Eye in the sky vs. the Hidden Agenda (Luke 12)

An Irish writer described a vivid childhood fear. Suppose inappropriate thoughts were visibly displayed in a balloon over her head? Perhaps, she admitted, her fondness for American comic books created that nightmare! The words of İsa brought this to mind:

Luk 12:1 O sırada halktan binlerce kişi birbirlerini ezercesine toplanmıştı. İsa önce kendi öğrencilerine şunları söylemeye başladı: "Ferisiler'in mayasından -yani, ikiyüzlülükten- kaçının.
Luk 12:2 Örtülü olup da açığa çıkarılmayacak, gizli olup da bilinmeyecek hiçbir şey yoktur.
Luk 12:3 Bunun için karanlıkta söylediğiniz her söz gün ışığında duyulacak, kapalı kapılar ardında kulağa fısıldadıklarınız damlardan duyurulacaktır.
Luk 12:4 "Siz dostlarıma söylüyorum, bedeni öldüren, ama ondan sonra başka bir şey yapamayanlardan korkmayın.
Luk 12:5 Kimden korkmanız gerektiğini size açıklayayım: Kişiyi öldürdükten sonra cehenneme atma yetkisine sahip olan Tanrı'dan korkun. Evet, size söylüyorum, O'ndan korkun.
Luk 12:6 Beş serçe iki meteliğe satılmıyor mu? Ama bunlardan bir teki bile Tanrı katında unutulmuş değildir.
Luk 12:7 Nitekim başınızdaki bütün saçlar bile sayılıdır. Korkmayın, siz birçok serçeden daha değerlisiniz.
Luk 12:8 "Size şunu söyleyeyim, insanların önünde beni açıkça kabul eden herkesi, İnsanoğlu* da Tanrı'nın melekleri önünde açıkça kabul edecek.
Luk 12:9 Ama kim beni insanlar önünde inkâr ederse, kendisi de Tanrı'nın melekleri önünde inkâr edilecek.

And, a few words:

• ikiyüzlülük -- hypocrisy. iki -- two. yüzlü -- faced. lük -- ness.
• kapmak -- to close. kapalı -- closed.
• kapı -- door. kapılar -- doors.
  

Even when the hypocrites are in power, the righteous need not fear. A fortuitous tornado will open the trunk of a car in a junkyard, revealing the missing records of the Rose Law Firm. Time Magazine may spike[1] a story that is unflattering to their fair-haired boy, but an upstart internet journalist will make his reputation by exposing sexual harassment in the workplace at the highest levels.

It's also bad policy to conceal good news. The Creator has broken into the world to set things right. Nothing is the same. The powers of evil are backing away from the fumigating disinfectant of light and, despite frequent setbacks, the world is becoming a better place.

It might be scary to live under the benevolent gaze of a Heaven that knows everything, including the price of sparrows, and the number of hairs on our head. However, this God is good, loves us, and has our eternal happiness at heart. The bad guys can bluff, bluster, and posture. Hey, they can even kill our bodies now and then. Big deal. The God we serve has taken steps to secure eternal bliss for His own.

____________

[1] To "spike" a story means to withhold it from publication. Old-time newspaper editors had a spike mounted on their desks to hold papers that did not need further attention. The Spike is also a novel (with a few steamy scenes) by Arnaud de Borchgrave that describes the collusion between American journalists and the enemies of our country across decades and generations.

Let's hear it for chutzpah ! (Luke 11)

English, a wag once said, does not "borrow" words from other languages. Rather, English follows other languages into dark alleys, beats them up, and forcibly takes the words it wants. America is a nation of immigrants, and every major immigrant group has enriched our common culture with its cuisine and its vocabulary.[1] A century ago, quite a few Jewish folks got tired of the pogroms[2] in Russia and took steerage[3] passage to these shores.[4]

One of the things the Jewish folks brought with them, in addition to a formidable work ethic, was Yiddish -- an energetic German dialect written with Hebrew characters. As Jewish folks rose to prominence in a number of fields, including entertainment, was a number of words that have passed into vernacular English. Many words that begin with sch- were originally Yiddish.

Then, there's today's word, chutzpah. The standard definition goes like this: "If a man is on trial for murdering his parents, and asks the judge for leniency because he is an orphan, that's chutzpah!"

Which brings us to today's İncil selection:

Luk 11:5-7 Sonra şöyle dedi: "Sizlerden birinin bir arkadaşı olur da gece yarısı ona gidip, 'Arkadaş, bana üç ekmek ödünç ver. Bir arkadaşım yoldan geldi, önüne koyacak bir şeyim yok' derse, öbürü içerden, 'Beni rahatsız etme! Kapı kilitli, çocuklarım da yanımda yatıyor. Kalkıp sana bir şey veremem' der mi hiç?
Luk 11:8 Size şunu söyleyeyim, arkadaşlık gereği kalkıp ona istediğini vermese bile, adamın yüzsüzlüğünden ötürü kalkar, ihtiyacı neyse ona verir.
Luk 11:9 "Ben size şunu söyleyeyim: Dileyin, size verilecek; arayın, bulacaksınız; kapıyı çalın, size açılacaktır.
Luk 11:10 Çünkü her dileyen alır, arayan bulur, kapı çalana açılır.
Luk 11:11 "Aranızda hangi baba, ekmek isteyen oğluna taş verir? Ya da balık isterse balık yerine yılan verir?
Luk 11:12 Ya da yumurta isterse ona akrep verir?
Luk 11:13 Sizler kötü yürekli olduğunuz halde çocuklarınıza güzel armağanlar vermeyi biliyorsanız, gökteki Baba'nın, kendisinden dileyenlere Kutsal Ruh'u vereceği çok daha kesin değil mi?"

And that brings us to today's Turkish word:

• yüzsüz -- chutzpah. Impudence. Shamelessness.
  

Grace means divine mercy to those who don't deserve it. Most of the time, we create most of our problems for ourselves. If we could only pray for mercy when we deserved it, we'd never pray.

As this selection shows, our Creator loves to hear from us, and to respond to us. Sometimes, though, He expects us to show a measure of persistence. Faith. And sheer chutzpah.

May your prayers be aggressive, bold, blessed, and answered, today!

__________

[1] Well, the folks who were already here added place names to our vocabulary.

[2] pogrom is one of the very few Russian words that has passed unchanged into English.

[3] That's where the ship gives you a place to sit for the trip, and you bring your own food.

[4] One Jewish American poet, Emma Lazarus, wrote the poem The New Collosus that is found on the tablet at Statue of Liberty:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

a man of peace (Luke 10)

Round one went well. The Twelve went out, worked miracles, and preached God's Kingdom. So Luke reports another cycle of itinerant evangelism, this time with 70 messengers. This number is, in Biblical terms, another word picture. Genesis 11 lists 70 distinct nations that developed after the dispersion at the Tower of Babel. SO our Lord is telling us, by this second round, that His message was intended for Israel first, and then for the whole world.

Missionary is a foul word in many societies. An agent of an alien ideology is at the door, determined to destroy our families and our culture. During the 19th century, the American obsession with polygamy led to the warning cry heard in many African villages: "The destroyers of families have come." Benjamin Fortna's incredible book The Imperial Classroom discusses how a hard-pressed Ottoman Empire somehow found the will, and the resources, to build 10,000 modern schools almost overnight. The rulers were threatened by restive people groups around the edges, unhappy minorities within, commercial competition from the new global environment, and the missionary schools. These institutions, lavishly funded from abroad, transparently sought to undermine the Islamic faith and culture of the people.

On the one hand, Christians view God's Kingdom as a new reality, a new culture, supernaturally lowered from the heavens. Yet so often the "new culture" we have brought to "the benighted heathen" has been western culture that confuses our idiomatic (and sometimes idiotic) preferences with God's eternal standards. Yes, American missionaries helped the Hawaiian people to become literate, and mostly Christian, within a few decades. They also insisted that the tropical ladies wear "mother hubbards," neck-to-ankle long-sleeved dresses.

Today's "Christian exemplars," like Baptist singer Brittany Spears, go to strip joints to refine their stage gyrations.

Bruce Olsen refused to buy into the "witch doctor vs. Enlightened Missionary" paradigm. The traditional healers, he saw, were "the backbone of tribal morality." During a pinkeye epidemic in his adopted tribe, he noted how the shaman worked herself to exhaustion seeking to help her people, calling out to heaven for healing. Olsen infected himself, then asked the witch doctor to chant for his healing -- and anoint his eye with tetracycline. He honored her position in the tribe, enhanced her effectiveness, and eventually saw the entire tribe embrace the gospel in its own way.

Perhaps, this chapter suggests the best way to persuade people to give thought to the Creator's "graphic user interface" with the created order, İsa. The One through whom we see the Almighty's character and personality, and the One in whose name we lay hold on the eternal order. When you want to bring the good news of salvation to a new community, find a "man of peace."

Luk 10:5 Hangi eve girerseniz, önce, 'Bu eve esenlik olsun!' deyin.
Luk 10:6 Orada esenliksever biri varsa, dilediğiniz esenlik onun üzerinde kalacak; yoksa, size dönecektir.
Luk 10:7 Girdiğiniz evde kalın, size ne verirlerse onu yiyip için. Çünkü işçi ücretini hak eder. Evden eve taşınmayın.

And, a few words:

• Hangi eve girerseniz, önce, -- Whichever house you go into, first,
  
• 'Bu eve esenlik olsun!' deyin -- 'This house peace be upon!' say.
  

Every community has influential people already in place. People who are known for their nobility and hospitality. Win their trust, and the whole village will listen. Ignore them, and the people will ignore you (except for a handful of malcontents, rejects, and misfits).

Bruce Olsen's tribe discarded the seven-day week as irrelevant to their Amazonian climate. Frankly, I see no reason why other cultures would need to embrace such things as Christmas and Easter, holidays that we confiscated from pre-existing pagan orders. Someday, I would love to observe Ramazan with people who share my delight in İsa.

"A man has got to know his limits ... " (Luke 9)

"RJR, you are like a man who sees a freight train heading for a cliff. And you don't know the first thing about freight trains. You just know it's going in the wrong direction, and you are determined to jump on board and turn it around!"

A wise friend gave me this perspective decades ago, when I was determined to "reform" an American denomination by pursuing ordination therein.

As another of Luke's lengthy chapters winds down, we see the Lord inviting people to follow Him, and the responses of the recruits:

Luk 9:59 Bir başkasına, "Ardımdan gel" dedi. Adam ise, "İzin ver, önce gidip babamı gömeyim" dedi.
Luk 9:60 İsa ona şöyle dedi: "Bırak ölüleri, kendi ölülerini kendileri gömsün. Sen gidip Tanrı'nın Egemenliği'ni duyur."

And, a few words:

• önce -- First
  
• gitmek -- to go
  
• babamı -- my father (direct object)
  
• gömek -- bury

The context makes it plain that the called one's father was still alive and kicking. The guy was willing to follow Jesus, after making sure that his own nest was feathered. There was some matter of business that needed attending to, first.

To which Jesus replied, "Let the dead bury their own dead, and go, preach the Kingdom of God." Or, as my beloved mentor R. J. Rushdoony paraphrased it, "Let the dead bury the dead. The living have work to do."

American humorist Al Capp caricatured the campus radicals of the 60's, in his L'i'l Abner comic strip, as Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything (S.W.I.N.E.) . It's easy to get worked up concerning tempting targets. Sanity, however, sometimes requires us to walk away from other people's problems, and mind our own business as well as we can.

the power of small things (Luke 9)

OK, so I like science fiction, that epitome of juvenile boy's literature! Michael Flynn, a Catholic novelist in this genre, imagined aliens landing in a medieval German monastery, and the theological discussions that ensued. At one point, the wise abbot tells one of his people, "Yes, this is a small thing. But faithfulness in small things is a great thing." (Eifelheim)

This is wholesome advice to those of us who wrestle with grandiose notions of self. We get tempted to look for that perfect pitch that we can slam out of the ballpark, and fail to take advantage of the base hits that come our way.[1] Most progress, it turns out, depends on nibbling at things around the edges. Doing something every day.

Let's look at today's scripture:

Luk 9:12 Günbatımına doğru Onikiler gelip O'na, "Halkı salıver de çevredeki köylere ve çiftliklere gidip kendilerine barınak ve yiyecek bulsunlar. Çünkü ıssız bir yerdeyiz" dediler.
Luk 9:13 İsa, "Onlara siz yiyecek verin" dedi. "Beş ekmekle iki balıktan başka bir şeyimiz yok" dediler. "Yoksa bunca halk için yiyecek almaya biz mi gidelim?"
Luk 9:14 Orada yaklaşık beş bin erkek vardı. İsa öğrencilerine, "Halkı yaklaşık ellişer kişilik kümeler halinde yere oturtun" dedi.
Luk 9:15 Öğrenciler öyle yapıp herkesi yere oturttular.
Luk 9:16 İsa, beş ekmekle iki balığı aldı, gözlerini göğe kaldırarak şükretti; sonra bunları böldü ve halka dağıtmaları için öğrencilerine verdi.
Luk 9:17 Herkes yiyip doydu. Artakalan parçalardan on iki sepet dolusu toplandı.

Let's look at vs. 13:

• Beş ekmekle -- with the five loaves, (and)
• iki balıktan -- apart from the two fishes
• başka -- other than
• bir şeyimiz -- one thing of ours
• yok -- there is not.
  

Ah, I can see all of my American friends running off to learn Turkish now, and my Turkish friends eagerly reading İncil! After all, both are so fascinating!

That which looks so little, so futile, can make all the difference in the world when God's favor rests upon it.

Have a great day, friends!


__________

[1] I need to use baseball metaphors every now and then to demonstrate my American heritage -- even though I hate the game, and was usually the last one chosen!

Dikkat edin! (watch out! Luke 8)

Kids may not have been brighter a century ago, but they sure learned a lot more. At least, this is the American experience. It's a matter of character. Maturity. The self-discipline it takes to apply focused attention to the task at hand, despite a plethora of distractions.

Our generation has seen the explosion of "ADD" -- attention deficit disorder. There are many theories. Flouride in the water? Or has television trained our brains to only function in burst mode, and only as long as a jiggling shifting image can hold our attention hostage? Or, have other factors trained us to cope with boredom by cutting lose our mental moorings, and letting our minds wander?[1]

Yet what makes us think we have cornered the market on[2] distractability? One of the fascinations of sacred texts is -- you can read them hundreds of times, and still see fresh insights embedded in the familiar words.

For example, we can read the Parable of the Sower as an essay on discractability, on ADD.

Luk 8:4, 5 Büyük bir kalabalığın toplandığı, insanların her kentten kendisine akın akın geldiği bir sırada İsa şu benzetmeyi anlattı: "Ekincinin biri tohum ekmeye çıktı. Ektiği tohumlardan kimi yol kenarına düştü, ayak altında çiğnenip gökteki kuşlara yem oldu.
Luk 8:6 Kimi kayalık yere düştü, filizlenince susuzluktan kuruyup gitti.
Luk 8:7 Kimi, dikenler arasına düştü. Filizlerle birlikte büyüyen dikenler filizleri boğdu.
Luk 8:8 Kimi ise iyi toprağa düştü, büyüyünce yüz kat ürün verdi." Bunları söyledikten sonra, "İşitecek kulağı olan işitsin!" diye seslendi.

A few words:

• büyük -- big
• kalabalık -- crowd
• akın -- raid. Rush upon. Run up to. Double the word to instensify the meaning. İsa was getting mobbed!
  

Bottom line: if you have ears, you had better listen! Or perhaps the Teacher was saying, "I'm wasting my time with 75% of you out there!"

We are certainly being told to pay attention what God wants us to hear. You know, it would be the tragedy of a lifetime if God was to whisper the next step towards achieving our dearest and most cherished dreams, and we missed the point. Failed to do what was required. Distracted by the shallowness of our own thinking, the rigidity of our preconceived notions, or the multitude of distractions swarming around us. But, there's hope.

Luk 8:18 Bunun için, nasıl dinlediğinize dikkat edin. Kimde varsa, ona daha çok verilecek. Ama kimde yoksa, kendisinde var sandığı bile elinden alınacak."

We can fine-tune our hearing, by careful attention to it. Once we "get it," once we get the point of life,[3] we can get feedback loops working for us. The better we listen, the better our lives work, and the more we heed that which our Creator intends for us to hear. The process of reprogramming our thinking, of renewing our minds, is a life-long project. But the payoff is wonderful in this life, and the next.
____

[1] "Don't let your mind wander. It's too small to be out on its own!"

[2] American idiom. To "corner the market" means to acquire a monopoly on some good or service.

[3] God is God, I am not, and His purposes are the supreme reason for my life.

Reaction shots (Luke 7)

Good video journalism makes an effort to capture "reaction shots," footage of observers to some newsworthy event or utterance. President Kennedy takes a round to the head -- and suddenly, the secret service agents in the car behind are staring, aghast, at one of their own number. An agent holding an automatic rifle that fires a small-caliber, high-velocity round that would shatter into fragments after penetrating a skull. Not the large-caliber, jacketed rounds that inflicted the other injuries on the targeted dignitaries. Rounds with a wider diameter than the wound in the back of the president's head.

You know, we might could[1] learn a few things by re-examining reaction shots.

In today's story, the sideshow was the main event.

Luk 7:36 Ferisiler'den biri İsa'yı yemeğe çağırdı. O da Ferisi'nin evine gidip sofraya oturdu.
Luk 7:37,38 O sırada, kentte günahkâr olarak tanınan bir kadın, İsa'nın, Ferisi'nin evinde yemek yediğini öğrenince kaymaktaşından bir kap içinde güzel kokulu yağ getirdi. İsa'nın arkasında, ayaklarının dibinde durup ağlayarak, gözyaşlarıyla O'nun ayaklarını ıslatmaya başladı. Saçlarıyla ayaklarını sildi, öptü ve yağı üzerlerine sürdü.
Luk 7:39 İsa'yı evine çağırmış olan Ferisi bunu görünce kendi kendine, "Bu adam peygamber olsaydı, kendisine dokunan bu kadının kim ve ne tür bir kadın olduğunu, günahkâr biri olduğunu anlardı" dedi.
Luk 7:40 Bunun üzerine İsa Ferisi'ye, "Simun" dedi, "Sana bir söyleyeceğim var." O da, "Buyur, öğretmenim" dedi.
Luk 7:41 "Tefeciye borçlu iki kişi vardı. Biri beş yüz, öbürü de elli dinar borçluydu.
Luk 7:42 Borçlarını ödeyecek güçte olmadıklarından, tefeci her ikisinin de borcunu bağışladı. Buna göre, hangisi onu çok sever?"
Luk 7:43 Simun, "Sanırım, kendisine daha çok bağışlanan" diye yanıtladı. İsa ona, "Doğru söyledin" dedi.
Luk 7:44 Sonra kadına bakarak Simun'a şunları söyledi: "Bu kadını görüyor musun? Ben senin evine geldim, ayaklarım için bana su vermedin. Bu kadın ise ayaklarımı gözyaşlarıyla ıslatıp saçlarıyla sildi.
Luk 7:45 Sen beni öpmedin, ama bu kadın eve girdiğimden beri ayaklarımı öpüp duruyor.
Luk 7:46 Sen başıma zeytinyağı sürmedin, ama bu kadın ayaklarıma güzel kokulu yağ sürdü.
Luk 7:47 Bu nedenle sana şunu söyleyeyim, kendisinin çok olan günahları bağışlanmıştır. Çok sevgi göstermesinin nedeni budur. Oysa kendisine az bağışlanan, az sever."
Luk 7:48 Sonra kadına, "Günahların bağışlandı" dedi.
Luk 7:49 İsa'yla birlikte sofrada oturanlar kendi aralarında, "Kim bu adam? Günahları bile bağışlıyor!" şeklinde konuşmaya başladılar.
Luk 7:50 İsa ise kadına, "İmanın seni kurtardı, esenlikle git" dedi.

We'll skip the vocabulary lessons, today, and try to move right along.

A society reporter would note how a local prominent citizen had invited the latest novelty act over for dinner. Sophisticated readers would chuckle over the etiquette gaffs, the faux pas,[2] of the rustic entertainer.

Yet, the focus of Luke's narrative is on the one person who did understand what Jesus represented -- the opportunity for a new start in life. This is really important to some people, to those who have endured the sneers of their neighbors, and their own shame. To those who find in forgiveness a new lease on life, a new life.

______________

[1] "might could" juxtaposes two subjunctive words for humorous effect, for exaggeration. It's not good standard English.

[2] Pronounced "foe paw" -- French for "false step." The French aristocracy of the 1770s was obsessed with skill at dancing the intricate minuet. History demonstrates that their priorities were askew!