In Memoriam: John A. Gettier, Th.D. Lent 1C

 In Memoriam: John A. Gettier Th.D.

John Gettier, a Baltimore native and graduate of the Gilman School in Roland Park, and my instructor in Old and New Testament at Trinity College, also taught me biblical Hebrew, and was my life-long mento and friend. I received notice the other day that John had died at the age of 90 last week. In class he would always say, “All scripture is a combination of history, literature, and theology.” Which is to say, that every passage in the Bible, both the Hebrew and the Greek scriptures, has a context. Often it takes time and imaginative sleuthing to suss out all three dimensions in any given passage, but it is time well spent. 

Take our episode in Luke 4:1-13 that is often called The Temptations of Christ. First, there is the so-called tempter. Diabolos, and later, when the opportune time arrives in chapter 22, he is identified as Satan. Whatever Luke chooses to call this character, he is not the little guy with a pitchfork and long tail running around in red long-johns! We are to think of him, as those first listening to Luke and Jesus himself would understand, as something like a prosecutor, or someone who tests you to find out if you are qualified to be who you say you are. Or, in this case who God has said you are: The Beloved, the Son of God. For it is after Jesus’s baptism by John that we read that Jesus is both full of the Holy Spirit and led by the same Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tested to find out just what this all means. Let the testing begin. 

Jesus is in the wilderness for forty days, which means a long time, not necessarily 40 calendar days. And surely is meant to bring to mind the archetypal 40 years of testing in the wilderness by those who had been liberated by the God of that wandering Aramean, Abraham. Abraham who had also been led by God and God’s Spirit to leave his home in Southern Mesopotamia and head off to a new homeland. Luke is recalling this history for who are reading or listening to put Jesus into this context. Like Abraham, and like those who escaped slavery in Egypt, Jesus is about to begin his new life as God’s Beloved Son of God. And after pondering all this for forty days of fasting, Jesus very well may be hungry. 

Perhaps that is why Satan begins the final exam with a softball question: Surely you are hungry by now, there are a lot of stones here, after all this is rocky soil. Another clue that this is a test, not a temptation, Satan begins, “If you are the Son of God, why not turn these stones into bread?” Now this very well could be a useful kind of thing to do if you are about to dedicate the next few years of your life among people who are poor and tired and hungry. But Jesus went to Saturday School growing up and quotes the ultimate, final, and summary book of Torah, Deuteronomy For it is there that when the folks were pestering Moses in the wilderness for more imaginative food than manna, Moses says, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'" [Deut 8:3] Good answer. So far, Jesus is batting a thousand! 

Next up, Satan shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answers, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" [Deut 6:13] Wow! Still batting a thousand! He turns down the offer despite the historical fact of living in the harsh occupation of Caesar’s Empire of Brutality in which people had hoped someone like the Son of God or a messiah would put an end to all that. The tradition is equally harsh to insist that political compromise is linked to betrayal of the first commandment to worship only God. Not Satan. Not Rome. These are God’s kingdoms, not Satan's. One can almost hear Jesus’s grandmother saying, “That’s our boy! He knows the tradition and what side our bread is buttered on!” 

The final test: If you are the Son of God, jump off the top of the Temple pinnacle, for after all Psalm 91 says, “'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,'  and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" It turns out the chief messiah inspector general is up on his scriptures as well. Jesus is not fooled. "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" [Deut 6:16] I have to say, says the Satan, you are very sharp and well prepared to be the Son of God. That’s all for now, but I will be back to be sure. And we know that is when Satan enters into Judas Iscariot later in Luke 22 verse 3. 

That’s a lot of history and biblical literature wrapped up in just a few verses. And Luke expects the reader to notice a pattern here. For even though he has been fasting in the wilderness a long time, Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God, the Beloved, knows the tradition inside out and answers each question on the test from Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy, and no surprise here, Deuteronomy! And why is that, we might ask ourselves? 

And oh, how I wish Dr. John were here to witness this final move, for this is where the theology comes in. Which theology is derived from the history and literature of the Deuteronomist him or herself. For the Deuteronomist not only gives us the summary book of Torah, but also wrote the history after the wilderness sojourn of the people living in the Land of Promise in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and First and Second Kings. It just happens that the core theology of all the Deuteronomist’s history is: a) "Hear, O Israel: YHWH is our God, YHWH is one" [Deut 6:4]; b) You shall teach this to your children, and post it at your doorways; and c) we are “strangers in a land not our own,” descendants of the wandering Aramean, and the way we tell our history serves as the basis for a higher ethic, as it says throughout the Torah: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt”. It is precisely the consciousness of being alien, with its concomitant sensitivity to the other, that ironically grants the right to dwell in the land. [i] 

When asked what is the greatest commandment of all, Jesus again replies from Deuteronomy chapter 6, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” And the second is just like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Because we were once all strangers in a strange land. We were all resident aliens at one time or another. And our God, YHWH, who is one God and One God Only, heard our cry, led us through the wilderness for forty years, and has been present to us and to all people everywhere ever since. So it is that we are to care for the widow, the orphan, and the resident alien in our midst as if she or he is one of us. We are to love them as our God has loved us all these centuries, at home, in exile, and in diaspora throughout the world. 

Jesus of Nazareth lives out of the core values of the Deuteronomist in all that he says and all that he does. He is not here to do magic. He is not here to dominate the kingdoms of the world. He is not here to test our God. He is here to love God and to love all people all the time. No exceptions. Lent means to ask us, can we do the same? Amen.

That's history, literature, and theology. Thank you, Dr. John Gettier! 

 

[i] “My Father Was a Wandering Aramean…”: The Ethical Legacy of Our Origins in Exile

By Rav Rachel Adelman Aug 28, 2018

Transfiguration: Seeing The Face of God Last EpiphanyC

Transfiguration: Seeing The Face of God

Eight days after asking his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Eight days after Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Anointed, the Messiah of God!” Eight days after he told them to keep silent; to tell no one. Eight days after he said, “The son of man must undergo suffering and be rejected…and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Eight days after he said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me.” [i] 

Eight days later he took Peter, James, and John up the mountain to pray. A while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him…they were speaking of his exodus, his departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. [ii] 

The appearance of the face of Christ changed. It was bright! It was transcendent! As he prayed for the poor, the hungry, the blind, the people of the land, his face changed, so deep was his love for them all. So deep were his prayer that suddenly there appeared Moses and Elijah. Two more of the elders of Israel. First, there were Simeon and Anna at the Temple when he was just 40 days old. Those two elders of the community had been there a long long time awaiting his arrival. Now two who had been waiting even longer answered his prayers. Moses who led the first departure from Egypt, the Exodus from slavery to new freedom. Moses of whom it is said that no one knows where he was buried. And Elijah. Elijah who fed starving widows. Elijah who gave new life to a dying child. Elijah whose exodus, whose departure in a chariot of fire has long been believed to return one day to signal the arrival of one who would announce the beginning of the reign of God. Moses and Elijah come to see Jesus whose face has changed, whose clothes had become dazzling, blindingly white and bright! 

Once upon a time, there was a little man, not even five feet tall, a bishop in a poor diocese in Brazil, who in 1968 visited the United States of America. Bishop Dom Helder Camara had been working to help the poor in the Diocese of Recife and Olinda and to fight the repressive fascist regime that had taken over his country. On his visit here he found that there was profound poverty in America. He visited with Mother Theresa. He visited with Dorothy Day. Two women who had dedicated themselves, like their Lord Jesus, to lift up the poor and the working class. He spent time with Caesar Chavez speaking to the United Farm Workers in California. There is a movie, Excuse Me America, which documents his visit. 

At one point Dom Helder says to the UFW workers, “Beware of being divided. Beware of individualism. The powerful have an interest in dividing you. If the poor are divided then they have no strength.” Then, after Communion, they all sang We Shall Overcome. And if you see the movie, that’s when it happens. As they sing, “We are not afraid, we are not afraid, today…” Dom Helder’s face is changed. His eyes look upward as if he sees the face of God in the singing. His face begins to shine! It is bright as he looks into the face of God. The appearance of his face is changed, like Jesus on the mountain. It is a moment of transfiguration as I watched the movie. I was sure I was looking at the transfigured face of God in that little man who had challenged the fascists; who had found food and housing for the poor; who came all the way to America so that we might see in a person what it looks like, what it sounds like, to pick up your cross daily and follow Jesus. 

Back in Brazil, although his ministry engendered a great deal of love among the common people, among the rich and powerful who were in charge it engendered hate. Dom Helder himself would say, “When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist.” At first, he was blacklisted by the fascist regime. Then censors forbade the media from interviewing or quoting Dom Helder. Yet, he persisted to preach the Good News of Jesus against injustice of all kinds. Then one day there was a knock on the door of his little house. When he opened the door there was a man pointing a gun at him. “I’ve been hired to assassinate you,” the man said. Dom Helder replied, “Then you will send me straight to the Lord.” 

Astounded by this reply, the assassin – himself from the impoverished classes – lowered his gun and let loose his tears. “I can’t kill you,” he sobbed, “You belong to God.” A moment of transfiguration in the face of a stranger sent to kill. An assassin had seen the face of God in the tiny bishop of Recife and Olinda. 

Transfiguration is that moment when we understand that we all belong to God. This was Dom Helder’s message. This is what Peter, James, and John were to learn when suddenly a cloud overshadowed the mountain and a voice out of the cloud declared, “This is my Son, my chosen. Listen to him!” Dom Helder had listened to Jesus and followed him faithfully. One could see it in his face, in his eyes. But most of all in every word he said, and everything he did. 

Whatever Jesus was praying on that mountain top when Moses and Elijah showed up, I am sure now, having seen Dom Helder Camara, bishop of Recife and Olinda in Brazil transfigured that day with the United Farmworkers, I am sure Jesus prayed that one by one every single one of us would one day be transfigured so that one day the face of God could be seen in every human face. 

This must be what Transfiguration means: to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. After seeing Dom Helder in Excuse Me America, I began to see the face of God in others. I worked with children and teen agers who lived in group homes and a foundling hospital. I could see the face of God in the little boys I was tasked to teach the Lord’s Prayer who, when I started to pray, “Our Father….” stopped me and one after another said, “I don’t have a father. How can I pray this prayer?” I saw the face of God in the medical ward in a young girl lying in a hospital bed who had been born with no brain, only a brain stem, who still could respond to touch and prayer. I saw the face of God in a thirteen-year-old girl who was pregnant and did not know what to do next. And I saw the face of God in my supervisor at the New York Foundling Hospital, Sister Anne Flood, Sisters of Charity. 

Christ’s transfigured face can be seen anywhere and everywhere when we hear the voice from whatever cloud obscures our vision. It tells us, implores us, to listen to Jesus. Listen to him, and see the face of God. And like Jesus that day on the mountain top, we will be changed, and we shall shine like the Sun, and we will begin to see the face of God everywhere, in everyone, and in everything.

World without end, Amen. 

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[i] Luke 9:18-27

[ii] Luke 9:28-37