I want to devote some posts reflecting upon the parables collected in Matthew 13. The reason for this is that I find many of these parables enigmatic. These parables, at least as I read them, point toward understandings of the Kingdom of Heaven that aren't typically discussed. Consequently, people simply sidestep around them. I'd like to try, in some close readings, to dig a little deeper.

Two quick comments about the gospel of Matthew.

First, in Matthew Jesus delivers five main discourses. The first and most famous of these is, of course, the Sermon on the Mount. The third discourse is Matthew 13 where Jesus shares these seven parables. Scholars believe these five discourses symbolize the five books of the Torah pointing to Jesus as a new Moses and Lawgiver. 

Second, where the other gospels call it the "Kingdom of God" Matthew calls it the "Kingdom of Heaven." I'll likely keep saying "Kingdom of God" a lot this series.

Okay, turning to the parables, there are seven that come in quick succession. These are:

1. The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:3–9)
2. The Parable of the Weeds and Tares (Matthew 13:24–30)
3. The Parable of the Mustard Seed (Matthew 13:31–32)
4. The Parable of the Yeast (Matthew 13:33)
5. The Parable of the Hidden Treasure (Matthew 13:44)
6. The Parable of the Pearl of Great Price (Matthew 13:45–46)
7. The Parable of the Net (Matthew 13:47–50)

Some listings also include the Parable of the Householder (Matthew 13:52), but I'm going to focus on the ones above.

Now, I described these parables as enigmatic. Jesus himself describes them this way. Why did Jesus use parables? A lot of people tend to assume that the parables were folksy stories used to illustrate a Sunday School lesson. But the opposite, in fact, is the case. The images and stories of the parables weren't used to make their insights more transparent, but less. The parables didn't reveal things, they hid them. Right after the Parable of the Sower, Jesus describes why he is telling these stories:

Then the disciples came up and asked him, “Why are you speaking to them in parables?”

He answered, “Because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given for you to know, but it has not been given to them. For whoever has, more will be given to him, and he will have more than enough; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. That is why I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand. Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:

You will listen and listen,
but never understand;
you will look and look,
but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown callous;
their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
otherwise they might see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and
understand with their hearts,
and turn back—
and I would heal them.

“Blessed are your eyes because they do see, and your ears because they do hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see the things you see but didn’t see them, to hear the things you hear but didn’t hear them.

This passage is why I'm intrigued by this parable sequence. Again, the widespread assumption is that parables make understanding easier, not harder. Also, we tend to think of Jesus as an evangelist, that he's trying, with his preaching, to convert a lot of people. But neither of these are the case. Which subverts a lot of our assumptions and expectations.

For example, Jesus describes the "secrets of the kingdom." The whole notion of "secrets" flies in the face of every evangelistic assumption. Jesus is actually hiding something in these stories. 

Relatedly, regarding this hiding, Jesus seems to be using the parables to sort his audiences. Some people see, and some people don't. Some people hear, and some people don't. This is, in fact, the very point of the Parable of the Sower. As Jesus plainly says, "This is why I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand."

Which brings us to this series. Do we understand? 

The first two of the seven parables--the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds--are given direct interpretations. So, their "secrets" are disclosed to the readers of the gospel. We get to sit alongside the disciples and listen in as Jesus reveals the hidden meanings. But the other five parables aren't interpreted. Why not? Are their meanings supposed to be obvious now following the lines of the first two parables? That is, are Jesus' interpretations of the first two parables a sort of interpretive key that unlocks the others? Or, are the remaining five parables presenting "secrets" that we, as readers, are supposed to understand on our own? That is to say, are we being tested and sorted by these uninterpreted parables the same way Jesus' audience were being tested and sorted? Are we able to see? Are we able to hear? These parables are a test.

As I've reflected on the parables of Matthew 13, my personal opinion is that there is something mysterious and secretive at work in these stories. I think these parable are a test. And if so, I'd like to see what is being hidden in them.

As regular readers know, I wrote a book about Johnny Cash. Trains, Jesus and Murder: The Gospel According to Johnny Cash reflects upon the music and life of Cash, examining gospel themes in Cash's biography and art. Since writing Trains, Jesus, and Murder I've even taken the show on the road, showing up at churches and colleges, guitar in hand, to play Cash songs and share insights about the gospel. 

In 2021, the British company that had filmed Cash's famous San Quentin concert reached out to me to see if I wanted to participate in a documentary they were filming about Cash's life. The producers liked how I had narrated Cash's life in Trains, Jesus, and Murder, and wanted to storyboard the documentary around some of those themes. I happily agreed, and the documentary Johnny Cash: The Man in Black debuted on Reelz TV later that year.

Since not everyone has access to Reelz TV I never mentioned my participation in the documentary. I didn't want to alert people to something they couldn't enjoy. But the documentary is now appearing for free on Pluto TV. So, if you'd like to watch the documentary and see yours truly as a talking head, now you can. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, watch the first nine minutes and you'll get a feel for the documentary and see a few clips of me. 

Also, if you're a new reader, check out Trains, Jesus, and Murder. It'll make a great Christmas gift for the Johnny Cash fan in your life.

Readers of my books will know that I have a typical way of bringing them to a conclusion. I always end with love. 

Love is how I make a Christological move in my writing and arguments. For example, I end Hunting Magic Eels on love because I wanted to discuss spiritual discernment. How do you know when the enchantment you're chasing or experiencing is coming from God? I point toward love as the criterion of discernment. Cruciform, self-donating love is how we tell if it's God's voice we are hearing.

I bring this up because there's more and more conversation happening about enchantment and re-enchantment, and some of this discussion is being politicized and mobilized for the culture wars. If not directly, than indirectly. Enchantment is a huge topic right now, and much of that conversation is taking place in right-wing or right-wing adjacent spaces. Enchantment is being used as an argument for the West to return to Christendom. Enchantment as means to restore Christian "civilization." To put it plainly, a lot of those who write or talk about enchantment seem more in love with Christianity than with Christ. Just follow the talk about enchantment on outlets like The Daily Wire. Or observe the politics and political sympathies of prominent writers and thinkers discussing enchantment.

An exception to this trend is Paul Kingsnorth. If you have a chance, listen to his recent 2024 Erasmus Lecture "Against Christian Civilization." Given that the Erasmus Lectures are put on by First Things, I expect a lot of Catholic Integralists were in the room, a lot of "let's use enchantment to restore Christian civilization" sympathies. Which is why, I expect, Kingsnorth got the invitation to deliver the lectures in the first place. But Kingsnorth throws cold water on the integralist and Christian nationalist fever dream, and he does so by taking a hard Christological turn in his lecture. It's the same move I make at the end of Hunting Magic Eels. For example, Jordan Peterson is one of those thinkers whose work and conversation partners participates in the politicization of enchantment. Here's Jonathan Pageau, who has done a lot of work on enchantment, helping Peterson and The Daly Wire promote Christian civilization. By contrast, in pointedly titling his talk "Against Christian Civilization" Kingsnorth makes a sharp Christological contrast and says some pointed things about Peterson's politicization of Christian enchantment with his "War on the West" rhetoric. Here's a bit of Kingsworth's criticism: 

When I hear Steve Bannon talking about Christian nationalism as the spear point of his holy war against the globalists, I hear a faint echo of what is coming. Civilizational Christianity puts civilization first and Christianity second. Its proponents are less interested in whether the faith is actually true or transformative, then in what use it can be to them in their ongoing culture war. The best known current proponent of civilizational Christianity is the psychologist and pundit, professor Jordan Peterson. For Peterson, Christianity is a Joseph Campbell-style hero journey, one especially designed for young men. In his short film “Message to the Christian Churches” Peterson lays out his civilizational call and challenges the faith to keep up…Peterson goes on to lay out his case for the defense of civilization, which he defines as a society based on the "encouraging, adventurous masculine spirit." The Christian Church, it turns out, exists to encourage this spirit. It is, he states, there to remind people, young men included, and perhaps even first and foremost, that they have a woman to find, a garden to walk in, a family to nurture, an ark to build, a land to conquer, a ladder to heaven to build, and the utter terrible catastrophe of life to face stalwartly in truth, devoted to love, and without fear. Do you see anything missing in this list of what the church ought to be doing? It’s Christ. It's Jesus. He gets not one mention, not in the entire film. Neither does God the Father. Neither does the Holy Spirit. Instead, Peterson's civilizational church is to be a self-help club for young men. It's to be a cultural institution fighting back against the Woke and the bloody Gaia worshippers and the feminists and the life-sapping cultural Marxists. It sees life as a catastrophe, and the correct response to that catastrophe as masculine conquest. What Jordan Peterson wants, in other words, is a church that looks like Jordan Peterson.

In this vision of Christianity as masculine civilizational conquest, something else is also darkly afoot. Many of those on the political right using enchantment as a weapon in the culture wars frequently describe how the post-Christian West is repaganizing. The "old gods" and "strong gods" of paganism are returning. I make this same observation in Hunting Magic Eels, which is why I talk about the discernment of spirits. But again, I use love as the tool to resist these dark enchantments. But those on the Christian right decrying pagan enchantments display a blind spot when it comes to the return of the old gods. The strong gods of paganism valorized power and domination. Read Tom Holland's Dominion for the details. This is exactly why Nietzsche, as a student of classical antiquity, wanted a return to the pagan virtues. Christianity was a "slave morality," a religion for beta males. The strong gods, by contrast, would return us to a faith and culture suited for Alpha males. And that's what we are witnessing on the Christian right in their discourse on enchantment: the paganization of Christianity, the old gods being clothed in Christian dress. This is precisely the point Kingsnorth makes about Jordan Peterson in his lecture, fingering the Nietzschean, pagan core hidden within his treatment of Christianity. What we're seeing emerge on the political right is enchantment being used to promote a Nietzschean Christianity, a faith for Alpha males and a weapon to win "the war on the West."

All this to say: Discern the spirits! The devil will appear as an angel of light. A lot of the Christian discourse about enchantment happening on the political right, with its longing for Christendom, Christian civilization, authoritarianism, and a Christianity fit for Alpha males, are the strong gods of paganism reappearing in Christian dress. Enchantment is being used to disguise a will to power. 

So pay close attention to how enchantment is being politicized. Take a cue from Paul Kingsnorth. Don't look to Christian civilization to save us. Look to Christ. 

Let the cruciform love of Jesus show you the way.

"the wrath of man shall praise you"

It's a tricky phrase, and translations render it differently. The NRSV translates it: "Human wrath serves only to praise you." The NLT: "Human defiance only enhances your glory." The NET judges that the wrath in view is God's wrath: "your angry judgment upon men will bring you praise."

I think the general idea is that human wrath becomes, in the end, something that God overcomes and thereby demonstrates His glory. The wrath itself isn't praising God, but God overcoming wrath will lead to praise.

This line from Psalm 76 echoes back to Psalm 2:

Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed.

The kings and nations of the earth are wrathful, angry, and raging. They resist God's just and righteous rule. But God, in the end, will establish his kingdom. As Psalm 76 envisions:

From heaven you pronounced judgment.
The earth feared and grew quiet
when God rose up to judge
and to save all the lowly of the earth.

The nations of the world are especially wrathful right now. The kings and rulers of the earth take counsel against the Lord and his Anointed. Consequently, we're still waiting for the wrath of man to turn into praise. The vision of Psalm 76 comes to us as an eschatological hope. And that hope is our resistance.

In keeping with what has become the theme of the week, a final post about narrative identity and mental health.

As I described in yesterday's post, faith gifts us our story. In The Shape of Joy I share how the research of Pamela King illuminates this idea. Specifically, while we all have narrative identities, faith gives us what King calls a "transcendent narrative identity." A transcendent narrative identity connects the mundane aspects of life, along with our daily life goals, to an overarching, sacred story. This story imbues life with deep significance and moral purpose. Even the smallest and most trivial aspects of my day become suffused with meaning. 

Here is King, from a 2020 article, describing how a transcendent narrative identity works:

[A]lthough all persons have varying degrees of coherently integrated narrative identity that serve to inform the meaning and significance of their characteristic adaptations, not all persons have an identity that is informed by a conceptualization of transcendence, source of ultimacy, or the sacred that shapes one’s worldview and emerging identity...

From this perspective, not all narratives are created equally. Existing research demonstrates that transcendence shapes meaning-making processes that galvanize one’s sense of self and worldview. Ultimate concerns serve to organize individual’s entire goal systems and orient life aims. In addition, life purposes are more likely to be incorporated into one’s narrative identity when they include transcendent, spiritual, or sacred content. Mundane goals given sacred meaning are pursued with greater effort, provide more meaning, and receive more social support than unsanctified goals. Thus, a transcendent narrative identity has organizing power and serves to instantiate meaning and motivation that promote fidelity, and sustains engaging one’s moral convictions. In other words, whereas narrative identity informs the meaning of characteristic adaptations, a transcendent narrative identity conveys that the moral aspect of the narrative is sacred and suggests that rather than only a moral orientation, one has a spiritual motivation to live out one’s beliefs. In this way, even narratives that are not embedded within a religious context, can serve to ‘sanctify’ prosocial beliefs, attitudes, and actions.

Simply put, how you tell your story matters. Narratives are not created equally. As I describe in The Shape of Joy, stories that connect your identity to the sacred--a transcendent narrative identity--imbue life with meaning-making powers that fill our days with spiritual and sacred significance. Faith gifts you a bigger story, and that story comes to organize your life goals, gives mundane, daily tasks sacred weight, and motivates and sustains moral action and exertion. 

This is the path toward a joyful and meaningful life. A transcendent narrative identity. Stepping into the bigger story.

Over the last two posts I've described how the modern world has lost its story. The Shape of Joy explains how this narrative loss has affected our mental health, as hinted at the end of yesterday's post. 

As I describe in The Shape of Joy, meaning in life is highly predictive of mental health and psychological resiliency. In studying meaning in life, psychologists have discovered that meaning in life has three vital ingredients: Coherence, purpose, and significance. Relevant for our discussions about how the modern world lost its story, coherence and purpose are each narrative in nature.

Specifically, meaning is experienced when our lives "make sense" to us. Coherence speaks to how all the parts and pieces of my life are fit together to make a whole. My life feels "connected" and I have the sense that I "get it." Basically, my life is a story and I can trace its plot. 

Beyond coherence, purpose speaks to how our story is going somewhere. My life has a direction and a goal. I am here for a reason. 

As I recount in The Shape of Joy, when our lives experience narrative disruption, when our lives no longer make sense to us or we lose track of our purpose and reason for living, we suffer mental health consequences. To be sure, we can have coherence and purpose without faith, but these efforts at self-generated meaning and self-selected purpose are provisional and effortful. Mental health becomes skating across thin narrative ice. Your self-curated story works until life rudely interrupts the plot. 

Faith, by contrast, gifts you a story. You inhabit it. You don't need to make it up. Consequently, it is the story that carries you, especially those days when you lose the narrative thread of your life. This is one of the key reasons why, as I share in The Shape of Joy, faith and spirituality are predictive of mental health:

Your story is a gift. 

Yesterday I shared a thought inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien concerning religiosity and lore, making the observation that we've become a people, in the post-Christian West, who have lost our story.

Those reflections put me again in mind of the widely discussed 2010 essay by Robert Jenson "How the World Lost Its Story." 

As argued by Jenson, the ancient world understood itself through story. This assumed that the cosmos itself had a story. And if a story, then a Storyteller. Life was narratable. 

Given its deep Jewish and Christian roots, modernity maintained this belief in a narratable world but attempted to sever it from the Storyteller. We wanted the cosmos to retain its meaning but independently of any metaphysical Source of meaning. Eventually, as Jenson recounts, this project failed. Without the Storyteller our story soon dissipated into the fog of post-modernism. Here's Jenson:

[M]odernity has supposed we inhabit what I will call a “narratable world.” Modernity has supposed that the world “out there” is such that stories can be told that are true to it. And modernity has supposed that the reason narratives can be true to the world is that the world somehow “has” its own true story, antecedent to, and enabling of, the stories we tell about ourselves in it.

There is no mystery about how Western modernity came by this supposition. The supposition is straightforwardly a secularization of Jewish and Christian practice—as indeed these are the source of most key suppositions of Western intellectual and moral life. The archetypical body of realistic narrative is precisely the Bible; and the realistic narratives of Western modernity have every one been composed in, typically quite conscious, imitation of biblical narrative...

If there is little mystery about where the West got its faith in a narratable world, neither is there much mystery about how the West has lost this faith. The entire project of the Enlightenment was to maintain realist faith while declaring disallegiance from the God who was that faith’s object. The story the Bible tells is asserted to be the story of God with His creatures; that is, it is both assumed and explicitly asserted that there is a true story about the universe because there is a universal novelist/historian. Modernity was defined by the attempt to live in a universal story without a universal storyteller.

The experiment has failed. It is, after the fact, obvious that it had to: If there is no universal storyteller, then the universe can have no story line. Neither you nor I nor all of us together can so shape the world that it can make narrative sense; if God does not invent the world’s story, then it has none, then the world has no narrative that is its own. If there is no God, or indeed if there is some other God than the God of the Bible, there is no narratable world.

Moreover, if there is not the biblical God, then realistic narrative is not a plausible means for our human self-understanding. Human consciousness is too obscure a mystery to itself for us to script our own lives.

This was my point in yesterday's post reflecting on the role lore plays in The Lord of the Rings. Like many of those in Middle Earth, we've become a people who have forgotten our story. Worse, as Jenson points out, we've become a people who deny that stories about our lives even exist, at least true stories about our lives. This creates our modern crisis of meaning, which contributes to our mental health crisis. As Jenson says, "There are now many who do not and cannot understand their lives as realistic narrative," for we "inhabit a world of which no stories can be true."

As regular readers know, I'm a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien makes an appearance in Hunting Magic Eels and in 2021 I blogged through The Lord of the Rings. 

So, I'm a fan. But I wouldn't say I've been a hardcore fan for this very simple reason: I'd never read the The Silmarillion. Oh, I've tried from time to time to read The Silmarillion, but I'd never made much progress. As is well known, The Silmarillion is the background cosmology, mythology, and history of Middle Earth and it is, for many, a dry read. But I was finally able to tackle the The Silmarillion by listening to it as an audiobook. 

As Tolkien fans know, he wanted the The Silmarillion to be published alongside The Lord of the Rings. Not surprisingly, given its dryness, the publishers demurred and the The Silmarillion was only published after Tolkien's death. I find this interesting because many have remarked upon the lack of religiousness in The Lord of the Rings. Middle Earth is richly fleshed out, but in The Lord of the Rings we find no religious observance. No priests, no prayers, no worship. And yet, in the background, as recounted in The Silmarillion, both God and gods exist. There is also a primordial fall from grace that ruins, darkens, and haunts the world. Much of this though, since the The Silmarillion was delayed in publication, was hidden for many years from readers of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Still, this only deepens the puzzle. A metaphysical backdrop was there to be deployed, and yet The Lord of the Rings appears religionless. God and the gods exist, but we find no cult of worship associated with them.

Pondering this, and my observations here are not original, the religious connection between The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion seems to be less cultic than associated with lore. That is to say, to be "religious" in Middle Earth is less about worship than remembering the lore. To be religious is to remember the story. 

For example, Frodo of the Shire knows enough of the story that, in times of need, he petitions the gods. On Weathertop, for instance, Frodo's life is saved when he cries out "O Elbereth! Githoniel!" As readers of The Silmarillion know, the Valar are the gods in the cosmology of Middle Earth, the divine powers under Eru Ilúvatar, the Creator and Supreme Deity. The Lord of the Valar is Manwë, and his queen is Elbereth, who stands upon a great height looking toward Middle Earth listening for the cries of help from those in great peril or grief. Frodo knows enough of the lore concerning the Valar that he is able to cry out to Elbereth on Weathertop, a cry which saves his life.

Did Frodo worship Elbereth? Did he regularly pray to Elbereth? No. Again, the religiosity of Middle Earth wasn't cultic. Rather, as I said, it manifests in being knowledgable about the lore, knowing the story.

(The case of Denethor, though, would need to be analyzed here. Denethor knows the lore but his knowledge doesn't bear good fruit. So some attention, it would seem, needs to be given to how knowledge of the lore is related to virtue.)

I bring all this up to make an observation about our time and place. 

Specifically, as we move more deeply into a post-Christian culture we are coming to resemble Middle Earth. True, this manifests in a decline in cultic religious observance. Fewer people go to church. But the deeper concern here is that we are becoming a people who have forgotten the story. Like many in Middle Earth, we no longer remember the lore. Religionlessness is storylessness, lorelessness. We no longer know where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. And as a loreless people we have been cast adrift upon the tides of history.

"There is a cup in the Lord’s hand, full of wine"

There's a startling image in Psalm 75. The judgment of God is described as being made to drink, to the last drop, a glass of spiced wine:

For there is a cup in the Lord’s hand,
full of wine blended with spices, and he pours from it.
All the wicked of the earth will drink,
draining it to the dregs.

This image of God's wrath as a cup of wine is echoed in both Jeremiah and the book of Revelation:

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them.” (Jer. 25.15-16)

And another, a third angel, followed them and spoke with a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, which is poured full strength into the cup of his anger." (Rev. 14.9-10)

The most obvious thing to point how is how wine is a multivalent symbol in Scripture. Wine is often presented as a good thing, from the miracle of Cana to the Eucharistic cup. But as seen in the texts above, wine can also be associated with judgment, wrath, and punishment. 

What strikes me in these texts is the symbolism of intoxication in relation to God's judgment. The wine is "full strength." The cup is "drunk to the dregs." The wine causes the drinker to "stagger." The image here is less about pain and destruction than disorientation and confusion. No lightening bolts from heaven, but mass delirium, a drunken incoherence or an intoxicated frenzy. Basically, the judgment of God appears like people losing their minds. A culture, society, or nation drinks the cup to the dregs and starts staggering about. 

I don't know about you, but when I look around the world today such images seem to me both timely and apt.

In light of the turbulence of our recent election season and its unfolding implications, I wanted to make a connection with one of the chapters from The Shape of Joy.

In Part 1 of the book there is a chapter entitled "The Superhero Complex," which takes its cue from the podcast hosted by David Weinberg. Weinburg's podcast recounts a crazy time in Seattle where people were showing up downtown dressed as Superman and Batman as "real-life superheroes" combatting crime. In analyzing the real-life superhero phenomenon in The Shape of Joy, I use the work of Ernest Becker who argued that human life is motivated by a quest for the heroic, some pathway toward value, purpose, meaning, and significance. 

Sometimes our quest for the heroic drives people to dress up like Spiderman, but the chapter pushes on to explore a variety of other examples of what I call "hero games." I talk about conspiracy theories (like QAnon), fan culture, Christian end times beliefs, virtue signaling on Twitter, and social justice activism, to name a few things. In each case I analyze how the pursuit of a heroic identity sits at the heart of pathologies we observe all around us. Relevant to the recent election, the chapter also goes on to describe how politics has become the biggest hero game we're all playing. Which explains why our politics has become so angry and polarized, along with the huge emotional swings we experience and witness in the wake of electoral successes and failures. 

As I argue in The Shape of Joy, as our culture becomes increasing post-Christian our politics has become the repository of our most deeply held values and commitments. Evangelical Christians, for example, are more interested in following Donald Trump than Jesus Christ. The same dynamic happens on the Christian left where being a social justice warrior comes to eclipse the faith. Religious identity has become, on both right and left, a political identity. Consequently, politics has become for us the arena of heroic moral performance. Politics is the hero game we play to achieve a sense of purpose, meaning, and significance.

This, of course, raises the psychological and existential stakes of politics. Politics is no longer a pragmatic tool used to solve social problems. Politics has become an expression of identity. Politics is our superhero complex, and it's this complex that sits at the root of so many of our social and cultural pathologies.  

I'm writing this post on September 25. Yesterday, September 24, I delivered the chapel talk at Bushnell University, which also served as the keynote address for a gathering hosted by Bushnell. The title of our conversation and my keynote was "Faithful Engagement: Navigating Anxiety in a Polarized Election." Instead of posting this three months out, like most of my posts (which would have had this post appearing in late December) I've decided to drop it here, the first post after the election.

Given that it's September I don't know what we're waking up to today, November 6th. It's possible we don't know who won, that votes are still being counted or that the outcome is being contested or questioned. But maybe the winner is clear and a concession speech has been offered.

Regardless, I think it's safe to assume that the nation is feeling pretty fragile this morning, either anxiously awaiting a final verdict or half the country feeling intense dismay. Which brings me back to my Bushnell talk.

I framed my talk yesterday around two sermons I gave at my church, Freedom Fellowship, in 2016 and 2020. Freedom meets on Wednesdays, which means, like today, we always gather the day after elections. On both of those Wednesdays in 2016 and 2020 I was the one, just because of luck, scheduled to give the lesson. In 2016, after Trump had defeated Clinton, all my Democrat friends were dismayed and shell-shocked. Seeing this, I delivered a sermon entitled "How to Lose an Election." Four years later, my Republican friends were dismayed when Trump lost to Biden. And so, I delivered the exact same sermon for second time: "How to Lose an Election."

I told those stories at Bushnell to set up a conversation about how to deal with anxiety during a polarized election. Basically, as Christians, we need to learn how to lose elections. And while I don't know who won or lost as I write this, some of us are feeling anger, fear, and dismay today.

So, how do you lose an election?

In my Bushnell talk, one of the points I made comes from Jeremiah 29. Some of the Israelites have returned home from their Babylonian exile. But many remain behind in Babylon. These write to the prophet Jeremiah asking if they should come home. But Jeremiah writes back to say, no, you should stay in Babylon. And not just stay, to multiply and thrive:

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 

Seek the welfare of the city, for it its welfare you will find your welfare. Crucially, the Israelites remain in Babylon as a marginalized, disenfranchised, exilic people. They do not control Babylon, nor will they ever control Babylon. Political power is not in their hands. And yet, there is work to do! Seek the welfare of the city.

And let's be clear on this point, this is Babylon we are talking about. Babylon, the epitome of wickedness, oppression, injustice, violence, and evil in Biblical history and imagination. The point here is that the People of God thrive in places of political marginalization. The People of God thrive in Babylon. So there's no excuse for us not to thrive, even if we lost the election. No matter the outcome today, there is good, creative, generative, and beautiful work to do.

How do you lose an election? It's simple.

You plant gardens in Babylon.

I recently finished reading Jeffrey Stout's book Democracy and Tradition and wanted to share some of his insights and my takeaways here on election day. 

The book was a bracing read for me as Stout takes on some thinkers who have profoundly shaped my political thinking, thinkers like Stanley Hauerwas and Alasdair MacIntyre. Hauerwas and MacIntyre, along with John Milbank whom Stout also takes aim at, have leveled strong criticisms at Western liberalism. This argument has been echoed and elaborated by many, but the main thrust of the argument is that liberalism is hostile to and corrosive of religious faith. Or, at least in MacIntyre's case, hostile toward any shared moral worldview that defines the collective good we pursue as a people. In adopting a posture of indifference toward values, the liberal state is antagonistic toward the value claims made by its citizens, demanding that those values be regulated to the private sphere. The only thing allowed in politics are appeals to instrumental reason. Faith claims are to be rejected.

This line of argument should be familiar to many. It's been a common line of attack from political theologians since MacIntyre published After Virtue. But Jeffrey Stout pushes back and argues that these attacks are both confused and highly destructive.

As for the confusion, Stout makes the point that thinkers like Hauerwas and MacIntyre mistake liberalism for democracy. Liberalism and democracy, argues Stout, are two different things. Christian political theologians, however, tend to conflate the two. In their vigorous attacks against liberalism these theologians have unwittingly disparaged and undermined democratic norms and traditions. This has caused many Christians to view democracy itself as an evil, or at least an obstacle to overcome. Dreams of a theocratic state emerge, calls for Christian nationalism. And much of this has been caused, according to Stout, by thinkers like Hauerwas, MacIntyre, and Milbank who, in decrying "liberalism", have thrown democracy under the bus. This lack of a distinction between the two, liberalism versus democracy, has had catastrophic effects upon the Christian political imagination and witness.

What does Stout mean when he claims that democracy is different from liberalism?

Stout argues that democracy, at its heart, is a virtue tradition. Democracy is characterized by civic virtues and norms by which a diverse and pluralistic society agrees to conduct the shared project of governing themselves. Generations ago we used teach these virtues in "civics" classes. Virtues such as mutual respect, practical wisdom, humility, patience, justice, and friendship. Respecting the will of the people and accepting the outcomes of elections. Stout points to people like Walt Whitman as among those who helped define and laud the virtues of the democratic tradition. Consider Whitman's poem "Election Day, November, 1884":

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless prairies--nor
your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic
geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones--nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes--nor
Mississippi's stream:
--This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name--the still
small voice vibrating--America's choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen--the act itself the main, the
quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd--sea-board and inland--
Texas to Maine--the Prairie States--Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West--the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling--(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the
peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
--Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify--while the heart
pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.

The grandeur of America isn't found in our natural beauty. Not in Niagara Falls, the Rocky Mountains, or Yosemite. The most awe-inspiring sight of America is election day. Our diverse population, full of "paradox and conflict," peacefully coming together to make a collective discernment about the future of our nation, the next test in our on-going experiment in popular government. 

True, election days are risky. As Whitman says, things could go "good or ill." Today we welcome "the darker odds." But those bad outcomes, says Whitman, only help ferment the wine. Our mistakes become a purifying process. In a democracy we try things, and if things go badly, we change and correct course. If this next administration is a disaster, well, it'll be voted out in four years. We will be back at the polls to course correct in four short years. Electoral politics create "stormy gusts" but on those turbulent waters waft the "precious ships" of the democratic dream of "We the People."

A lovely vision. But a vision that requires civic virtues. Stout's point is that, yes, liberalism demands you keep your values to yourself. But democracy doesn't. True, if you want people in a pluralistic society to care about your values and share your political project you're going to have to figure out a way to create political collations. But people with diverse values can make common cause. So do the work. Engage in the democratic process.

Given this, we must take care not to demonize democracy when we attack liberalism. For when we do so, argues Stout, we undermine the virtues needed to do the hard work democracy demands of us. And we are starting to reap that whirlwind. By lumping democracy in with liberalism, Christians have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. In attacking liberalism Christians have jettisoned democratic norms and virtues. But democracy has never been opposed to religious values. Vote your conscience. That's America. As Whitman's poem describes, our values showing up at the polls are what makes our politics so paradoxical and conflictual. But in this "swordless conflict" Christians must not turn their back on the experiment, to run away from "We the People" to enthrone a Christian king. 

What is demanded of us, therefore, on an election day are virtues. Civic, democratic virtues. Showing mutual respect to our fellow citizens, accepting the outcome of the election, patiently waiting for the next election, and doing the hard work of collation building in the meantime. Liberalism may be opposed to your values, but democracy is not. 

Today is our "choosing day." Show up and vote. And do so as a person of both Christian and democratic virtue.

The book of 2 Samuel ends with what many scholars call "appendices," bits of poetry and narrative that are tacked onto the end of the book. These appendices are found in 2 Samuel 21-24.

The last story from the appendices, found in Chapter 24, recounts the census David undertakes and God's judgment upon him for doing so. Explanations vary as to why God was angered by the census. For whatever reason, the census was judged as an act of hubris by David, a usurping of God's prerogatives as the True King of Israel.

David realizes his sin and confesses. God, through the prophet of Gad, gives David a choice of punishments: three years of famine, three years of being chased by enemies, or three years of plague. David chooses the plague. And so the destroying angel begins to work, killing 70,000 people.

But then something interesting happens. As the destroying angel approaches Jerusalem God changes his mind and says "Enough!":

When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. (2 Samuel 24.16)

David sees the angel stopped at the threshing floor of Araunah and asks for God to end the plague. David then buys the threshing floor, builds an altar on the spot, and offers sacrifices to God.

What I've always found interesting in this narrative is that God had already stopped before David's request and his sacrifices. Various translations of verse 16 read that God "relented," "repented," "changed his mind," and "felt sorry." The destruction stopped because something happened in the heart of God prior to any human appeal or sacrifice.

I think this is interesting because of why this story is included as an appendix to 2 Samuel. Specifically, the story was included to explain why the temple was built where it was built. The threshing floor of Araunah was on Mount Moriah where the temple was built:

Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David. (2 Chronicles 3.1)

I think this is interesting because, from this point forward, the temple becomes the location of sacrifice in ancient Israel. You would come to the temple to offer sacrifices so that God would forgive your sins. And because of those rituals you might be led to believe that God needs or requires these sacrifices in order to show and extend mercy.

And yet, in the primordial account of the threshing floor of Araunah we note that mercy wasn't triggered or effected by sacrifice. Mercy was found in the heart of God who relents and changes his mind. Mercy was found in a God who says "Enough!" to punishment, without needing sacrifices or blood. This is the same startling turn we find over and over again in the prophets. After a season of punishment there is a sudden, unpredicted, eucatastrophic turn. God simply says, "Enough!" Perhaps the classic example of this turn is Isaiah 40:

Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.

Israel's had been punished, twice over, and God says "Enough!" 

I find the events at the threshing floor of Araunah interesting for two reasons. 

First, as noted, what would later become the site of sacrifice in Israel's life was primordially associated with a moment of non-sacrificial mercy, pardon that flowed solely from the freedom of God. That insight is important as many visions of atonement posit the necessity of sacrificial appeasement, our pardon contingent upon some mechanism of forgiveness. But such a mechanism has never been true of God. Even the temple, with all its sacrifices, was built upon a site where God's pardon was extended from God's own freedom and prerogative. Nothing need happen for God to forgive. Mercy is the Lord's.

Second, no punishment can ever be considered final. God always has the prerogative to say "Enough!" If God exists there is always hope. 

"They set your sanctuary on fire"

Following up from last week's reflection on Psalm 73, I'm struck by how the Psalms sound given our political moment in America. Reading the Psalms during an anxious election season has been good for my soul.

In Psalm 74 the destruction of Jerusalem has occurred. The poem is written in the midst of national disaster and calamity. The temple has been razed. As the poet sings, "They set your sanctuary on fire."

I can imagine standing there, as a Jewish person, watching those flames, seeing God's house go up in smoke. The invaders smashing and looting sacred things:

Your adversaries roared in the meeting place
where you met with us.
They set up their emblems as signs.
It was like men in a thicket of trees,
wielding axes,
then smashing all the carvings
with hatchets and picks.

Devastated, the singer cries out to God:

God, how long will the enemy mock?
Will the foe insult your name forever?
Why do you hold back your hand?
Stretch out your right hand and destroy them!

God doesn't act in this moment. Israel goes off into exile. The temple will be, eventually, rebuilt. But I've been convinced by N.T. Wright that the Second Temple period was still haunted by a sense of exile, and that the full and final answer to the lament of Psalm 74 was still being looked for in a Davidic messiah. And if that is so, Jesus is the Lord's answer to the singer of Psalm 74.

But what a strange answer! Making things worse, Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple for a second time. God's response to "They set your sanctuary on fire" is to say things like this to the Samaritan woman:

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

God's presence is divested from place and is found, rather, in the man Jesus. He become the temple, the intersection of heaven and earth. God is Spirit, and wherever God's Spirit is the Lord's presence is enjoyed and experienced. This is how the people of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, become a living temple made of living stones. 

It seems clear to me, if we trace out the whole story, that the narrative here is one of religious and political divestment. The presence of God is being extracted from both nation and temple and is relocated. This message is timely. Next week, Christians, not sure which ones, will look upon the United States of America and wail: "They set your sanctuary on fire." They will fixate upon national ruin. Understandably so. The singer of Psalm 74 can empathize. But when we look at how Jesus is the answer to Psalm 74, and the political and religious divestment he both represented and demanded, are we able to disentangle ourselves from visions of political, social, and religious ruin to find the God whose Spirit blows unpredictably in the world seeking his true worshippers?