Christmas

I'd like to think that I'm probably related to the Druids somehow. I'm not the biggest fan of pagan ritual, but I very much enjoy ambling though the woods. One December, during one such excursion in the woods of North Carolina, I saw that there was still some greenery in the branches above me. This seemed strange to me, as the leaves had long since fallen from the trees. I looked more carefully up at the canopy of branches above me, and saw that the greenery was not from the tree itself, but from a plant that was growing out of the tree. Mistletoe. 

Mistletoe is a parasite that grows on deciduous trees in North America and Europe and is one of the more iconic symbols of Christmas. However, the history of mistletoe as a symbol seems to stretch much farther back than Christmas does. According to the ancient author Pliny, the Druids used to use mistletoe in all kinds of rituals, thinking that it would make the land more fertile. Eventually, when Christianity was introduced into western Europe, mistletoe was absorbed into the rituals surrounding Christmas with the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe.

Because of its obvious pagan origins, it may be easy to dismiss mistletoe as just another Christmas tradition, but maybe there's another way to look at it. In the Prose Edda, a work from the Middle Ages which details elements of Norse Mythology, the Norse god Baldr is everybody's favorite god. Everybody on earth seems to love Baldr because he is so nice to everyone. But one day, Balder has some bad dreams and is afraid they might be a sign of his impending death. To keep himself safe, he and his friends make all the plants, animals and elements in the world swear an oath that they would never hurt Balder. However, since mistletoe is so small and seemingly harmless, they pass it up and do not make it swear the oath.

Balder and his friends soon realize that the oath they made everything swear could be the makings of a new game. Since everything promised not to hurt Balder, they can throw stuff at him as hard as they want and the projectiles,wanting to keep their oaths, will avoid Balder. (This game seems very Viking to me somehow.) Loki, upset by Baldr's invincibility, decides to finish off Baldr once and for all. He discovers through treachery that mistletoe is the only thing that can hurt Baldr and devises a plan to shoot Baldr with a mistletoe arrow. He makes the arrow and convinces Hodr, Baldr's blind friend, to join in the game and shoot at Baldr.  He does so but, being blind, does not realize that Loki has given him the mistletoe arrow.  Baldr dies instantly.

Because everyone loves Baldr so much, they try to make a deal with Hel, the aptly-named goddess of the underworld, to free Baldr. She says she will only let Balder come back after Ragnarok, when many of the other gods are dead. The return of Baldr will usher in an age of peace and prosperity for the world.

At Christmastime, Christians celebrate the birth of a dying and reviving God who descended into the underworld; a god who, after a time of terrible calamity, will one day return to usher in an age of peace and prosperity for the world. Although our God was not killed by mistletoe, perhaps when we see it hanging up this time of year, we can think of the Baldr story and remember our own God, the God Christmas was meant to celebrate. 

Temples

So, you hear a knock on the door one day after work.  You open it, and see God standing at your doorstep.  What do you do?  Do you let Him in immediately, or would you hurriedly go turn off the TV or try to clean the place up a bit?  He says He needs to stay for three months.  Would you be comfortable with having God in your house for three whole months?  Would you have to make a lot of adjustments or would it feel pretty normal?

Most of us will never have to answer any of these questions.  I live in Utah right now, so I figure God would have plenty of places to stay if he wanted to spend a few days on earth for some reason.  But one guy actually had to answer these questions: Obed-Edom the Gittite.

We don't know much about this guy.  He was probably from a Levite city called Gath-Rimmon, and he lived outside Jerusalem during the reign of King David.  In fact, he probably lived right along the main road leading down to Jerusalem.  It is very likely that he was standing outside his door along that road on the day David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.  He would have seen the Ark come by, pulled along slowly by two oxen, driven by two brothers, Uzzah and Ahio.  

It is also very likely that he would have been watching as one of the drivers reached out his hand, steadied the Ark, and instantly dropped dead.

What now?  He couldn't just leave this body in the street, and he certainly couldn't let the Ark sit there in the middle of the road.  The king could have had somebody take care of Uzzah while a few other guys took the Ark the rest of the way.  But suddenly, King David was not so sure he wanted the Ark in his house anymore.  He was afraid that Uzzah's death might be the first of many, and he didn't want his family to be on the list.  So what did he do?  He asked Obed-Edom the Gittite if he would be willing to keep the Ark at his place.  In other words, he asked him if he would be willing to turn his house into a temple on the spot.

It looks like it worked out pretty well for him.  In fact, they seem to have put it in Obed-Edom's house right away, just to get it out of the road.  I would like to think that Obed-Edom didn't have to scramble around much to temple-ize his house.  Maybe he just threw open the doors and let the Ark in right away.  Even though he was clearly dealing with a God that had exacting standards, standards he had just seen played out during the Uzzah incident, it was said of him: "The Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God."

I can only hope that if I were to keep God in my living room for three months that it would be a blessing to me.  I can't help but wonder if it was a little weird at first, to open the door every day and see the throne of God in your front room.  But it probably became second-nature after a while.

Just like it does for us.

Think about it.  A lot of us have the gift of the Holy Ghost, meaning we have God living with us.  Granted, He is God the Holy Ghost and not God the Father, but perhaps we should take more serious the notion that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost.

Aaron, the brother of Moses, used to wear a little metal plate on the front of his hat with the words, "Holiness to the LORD" written on it.  Perhaps that is apt today.  Not that I am going to go around with a hat like that, but maybe the idea still applies.  As temples of the Holy Ghost shouldn't we be "Holiness to the LORD" just like temples are "Holiness to the Lord?"  

In some ways, Obed-Edom's experience is light-years removed from anything that might happen to us, but in some ways, we have his experience every day.  The phrase "holiness to the LORD" could better be translated "consecrated to the LORD," or "set aside for the exclusive use of the LORD."  And shouldn't we all be consecrated to the Lord?  My house is not specifically set apart as a temple right now, and I don't go around with a metal plate on my forehead, but maybe we would do well to remember that we have all been set apart for the exclusive use of God.

Thanks to the gift of the Holy Ghost, I live, work, eat, and sleep in the presence of God, as long as I am worthy of His presence.  He can be in my house anytime, just as certainly as the Ark was in Obed-Edom's house.  Sure, I don't have the Ark in my living room, but the Holy Ghost can still visit anyway.  He just has to sit on the couch.

Aeneas, Ego, and Self-Control

Self-control may be one of the most overlooked of all Christian virtues.  "Blessed are the self-controlled" does't appear in the Sermon on the Mount.  People simply tend to think of other virtues when they think of Christianity.  Compassion for the poor, mercy, and chastity probably top the list, with self-control being shunted to the sidelines.  But perhaps Christians should move this virtue higher up the list.  Perhaps even charity, the most cardinal of Christian virtues, depends on self-control.  Take Aeneas, for example.

Aeneas is the main character in the epic poem "The Aeneid" by Virgil, finished in around 19 BC.  We meet Aeneas for the first time in the middle of a storm that seems likely to kill him and his men.  Aeneas however, keeps a level head and safely steers his men to shore.  Self control.

Next Aeneas tells the story of how he escaped during the fall of Troy, dragging both his father and his son with him to meet his wife outside the city.  When he realizes that his wife didn't make it out, he goes back into the flames to find her, but she is already dead by the time he gets to her.  Despite his grief, he is still able to make it out of the city to take the rest of his family away from Troy.  Self control.

He falls in love and marries (kind of) the queen of the land he shipwrecks on, but then obeys the gods when they tell him to leave to found Rome.  A bit twisted, but... Self control.

Once he gets to Italy he is forced into a war against some of the locals, leading a desperate charge against a very well-fortified city.  Self control.

During the war Turnus, the enemy king, kills Pallas, Aeneas' adopted son and takes his sword-belt as a spoil of war.  Aeneas and his men fight bravely and are eventually victorious in the war.  Turnus is in utter defeat, completely unarmed, begging for mercy.  Aeneas is going to let him live, but then he sees Pallas' belt draped over Turnus' shoulder.

"'Decked in the spoils you stripped from one I loved - escape my clutches? Never -
Pallas strikes this blow, Pallas sacrifices you now,
makes you pay the price with your own guilty blood!
In the same breath, blazing with wrath he plants
his iron sword hilt-deep in his enemy's heart.
Turnus' limbs went limp in the chill of death.
His life breath fled with a groan of outrage
down to the shades below."

And that's how it ends.  Aeneas, practically the classical definition of self-control, completely loses it, stabbing an old man as he begs for mercy.  Being human would dictate that he feel some anger upon seeing the belt stripped from the dead body of his adopted son, but charity would demand that he ignore the anger.  Therefore, in this case, charity and self-control are closely connected.  

But that leads to another question: How could Aeneas, who had been so clear-headed for so long, get to the point that he could kill a suppliant, someone who would be protected under all laws of hospitality at the time?  The answer may lie in an unlikely place: the story of King Uzziah.

At first, King Uzziah looks like the perfect king.  He seems to have everything together.  He's friends with the prophet Zechariah, God's helping him out all the time, he's taking fortified Philistine cities like a champ, and even people in Egypt are telling stories about him.  This guy is like King David 2.0.

But there was a catch.  "And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvellously helped, till he was strong.  But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction."  That was when Uzziah decided it would be a great idea for him to go into the temple to burn incense.  So he did.  The priests ran after him, explaining to him that things like this were no longer acceptable.  It might have been acceptable in Solomon's day, but times had changed, and he needed to leave.  Like now.

Up to this point, the whole debacle might have been an honest mistake.  But then Uzziah lost it.  "Then Uzziah was wroth, and had a censer in his hand to burn incense."  At this time, the "censer" was probably a shovel used to carry incense to the altar.  The ones discovered in northern Israel were over a foot and a half long with a heavy shovel at the end.  In other words, a perfect club.  It's difficult to say, but the emphasis on the shovel makes me think that in the moment the king got angry, he may have had more than just incense on his mind.  God immediately keeps him from doing anything however, by smiting him with leprosy.  He then quickly makes his exit from the temple, and from the text.

So what was Uzziah's and Aeneas' problem?  Perhaps their problem was ego.  They both had been very successful militarily, such that they may have developed an over-inflated opinion of themselves.  Their focus on self had become all-consuming.  When the moment came to exercise self-control, they were so focused on their own desires that they were not strong enough to deny their natural impulses.

Ironically enough, focus on self weakens self-control.  Truly self-controlled people focus on something higher than self and stretch themselves to match their ideals.  If both of these people had been focusing on their respect for God (or the laws of the gods) rather than on their own pride, they likely would have felt anger, but then would have been able to control that anger.  Therefore, it seems possible that humble self-control may be the key that unlocks the door to being the kind of people we would like to be.  

Origins

What makes people who they are?  I think I could look back at my life and say that my time as a gardener was the era of my life that defined me.  During those years I learned most of the things that have gotten me through the rest of my life: how to work hard, the importance of contemplation, working now equals food later.

But I'm not going to be a gardener for a living.  I felt like I needed to go into Biblical Studies, so that's what I've been doing for the last seven years of my life.  I sometimes still think wistfully about my days as a gardener, and part of me wishes that I could have just kept gardening, but that's not where I have felt compelled to go with my life.  So does that mean that have to drop that part of myself off on the side of the road and wave goodbye?  Perhaps not.  Maybe I can have my cake and eat it too.  Like King David.

King David started his life as a shepherd.  His dad seems to have been a shepherd.  His grandfather was probably a shepherd.  David probably figured he was going to be a shepherd for the foreseeable future.  Then one day this Samuel guy shows up out of nowhere and makes him the next king.  David probably wondered what he was supposed to do now.  He didn't know anything about kings or armies or politics.  And then Goliath happened.  This massive guy (and the Philistine army with him) shows up and threatens David's people.

David didn't know much about war, but he knew what to do when his flock was threatened, and he says as much to King Saul. "And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: And I went out after him, and ... slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God.."  Not-quite-King David was as good as his word, and eliminated the threat in Iliadesque single combat.

In this instance, it is likely that David drew on his experience as a shepherd because that was all he had to draw on.  Shepherding was all he had ever known, so acting like a shepherd was his default position.  Unfortunately, this would not always be the case.  King David would go on to be an experienced soldier and statesmen, yet he would be continuously reminded of his shepherding origins.

For example, when he is being made king at Hebron, the people remind him of how he was supposed to act as king: "The Lord thy God said unto thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel."  Presumably this does not mean that David was personally responsible for feeding all of his subjects.  It seems more likely to me that this was meant to be a reminder to him that, even as king, it was his job to take care of Israel in the same way that he fed his flocks when he was a shepherd.

David seems to have taken this counsel to heart for a while, and reigns as a good king for some time.  But then he forgets.  He sends Joab off to fight his battles for him and violates one of his own subjects (the Dead Sea Scrolls version of 2 Samuel strongly imply that David raped Bathsheba.)  Then he kills her husband for getting in the way.  This iteration of King David seems to be a far cry from the shepherd-king he used to be.  How does God remind him of this?  He sends the prophet Nathan to talk to him, and hits him where he lives:

"There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.  And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him."

David flies into a rage at hearing this story.  The prophet has struck a cord with him, reminding him of his origins.  The shepherd, buried deep inside the king, surges up to the surface and cries for justice against the abuser.  And then Nathan tells him: "Thou art the man."  In this moment, David seems to finally realize that stepping back is the only way forward.  He has to act as king the same way he acted as a shepherd.  He has to bring his past into his future.

David never forgets the lesson.

Near the end of his life, David sins and brings a curse from God upon the Israelites.  God kills many Israelites, and is about to kill more, when David begs God to stop: "Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed; but as for these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand ... be on me ... not on thy people."

Here, years after the Bathsheba incident, David is still calling his people his sheep.  He seems to have finally realized how to incorporate the best elements of his past life, the shepherd, into what he was called to do with the rest of his life: ruling over Israel.  Maybe that's the secret.  I don't have to be a gardener for the rest of my life to incorporate the best elements of my gardener-self into my current self.  Maybe all I have to do is take a leaf out of King David's book and take that part of my past with me into my future.          

                    
            

Chronicles

Good old 1 and 2 Chronicles: The books of the Old Testament that we all scratch our heads about because it's basically the same as Kings.  So why am I writing about Chronicles, you may ask?  Because it's been my favorite biblical book for a long time.  Let me tell you why.

The Old Testament is biblical master of the blindsiding insight.  You're just reading along, minding your own business, and then suddenly you get hit with a brilliantly profound sentence completely out of nowhere.  You look around for a second, as if to say, "How did that happen?  How could that possibly be in the Old Testament?"  But there it is, in black and white.  It flashes you a self-satisfied smile, pleased to be the master of the scriptural sneak-attack, even after 2500 years.

In my experience, no book does this better than Chronicles.  Maybe this is because we expect nothing from it, and so are more pleasantly surprised when we find anything of significance.  Don't believe me?  Let me give you an example.

In the first few chapters of Chronicles, you're just plowing through on your merry way, absorbing place names and genealogies.  Then you get to chapter 10, and at first it looks like just another war chapter.  Saul dies, his armor-bearer dies, and the Philistines take his body as a trophy.  But then in verses 11 and 12 you get this:

"And when all Jabesh-gilead heard all that the Philistines had done to Saul, they arose, all the valiant men, and took away the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days."

Seemingly out of nowhere, Chronicles has given you a remarkably touching scene.  The people of Jabesh-Gilead loved Saul so much that every single man of combat age (the valiant men) decided to pay him one last sign of respect: they rescue the body of their king.  They take him away from the insults of his enemies and bury him in a beautiful setting.  It could be that they call it the oak in Jabesh because everybody would know that oak in Jabesh where Saul was buried.  Perhaps people that walked by would look at the oak in Jabesh, and retain some tenderness for these people that had risked so much to honor the man they missed so dearly.  But why the men of Jabesh Gilead?  Why would they love Saul any more than anyone else?  Saul was from Gibea, not Jabesh, so why such an emotional connection?

In 1 Samuel 11, a small group of Israelites are besieged by the Ammonites.  The Ammonites tell them to surrender on very grisly terms, but the Israelites ask for a short reprieve on the off-chance that somebody will come to rescue them.  They send out messengers to beg for aid, and who should respond but Saul.  Before the week's reprieve has expired, he comes charging out of the hills and saves the small community of Israelites.  The name of the city he saved so valiantly?  Jabesh-Gilead.

This was Saul's first military action of significance, and Saul was probably king for around 20 years, perhaps even 40 years.  Yet the citizens of Jabesh- Giliead never forgot Saul and, decades later, would show him the ultimate sign of respect.  In some ways, the story of Saul begins and ends with the people of Jabesh- Gilead, people with a good memory.

This is the reason I love Chronicles so much.  Little unexpected nuggets like this make it a beautifully poignant book of scripture; delightful islands of surprising spirituality in the midst of the mundane.