I read a Robert Frost poem yesterday. It was about a flower resting on a windowsill during the winter. A harsh, rough, cold winter breeze blew by and swept against the window, saw the flower, and loved it. The flower did not know what to do. A pane of glass separated them. The breeze left.

Tales from the Woods

A Forest is a strange place. When I was younger, the wood behind my parents' house was many things. My brother, friends, and I played there daily. We searched for new paths, animals, creaks, hideouts, uprooted trees, and criminals. The Forest was not bigger than a few square miles, if that, and seperated our middle-class neighborhood from a country high way and a trailer park. It was riddled with paths and our forts and hideouts, its creaks stopped by our dams, and its inhabitants spooked by our constant yelling and whooping. I think that we suprised the Forest most of the time, but the most memorable moments were when it suprised us. A Forest is a place for adventure, but also of fear and danger. We looked for these and found them without much difficulty.

forests in literature have been used in many ways. Sherwood Forest was rumored to be haunted. Robin Hood and his gang used this to their advantage by setting up camp there. Using the forests reputation, they were able to conduct their crusade against the greedy rich for longer than would have been possible anywhere else. The tales of Robin Hood and his merry men from my boyhood excited me. The Forest was their home and they knew its secrets and intricacies and used them to their advantage. Their hideout was one day found and attacked, but many of them still escaped into the woods and the Merry Men eventually arose in victory. I wanted to have this relationship with the small patch of woods behind our house. I wanted to know where this creak came from and went to and where its deepest point was, I wanted to know where the tallest tree in the woods was, I wanted to know what types of animals lived there and how I could track them, and most of all, I wanted to know the Forest, to be able to get from one end to the other without having to explore or to cut my way through brambles and weeds.

One spring day my brother, my friend Allan, Allen's little brother Neil, and myself were trying to dam up the creak again. We were in a relatively open area, with not much brush around and tall trees with a canopy that the sun just barely peaked through. We were combining piles of sticks and leaves with mud and sand from the creek's own bed to make a sopping mass of nature that spanned the entire creak. Our hope was to create a small pool that would attract wild life, like crayfish, frogs, turtles, raccoons, deer, and, as the rumor went, a bobcat.

The dam we built was fairly successful, and when we returned a few days later a large pool, almost knee deep, had formed behind the dam and it was an ideal place to search for crayfish, frogs, turtles, and other aqueous animals, but we never had the patience to hide out nearby and watch for deer or the ever-illusive, rumored-to-be-in-the-woods-some-where bobcat. We spent most of our time their splashing about in the water, yelling at each other to get out of our crawdad hunting zones, and often we ended days there in water and mud fights.

On a particularly overcast day in early fall we returned to the dammed creak to find the dam destroyed. The water had finally burst through and flooded the surrounding area creating an enormous, smelly mud hole. Being young boys we had no problems walking through it to find the remnants of our dam, a large strip of sand, broken sticks, and wet, spread out in a five feet radius from the original spot of the dam. Allan and I were the oldest of the bunch and had put the most work and thought into the dam. We looked at each other with a bit of regret, but with excitement brimming at the surface.

"This stinks," I said. My shoes sank almost completely into the mud. I remember thinking my mom wouldn't be happy, but she rarely felt happy whenever we came back from these trips.

"Yeah, but look at all of these cool mud. Look at that tree over there," Allan said and pointed at a tree that was originally five yards from the creek bed. The mud hole had crept up to it. A large branch of these tree had broken off during a storm. It leaned up against the tree and was ensnared there by vines and weeds. It curled down, almost in the shape of a slide, into the mud. That's what Allan thought of.

Naturally, we slicked up the slide with some water and mud and our little brothers tried it first.