There are a lot of different perspectives on truth. Truth of the way the world is. Truth of the way it should be. Gospel Truth. But this Father’s Day, I’ll focus on one particular truth:
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” – James 1:27
This verse tells us that God the Father has a special place for those who don’t have an earthly father. He will be Father to them. It tells us to be Jesus to the widows and orphans, showing them the Way to, and the love of, their Father. There is a reason the Lord’s Prayer starts with “Our Father” – because ultimately all depends on Him.
Many in the world reject God as Father because of the failure of fathers in the world. The Old Testament of the Bible is not full of great examples of parents, but rather shows people with all their flaws and warts, who by God’s grace became part of God’s plan to use sinners to reach sinners. To become the Father of His eternal people, despite the failure of His people to be good fathers. There are no Godly offspring without the sacrifice of Jesus. There is no human Jesus without a genealogy of sinners. There are none to inhabit heaven without the sacrifice of a human Jesus, God’s only Son, given for you.
This Father’s Day, take every opportunity to be grateful for fathers, for parents, for those who take on parenthood in other ways, but also think about those who have no earthly provision. Because those who see Jesus see the Father, help people see Jesus. God’s purpose for Godly offspring will be fulfilled and praise Him that you have the awesome responsibility and opportunity to be a part of that work.
Fathers matter. You matter. To God and to others. Whoever you are.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is well-known, even by those who aren’t Christian. Briefly, it goes like this: a man is robbed, beaten, and left for dead on the side of a road. First a priest, and then a Levite, passed him by. But a Samaritan, a member of a group despised by many Jews, stopped and helped the man, even bringing him to help and paying the necessary expenses.
There’s a great contrast made between these people, but another interesting question is what they have in common in the story: they are all identified by their cultural “tribe.” This brings up another interesting contrast: the man, left bloodied on the side of the road, was not identified as anything other than a “man,” or broadly, a human being. The only thing we know about this person is that “he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.”[1] What else was there to know?
By not defining this person, Jesus was not letting His audience limit their responsibility. According to the Reformation Study Bible: “First-century Jews had various ideas about who was included in the category of ‘neighbor,’ whether marking its boundaries by community or clan affinities or by religious party affiliation (a Pharisee’s neighbors would be other Pharisees). Yet at its widest extent, the circle of ‘neighbors’ was confined to Israel.” In short, the Jews were using tribalism to exclude people from the definition of neighbor, in a similar way people use concepts like intersectionality to include people over others today, but in the Good Samaritan parable, nobody is excluded.
To Jesus, the identity of the victim is not relevant – the neighborly thing to do isn’t to help because of who the person is (whether they belong to your own clan or tribe), but because they are a person – made in God’s image – who is hurt. In other words, if there’s a bloody man on the road in front of you, don’t say God didn’t require you to deal with it, because the man is not your neighbor, by some narrow definition.
Jesus was making the broadest interpretation possible. When we consider the situation of each person on Earth – damaged by sin, robbed of their dignity, and left for spiritual death – isn’t everyone like this man by the side of the road?
While we can’t expect to help every hurting person we see, the message Jesus wanted us to hear by not identifying this victim is that we shouldn’t have any pre-defined rules about who is our neighbor when obeying the command: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[2] Too often we create moral shortcuts about who to care for or not to care for, based on whatever our culture or group of friends agree on, allowing us to ignore obvious problems right in front of us.
If you find someone beat up and bloody on the side of the road, literally or metaphorically, help them if you can. No matter who they are. No shortcuts or pre-defined rules are allowed.
Anyone who has watched very young kids play soccer, or especially anyone who has coached youth soccer, knows what I mean by “Beehive Soccer”: Two lonely and bored goalkeepers stand by their goals at each end of the field, while both teams of players closely swarm around one ball. Some of the players on each team have an idea which direction to kick the ball, but others just want to kick it. Often a kicked ball ricochets around inside the swarm, unable to escape the vortex of kids. The goalkeepers might as well play with some blades of grass, or bugs if they’re lucky.
At Beehive Soccer games, parents on the sideline cheer at any progress at all, and grimace whenever some kid (perhaps theirs) nearly takes a soccer ball to the face. Coaches yell “spread out!”, then shake their heads, put their hands on their hips, then yell “spread out!” again a moment later. Coaches must let the parents know they are doing something, and it’s all in good fun – they (the kids) will grow out of it.
Often morality is pursued in the same way. In Beehive Morality, masses of people crowd around one problem, kicking aimlessly, organized by vague goals, or even just some anger and some hashtags on social media, but doomed to reach a less-than-ideal solution because their activities are not organized. Maybe they attempt to swarm around multiple goals at the same time.
In Beehive Soccer, young kids have not had time to be coached and learn coordination based on individual positions, nor are many of them mature enough to pay attention to coaching when all of the other kids are playing Beehive Soccer. It’s no fun being the only kid playing by the rules. In society, too many behave the same way, thinking the objective is just to show enthusiasm for whatever game is being played that day, but making no real progress. Many play along and keep “kicking” because it’s no fun being the only person left out of the crowd.
In economics, this is called a Coordination Problem, where multiple people aren’t aligned and cooperating toward a common goal. Unfortunately, Beehive Morality can cause a Coordination Problem in the church, but in 1 Corinthians 9:24-26, the apostle Paul encourages the church in Corinth (and every church today than can read Paul’s letter) to focus on a goal, and put every effort toward it: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.” This “beating the air” reminds me of the Beehive Soccer kids, or Beehive Morality adults – there’s a lot of activity, but not a lot of coordinated work toward a real, helpful, objective.
But what are the objectives for God’s people? The two most important commandments – the instructions of our Coach – are: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”, and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[1]
Elsewhere, Paul has advice as the young Timothy’s “coach,” sharing these words of encouragement in 2 Timothy 2:3-6 – “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.”[2] The soldier and athlete look forward to victory, and the farmer looks forward to harvest, but until then must work diligently, enduring sacrifice in patience, knowing the reward is worth the temporary problems, even if sometimes it’s no fun not kicking along with the crowd and playing Beehive Soccer.
The video below is a funny illustration of Beehive Soccer (or Morality), versus coordination among well-coached players toward a common goal. The Beehive may think its winning because they having fun and doing the “popular” thing, but they’re really just “beating the air.” Remember, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”, and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Swarming around the ball labelled with the current hot hashtag topic – or many topics – is not the objective.
Bible translators have a tough job, otherwise one English translation would be all we have or need. Translation isn’t a straight-forward process. There are many trade-offs, including between ease of reading in contemporary settings, and depth of meaning in the original context, but sometimes I wish different choices were made.
One example is Luke 9:30-31, which says: “And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (from ESV, emphasis mine). This happened during an event known as the Transfiguration, when Jesus took His disciples Peter, James, and John up a mountain for a vision of His future glory. Matthew records in his gospel that Jesus “was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.”[1]
While on that mountain, the 3 lucky disciples also witnessed a conversation about something: Jesus’ “departure.” In a recent sermon I learned that the word translated “departure” is “exodos” in the original Greek. For ease of reading purposes, “departure” is a more familiar word and makes a lot of sense to a modern reader, because Jesus was soon to depart the world temporarily through death, then more permanently after His resurrection. On the other hand, “exodos” literally means an exit, or figuratively a death, but to the original audience and those familiar with Old Testament history, the word “exodos” carries other meanings as well.
So, why would Moses and Elijah be talking to Jesus about His “exodos”? Because they both had history with such “departures.”
As told in the Old Testament book of Exodus, Moses was called by God while the descendants of Israel (Jacob) were slaves in Egypt. After performing many miracles in God’s power, Moses led the new nation of Israel on an exodus out of literal slavery in Egypt.
Elijah performed many miracles, and prophesied that the nation of Israel, unless they repent of their disobedience, would be taken back into exile, but later be freed from Assyrian rule in that generation’s exodus.
Again, why would Moses and Elijah be talking to Jesus about His “exodos”? Because Jesus was going to lead spiritual Israel out of slavery to sin around the entire world, from each nation, in every generation’s Exodus. Moses, Elijah, and Jesus would have had a lot to talk about.
“And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodos, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”
Just before being betrayed by Judas and arrested, Jesus sought some solitude in the garden of Gethsemane, where “he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’” (Mark 14:35-36). Jesus knew He was soon to die.
Donald McKim notes that “In Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, Abba is the word for ‘Father.’ It is a term that expresses the closest and deepest intimacy of the relationship of parent and child.”[1] Jesus knew this intimacy even on the way to the cross.
McKim also quotes Philip Melanchthon, who said: “’Abba, Father’. By this he taught us that these two things are required in prayer, namely, the ardent affection of the mind and the faithful trust of children toward God: these two words testify that both of these aspects were present in Christ.”
The Father loves us always, even on our most difficult days. Trust Him in prayer today.
[1] McKim, Donald K. Everyday Prayer with the Reformers (2020). P. 73.
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 