Being Christian In The Tumults

The better news is that Bush's poll rating, according to the latest Pew Foundation effort last week, stands, or sags, now at 29%. That's a new low. The local Catholic bishop of Syracuse in '06 came out in the Syracuse newspaper, all for peace. That's the first he's been heard from concerning the war. It reminds me of the closure of the Vietnam War when, out of the blue, the American Catholic bishops finally went on. record as being against the Vietnam War.

I do commend the Vatican, however, for being against the war from the beginning. The sad part is that the American Catholic Church didn't pay any attention to that.

Happily, our own spiritual leadership has been against this war from the beginning. I remember clearly the moment when Bush refused to see our UMC bishops before the Iraq War started, knowing full well what they were going to say. I am proud of that snub. And then recently, our bishop, Violet Fisher, again came out publicly against the war. Neat.

Bush recently held a press conference, and there he indirectly admitted that he and his confreres messed up the Iraq War. His statement said that American troops are going to be in Iraq after his presidency is done, and then some. Which suggests, to my mind, that we have acquired yet another state. This makes Iraq, if this holds true, the 53rd state of our union, after England and Germany.

The odd part is that Bush and his family started out as Methodists. Thus, the varieties of religious experience applies even to Texas. Especially to Texas? The local sentiment here is that Bush is a moron. Criticism  is open and violent.

Rumsfeld and company are still walking the walk of twisting and bending words to fit their own vision of things. Instead of a civil war in Iraq, which is obvious to this spectator, and many others, he proclaims "progress" instead. Rove hasn't been heard of some time publicly; it seems as if he is muzzled, as has Cheney, more or less. Well, actually, Cheney did it to himself.

The awful vision of Cheney's four-day silence following his shooting of a friend remains before my eyes. He had a responsibility to the nation, and turned his back on it, not saying anything until it became obvious that everything was teetering politically because of his arrogance. This still is true somewhat in that the far right now has abandoned the White House crowd. I never thought I would see the day when FoxTV would pummel Bush and company for their stupidities, but it has. May it continue.

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Had the poetry reading last week. It was marvelous, if I do say so myself. About 30 people showed up, which surprised me. I', used to four or six, sometimes only myself, so that was a boost.

What also surprised me was that I was locked into a position of standing behind a table in our little library here (there were no chairs available, no stools) and wound up the reading with my knees locked painfully in place. And I was exhausted, and sweating from every pore. Pore Frank. There was no oxygen left in the room in which I read, so sleepiness threatened. But the reading was well accepted, and the evening closed with applause of the assembly. Took me three days to recover.

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The Gospel Of Judas

And now comes the Gospel of Judas. Yup - from the 2nd century - the oldest manuscript known concerning first hand information on Jesus.  About 125 A.D., to 150 A.D. The ms. has been held by "someone" for at least 23 years, including a tenure in the pocketbook of a  "lady of the evening." The owner wants 3 million dollars for the ms., which no one has seen fit to pay, but National Geographic has arranged to put the contents of the Gospel in its April issue, and it will also be on TV soon.  Maybe Easter. Check your menu.

There is a snarly argument going on about such artifacts being on the market, without proper provenance in hand, and without the consent, in this case, of Egypt, for that is where the thing was found. See any Biblical Archeological Review magazine, courtesy Israel Shanks, for continuous comment on the provenance argument.

The burden seems to be that the contents of any ms. should not be revealed unless and until it has passed muster with, in this case, the Egyptian government, especially the head of artifact stuff in Egypt. You may have seen him from time to time on TV, presiding over some dig or other. Boss man, shock of white hair, and all. Fer sure.

As matters stand, even without provenance, and all that, in the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Vatican sat on them for 40 years in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, refusing to make them public until they had to be released, after photocopies were suddenly made available to competent scholars by a museum in California. I have a full, translated copy in my bookcase.

Back to Judas of Cariot. The understanding that I have of him is that he belonged to the Zealot movement of his time, the "Sicarii." The knifers, or knives. They were an assassination group who worked the crowds to bring down undesirable people, being virtually unseeable. Sneak up to an unsuspecting target, place a knife in the ribs, and walk quietly away. By the time the focus is on one so targeted, the assassin could not even be seen, let alone recognized.

The Sicarii are also reported to be the people who made the stand on the top of the Masada fortress against the Romans in 70 something A.D. I can't swear to that, because it seems there are some scholars who question such a stance. Wait and see is the business of this item.

Judas' relationship with Jesus has seemed to me to include his approval of His criticism of the Temple stewards - the Sadduccees , and not a few Pharisees - without any knowledge, or at least acceptance, of Jesus' emphasis on spiritual discipline. As this plot goes, it wasn't until after Judas' betrayal of Jesus (see below an enclosed poem on betrayals), and Jesus' death that Judas came to recognize something of fulness of Jesus' ministries.

Too late, as part of the record suggests, which include Judas' suicide, whether by spilling his intestines all over a field, or hanging himself. For the Biblical literalists, this is an interesting item. Did Judas kill himself with a hanging, or spilling his intestines in a field? Can't have it both ways, people. Perhaps this incident will help those stuck in the literalist camp to see why there are those of us who are in a state of ecstasy with the new Biblical discoveries that so enrich beyond belief our understanding of the Presence of God in life, and in the Scriptures. So I'm anxious to see what the National Geographic has to offer us.

Quietly, I notice that there have been many Judases with their knives poised to slice away at the ribs of the unwary Christian movement over the centuries, including our own time, even to our own clergy fellowship and in the pews we serve, so I'm not surprised that Judas might have misunderstood what Jesus was trying to do.

Betrayal comes in many guises, and for many different reasons, but one main point is that it mostly comes as something of a reluctant surprise, especially from those people who profess they are in agreement with oneself, whether tacitly or openly.

But in Jesus' case, I gather that He was sharp enough on this, aware of what was simmering in Judas' soul, but it remains a profound lesson in grace that even knowing of Jesus' reservations about what Judas was doing, He continued to love the man, right to the end. In other words, Jesus apparently understood clearly the danger of accepting Judas in His inner circle, hoping to break through whatever violent mindset Judas had, and confronting him with the experience of God's grace in life.

That Jesus failed in His effort with Judas is an echo of our own failures in the 21st century to do the same with our world of violence. One dares not to try, never knowing where the grace of God is going to surface. Such failure thus becomes the measure of the depth of the commitment one has made to serve God's will through the teachings of Jesus.

Such failure, in other words, is proof of the Presence of God's grace in our lives. Were this not the case, then suffering would be meaningless. And as I have noted in previous writings, there is no grace without suffering. They are the two sides of the coin of the Spirit.

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Further Commentary

Watching the reaction of the Vatican, and the fundies and evvies in America to the findings of archeologists in regard to Biblical matters, I'm astounded at the fear in their actions and words.

They continue to choose to nail their communions to the premise that all that is written in the Holy Bible is literally true, and accordingly, when at some archeological dig or others, some artifact is discovered that raises serious question about such a foundation, it seems to an outsider like myself that they think the whole edifice is going to come crumbling to the ground.

Or, they don't think the people are capable of understanding the many levels of grace to be found in venturing into honest spiritual pilgrimage to God without all the ancient bric-a-brac of creeds, and all that.

Or, the leadership fears that their place in the scheme of things (authority, you know) will be destroyed.

One such recent example took place at the latest dig at Jericho. The reader may remember the old African-American hymn that goes, "Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumblin' down" - reference to the invasion of Palestine by the self-exiled Hebrew community from Egypt.

Well, the diggers there concluded there wasn't such a battle. I don't take such a reference lightly, but I do have respect for the academic integrity of most of those archeologists who spend so many dreary days and hours at such digs, ever edgy about when the next bombing or shooting is going to happen.

They have a rigid set of standards they hew to, and woe be unto any who violate them. There have been a number of such violations in the past, and the diggers have acted promptly in dismissing claims that have no backing, and attacking the reputations of those so involved.

The reason for such a stringent approach is that over the last century, and beyond, for that matter, there have been efforts to at finding archeological "proofs" that what the bible says and the way it says it is true and literal. That is to say, there have been those so-called archeologists who have bent the truth.

That's bad enough from my perspective, because we still don't have the wholeness of the whole truth about the Holy Bible, or biblical times. It's all very sketchy, with all kinds of blank spots historically.

But none of this affects my commitment to God through Jesus, whom we call Christ. What we do have without dispute are some of the core teachings of Jesus, lined up in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, for three instances, the so-called Sermon On The Mount.

We know that what we have are but remnants of what had been said and done back then, so the descriptive phrase should read, "Sermon(s) On The Mount(s)", because such sayings are shreds of what had been said and done in various places and times, collected together by the early writers of Mark, Matthew and Luke-Acts, for three.

That is, that Jesus did not sit on a hillside and unload all at the same time what we have in the Gospels. Those sayings are remnants - nothing more, and nothing less. Still, I have not found anything in the Holy Bible that will surpass vss. 1-11 of the 5th Chapter of Matthew. I spent the last ten years of my ministry preaching on that section, and never came close to exhausting what is in there.

If the reader wishes to have something difficult to chew on, consider that the sayings that have been honored by our scholars as being directly from Jesus would take up maybe an hour of conversation.

There are writings that "reflect" what Jesus probably said; there are writings that Jesus could have said; and there are writings that some folks just plain old made up. None of this surprising if one is connected within oneself in a life of disciplined prayer, for Jesus' appreciation of the Presence of God stems from His prayer life. Which any of us could do. I mean experience God's Presence, as did Jesus.

What we don't have is the substance of everything Jesus said from day one to and with His disciples. That's roughly three years of relationship, daily. But what we do have is at least distilled to its essence, which emanates its own power in our souls.

I'll never forget the translation of "Blessed are the meek…" I ran across about halfway through my career. The translator felt that the word "meek" did not mean mouse, or any absence of self-respect, or putdown, or worthless. Rather, it meant that one is totally aware of being but one person among billions, and that one's function is not to polish one's own ego, but to reach out, mostly quietly, and modestly, to the needs that exist wherever one finds oneself.

Meek also means one is teachable. How teachers love a teachable student!  The good ones exist for the occasional meek student who comes along. They endure the rest.

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Ah, me.  I stop here the while. May God bless the reader.

Frank A. Halse, Jr.
15 Kimberly Lane
Apt. A2D
Mexico, New York 13114
1-315-963-8401
fhalse@twcny.rr.com